Does it take planning and spreadsheets or does it just pop out fully formed from the artist’s inspiration like Athena from Zeus’s forehead?
A bit of both, I suppose.
After spending a few weeks experimenting with new materials and ideas, I decided it’s time to settle in and create a single, cohesive painting series.
So what did I do, you ask?
I started by buying a whole ton of supplies and a bunch of tools.
That means plenty of stretcher bars and canvas (there was in fact a tiny spreadsheet for canvas sizes!) along with a good stapler and pliers to put them together.
A Milwaukee electric stapler is my weapon of choice, and I just invested in Boesner pliers with a compression spring that are the shizz for stretching canvas.
And paint. So much paint.
Making a series requires you to get over any squeamishness you might have about using up your whole stock of Golden fluid acrylics and that big roll of unprimed canvas you’ve been saving.
You also need to commit to an idea and a way of working.
Making a painting series is about exploring an idea or a question in an ongoing way.
Deciding to make a whole bunch of paintings focused on the same colors, shapes, and ideas gives you the chance to explore your subject in a deeper way.
That generally means sticking to a color palette and a technique—I’ve got color washes and graphic lines comin’ in hot.
I take tons of photos to keep track of what captures my interest, and then I write about what I see.
Lately my pictures have been all purple plants and funny, bright moss.
Go over the images helped me narrow down my color palette: deep burgundy, bright fuchsia, midnight blue, ochre, and moss green.
Making a painting series is about exploring the story that these colors tell me and finding a way to share it through an image.
I found that what keeps coming up are images of harsh sunlight on new growth.
Deep red-purple leaves. Moss on bare branches.
Instead of being vulnerable and chipper like baby green leaves, this burgundy foliage is furtive and patient. Not springtime colors but late winter. Vibrant but somehow reticent.
Hillsides and roadsides covered in brambles, fields of wild oregano, and sprouting tops of chokecherry bushes.
A burst of darkness and wildness that is not meant to last.
All of this will cede to the vitality of spring, but first it will be seen.
The purple of February is an ode to the imperfection of life.
A reminder that life is short and that shortness may be unfair but it is what it is, so you may as well be purple for the time you have.
Then there’s moss colors—ochre for that one truly surprising lichen and yellow-green for that other fluffy neon variety.
Moss really lives up to it potential in the winter when all the leaves have gone.
Against gray branches and an often gray sky.
It’s like, “What up. I’m weird.”
And thank God for nature being unabashedly weird.
So much of our own nature is undeniably weird, yet we’re always trying to smooth it out.
Eff that. Let’s all be neon winter moss.
Making a painting series is like writing a book of poems instead of just a haiku.
By all accounts, this painting series I’m getting into is an ode to growing through life’s strangeness and sometimes darkness and to embracing the beauty and humor that come with them.
If you need a little nature and a little humor, I’ve got blackberry brambles and moss with ‘tude for daaays.
Stick around. It’s gonna be good.
Or go make your own painting series—now you know how.
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