Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Been a Year -- New Paintings

Lost my sister in 2021 and almost lost my house to the biggest wildfire in New Mexico history in the summer of 2022. That impacts painting but I finally got back to it for the first studio tour in four years. And kept painting. Needed updates to these pages because there are also a lot of sales.

 

Sisters
28 x 14 Mixed Media on Wrapped Canvas
$1150

Night Stampede
20 x 36 Mixed Media on Wrapped Canvas
$1620


Everyone kept asking for more horse paintings. And they kept selling. This one was a replacement if you will for Night Run. Thicke, my cat, added to the texture in the foreground by walking across wet paint. Canvas was lying on a table so I could pour the foreground. Sky is also poured. I considered painting out the paw prints but in the final decision left them in. Nothing about this painting went as planned.

Fall of Stars below was my first painting begun and completed after my return to the studio following the evacuation to Eagle Nest. A lot of time to think. The what if's should the house and studio and all my art be destroyed. No room in the Explorer after the cat and dog and orchids. Paintings were surrendered to the fates.


Fall of Stars
20 x 30 Mixed Media on Wrapped Canvas
$1650


Night seems to have prevailed in my paintings since the fire. New Maiden Moon was begun as a commission on the theme of a previous painting I sold.


New Maiden Moon
30 x 20 Mixed Media on Wrapped Canvas
$1350


After my absorption in the dark I decided to take a ride up to the top of the ridge on Forest Road 76. It had been closed during the fire because it was a line of defense. And had been widened from a one way winding dirt road road to allow fire fighting vehicles, and parked, which means thinning out the dead and dying and the highly flammable species to make 76 a permanent defense because there is much more that can burn. As a result all the smothered and hidden aspen groves were exposed. The Aspen Path is my celebration of that.



The Aspen Path 
28 x 14 Watercolor on Wrapped Canvas
$980


There are a few I have missed in this recount of new paintings. I even missed making photographs of them. I promise to do better.