Progress on Spring. Big paintings, big paint.

Detail of Spring. In the background, there is a nice heard of cows. I’m really happy with how the colors and shapes are coming together.


Detail of Spring. I love cows! I’m working on finding the right amount of personality for these lovelies. I want them to be discoverable. As in, I want them to not jump out at the viewer immediately, but to be enjoyable to find.


Spring. 48 x 72 inches, oil on canvas. In progress.

I’ve been thinking a lot about painting size recently.

I’ve been painting for about 30 years. Most of that time I have painted in a variety of sizes, but from 2009-2012 I was a “daily painter” working almost exclusively in a 6 x 6 inch format. I painted daily and finished about two or three 6-inch paintings each week.

Focusing on painting small taught me a lot of technical skills, and about what I want to say as an artist.

So here I am today working at the other end of the size spectrum.

I recently finished a series of 40 x 40-inch paintings, and am currently working on a series of 48 x 72-inch paintings. Working large is great. It has a new set of challenges and rewards.

When I go into the studio in the morning, I squeeze onto my pallet what looks like as much paint as I used for a year of painting 6-inch paintings. So, of course, I wondered if that could be right?

I thought you might find the answer interesting. I could fit ninety-six 6-inch paintings into one of the paintings that are currently on my easel. 96!

So, no, I’m probably not squeezing a whole year’s worth of painting onto my pallet every dayIt might take me about 2 weeks now to go through a year’s worth of paint then.

Pretty wild, right?

What do you think?

A fun holiday special for collectors and followers. 

There’s just enough time to get a painting by Christmas! If you’d like gift wrapping, just let me know. I’ll make it special. 🙂 Order in the next couple days if you need it by Christmas. 

I’ve made a page just for available paintings in my studio and prints. Here are a couple available paintings:

16 x 12 inch canvas reproduction

 

Under Cover, 8×8″

 

Road to La Grande, 36×24″

 

Desire, 5×7″

 

Yellowstone Life, 16×20″

 

Daydream, 11×14″

 

Those paintings and many more are on my in-studio page. Thanks for looking!

Birds! Available.

Out for a Swim, 30×40″, oil.

I’ve been working on a larger landscape painting for the last several days, and it’s not quite ready to show yet.. It’s tentatively titled “My Wild Heart”. So here are the bird paintings in my studio with the most diverse application of paint. I’d love your feedback about them!

desire-500

dressed-for-dancing-detail dressed-for-dancing-500
Dressed to Dance, 7×5″, oil