Seaside Village
oil on canvas
30" x 30"
$2500

Big Love

Just as Bill Hendrickson is learning in his HBO Big Love experiment, I've discovered it's one thing to make a painting that works well and another thing entirely to follow it up with another (and another) that relates to it. "Seaside Village" is an attempt to create a companion to "Cornwall Harbour" which I posted on the blog several weeks ago. I've since begun a third in the series which depicts a snakey stone fence that looks at the headland in "Harbour" from a somewhat different vantage point.

To work in a series like this means creating the paintings to "converse" with one another. As I'm composing them, I'm wondering what the subjects have in common and how they are also different. Then it's up to the viewer -- you -- to figure out what they're communicating and if it makes sense.

In this series, both works are the intentionally the same size, painted with the same palette and with a similar aim of showing the effect of light on the landscape. "Cornwall Harbour," however, gives an early morning seaward view while "Seaside Village" looks inland on a sunny afternoon. And, the locale of both subjects comprises only a few hundred yards -- even though they look in different directions, they are related by the proximity in which I find them. Sound like any relationships you know?

How will #3 fit in with the other two? Stay tuned! I'll show you as soon as I've found out.