What's On My Easel

Upcoming Painting Concepts for my Space Series

My Space Series is made up of eight vertical 64x48” paintings, and one horizontal painting of the same size. The series is a culmination of my artistic, art historical, theoretical, and humanist knowledge from 50 years of non-stop art making.

Hymn to the Sun, 2024, oil on linen, 64x48”. From the Space Series.

Today, I decided on some of the next projects to add to the Space Series, which will be composed horizontally. Ideally, I will create seven more paintings, aiming to have nine horizontals to accompany the nine verticals. In a way, it would be my Sistine Chapel.

This drawing (above), and others that follow, has a significant amount of shadow (a requirement) that I can make transparent, allowing the nebula and stars to wink through. The original idea was that he was swirling water with his finger; now he will be swirling a nebula.

Blithe, above, will work wonderfully with an agitated, bubbly nebula. Notice that about one-third of her is in shadow. It is crazy how the transparency works, but when I make the shadows nearly 100% transparent, it will integrate the figure into the nebula space effortlessly and intensify the feeling of highlights when I paint them flesh tone.

I will tilt him on the diagonal to create a horizontal composition. He will be in the throes of reaching for the light, perhaps at the moment when...

or...

With the woman kicking out her foot, there has to be a nebula, or nebulae, like a million fireworks going off. Light will inform her, but an explosion of starbursts will be her shadowed self.

I just came up with these ideas an hour ago. I didn’t even have the image of one of them and emailed its collector to send it to me. Bless her heart, she did it in about 10 minutes. It’s wonderful to have collectors who love the creative spark. One qualifier is that for the last 5 or 6 months, I have been single-mindedly focused on getting my Art Studio Companion finished and published, and now with my Art Memoir halfway—two-thirds?—done. And now I am itching to paint.

Note: Three of these studies were turned into life-sized paintings, but artists like da Vinci revisited their paintings and made copies with new adjustments. If it is good enough for da Vinci, repurposing a visual theme is good for me too.