Couch 2!

I haven’t posted Couch 1 yet. It sold at a recent show- it’s really good. It followed by usual color impulses of heavy blue for shadow, purple for deep black, and yellow for bright light. This series has been really good for me to get deeper into color and think through that lens.

In this painting, I wanted to have an undercurrent of blue/orange color complement with a more overt theme of yellow/purple color complement. I didn’t want the heavy blue of the first painting; instead I wanted to subtly mix in purple with the brown to create a violet that would appear redder through use of lighter purple next to it (see the ground in front of the couch). Next, I used purple highlights for where the light catches the breaks in the paneling (see right and left mid wall) and heavy yellow for light. I was surprised at the end that additional green was the key to the upper wall shadow.

The overall effect is much less calm than the first iteration of this- much less a sense of refuge and peace. This has some other energy that is hard to place- an evocative sense of presence, a power that doesn’t really fit emotional or spiritual language well. I like it a lot. I’m going to miss the first couch (which I’ll post soon) but this feels really good and right.

My wife Christina accused me of going on a painting bender after finishing a painting. She says that I go crazy trying to binge creating art after something gets done. She’s right (of course). I get so excited about the new direction the painting creates, the opening for starting something, that I try really hard to get some progress on it before the feeling fades. I wish I could paint for more time every day and see this stuff iterate more quickly. Next I’m trying to do something different with the fan in my room and putting some effort into the infinite stove. I’m trying to make pots out of old paint containers.