Painting in Place

In working on a different project, I came back to a painting idea I was working on in college. I'm currently remaking the college canvases into something new (I knew there was a reason I saved them!)- more on that in a later post. However, I spent a couple of days working on a new canvas, in a style I'm mentally calling Painting in Place.

The idea is that a landscape or location can influence the paints in a more direct way, outside of the  traditional color choices, subject matter, light, or even inspiration. Painting in Place involves draping the canvas on, around, and in the location. Thus, there is a miniature landscape created by the folds and drapes of the canvas, and the paint can interact directly with gravity and the mountains and valleys created by the canvas.

For this painting, I wasn't necessarily influenced by the visual scene in which I was working; the wood shed and cinder block wall of our back yard wasn't particularly inspirational. We are, however, in the midst of autumn and the leaves on the trees are bright and colorful, especially against the intense blue sky of an October in the high desert plateau of New Mexico. The outside environment has been a saturated multi-color experience in the last week or so.

I went into this project with a basic color outline already in mind and used pigments right from the tube for their undiluted effect. Green, yellow and orange, with a little purple, surrounded by a washy blue seemed to capture the impression of the autumnal afternoon.

Additionally, this is a time of year marked by rapid and distinct metamorphosis as the trees go from full summer foliage to naked winter hibernation, and the sunlight changes from overhead heat to angled diffusion. The earth is in movement, and this is a time when it is most evident. This canvas is an attempt to capture many feelings in one place.

I hung it on the wall under the window in our bedroom, so I could continue to contemplate it. It doesn't quite feel finished yet; it needs some direct painting or drawing on it so it can go beyond just the landscape phase. I'm not sure what that's going to entail just yet, but I'll keep working on it.