Evolution of a theme

Until recently, a stack of ten 4'x5' oil paintings stood in my studio unseen to anyone. I painted these paintings during my senior year at Skidmore College where I was an art major. I studied at SACI in Florence, Italy for my junior year and took a lot of inspiration from the Fauves...a group of post impressionist artists known for their bold brush strokes and use of color. My ten paintings were all either of sailboats or tree-scapes. I loved the negative space created by the vertical lines of the boat lines and of the trees. I also loved the bits of vibrating colors that emerged from the many under paintings.

Well, getting to the point of this post...this week I decided to brighten up the empty walls of the dark hallways in the basement of ArtSpace Maynard (where I rent my studio) so I hung up several of these senior year paintings. It gave me a new chance to look at them.

Before long I began thinking of sailboats. Recently I have taken up sailing myself again now that my kids are learning. I also noticed that many of the seascape photos that I have taken in recent years contain sailboats in the scene (though I rarely include them in the paintings that are inspired by these photos).

Today I started sketching boats...and thus the theme of a new series of work seems to be emerging. I like this idea because it can build on the water/sky theme that I have been working on for a few years now while adding in a new element that is near and dear to my heart - sailboats (both for their beauty and for the experience of sailing).

Here are some pics from this process...