what artists do

Once in a while I have to make art in a way that is contrary or unlike what I normally do. On Sunday, May 18th, I was invited to participate in an art show June 1 – 13 in Baton Rouge. That gave me two weeks to have art ready to hang. Whatever I did had to be a quick process. In conjuring up ideas I decided I wanted to try more masculine colors. By that I mean more browns.

As I started arranging my compositions, I found myself going back to grids in order to structure my works. Only this time, I made them less uniform. As I rendered the pieces, I soon found myself annoyed at the most extreme of these works, a gouache painting. Gee, I reached the total other end of the spectrum from my earlier days of splattered paintings. Oh, I did make one non-grid piece with masculine colors.

Having vowed to go as speedily as possible, I ended up more anal in the way I worked. My process this time was more like working a jigsaw puzzle. I used to love solving those, too. As for what next, I’m not sure. It was a rush to push myself like that, but I prefer to go slower and take some time to work through a piece.