oil pastels sketch 1

oil pastel sketch 2

There was a color theme I was trying to convey that was inspired by the children’s book, Sam and the firefly written and illustrated by P.D. Eastman.  Because the story takes place at night, the background color was dark, but it was this hospital green with a contrasting bright yellow for the firefly’s body. For some reason those colors stayed in my mind and it was important to use them. I’m not really sure why yet. P.D.’s illustrations

This  painting took forever to get it just the way I wanted it. At one point I took the canvas outside in the blazing summer sun and let the wax melt and then stripped the oils and primer off. I went over it many times with water wax, (wax that’s boiled with water creates bubbles and circles when applied to the canvas.) gesso and oils. Almost giving up on the whole thing, I just let it sit for a while and then it started to grow on me. My sister now has this in her dinning room and when I saw it again several years later, the picture looked so different, much brighter and more chaotic than I remembered.

on the grass

That feeling of wanting to flee brought about the idea of this painting. I wanted it to come across mostly as an abstract with a vibrancy and rawness. If the image were music, it would be free jazz.

Sketching the piece worked out pretty quick and all the while, thinking I’d make this one huge, at least sixty inches high.

oil pastels

The figures are wispy little things running to something much better.

lemon yellow and yellow ochre

oil and wax

Their hope and inspiration are flying high shown by the white sheets blowing in the wind.

table wax

Texture is built up and cracking everywhere.

I’ve been thinking of ships lately. Images will pop up and I’ll put them into some of my paintings. This piece was originally titled “leaving the factory” to go along with the theme of abandoned factories and old rooms.

60" x 40" oil, wax and thread

"wall I"

"wall II"

"wall III"

Tonight, after going over some work, I realized where the “unknown” theme began, here with these paintings done in 1998 and 99. Light and space are the only elements in the paintings, emanating the feeling of  “past” which asks, ‘what has been here before?’

"another way"

As I proceed, in 2008, the walls series takes on much more detail in “another way”.

bathroom windows at 1 Cottage St.

When I was working in an old mill building in Easthampton, Mass., there were these windows with vines growing over the glass panels and when the sun shone through, a luminous green would fill the space. It always reminds me of buildings in decay, places lost in time while being grown over by earth. I made a few sketches of this purely fictional scene, but the over all piece took lengths of time for the coloring to fall into place.

50" x 44"