In progress: still unnamed

textured acrylic on stretched canvas

16 x 20 inches

I have two paintings in progress right now. I like working this way.

Stinkingwater Pass

Stinkingwater Pass 1

16 x 20 inches, oil on stretched canvas

Yes, that is a real name of a real place, and (of course) it is located in the western mountains I love. Where else would have a name like this?

The pass is in central Oregon, about 30 miles east of Burns on Highway 20. a narrow, winding, two-lane highway through the Strawberry Range. Elevation 4848. As I approached the pass near noon early in September, I was struck by the contrasting masses lit up by the sun, and found a wide spot to pull off on. I was tempted to set up my easel, but there really was no room (my car barely fit) and it would have been dangerous.

So I walked back down the highway to the place my jaw dropped, and took quite a few photos, some from the middle of the highway (watching carefully for traffic; fortunately, there was little). Back at my car, I made some rough pencil sketches, just blocking in the masses. And that was that.

Until a couple of months after I got home. On one of those incredibly dreary mid-Novermber days, I went through my photos, and found myself again drawn to those massive shapes. I had to paint them.

The first painting I did using the photos to help me place and shape the masses, but drew on my memory for the striking color contrasts that caught my eye. And then I found my little pencil sketches, and did another painting, smaller, imagining myself still there, with quick, loose strokes, plein air style. I like them both.

Stinkingwater Pass 2
11 x 14 inches, acrylic on hardboard panel

Expecting Spring (title pro tem)

acrylic on cradled birch panel, 20 x 24 inches

Paintings often go through a stage where it feels there is no hope for it. I just had one that seemed stuck at ugly. It just wasn't working, even though I could still see my intent in it. I couldn't figure out what it needed. Almost gave up on it, but set it aside for few days. Today decided to give something a try. Suddenly out of the mess the painting I envisioned emerged. What a joy.

I used glazing from the support up, letting the colors emerge and deepen where the various layers overlap. This was the first time I'd tried using light-weight molding paste to add both texture and a translucent white in my glazes, and I am very pleased with the results. This is a painting you can enjoy looking at close up.

Here are some detail photos:

Synesthesia: what music looks like

A music doodle

back of old envelope

Today is a stay-in and muddle about day-- snow and gusty winds and tending the woodstove. A painting taken off the easel, a pot of soup on the cookstove, some time at the computer.

I subscribe to the Research Channel. Today I checked out a recent post with this link about Synesthesia. I found it fascinating. It presents a possible mechanism for synesthesia in lay terms, and then goes on to say that it is not an abberation, but likely a normal part of human experience. It seems that the crossover of sensory experience may be an important componant of creativity of all sorts (art being only one way of expressing creativity). And it may be that all people have it in some form, just not ways that are readily recognized. I recommend watching it. If you do, be sure to wait for the poem at the very end. It is beautiful.

ResearchChannel - Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World

I am a synesthete, but I didn't know that's what it is until well into adulthood. It just seemed normal for me. My recollection is that quite a few people in my family had this kind of multiple sensory perception, though not all (which explains some of the peculiar conversations about music). Then at some point, I read or heard about people who "heard" colors, and that the word for that sort of thing is "synesthesia". Mine involves sounds and a feeling of movement: shapes with colors dancing. At times over the years I've found that lots of people who experience crossovers of senses, not like mine, but juxtapositions of various sorts.

The music being played during part of this video captured me. I'd love to find it and paint it! Unable to resist trying to capture some of the color dance in my head, I grabbed a pen and drew the scribble above on the back of an old envelope (what else?). I was just getting to the melodic overlays when the music ended.

Mountains Take Me Home

acrylic on cradled birch panel

18 x 18 inches

There is quite a back story to this one. The short of it is that recently I made a cross-continent trip by car. The trip was primarily to visit family members and friends, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a 6000 mile paint-out! Worried about the logistics of transporting wet oil paintings, I decided to try acrylics, and outfitted myself with a basic assortment, plus some mediums and a basic set of brushes just for the acrylics.

Oh, my. It was the month of the continent-wide heat wave. Hot air and dry winds. Trying to paint with acrylics outdoors was a disaster, even with retarder. I was ready to toss them in the nearest trash bin. I put them away, and pulled out my oils (which I had packed in a small plastic container, and happy I did!). To keep things managable as I traveled, I stuck to small studies, and used an alklyd walnut medium to speed setting up.

Once home, I decided to play with the acrylics in my studio, where I could control them better. After an unknown number (because I've blocked them out) of false starts and things best left undescribed, I adapted a technique I'd used years ago: planning the overall composition, but mixing up one color range at a time, building layers, and letting the painting reveal itself.

When I felt confident enough in what I was doing, I got out a cradled birch panel prepared with gesso, and began. With huge trepidations: these panels are not cheap! But I had an image of what I wanted to do, and I needed the rigidity of the panel to do it.

To tell the truth, when I began, I had no idea what the painting would be. I just had a vision of how I wanted to create it, and the general composition, and the process.

I began with paint thickened with a little heavy medium. The first layers created the overall composition. I laid on the paint, one color range at a time, with a brush, and finished it with painting knives to get the shape and texture I wanted. The layers were transparent or semi-transparent, so each layer of paint influenced what was below it and over it, and each layer was a little more transparent than the one before. I gradually shifted to a glazing medium, adding more with each layer, so that the painting began taking on the depth that I envisioned. The last to go on were several layers of thinly applied white glaze in selected areas, to provide a unity and tie the composition together.

And it was those white wisps that finally revealed the painting to me. Maybe it was there all along, and I just had to find it. And in the process, I think I found what I have been working toward all along.

The long-awaited website is UP!

My long awaited website is up at last! Please stop by for a visit:

www.DayleAnnStratton.com

"Musings" (nee' "Rambling") represents my journey back into visual arts. Now I find myself at the edge of a new phase of my growth as an artist. Over the last few months, I've found that my art is leading me on a journey without a planned itinerary. I just need to pay attention to where it takes me. I'm looking forward to wherever this journey is about to take me! I hope you will come along too.

I still want to have a place to share the "backstory" of my paintings, some of the struggles and insights, and other oddments, in the context of this new phase of my exploration. So this blog will continue.