"Behind Building C, Nov. 18, 2016, Plein Air" is 36x48", acrylic on canvas.  This piece was painted almost entirely in an outdoor, or "plein air," session behind a building on the company's beautiful campus.  The colors of trees are so brilliant right now, the other artist in residence and I decided to take our easels outside.  This piece took about 5 hours at the scene.  I spent another 3 today tweaking it in my studio.  It is always interesting working outside.  The light changed drastically from 9 in the morning (left) to high noon (right).

The sun moved from my right to directly behind me, thus shining across or on my canvas the whole time.  This made my colors look very saturated; I was surprised to see how soft the piece was when I got it inside.  I also struggled a bit with the size of my canvas, which was large for an outdoor piece.  Being left-handed, I'd set up to the left of my canvas.  When I wanted to work on the far right portion of my scene, I had to peek around the right side of my canvas.  

It was a beautiful day, low 70's, no clouds, and lots of curious and pleasant walkers by.  I would definitely do it again!  

8 years ago on Election Day I was hit by inspiration.  Last Tuesday I was hit again.  I had no plans to do an Election Day piece 11/8 but when I got to work that morning I was overwhelmed with what needed to happen for me, on canvas, right then.  It was going to be entirely about process and the experience was loaded with democratic symbolism for me.  I had no clue what the end product would be. 

I wanted to do a drip piece.  Working with drips is... both a controlled and chaotic technique.  You can start a drip in a certain direction and maybe even manipulate it by tilting or flattening your substrate or adding/subtracting water.  Still it will surprise you and go where you don't expect it to go, jump to the side suddenly, sometimes join another drip.  Running my drips was just as much about me applying them as me waiting to see what they would do, an interactive process.  My initial approach was elementary, running a range of blue drips from one end and red drips from the other.  Some of them went all the way to the end; some stopped short.  Some crossed over to the drips coming from the other side.

Day 2 was a day of adding more lines, more voices, more noise…

On day 3, I needed to start finding a pattern, a larger picture, making sense from the overwhelming input.  The contrast and visual activity was so high that it actually made my eyes and head hurt to work on it this day.  I needed it to settle, to find cohesion. 

Day 4 was when I decided to pull all the white to a middle gray so it would stop fighting with the colors.  As I did this, the colors began to take on more importance and a linear pattern of larger shapes emerged. 

Day 5 was the day it quieted down to just the right volume.  There is still a broad range of color, line, and depth… but the piece feels pulled together.  The layered grid structure elicits an array of familiar symbols for people: a circuit board, stained glassed, architecture, and urban skylines, to name a few.  For me, however, it was personal and cathartic, my 2016 Election Day piece.  I call it “Crossing Party Lines” and it’s 36x36”, acrylic on canvas.