The Naturalist

"The Naturalist", 48"x36", acrylic on canvas

"The Naturalist" is finished - here it is.

Lately I've been toying with the image of a disassembled clock as you can see here.  For me it can symbolize a time before our modern preoccupation with time, deadlines, etc. or in this case perhaps the clock is being assembled and symbolizes the beginning of a new era - The Age of Discovery when naturalists and other types of explorers were coming to the "New World" and bringing with them their values and technologies regarding resources, time and the natural world.

Almost finished

It's nearly finished in this photograph - actually it's completely done but I won't post the final image until it's professionally photographed.  But, until then here it is in a close to finished state.  The challenge left at this point was to figure out what would be on the pages of the book...  Stay tuned a picture of the completed painting will be posted in a couple weeks or so.

Painting this incredibly abundant bunch of bananas brought up a word most of us don't know or ever use - fecund.  It's a very descriptive word and one which I hope will inspire some new paintings...

fe·cund

   [fee-kuhnd, -kuhnd, fek-uhnd, -uhnd]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit,vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful: fecund parents; fecund farmland.

2.

very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund       years of the Italian Renaissance.

It Looks Like Progress But...

...sometimes it's an amazingly tedious process of adding something, taking it away, adding it again, and so on, etc.  This is particularly true of the background space, specifically the sky.  I've been working on this section alone for a few days, continuously tweaking the color and light until I feel it's right.  Then, I'll start to approach the objects in the foreground which will in turn cause me to have to make changes to the sky!  It's an endless back and forth - once that dance feels complete then I know the painting is done.

Slowly taking shape --

Bananas!! (actually plantains).  I'm basing the bunch of plantains on a photograph I took when I lived in New Orleans in the mid 1990's.  While driving down the street one day I saw that someone had cut off this enormous bunch of green plantains and placed it on the sidewalk to be picked up with the trash.  I found it beautiful and extremely exotic so I took it back to my studio, hung it from the ceiling and photographed it.  I did a couple paintings using this image back then and am happy to be revisiting it now, about 15 years later.

A New Painting Begins...

Some combination of these elements will soon come together in a new painting.  I'll keep you posted...