A long weekend at Lake Pend Oreille. Always great to get away and spend time with Mother Nature.
I went on a six mile hike that reminded me of my age and questionable physical condition. I was rewarded with solitude, a sense of accomplishment and wildlife. I saw moose droppings. I flushed three white tail deer. Enjoyed the chattering of squirrels along with the lonely call of a varied thrush.
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
This is a large bovine painting I am currently working on. The painting is 48″x36″.
Here is the complete collection of bison skull paintings I have been busily working on in recent weeks. It is nice to see them all together, feels like a small accomplishment! These will be part of my “Shadows of the West” solo show that is taking place in late March. I still have so much more I want to do…
All of the paintings are acrylic paint on acrylic plexiglass. They are 18″x18″ and 20″x20″ in size.
Do you have a favorite in the group? Thanks for taking the time to check them out!
This is the completed version of “Western Shadows (bison skull) II”. It is, for some reason, particularly difficult to capture this painting digitally, it just doesn’t seem to represent the final piece properly. I am including some detailed photographs that display some of the intriguing textural elements that make the physical painting so much more compelling (at least to me).
This is an acrylic painting that is 20″ x 20″
This is an 18″ x 18″ acrylic painting that I recently finished.
Before I took the final photograph I took a snapshot with my iPhone in the studio. My subjects have been bouncing around from minimal landscapes to portraits of cows (cowscapes)? I thought it was interesting seeing the latest cow portrait next to “Cloud & Sea” on my easel. Wondering how these paintings will relate to one another in the context of a gallery show. Each painting was done by the same hand, same mediums and the same general approach. They are different paintings but they both are sort of a simplistic study of isolation/solitude. These two in particular had a nice relationship and set my mind at ease to some degree.
Building a collection of paintings for a show is both exciting and a bit daunting. I am always wondering if I shouldn’t narrow my scope and make a really tight collection of paintings with a very specific subject holding them together. The problem is when I’m working I always get excited about “the next painting”. Often this leads to something seemingly unrelated to the previous piece. Tangents and random explorations are part of the creative process and lead to new ideas and often new approaches. In a perfect world I would love to have a massive space where I could hang paintings to really get the overall feel. Then I would replace paintings that were not bolstering the show. Remove paintings that felt redundant or didn’t enrich the overall feeling. Create new paintings that would fill out the collection in just the right way. Of course this is not a perfect world and that is just a daydream. So ultimately I will follow my gut when choosing pieces and have a little faith…
The fatted calf scampered over to the fence. He assumed my presence at the wire signaled it was time for me to feed him! ‘Twas the other way round.
Note: This is a work of fiction. The calf, lovingly called “fatty”, has many sunny days ahead, presumably.
This is a painting I just varnished today. It is an 18″ x 18″ acrylic painting. The unusual textures throughout were predominantly created with a small squeegee and a palette knife. The very short story was something that occurred to me when I was out shooting reference shots of cows in some of the local fields. I felt guilty the way they would come running up to the fence and all I had to offer was a smile…
Brian
This painting is based on a number of photographs I took of a young buck near my home. I never grow tired of wildlife and somehow feel the same charge when I spot a deer. This guy hung around for weeks but I haven’t seen him in a while.
I painted six small water paintings. These are 10″x10″, so fairly small. The painting I singled out with a close up I am giving to my niece for Christmas… Just wrapped it!
This is a 6″x6″ painting I did last year. Yet another crow painting!
brian sostrom 