When a Painting Connects

A Monet Day, 24" x 24", oil on panel

It's such a joyful experience when a painting connects with someone. Such was my experience at a recent artwalk in downtown Bangor which resulted in the purchase of this painting:  A Monet Day.  The buyer is a friend of a friend who has recently moved to Maine. While I had met her before, this visit to my art walk exhibit was the first time she had seen my work. She asked for the full tour, painting by painting. She is an art collector and especially loves to own works by artists she knows. When we arrived at this painting, she really responded to it: the colors, the fluidity of the marks and glazed areas. I told her that last summer I had spent a few days painting at the Lily Pond in Stonington, Maine. I had done several paintings on site, one from which this larger one was conceived. She knew the place. While new to living in Maine, she's had a brother here for years, and on her very first visit years ago, he took her to the Stonington Lily Pond, his absolute favorite place. She had been looking for a very special birthday gift for him, and this, she decided, was it!  I took it back the my studio to frame and now it is in her home, waiting to be delivered to him.

I learned how important it is to talk about a work. Prospective buyers like to hear the story of the work, the place, the process. You just never know how the story will resonate and make a connection.

Crazy for Glazing

Tidal Pool  Oil on panel  24 x 24"

I've studied the work of abstract painter Emily Mason (see Midnight Oil, below) for a long time, enamoured by her brillant use of thin glazes juxtaposed with broad bold thick brush marks. She's been at it for a lifetime so I know these decisions come to her intuitively. I've been patiently experimenting hoping to come to it in my own way.

Midnight Oil  -  Emily Mason

Glazing is applying very thin layers of color over other dry (or nearly dry) thin layers. Soft flat brushes work best...sable being ideal but Richeson makes a nice line of synthetics that work fine for my needs right now.  The process results in a deep, rich luminosity. The old masters practiced glazing of course, Vermeer being the glazing king, painstakingly applying layer after layer of translucent color with fastidious intention. But I don't see it a lot in contemporary painting.

Well, I sure don't work like Vermeer, nor do I come close to Emily Mason. Still, glazing is starting to work for me and I can't get enough of it.  

Like most of the paintings I'm most pleased with, Tidal Pool (top) started much differently and slowly morphed into this composition. Rubbing out parts and glazing over with new colors, shapes started to emerge and I followed them. It started to remind me of Monhegan shores. Two more are in progress with a similar palette and I'm proceeding in the same slow and patient way, hoping for a series, but really just hoping that there will be at least two that will please me as much as Tidal Pool.