reparations

It's late and there was paint laid down tonight and major surgery to the last large canvas.   The stretcher bars had dislodged from the weight and sheer unwieldiness of its size.  One had snapped and had to be fused.  In retrospect they needed two vertical cross braces and three horizontal.

All week I've been laying down the most amazing flat surfaces and since I took the large one off the wall I plan to flatten the blacks significantly.  It will float the white in interesting ways.

I have been thinking about a horizontal piece, -the first of this body of work.  I gessoed a page in a sketchbook and played with white oil paint straight out of the tube.  I'm looking for a black-paged sketchbook to facilitate my thought process right now.  I've been thinking of doing more drawing and works on paper to finish out the year.  I'll need to work through the horizontal orientation, but I'm thinking of a  78" x 216" painting in two panels.  I have it in my head and it won't let me rest.

Smoked a PDR maduro tonight and enjoyed the crisp autumn darkness.  The town has hung its Christmas lights and the whole of the square is lined in white illumination.  Family will soon start arriving and the semester's end is in sight, though I still have a long and stressful road up to the very last.

The work in the studio now seems inexhaustible, and this is a new experience for me; I tend to go from one thought to the next without concern or interest in consistency.  For the first time I feel I am building a body of work that is both personal and interesting for me in the long term.

This weekend will yield serious work, potentially something new as I learn from and respond to each new painting.  And as I write this now I am even thinking of different ratios for the paintings; much to consider as night turns to day again...