Monday, August 31, 2009

Studio Work


I have been working on several large paintings. These are on canvas which is new for me as I usually work on panels. The wood panels when over 5 or 6 ft get very heavy. I also have been using two up turned 10 gallon buckets on the floor to prop up my paintings while working on them. It puts them at a good height for me to work and the slight angle makes it a bit easier as opposed to being perfectly flat against the wall. So simple. Lately I have been so busy with trying to fit everything in that when I come across something that is so simple and easy I am especially appreciative of it. The same idea has been happening in my painting. Simplification. I am trying to show the paint's own character more and less of the heavy handedness of my own agenda. The clue to this idea comes every day when I am painting. Every time a drip of paint falls off my brush by accident it seem to land in the perfect place in the painting and actually make it significantly better. How can this be? 


studio

3 comments:

Ian MacLeod said...

It sounds like spiritual energy - freeing up and letting it happen.

Anonymous said...

Ahh, Nicholas...a man after my own heart - it's the 1950's Action Painting phenomenon! : ) Thank God for Pollock, Frankenthaler and the like. The sub-conscious is a beatiful thing to find exposed in your work. The paint itself has a language of it's own. Keep painting! Fabulous.

Nicholas Wilton said...

Thanks- I know the paint when applied freely just looks better- it just amazes me that it does-I love the play between out of control and in control---you can't let the paint know you are actually controlling it-Ha!