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                                                                      18x14 oil

This is not a (very) little painting, and neither will be the next few I post. I have been painting almost daily, though. This painting and 2 others will be shipped to Edward Montgomery Fine Arts in Carmel, CA as soon as I get them framed.

I have made it my summer project to work hard on strengthening my compositions. To that end I'm spending a lot more time in the planning stages thinking "link values", "create just a few interesting shapes" think in terms of "most", "some" and a "little"(shapes, colors, values), decide whether the painting is to be mostly warm or cool...I try to work all that out before I begin.  It's kind of like a puzzle to make the "picture" work well literally as well as abstractly.

If I were to describe my desired goal in my paintings it would be to express the gesture of the human form loosely and correctly, with the rest of the painting dissolving into abstraction that supports the figure(s). Within all that I want the brushstrokes to be varied and loose, and the rightness of the paint itself to shine. Is that asking too much?