Game in the Garden

Game in the Garden 

20" x 16"     oil on linen     2015

This composition is a bit unusual for me. I generally prefer working with horizontals and verticals, but here the table and figures form a strong diagonal movement - with smaller diagonals in counterpoint on the card backs. The wall and tree serve to anchor the painting.

To totally contradict that first sentence, two of my last three major paintings - Movie and On the Stairs - were built around diagonals.

Game in the Garden took three drawings to develop; fewer than normal for a painting this size. The original idea came in a doodle a year and a half ago. I returned to the idea in early March of this year. .

initial sketch

7" x 4 1/2"     pencil on paper     January 2014

drawing #2

6 1/2" x 5 3/8"     pencil on graph paper      March 2015

final drawing

20" x 16"     pencil on graph paper w/ pastel tone on reverse     Mach 2015

On a narrative level, the couple was playing a game with round tokens in my drawings. Once I started painting, I decided to go with three cards, partly for abstract reasons, but also because I wanted to reference the con game three-card monte ... a subject I've wanted to use for some time, but whatever the couple is playing is just an invention of mine.