Return to working on Dream Surreal paintings: August, September, October

 Back in August, while I was still working on, but close to finished with, The Portrait, I began working again on my Dream Surreal paintings. At the time - before The Portrait was unloaded off my drafting table - this was a bit of a challenge, because I had to put a protective layer on top of the portrait, and then take it off again when I wanted to work on it. Here's the beginnings of that, and then going on...

 8/15/24:

I had fun with this (little tiny bit of work) today. The first picture is the painting I'm taking this from. It comes out very differently on watercolor paper from what it's like on the original paper, which is Canson brand Mix Media.

 

9/12/24:

I'm finally fully back to work on my new Dream Surreal watercolors. It felt good working on this. I love the edges, both the crisp edges and the gradation/feathering-out. It may not look like much to anyone else yet, but I'm actually feeling so happy with it.

 10/1/24:

Some more on DS #7 today:

 10/11/24:

In-progress DS #7: having fun with it!

 Also some work on this wacky one; I continue to be unsure whether it will ever be a finished painting I value, or just end up as collage materials. I won't be unhappy about it either way; there are pieces of it that I love, but I'm not sure of it as a whole. It gives me something to enjoy playing with.

But it may just be starting to form into something cohesive.

 A friend said, "I really like the composition and your use of colour here. Weirdly it makes me think of the Australian bush..."

Interesting! I feel like I can see that, even though I've never been there...

As to composition, that's exactly (sort of) what I felt it was lacking: it didn't know what it wanted to be when it grew up... Until today, there was a big blank space, that curved inverted triangular  shape in the upper center. Then I added the brown tree branches (as distinguished from the branches made of negative space with bright green around them), and then the arc of, um, floating straight pins?, and now it feels like it's coming together.

10/22/24:

In among tax prep and the run-up to a major (to me) event, I've been playing a bit with my painting work. Here's what I've been doing:

 

So: for the top one, I have to give some history of my journey into these Dream Surreal paintings. The idea of them, or the vision, first emerges from a couple of large oil paintings (about 3'x4') I did in about 1976, which became my North Star for what I want to be doing with my art. The first one, Goat Squad, is the prime one. The second one, Salamander Drainpipe, doesn't feel quite as satisfactorily finished, but it also has a lot that I love, in that goal of mixing in figurative with abstract and abstract expressionist in a way that kind of upsets the applecart but also feels satisfying and makes sense together.

(I don't have a very good photo of Salamander Drainpipe; I sold it without getting a good photo, darn.)

I spent a couple of decades after that trying to find my way back into that interior landscape. In the mid-90's, I felt like I was coming closer, with the first set of what I would later name Abstract Expressionist Dream Surreal (I ultimately dropped the Abstract Expressionist part from the name, though it's still in the mix of what I aim for). Chickenfoot Serpentine (you can see it here) and The Horse's Ass Painting: a Self-Portrait (you can see it here) were part of that group. They were getting close -- and I love those pieces -- but they weren't quite There yet.

Then, around 2007, I tried to do some more of these pieces, but felt very frustrated with them and stopped working on them without finishing.

In 2023 I began a new batch, which I've posted here - see April through December 2023, and into early last year. I completed four watercolors, and began three more (#7 is part of this batch).

That first one, with wolves and lizards and chickens and a rabbit, is one of the ones I gave up on in 2007. Gave up in frustration; didn't feel like they were going anywhere...

Since I didn't feel up to working on one of my new DS's lately, I pulled out wolves-and-lizards, and that odd one, to noodle around with them. I didn't expect anything to come of it beyond enjoying playing with paint and water - and maybe try some bold and goofy things because I'd already given up on them and they didn't matter. !!

Now this wolves and lizards one is starting to look very interesting! It has two Mexican wolves, from reference photos, two lizards, imaginary, one rabbit (mine), and two iterations of a chicken, also mine but I took a lot of liberties in the drawing of the larger one.

That other one (the second from the top in this date) is also starting to look rather interesting to me.

10/30/24:

This week: more on the wolves/lizards painting. I'm liking it, though I didn't do much this time. And some more on a new random thing.

(The dark spidery thing in the lower left corner of the wolves painting is just a fringe of my shawl that I didn't bother to get out of the way.)

 

Tech tip: do you want to see any of these larger? Click on the image to make it almost-full-browser-window size. (This is not the same as "full screen...")

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