Exploring (combining the old and the new)

It has been a little over a week since the Skip Lawrence workshop. It's taking a while to figure out how to take what I learned there and apply it to what I feel is mine.

The work I was doing before was fun. I liked it, but I felt it needed to go further. Working with the idea of texture in the workshop felt like the next step that was needed. So now, as an exploration, I'm staying away from my "default" landscape with trees format and thinking of depth and texture first. Then going back to my favorite imagery to add details without making the painting about that.

This painting is 14" X 20". For most of the time I was working on it I didn't know if I was going to get to where I liked it. I left it for a while and did another quick silly cat painting and when I came back to this one I did just a few more things to it and felt quite satisfied. Of course I like the texture and depth. There are many layers, the first being gesso which I scored while it was still wet with the end of a brush, so that when it dried and I painted over it and scrubbed the surface, the scored lines appeared and determined where I painted in the other details.

I'm happy with this direction. I feel more involved with the process than with the earlier work, more invested, more authentic. I have a bunch more paintings lined up with scored, textured backgrounds waiting for their surface details. I'm just going to go with these experiments and see where they lead.