In North Idaho winter is a very real season. I love to be in the studio working this time of year! I don’t feel guilty about being inside, and it’s such a beautiful view. I decided to capture a little of the winter feel in these small paintings. I will probably do a couple larger paintings on the theme soon.
I hope everyone is staying warm!
I have always loved big empty spaces. No buildings no roads. There are not enough of these places today.
Besides the glorious desolation it is the atmosphere. The feeling of distance and light. I try to capture that feeling in my work, try is all I can do.
This is the last of my smaller wave paintings. I am moving on to the large commission at long last! It is not going to be a recreation of any of the recent wave paintings. It will however pull ideas from each of them. Most of all I was trying to get my brain in the mindset of the ocean and surf.
I am not moving to Australia but these two paintings are! Yesterday afternoon I shipped them off so they have a long voyage ahead.
I have only been to Australia once, many years ago. I went to Sydney which is where these works are going. It is such a beautiful city. I wouldn’t mind taking a trip to Australia now to escape the winter. One of these years I will have to get back!
Friday is just another day for me these days. One advantage of the winter in North Idaho, it encourages me to be hold up in the studio!
I am playing around with some waves trying to capture the sense of power and beauty. I will be starting on a large commission and wanted to do some experimenting first. This painting isn’t the direction I will be taking but it is an interesting piece.
I have been swamped with work lately, my studio is a mess but no time to pause. I am doing some wave studies in preparation for a large commission. This first go is the same aspect ratio as the final painting. Giving me a chance to play around with some compositions and color schemes.
I painted this over the weekend, just a final glaze this morning.
I am doing a little series of cloudscapes with the sun concealed but still very present.
I destroyed half a dozen paintings I decided not to put into my solo show. I like to let paintings breathe for a while and see them fresh. So often you feel an energy and excitement from work, that usually fades. If a painting doesn’t intrigue me after hanging around the studio for weeks it is probably not worth keeping. Sometimes I will deeply love elements of a piece but it has to be compelling as a whole. Once in a while a painting just needs a little extra work to bring it all together. Sometimes that little extra is the final blow…
So I destroyed a painting, this is the new painting on the same panel. Now I can’t remember for sure what was originally on this board but I know this is stronger. Will it stick around? Time will tell.
I have shipped all of my recent work to Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento. Now I am making a new start! I have some commissions I need to work on, those start next week. I will take the remainder of this week just to paint.
Time erodes everything, painting offers occasional moments of ascent.
A photograph of me holding my painting “winter light”. Yesterday the sky was a bright grey, the ground white, and I was standing in a giant light box!
This painting and the final collection will be heading to California today. Ready for my solo show at Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento, California!
brian sostrom 