This is the final version of Monika’s New Red Dress. I figured it was probably time to put up a piece I’ve stopped working on.
One of the most difficult things about this sort of painting is knowing when to stop. That’s probably true of any painting though. I think I got this one to just about the right place. I do tend to overwork stuff. I think that’s part and parcel of the sort of imagery I work with. In the past, I’ve been able to do “simple”. That really just doesn’t work for me these days. I’m sure that will change.
To quote Arshile Gorky: “When something is finished, that means it’s dead, doesn’t it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.”
I know it took Gorky quite some time to “finish” “The Artist and His Mother“…Da Vinci carted the “Mona Lisa” around with him for a good bit of his life. I have some paintings and sketches I’ve worked at since the mid-eighties… nineties… this century, etc… I suppose that technically a painting’s “finished” when the artist defines it that way. I like the idea that things can be revisited and reworked, Um.. “everlastingly”. Modern technology does a lot to enable that. I have quite a few digitally saved sketches that show quite a bit of promise; even some stuff shot on film. Whenever I’ve made the attempt to push the ideas further… I either failed technically or just didn’t quite understand how to push past a certain point. I have several paintings that I basically stare at once in a while. I just don’t get how to resolve certain issues. That will come.
This sketch has been filled in with some Chinese orange and Indian yellow glazes. That’s been painted over with various cadmium colors, some cobalt blue, Naples yellow and so on.
Studio Time 