Brick by Brick

Could you tell I've been kind of scarce around here lately? The creative juices just haven't been flowing. I seem to have figured out the cycle though. Apparently I paint like crazy, produce a lot of work and then suddenly stop. The brick wall is there, I hit it and no matter how I try or what I do, it's not moving. The best thing to do is wait it out and focus on other things.

So, I've been focusing on research and today getting ready for the demo that Kelli and I are doing for the Ocala Art Group on Wednesday. In the process of looking for work to take with me I came across some pieces I really enjoyed doing. These 2 are obviously the same landscape but done with different palettes and on slightly different surfaces. Both are colored pencil on paper. I think you can tell in the photo there's more texture in the top version - I gessoed the paper first. In the bottom version I wanted some texture in the trees so did some scraping on the pencil point with an knife blade and then pressed the shavings down into the surface to make them stick. Give this a try sometime - paint the same scene multiple times and see what you can do to give them their own personality.

I think the wall is starting to shift......