Back to Basics

After spending the last several months experimenting with different subject matter, I'm delighted to return to the loyal and patient muse. Don't get me wrong, my foray into street scenes, ocean, snow and a bit of plein air has been a welcome change - reassuring my brain that it can still concentrate with dogged focus and even learn a few new tricks.

It was a return to the basics of value and perspective. My equine paintings are closely cropped into somewhat abstract compositions. Spatially, here's limited depth of field and the angles are as unorthodox as I can convincingly portray. It's difficult to choose a focal point when the entire surface is so in-your-face.

My artist friend Robert Stebleton generously sent me a cd of images that he scanned from one of his Richard Schmid landscape books. I drooled over these paintings. And I stared at them for hours. What impressed me the most was Schmid's simplification of some very complex masses and his suggestion to perceive these areas as patterns. Also noteworthy is his effective technique with edges, something I really need to work on.

It will be interesting to see if my return to a large-scale, motion-infused canvas will be affected by the time spent painting scenes that were definitely outside my comfort zone.

7'x5' canvas with preliminary charcoal sketch and color washes.

I think it will.
Sharon