Some glimpses at works in (slow) progress

I've never posted images of unfinished paintings and I have some qualms about doing it. I have my own concept of the 'skin' of a painting---and until I have achieved that skin, a cohesive visual and tactile surface, I don't show my work. 

Still, the paintings I'm working on now are telling ME what they want and they are taking their sweet time doing so!

 I keep regular studio hours every day. I'd anticipated being finished with these long ago. But this process has been fascinating--- and that is why I'm letting myself give you a midcourse report.

 Besides, I'm going to Santa Barbara, California tomorrow for a five-day business trip, so there'll be a pause in painting. And maybe that'll be a good thing, though it means more delay in finishing.

I've relearned two contradictory lessons:

Lesson one: Don't pick a painting subject that presents tasks you're not interested in! Here, it's the inclusion of strict geometry in objects. It's one thing to pick a subject for sketching that isn't intrinsically interesting to you--a sketch is not a big time commitment. In this case, I fell in love with the cloud reflections in a swimming pool in Texas, and the way a pair of butterfly chairs there, also reflected in the water, seemed to float in space.  I decided to paint the scene, without analyzing the pictoral problems inherent in it. I need to always keep in mind what it is that engages me as a painter--- illusionistic representation of objects and space is not it. Oops.

Lesson two: Be receptive to new experience and accept that the honing of paintings skills of all kinds is useful---and fun. So, I'm enjoying this self-imposed task---when I'm not throwing things at it;D. Here are the two things I'm working on, seen in the context of my studio.

I've enjoyed the Iceland rock and water paintings the most of all the water paintings I've done so far. To try to convey the energy and shapes of rushing water is thrilling, allowing for a level of abstraction that I find very challenging to define and produce.  The one on the left is the one I'm now working on. The one on the right is my favorite of this series so far, because it combines abstraction with energy and it has a good skin! The one on the left is less abstract. Not sure where it'll end up, but we'll find out!

Here's a detail of the pool painting. I am so eager to start my colorful, nongeometric, calligraphic koi paintings, but I want to finish these first. They're worth completing.

Dipping in water again

Here's the thing. I'm posting these water studies, not because I think they're wonderful finished paintings---no! They are simply steps along the way, as I try to figure out what the heck I'm doing here on my watery painting journey. Though I'm rusty after mostly drawing for the past four years, I've been painting assiduously the past two weeks and am committed to doing so all this year--something's going to happen, painting-wise, eventually!
My goal was/is to reach a level of stylization and abstraction of the subject matter, but in what guise, the process itself will reveal, through time. I, personally, have no clue. And if I don't, how could you?
So I just start painting each painting and then I'm as surprised as anyone when something very 19th century, as in the first study, stares back at me. I don't hold with people who try to paint like, say, Monet (I'm not talking about learning by copying from the greats, but consciously making finished paintings to sell, in a period style.) But I digress.
Anyway, I was dismayed, briefly, to see myself channeling some 19th century hack painter, but my way is to just do it and get over it. Get on to the next thing,
The second painting is rough but I'm not going to take it any farther. It's served its purpose. I like the movement in it. That is one of water's chief attractions as subject matter to me.
Both studies are acrylic on board, 11" x 14", and both are based on sketches and photos from a trip to Iceland last August.

My husband and I are driving to the coast this weekend. Our coast is placid, very unrocky and unIcelandic. Sometimes you float where you're planted.

Onward.