Working on Skies

   This project has been such a crazy ride for me. It has been a long time since I have been this engulfed in a body of work. My inspiration and my drive have been through the roof. It is both exhilarating and exhausting. Everywhere I go I am looking at the sky, even more than usual. Currently I have completed ten pieces in the series and am a little over half way done with the eleventh. I also have plans for at least six more pieces, but this of course will depend on time constraints. I need to be done by mid April. My main aim has been to choose skies that tie in to personal memories for me. It hasn't been easy though because I am somewhat limited to my references. However, this has also pushed me to become a better and more creative photographer. None of my paintings will be exact replicas of the photos of course, however, the photographs are a great bouncing off point. Overall, I have been growing in many ways as an artist, I taught myself how to do star photography, which is a huge personal accomplishment for me and have been using acrylics in ways I never had before. This is definitely exciting since acrylics were my main medium for many years, and I have been working with them for over 20. This series has me falling in love with acrylics all over again.

    I am very happy with the direction I have been moving in, each individual painting teaches me something new about the sky and my perception of it, as well as myself as an artist. My strategy has been to just keep moving and not dwell too much on individual pieces. The operative phrase here is too much. They each get the attention they need, just not to the point of obsession. I allow myself some touch ups, especially after critique, but for the most part it has been "on to the next." I find a certain spontaneity in that, it keeps me from getting bored and it also keeps me from falling into a slump. If I dwell on one piece or get to excited about one piece for too long I am liable to have a hard time moving forward. Mainly, I do not want to lose momentum. I plan to admire them once I am certain I have enough to exhibit and decide which ones will make the cut and which ones, if any, won't. That's not to say that I am not happy with each of them just that I am also interested in them collectively as a whole.  That being said, I do feel there are some that I personally find more interesting than others. I have posted a few of them here. I will continue to post updates as I go.