Painterly Progress Proceeds

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

I'm continuing right where I left off last week, with more painterliness on subsequent layers. I'm allowing each layer to dry completely in between applications of paint.

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress (detail) 
Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm allowing some areas to remain thin and translucent, while other areas will be opaque. Because I'm more or less inventing a raindrop pattern on this one, I'm taking my time to allow that pattern to emerge. The actual drops will be the very last to be painted. For now I'm only interested in where raindrops might run together or pool.

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress (detail) 
Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

The orange layer is slightly impasto, applied with stiffer paint to help retain the height and shape of the brush strokes. I plan to apply this idea to the raindrops too, when I get to them.

"A painting in which impasto is a prominent feature can also said to be painterly. This term carries the implication that the artist is revelling in the manipulation of the paint itself and making the fullest use of its sensuous properties." - Tate Glossary, Impasto

Painterly Progression

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

This painting was stalled in the studio for some time. Can you blame me? To me these rainy paintings call for a wet on wet painterly approach - at least in the beginning, and that's something I find that demands a large block of uninterrupted studio time. 

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress (detail)
Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

That means no pending appointments, phone calls, coffee dates, or distracted excursions into the garden. Once into it though, it couldn't be more fun. I love brushstrokes and painterly visual effects and I intend to go to town on this one; varied and broken brushstrokes, sketchiness,  impasto, the works.

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights work in progress Katherine Kean
oil 18 x 24 inches

In the photo above there are about 4 layers of paint, with some areas having more transparency than others. Lately I am working on stormy, rainy, and snowy paintings and enjoying painting 'against' the season. While I'm painting I can almost forget that Los Angeles is in the middle of a strangely humid drought.

"An oil painting is painterly when there are visible brushstrokes, the result of applying paint in a less than completely controlled manner, generally without closely following carefully drawn lines. Works characterized as either painterly or linear can be produced with any painting media, oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache, etc. Some artists whose work could be characterized as painterly are Pierre Bonnard, Francis Bacon, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, Renoir, and John Singer Sargent. In watercolor it might be represented by the early watercolors of Andrew Wyeth." - Wikipedia Painterliness

Home Sweet Home

I will be exhibiting two paintings at Laura Segil Fine Art's Home Sweet Home Group Exhibition that starts this Saturday, July 19.

   

 Marsh House Katherine Kean 

oil on linen 6 x 6 inches

Billowing Clouds Go By and By Katherine Kean 

oil on linen 16 x 20 inches 

 Home Sweet Home 

Saturday, July 19 - Saturday, August 30 

 Segil Fine Art Gallery 

110 West Lime Avenue 

Monrovia, CA 91016 

626-358-5563 

 Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 1-6pm

Walking Whiting Woods

Whiting Woods Trail 2014 Katherine Kean
graphite 10 x 8 inches

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." - John Muir

This view from the trail at Whiting Woods looks north. If you stand at the edge you can make out the very vertical streets that run from the Crescenta Valley all the way up to the edge of the Angeles Forest; Dunsmore, Pennsylvania, Ramsdell, New York. If you look directly down you see Dunsmore Park - seeming to look a lot closer than the climb up makes a person feel. Like so many of the trails in these parts the way up is steep.

My favorite time to go is late - as the sun is falling and the day is cooling off. It's wonderful to watch the lights come on bit by bit in the neighborhoods below.

Beach Day's End

Beach Day's End 2014 Katherine Kean
graphite 8 x 10 inches

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From the Sea

I don't spend nearly enough time visiting beaches, but when I do, I relish the feeling of being sun drenched, wind touched, and a little bit salty and sandy at the end of the day, don't you?

Have a wonderful Fourth of July weekend!