I was able to get my hands on some pretty large canvases and I’ve been having a great time letting myself loose with them and exploring not only huge color gestures but a sense of physical paint-slinging.
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The first of the canvases was sacrificed to warmth and the color orange. Although you can see other colors in the composition, it’s not entirely orange but holds a few contrasts along with the warm triad. It’s not entirely undifferentiated, but it’s trending in that direction. Up close, the composition has a complexity that the full composition lacks. The canvas is still unvarnished, so I could go back into it and work it some more, but my painting mentor says it’s done and I should move on. I’m going to take her advice so I’ve moved it out into the Airstream trailer so I will be less likely to spoil it by overworking it.
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The second painting explores the cooler side of the spectrum, and that there is more of an overall undifferentiated quality to the painting, and less movement or any sort of subject matter. Again, my mentor said to let it dry and put it away, so I’ve done that but it remains unvarnished so I could go back into it if I ever got bored with it as it is.
It’s waiting in the trailer along with the first one.
![](https://i0.wp.com/melwellromancitofineart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Shennongs-Plow.jpg?resize=223%2C300&ssl=1)
Canvas number three turned out super interesting to me because there are so many “faces” in the painting if you’re subject to pareodolia. I’ve decided to name it “Shen Nong’s Plow,” after one of the archetypal characters in Chinese folklore that taught humanity how to use the plow and how to grow.
I’ve displayed this one in the window of the studio downtown. It looks great there and it’s such an energetic piece I enjoy seeing it so smack in the middle of Kit Carson Road like that. Right now I have the windows covered with ecru nubby silk and somehow, the combination of the painting’s colors and movement, along with the honeysuckle bush and the yellow flowers is just right under the portal of the Parsons Gallery of the West.
The fourth big abstract I’ve worked on recently is on unprimed canvas.
![](https://i0.wp.com/melwellromancitofineart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8660.jpg?resize=257%2C300&ssl=1)
It has more of the consistent, undifferentiated field look of my non-representational abstracts. The colors are both warm and cool, though with most of the colors being in the warm range. Once the white was thoroughly dried, I rolled it up and it hardly takes up any space, unlike the other three!
I still have two more canvases this size (36×48). I’m eager to see what I end up painting on them!