Art by Gordon

After finishing up a series of twenty paintings, the old group of paintings have merged into a larger more recent group of works. What I have learned through teaching painting and through moving into projects out of my comfort zone,  is to enjoy the process even more and go where the impulse takes me.
I have learned to push through that point where the confidence of my skills gets lost in venturing from what is comfortable.

Some things that have changed recently is the enjoyment of thick areas of paint, my older paintings tend to have smooth layers of paint and in my new stuff, the paint sometimes moves across the canvas from a clump of paint right from the tube. It is almost like I am doing palette knife painting without the palette knife. The movement from the inspiration to the actual finished piece is getting faster and more spontaneous. I am jumping into the night scenery and the water inspirations from previous with an excitement and a new found knowledge of my medium and subject matter.

I'm caring much less about the realism of colors, not so much of form but of colors, I'm much more interested in the overall effect. I have different techniques that I am using that I haven't tried before and my sense of exploration is growing daily. Another aspect of change I am experiencing is the feeling of perspective-I'm capturing images from different vantage points, this idea includes a painting of the ocean from a birds eye view and the view up a tree looking at blackbirds or the stars at night. I am increasingly attempting to change my vantage point of the viewer and the standard traditional view of a landscape is being altered.

I have always wanted to perfect the landscape as realistic as possible, now that I have gotten to a point of realism that suits my overall vision it is finally time to adjust the viewers perspective. I am venturing somewhere between realism and impressionism and finally to the point of surrealism.

I am also working on poetry that suits the paintings-from this standpoint I am excited about the idea of
an inspiration being registered through words and images. I hope that landscapes can illustrate feelings and emotional responses and feelings and emotional responses can be illustrated through words.

I am in the process of getting the most recent series of twenty out to the website, I will have a new series page. I am also learning more about flash and intend on having more interactive options to the website. One of the many added options is a small but very interactive gallery, where all of the paintings on the wall you can link to either the website or a larger version of the painting. The discipline of the scripting has been very grounding for me. It's amazing how you can learn one small aspect of a program and that small aspect can lend itself to more options. Yesterday I created a skeleton of the gallery and working with flash, I was able to move the viewer through the gallery and to other scenes in the gallery, honestly it will be a while before this will be live but I am in the process of perfecting the movements and positioning of the veiwer to start.

In the studio, the twenty paintings that have gone live have been replaced with an additional fifteen paintings that are waiting to be completed or finalized. I hope to have the new page on the website before they go live on the blog so stay tuned. The water scene above is the start of the surrealistic change of perspective. Another image below is the start of several night scenes that are still in the stage of being painted.

At one point in my painting I asked the question, what do you want to express? Now that question has not only been answered but reinvented. I don't think I have ever had such purpose in my work, the paintings seem to be creating themselves and I am just there to move the colors around. I have a book full of ideas and quick sketches and the strength of the visions are getting more powerful as time allows more inspiration. I am still on a quest to perfect water and the night sky, I am still in the process and as I gain some aspects I lose others. I feel the water has adapted to more vivid and sloppy strokes of paint chosing emotion and effect over the clarity and realism of the water itself, the night sky I have gone more for the vividness of colors than the realism of the image. Many more paintings are on their way so please stay tuned. Would love to get some feedback, questions, comments and even criticisms-anything will be food for thought and help me deliver a better blog as time goes by.