Painting Progression

Thursday night is the reception for my fourth solo exhibition with Sullivan Goss. In going over the images and paperwork ad nauseam, I realized that I had several paintings that were documented throughout the entire painting process.

"Omen" is an 18x60" birch panel depicting the evening that the most recent Santa Barbara fire, Jesusita by name, turned from the city going East to start devouring hillsides running west with the sundowner wind blowing flame and ash across highway 154.

A friend of mine living at the top of the ridge took the amazing photo I used with a fish eye lens when the winds first sparked the western hillsides. I pared it down and stretched it into a long panorama to emphasize the sweep of the landscape and the breadth of the smoke billowing into the urban areas below.

First coat of paint is to just mark in the masses and value.

Then I start building up layers of brush marks to anchor composition
and create the beginning of the textured surface.

Much of the work is layering of paint to make it look like fabric, warp and weft, textures that create weight to the clouds, dry sun-baked grasses and shadowy canyons.

AIR EARTH FIRE WATER
Opening at Sullivan Goss
Thursday, August 6th from 5-8pm
11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara
gallery phone: 805 730 1460

see more of the paintings HERE