Paintings in Progress

Working on paintings this weekend because the weather is atrocious. As usual, we have our couple of days of rain, then we'll go back to warmer weather, and then, miraculously, it will snow. So much for enjoying a fall season here in Colorado.

Painting number one was supposed to be an urban landscape, however, since I live nowhere even remotely urban, I've adjusted the project to include a structure/architecture, but it's not very urban-like. We have an old abandoned sugar mill in town, and next to it is an old storage barn. I spent a great deal of time taking a ton of pictures of the area, but something about the barn stood out to me. Why? I'm not sure. The actual structure is quite dull in person, but in playing with the photo, I think it became more interesting to me.

Sugar mill storage area... photo not so exciting

When I started working on the painting itself, things sort of took a turn and things became much more dramatic color-wise with this. I also wasn't horribly concerned with depicting things exactly as they are, but rather in getting a sense of a time and place. It's still not quite done, but it's getting close to the end now.

Sugar mill barn area painting in progress

As can be seen, the painting is still wet, and thus I have to wait for it to dry. I think I'll work on the roof area a bit more as it's really bugging me, and probably work the weed field a bit more as well. Additionally, I'm trying to work with the shadow side of the building, but we'll see how it goes.

The second painting is an abstract that I have both struggled with, and completely avoided at times. It's still not very far along, but I am trying my best to make myself work on it to get so some sort of stopping point.

Abstract painting base, and still definitely in progress

It looks like a giant piece of fabric at this moment, but I think it will come together, or I guess I should say that I hope it will. It's taken a turn for the worse in its currently wet state, but I have a few more days to pull it together.

In addition, I'm working on a watercolor painting, so I should probably get back to things paint related. At least we're almost half way through the semester. In some sense, it's gone very quickly, but in other ways, I'm longing for it to be done and over.