Finishing canvasses by the dozen????

I blithely talk about completeing several paintings in a day...............

Many readers might say, "well that just goes to show that abstracts could be done by my three year old". Well of course that is true, but that's exactly what many artists who paint this gendre are aiming for (stand back and wait for the vocal blasts). the simplicity and unpretentiousness are exactly the objectives.

(I am not even going to mention elephants, chimps and similar wild beasties.)

But for an adult this can actually be a difficult task. And to come up with a message, however simple, can be an added problem. I have actually been "designing" these paintings for a considerable time, the actual painting is the least time consuming part of the whole process and can in my estimation be left until the very last. In fact difficult not to leave it until last, but you know what I mean I hope. About four months ago I started thinking about what I was going to enter for this exhibition. here is a page from my sketchbook, with quick coloured pencil drawings, playing with ideas :-

I very quickly discarded most of these early ideas, but they gave me something to work on. Just like a quick draft of a letter or report. get a few ideas down and edit until it begins to look right.

this process has been going on more or less continuously ever since, refining the basic themes and deciding how to express them in the chosen media. In this case acrylics ( including metallic colours because I found some in my local superstore) on gallery wrapped canvasses. A few rough ideas on paper show how some of the ideas have started to come to fruition

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Sorry, it's a bit small but in the lower left for example is the sketch from which the next canvass is developed (Sunrise). Again many of these have been discarded in the process as it moves through to completion.

So, here are two more completed canvasses titled "Sunrise" and "Sunset"







Again, the gold, metallic paint is not showing up too well in these photos. they were taken in direct sun and horizontally (thanks to antikva for the advice) but hasn't seemed to have helped.

Still only a few more to do. thanks for staying with me.