I finally got Garth and Daryl Talking to the ‘finishing stage’ and lite the rocket. I determined to finish the painting in a single day, but after a day-long marathon it wasn’t done, so I followed with a half-day session and finally finished it.
Garth and Daryl Talking is 42″ x 68″. I build my own stretchers for any painting above 60″ on a side. The stretchers for this painting are built from 2″ x 2’s” and half-inch trim strips. It’s very sturdy and there is no danger of the canvas sagging onto the cross braces.
My thinking about subject matter has evolved. When I started out, I was rather blase about it. My position could be characterized as ‘modern;’ that is, more a question than a firm position–“What is a subject?” I’d shrug ironically. Monet, sitting by his dying wife’s sickbed, was horrified when he caught himself dispassionately studying the tones of death on his wife’s face. I think part of every artist is with Monet in that room, engrossed by the play of light, color, and tone regardless of the situation.
From this viewpoint, Garth and Daryl Talking could just as easily be titled Study in Green and Blue or some such. Under the influence of this aesthetic view, I dabbled in some things I no longer believe to be fruitful. For a short period, I did some near-pornographic paintings (I was young, OK?), which–by the way–sold very well. Luckily, the money didn’t change my view and I soon abandoned that stuff.
An important impetus for this painting is to paint figures in nature. But for various reasons I hit a wall and set it aside for long periods. My studio journal indicates that the final sessions were the twenty-third and twenty-fourth. Even given the painting’s largish size that’s slow even for me. Normally, a painting this size would be done in half that many sessions.
Sometimes I become fixated on problems, but painting isn’t problem solving per se. Another way of saying this is that every painting is a set of problems. If problem solving is a general and universal aspect of painting, then focusing on it does not add any insight or special knowledge about painting. By analogy, if you plan a camping trip to the Rockies, you’d rent a 4×4, buy the proper camping gear, and hiking boots, etc, Afterwards, when I ask about your trip, I’d be disappointed if all you told me was where you rented your car and bought your super-lightweight tent, when I wanted to hear about your trip–your adventure.