The warm-up painting

Saturday: Like a prize fighter or most any activity including sex, we like a little warm-up! I'm not sure painting is any different. I absolutely love these extended breaks between collections, but suspect time off has a consequence. The little warm-up below shakes that out a bit, at least for me. I already know my first few paintings will be about working out a concept before I hit any real stride. Warm-ups generally cover something you already know and this 20x20 is no different. A limited palette of (5) colours and white.....no reason for that. I was never into being clever with a few colours.... colours are out there to be used and I do!

960 Virginia Beach - Spring Storms 20x20 oil on linen (5-8-15)

I spent yesterday looking at all my references..... we even had a spectacular spring sunrise. Not much got my attention other than the very large white canvases surrounding me meant for the "Air Collection".

Air of course is about atmosphere and that means landscapes and such. Last time it expanded into and under the water... another kind of air.  It's pretty clear my references won't be much help other than defining shapes.....making sure things feel right like the warm up painting below done at a different time for a different reason. Venice was just a setting choice. This was (1) of (4) painted using a very nondescript black and white reference pulled from commons in 2011. Just curious where it would lead.....

591 Venice Salute 20x20 oil on linen (9-8-11)

Old reference 

Sunday: The only problem, I don't want to paint Venice or London. Although if I had to choose now,  I would go with London.

8:51 Time to paint.....another seascape

 961 Spring Storms 20x20 oil on linen (5-10-15)

I'm not into seascapes right now either, but I do like the idea of indirect celestial light drifting down reflecting on a surface. Some more 2011 examples below......same view. The small one was the reference for the larger one.

 

 515 James from Belle Isle 8x10 oil on linen (5-20-11)

584 James from Belle Isle 30x30 oil on linen (8-18-2011)

So, I have a little paste-up board here to spring from. It looks like any setting above could be used to achieve my singular focus concept of AIR. I also like the idea of reflected light as opposed to seeing the source, as is often the case.