2 paintings 3 3 15

These two paintings, both 14"X 20", were worked on side-by-side at the same time. They started out as landscapes with trees. I had painted the watercolor paper with gesso tinted blue. I drew in curved horizons and lined them with trees. They were landscapes for quite a while until they weren't. I just couldn't get excited about them. They were pretty, but that was about it.

So, I brushed over the surfaces with diluted gesso, leaving traces of the previous paintings, and started again. This time I played, had fun, scribbled in my cats and birds and I was happy. You can see traces of the horizons with trees behind the images that are there now.

The French on the bottom of the cat painting translates to That I did always love. I have a book of Emily Dickinson poetry that I got on a college art history trip to Rome a million years ago. It has her poetry in English and French and this is a first line of her poem #549.

I paint from my head, which is probably obvious, but I do use images I see and remember. The doe I saw the afternoon I painted this. I was walking my horse and the doe was standing with her back to us, just like this, making this wonderful shape. The bird is an image I've repeated a number of times in other pieces.

I often work on two paintings together like this and they usually end up with the same palette, sort of like fraternal twins or soul mates. Each set is very unique, though, and very different from the others. The sets are often bought together, and when they aren't I feel sorry for their separation. Silly.