September

I spent July through December working on the painting below, titled September. 

Compositions with an abundance of leaves are among my most complex and take a lot of time to paint. The placement and color of each leaf, the flow they generate together with the branches and trunks, are always a challenge. 

September

2020, oil on linen, 34" x 22"

Private collection, Florida

The color organization puts cool greens and a blue sky in the upper part of the painting, and warm reds and browns in the lower. In a way opposite of what I did in another recent painting, Subway Interior, where the warm colors are on top and the cool below.

Subway Interior

2020, oil on linen, 26" x 15"

Below are my two largest leaf paintings. Each took a year or more to complete. 

In the Garden

2006-2007, oil on linen, 62" x 72"

Private collection, New York

Woman with Autumn Leaves

1992-1994, oil on linen, 36" x 72"

Private collection, California

Meanwhile, during the last two months I've been working on a painting of a woman playing with a cat and developing drawings - including a large one of an audience at a theatrical performance.

___________________________

If you're reading this in an email and would like to see or make comments please view this page in your browser. The comment function is not enabled in an email. Additional social media share buttons are also enabled in the browser. All comments and shares would be much appreciated.

Queen

A new painting:

Queen

2020, oil on linen, 10" x 8"

In the original drawing the woman was alone and wearing a party hat resembling a crown. The title Queen remains from that first image, even though she lost her hat and gained two admiring men. As always, the evolution came about naturally as the painting developed, and was not based on any meaningful thought beyond what was intuitively needed. I still like the original drawing and may return to it again.

Queen, drawing #1
2019, pencil on graph paper, 9 1/2" x 7"

Queen was finished seven weeks ago, and since then I've been working on a composition of a woman with two children, five pears, and a bird:

Collecting Pears, in progress

34" x 22", oil on linen

detail, ca. 5" x 7"

The bird was inspired by the catbirds that nest every spring in the dense patch of knotweed outside my studio, and it's the first one I've painted since 1996:

Woman with Bird

5 1/2" x 4", oil on linen, 1996

Private collection, Massachusetts

Two Women with a Monkey

The second of my monkey paintings is finished:

Two Woman with a Monkey

18" x 20", oil on linen, 2017-2018

There are four significant changes between the painting and the final drawing: the monkey's position, the structure of the porch, the right arm of the blonde woman, and the addition of two more oranges.

Two Women with a Monkey (drawing #2, final)
18" x 20", pencil on paper with pastel tone on reverse, 2017

The first orange - the one being offered to the monkey - provided a bright warm note in a composition that I planned to fill with cool greens and blues as well as greys and blacks. However, as the painting progressed, I had the idea to add two more oranges which proved fortuitous, creating a subtle circular movement with more energy and interest.

detail, ca. 13" x 8"

There are two more drawings related to this painting: the initial sketch and a monkey study for the new position on the table.

Two Women with a Monkey (drawing #1)

6 1/2" x 7 3/4", pencil on graph paper, 2017

Two Women with a Monkey (monkey study)

8 1/2" x 12 1/2", pencil on paper with pastel tone on reverse, 2017

This concludes my monkey paintings for now, though I have a couple other drawings with potential, including one with a lot of monkeys. Will see. 

Lots of Monkeys

7" x 8", pencil on graph paper, 2017 

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.

Heidi's Birdhouse

Heidi's Birdhouse

18" x 15"     oil on linen      2014

The narrative of this painting is based on a birdhouse that hangs in the garden - a gift from a dear friend named Heidi - and the composition came about because of a watercolor I made last April. Watercolor is an infrequent medium for me; have probably finished less than twenty over the years, and they are usually done for a special occasion and a specific person.

Heidi's Birdhouse

7 1/2" x 5 1/2"     watercolor on paper     2014

Private collection, New York

Here are the five drawings that were made in the course of developing this composition, from the initial sketch to the final version:

Heidi's Birdhouse, drawing #1
7" x 5"     pencil on paper     2014

Heidi's Birdhouse, drawing #2

7 1/2" x 5 1/2"     pencil on paper w/ pastel tone on reverse     2014

Private collection, New York

Heidi's Birdhouse, drawing #3

8" x 8"     pencil on graph paper     2014

Heidi's Birdhouse, drawing #4

18" x 15" pencil on paper     2014

Heidi's Birdhouse, drawing #5

18" x 15"     pencil on paper with pastel tone on reverse     2014

Sophie

The last bits of sky and final glazes were done on Monday, and my work on this painting is finished.

Sophie

42" x 27"     oil on linen     2012

I'd originally thought to have fewer oak leaves, to have more sky, to have some green leaves along the bottom as in the final drawing in the previous post. However, as I added the oak leaves, they seemed to keep calling for more, descending downward and becoming more dense behind the figure ... and not for any narrative reason, but because the painting wanted all the red.

Her blouse changed too. I'd always envisioned the blouse to be grey with a few small dots scattered about as in the drawing, but the dots became too busy against the backdrop of leaves, and the color too heavy, so I went to blue with a simple geometry to the pattern.

Sophie, in progress

I've been working the last several weeks on a painting of a young woman standing against an autumnal background of red oak leaves. All has gone well so far; the figure is fully painted as well as a good number of the leaves, though there are still plenty of those left to do.

Here's a photo of the final drawing that was used to transfer the image to the canvas. 

Sophie

45" x 27"   pencil on paper with pastel on the reverse  2012

The original drawing (pasted below) dates from five years ago and it's been pinned up on my drawing wall ever since. I liked the composition and have wanted to paint the image, but the viewpoint -- looking down on the woman as she lay on a blanket surrounded with fallen leaves -- was too problematic and made little sense logically. Turning the drawing so that the right side became the bottom didn't help either and actually made the situation worse. I kept looking at it, and then a couple months ago -- when I wasn't thinking about it -- the obvious solution arrived: have her in the same pose but standing, and move the leaves from the ground to a tree.

Sophie
20" x 18"  pencil on paper  2007

In the Garden

In the Garden

62" x 72"    oil on linen     2006 - 2007

Private Collection, New York