The Weight of Air

The Weight of Air Katherine Kean
oil on linen   48 x 48 inches

A combination of a Cape Cod marsh and imaginary - and much hoped for - rain clouds, this painting has fun details that are hard to see here. The foreground grasses are slightly impasto brushstrokes, as are some of the wind tossed 'debris' in the air.

As I was settling on a title, I looked up many weather terms: downdraft, microburst, wind shear, outflow front, to mention just a few. I finally went with the title that's been in my mind since I started.

Painterly Progress Continues

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

Another installment, shall we say, of the Raindrops with Holiday Lights painting showing about three more layers to establish the background as a bright, yet blurry structure of shapes with the colors streaking and flowing into each other. After drying thoroughly, I'll go back in with a series of glazes before applying the final raindrop layers.

"A painting is a combination of opposites with unity and variety; thick and thin; opaque and transparent; bold and delicate. Artists must use as many devices as they can to hold the viewer's attention. Impasto strokes alongside thin passages enhance the painting surface and create the illusion of volume and depth."  Kevin Macpherson, Landscape Painting Inside and Out

Suburban Murmuration Drawing

Suburban Murmuration Sketch Katherine Kean
graphite 8 x 10 inches

I made this drawing in preparation for a painting. It's an imaginary landscape, although I am using local homes as the basis and making a few changes. The swirling flock of birds is entirely made up.

Cape Cod Travels

After a hot, humid, and hectic beginning of summer, it was nice to spend a week traveling to Cape Cod to visit family, check up on the marsh, chase a few clouds, and look at a few art galleries. I was surprised, and delighted, to find the weather there less humid than Southern California, and cool, and green. Very, very green.

One of the galleries that I visited was Tree's Place, and I was fortunate to see a two person show of Karen Hollingsworth's and James Neil Hollingsworth's paintings. It was a gorgeous exhibition. Their work hung well together, and interacted, with some elements shared and differences that added to the interest.

Back home everything is as busy as usual. I'm having some work done on my yard and one of the crew is rehoming a stray female husky. I ended up inviting her inside to stay on two separate days. I was pondering adopting her - she's sweet, smart, graceful, and beautiful. My cat Zabrina loves dogs and wanted to meet her, but that didn't go very well. It seems the husky viewed her mostly as prey. However, there are many other interested parties, so I doubt she'll have any trouble finding a great home.

And lastly, when is a hole in the roof a good thing? For me, it's when it's getting ready for a skylight to be installed. I've been making changes to my garage so that it can double as a studio space when I need it. It's getting there...

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