Friday, November 30, 2007

"Vasquez Rocks," 6x8x3/8", oil on ready-to-hand canvas

As I understand the daily painting movement, its purpose was to keep painters practiced and loose by doing something small every day, as opposed to the ongoing work required for a larger piece. It's possible that the idea was that the painters would still compose their larger works, while the smaller ones helped them build skills and keep momentum going. Interestingly, the small paintings have taken on a life of their own, online. Well, at least with me. I love their intimacy and how they fit into a normal house. You can put them up anywhere to grace a nook or a cranny (or a crook or a nanny). They don't all have to be above the fireplace or couch.

That said, I did a 4x5" sketch during my Tom Brown workshop a couple of weeks ago, and liked my initial painting enough that I wanted to do it bigger. Funny that 6x8 is bigger, but it's twice the size of the original. We had gone to Vasquez Rocks, which is amazing, and is also where lots of movies were filmed (do a web search). It's so photogenic, and I got that thrill of playing with colors.

This was the 4x5" sketch of the rock. It's more raw, and I often like that. It's paler, too, although that might not be visible in the web photo and it might depend on your monitor, yadda yadda.


This is my photo of the rock itself (slightly different angle). It's a pretty amazing piece of geology. In this photo it looks awfully gray. I recall it being much richer, but, again, that might be the photo.

So maybe I'll do the rocks again, even bigger, on a normal canvas. Could be fun.

8 comments:

  1. I like some of the colors in this...

    Good job!

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  2. Thanks. In the field sketch, it was when I was mixing and painting the colors that I got that excited bubble in my stomach and started grinning.

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  3. This is vibrant and has a style much different than the original. I really like the way you pushed the color and the strong compliments. It's nice to see all three pictures to see the evolution.

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  4. Striking image Connie. This is one of my favorite paintings of Vasquez. And I've seen a few. : )

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  5. Really nice work. I painted something similar yesterday, then when surfing around looking at art blogs tonight I found yours. Small world!

    Cheers!

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  6. Silvi, that's right in your back yard, so you've probably seen other images of Vasquez. I am bashfu. :)

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  7. Whereas "bashfu" sounds like the name of a really cool headbanging rock group, I actually meant to say "bashful."

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  8. Yeah, I read bashfu and thought... is this some cool new term they're using in the bay area?

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