I can’t believe it, but I finally finished this “therapy” painting that I pulled out from long ago. This is not a great photograph of it yet, but here it is: Suspension, 2015. Oil on canvas, 36 x 26 inches.

I’ve been trying to tie up loose ends – pulling out older paintings that I never finished and finishing them. There’s quite a few oldies and I’m just basically getting my hands dirty while I’m thinking about my next ideas.

The painting above went through so many changes and its working title had been “Perpetrators,” which made a lot more sense to me personally and at the start of the painting. But then I decided I wanted to totally abstract the fact that you could see all of the inner angst that was happening and “work through” it while painting, changing shapes and colors and making new decisions. It was cathartic and it worked. I feel better and the painting looks better too.

I couldn’t figure out a title, so I posted it in WetCanvas and another artist helped me title it. Thanks Jon.

I STILL have to finish this watercolor that plagues me.

I swear, I seem to only be able to work on it for 10-20 minutes at a time before I want to move on to something else entirely. My mind is wrapped up in abstracts right now. What can I say?  This watercolor is a little bit abstract I guess, but not abstract enough. The right side of it will peter into an abstract feel though. There are parts of the hill where the architecture will kind of blend with the foliage and get a little drippy – and that’s the part I am looking forward to! But before that I have to get in all the little tiny detail parts. And I still haven’t decided if I am going to come back over it with pen or not. This is a decision that I am always at a crossroads at when it comes to my watercolors, and I hate it. …To ink, or not to ink. That is the question. I’m always on the fence about this.

But what else do I have to finish around here? Let’s go around and snap pictures…

Oh my God! I found some crazy ones.

I started this circa 2001. It’s the end of my block where I lived in San Pedro it’s a 16 x 20 oil on canvas, which I sketched out in Sharpie:

I can tell that this was one of those pieces that I was going to just “be free” on, which is very interesting to me because that is how that “therapy” piece started as well. I also put that away after I started it and it sat there for about three years (maybe more).

So what’s that all about? Hmmm?

And here is an even bigger blast from the past, also similar circumstances. This must be from 1999 or so, a small 16 inch tall board. I think it’s supposed to be a hospital or something. I’m not really sure, but it’s really weird.

Now this one was something I started when I was working at Moppet. Another yellow piece. Strange. I was going to fill the whole panel with words and paint over the Sharpie (so that it was not done “in Sharpie”) and then fill in between the letters in thick oil paint so that the letters were laid in deeply into the painting, but it looks like I took my Dewalt to it, so I’m not sure what I was going to do with it. I still like the idea of words, so I think I will continue with that original idea. This is on a 24 inch square panel:

So this one I just brought into the house (where there’s air conditioning!) so I can finish it up. It’s nearly done and I started it earlier last year after I got back from Joshua Tree. This was part of the series I thought was going to be for Exodus, but I wound up switching gears and went with painting abstracted landscaped instead.

All this needs is to be stitched along the edges of the paper parts and it will be completed. It is called Shekinah and it’s 20 x 20 on canvas:

I also found this little guy, which I started during a time I was in Joshua Tree. It’s some thing like 12 x 5 inches on raw canvas. I need to paint it with mixed gesso and acrylic paint (so the paint will stick to it).  It’s something I made to keep for myself because it’s of my dog Gemma, and I love Gemma:

I also have watercolors I need to finish and tie those loose ends up too. Maybe I’ll pull those out in another post and show those too.