My New Artwork

I have traveled artistically in the last year from my acrylic paintings of landscapes and seascapes to new, really dynamic scrolls. Yes, scrolls! I wanted to depart from stretched canvas and quite by accident, found some beautiful large cotton tarps at the Home Depot where I work in Lighting/Electrical. I got 5" x 8" squares and primed them with white latex paint.

The first small studies were 5" x 8." I continued painting small studies and went to 9" x 12" and 10" x 18." I worked with horizon images, the straight line of the sea meeting the sky in azures, golds, magentas and pale greens. These colors were born out of inspiration --strolling the North Carolina beach. I saw colors change in minutes, standing speechless and in awe watching the shifting light go at dusk from gold to green across the water and the sky answering darkening to cobalt blue--as if the sky and the sea were interacting in some kind of spiritual light dance.

In my mind, I visualized working ultimately toward a large installation of fourteen 4' x 6' panels, all sharing the same horizon, and duplicating the changing colors as the viewer strode by them. But my painting technique began to change as began to work bigger.

I credit the change to a water color class I was teaching. Having just learned water color techniques myself, and eager to share what I had learned, my students produced some incredible works, exploring brush strokes, masking and sponging textures.

So the next time I got my acrylic paints in front of me and my primed tarp panels on the table all hell broke loose and I began diluting the acrylics, spattering, sponging, masking....It all seemed to be quite proper--and it was. I was learning new and exciting stuff in water color and it was carrying over to my acrylic painting.

Here are my small studies--all sharing the same horizon and the colors of each study are transitioning as if in a small time zone. The scan of the eye can register that color change from daylight to dusk by reading the images from left to right.

Now I discovered that my brushwork could be like writing--like telling the story of what I saw at the beach. Now I could see that the dynamics of my brush's calligraphy could express the temperal restless of the sea shore--the constant moving caused by wind and light. Each scroll represents a period of time when I witness various stratas of nature affected by wind and weather.

My hope is to continue to work larger and larger so that I can create an environment that visually duplicates the endless, ever-changing sea shore.

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