The Three Unloved Paintings Finished and Loved

Here are the three paintings I showed unfinished in the last post, finally resolved. 

20" X 20" X 2" Since the last post, I've added some drawing with charcoal, collage, and smaller details. I've drawn in the lines connecting the point of the pod shape to the left edge to keep that main structure from being isolated in the visual field and a blue wash of pastel has been added behind that area so that it continues from the top of the painting to below the pod. This is a subtle painting, monochromatic, best seen in person probably. It certainly has a clear focal point, but I've included passages that lead the eye from it to other areas of the composition. Of the three I love this one the most. Can't tell you why exactly, it's just a gut reaction; everything about it to me says yes, every bit of it delicious.

24" X 18" X 2" This one I like okay, but I don't know it as well. I'm not as sure where it came from. Much of the surface detail and texture has stayed the same since the last post and I've also added quite a bit; the large area of dark rolled onto the right side with a brayer, the bird, which was found in the detail of the underpainting showing through, with its real leaf, the monoprints on deli paper strengthening the edges. Now that I look at it I'm not sure I was as successful as I was with the first painting with the passages from element to element. The features of the composition are isolated, not relating as clearly. But they are each strong in their own right, so that might be okay.

20" X 20" X 2" I kept thinking this one was finished when it wasn't quite. I'd take it outside and photograph it and bring it back into the studio and look at it and find something else it needed...or wanted. I'd work on it some more, take it outside, photograph, bring it back, tweak, over and over. It got kind of funny. It was a puzzle. It's such a strange image anyway; what the heck is it? Something like architecture? A city? A park? You are invited to make it what you want. This one is growing on me. There is quite a bit of drawing and collage, layering.

I can't help but think of each of these pieces I create as beings with personalities. And I'm aware of the personal relationship we develop between us as they come into existence. The first painting is all subtlety and grace, the second some kind of strength and pride, the third a trickster, a joker with lots of ways to approach it.