new column paintings In the midst of holiday distractions, I managed to pick up these recently mounted-together paintings from the woodshop. These are #11 and 12 in my Column Series, and are 87" and 84" by 12." After bringing them to the studio yesterday, I spent all day today tweaking them into their final (?) version, shown here. Sorry the photo isn't the best--it's taken inside on my studio wall, not outside, where I get better results. That's because Christmas decorations are currently taking over the wall I use for outside photography. Ah, such is the season.

You can click on the photo for a larger view, but be sure and use your "back" button when you're done looking, because otherwise you'll exit this page.

I took a break from working on my Column series for six months or so, until I started these two (and there are more in the works.) I can see changes here since the last ones I did, which were exhibited in Feb. 2006--mainly in the use of more whites and neutral darks, offset by a few panels of brighter color. It's hard to see in the photo I think, but several panels have a very stone-like texture, others are almost pure color. I'm feeling excited about taking up this series again. They are interesting for me because, while the column is a predetermined format, I tend to use more panels per painting than I do in multiple panel paintings, and figuring out their order, color and the how to vary the vertical dimension of the individual panels (all are 12" wide) is a complex challenge.  ¶ 2:43 PM