New Work, Studio, The Ecstatic Moment.

KS-Studio2018

 Working like crazy in the studio this week. One day I got 11 paintings started. Now I'm chipping through them, amending and adding to the stories told there.

KS-studio2018

I am so enjoying painting the backgrounds for the pieces... to the point that it is

bordering on ecstatic. I have the child like "opening a present" glee when I see the piece coming together. Really, I can't believe that it is coming from my own hand. I don't get this feeling often, but the new experiments I am doing are starting to hit that mark.

I do have to throw many of them out... This technique is pretty impossible to "fix" if not right the first time out. I might try a do-over. Often the texture gets too complex, and won't work if I paint over one more time.

GOING- GOING

GONE!

My intention to layer one or more realistic oil vignettes of beings and objects over the abstract backgrounds, places them in an other world than the one seen more commonly. I like keeping depth of field, contrast, edges, transitions, movement and volume.

Stone-Cloud 2

Stone-Cloud 3

Stone-Cloud 4- all details KS2018

I'm exploring images of floating medallions, birds, and skulls so far.

Canyonland Detail KS2018

Some of these backgrounds are really soft. Hard to see unless you are right up close. They show up better in photographs than in person, so I have to work to let them shine. (See Canyonland detail above)
 

California Smoke-detail KS2018

Detail-Strangeland KS2018

Sometimes the background is so strong (in my opinion) that it is hard to cover over parts of it... or find something that I can place in the "space" and have it stick, and belong to the story convincingly. Of course, I only want to use background that have this amount of "vividness of place" depth of field, and mysterious attraction... so, finding that perfect "thing" to make it pop even more is a challenge and so important.

Detail "Migrant" (Strangeland) KS2018

These loud and clear pieces tempt me to leave them alone. This would be quite a big departure from my historical body of work... still trying to tame the beast here... get them in line with my previous work... we (or perhaps they) will see about that!