"Trajectory"

6x8", oil on canvas board

I use a glass sheet to I put out my paints on. It's next to my easel, on the drawing table. Along the back of the table is a row of smaller display easels, and I've put various little canvases there. There are little canvas boards, and also some bits of unrolled canvas wrapped around a piece of plexiglas. Some might be unfinished paintings I started a few years ago that never worked for me and have been collecting dust. Others are just bits of canvas that aren't fit for stretching, so I might as well paint on them. Maybe I can put them in a frame or something.

Why did I put them there? For two reasons. The first is that I wanted something to experiment on. Like, what happens if I add some marble dust to my paint? Or what happens if I put down some thick paint for texture, let it mostly dry, then scrape it? Which brand of water soluble pencil works best on wet paint? Or how about if I scribble with an oil pen and then paint over that? What if it's RED oil pen?

But I mentioned two things. The other thing is that I'm kind of cheap, and I hate seeing paint go to waste. Sometimes I have a pile of paint and it won't work on my current painting. So I smear and scrape it onto one of the little canvases. The biggest benefit (besides the cheap thing) is that I'm not risking much, so I can cut loose. It's pretty hard to loosen up when you're working on a 36x36" canvas. I mean, you CAN, but it's not the same. I guess there's another benefit, which is that paintings that weren't going anywhere are now becoming useful. It's fun to paint over an existing image and see what happens.

So, this was one of those small canvases. And I like it. I'm not sure why. Maybe I should try more neutrals. I did spritz it, and you can see the drippies at the bottom. Love those. I'll admit that there's one part of it that seems a little wacky, but I'm going to see if anyone else picks it out. 

Anyway, that was a long story, but I put it out there in case anyone else wants to set up small canvases to play on.

This one is now framed and hanging in my house. I don't do that for a lot of my paintints, for some reason. So, cool.