Veuve Clicquot

22" x 30" Watercolor, Collection of Ruth Flom, Naples FL

Sarah in Driveway

9.5" x 6" watercolor

Sensation: A teenage daughter can be a caricature of contrasts, all mercurial attitude and fierce fragility. She will allow, but she will not participate. Her gesture speaks plainly enough.

Process: I take what I can get, and I work as quickly as I can. Pencil and watercolor are exactly the right medium, fresh and fast. The painting happens quickly, without much time for me to be in control; I have to hope that there is some experience or knowledge at work here, that it will be OK even without my being in control. (A metaphor for parenting?) Later, I try to turn this sketch into a larger painting, devoting much time and consideration to issues of composition and color, but the result is dull, heavy and overworked. This little watercolor remains the best statement about Sarah and me at that point in time, when she was 13 and I was, well... younger than I am now.

Partners

12" x 5 " watercolor
Private Collection

This Bud's for Dick

15" x 11" watercolor

John at Supper

15" x 11"

Harvey Carves a Gnome

15" x 11" watercolor

Gold Coast Shoppers, continued

Didn't get very far now, did I? See, this is why I like working smaller, 1/4 sheet size instead of this big bad boy (full sheet). My attention span just doesn't last slagging through 4 or 5 days of this, one layer of stuff at at time. With each successive hour spent, I begin to think "this had better be good, or else!" Or else it's a giant suckhole of time and effort. I would rather work alla prima, and finish it at one go even if it's horrible. Some things just can't, though.  Time to set this aside for a long long simmer....

Gold Coast Shoppers (in progress)

30" x 22" watercolor, 300# CP

This was too big for me to get too far on today. The challenge here is to keep the foreground figures hot and focused, and keep the background in the background. But already I'm noodling, and will probably have to take a giant brush and push everything back, back. And then we get into the Land of Overworked. Otherwise, this is all about geometric layout of color: triangles first, then quads of secondary shapes.

Toronto Two-step

10.5" x 15" Watercolor

One of my favorite paintings of all time.

Lunch

8" x 11" waterclor