plein air abstract painting

I was weaned on abstract expressionism. I am smitten by the allover image. I have developed a method of plein air non representational allover style painting based on grave rubbings.

I discovered this method due to the circumstance of painting with acrylics outdoors in the California desert. I was visiting my parents in Homeland California. I was away from my New York studio and had no real space in which to paint the large canvasses which involved me. I started to work outside in the early morning. I now had a huge studio but I was painting on the ground, under the sun, blown by the wind. My acrylic paint dried really fast.

I took to wetting my surfaces with a garden hose and working quickly with a roller on a pole.

When I messed it up I would hose it off to start over but there were edges which had dried. The next layer formed new edges. The ground was uneven so the roller contact was uneven. I would slide the canvas around creating new highspots. Try a new color over the old. I got really good at timing the degree of wetness vs the heat of the sun divided by the wind multiplied by the paint thickness. It was all instinctive through repetition but it was a delicate learned balance that ushered me in to a way of painting gloriously intricate non patterned allover paintings.

These unique paintings have been forged in the heat of the sun and held their own. The seed of creative experimentation has blossomed in to a series of plein-air non-representational paintings. These Earth Rubbings are informed with discovery and delight and continue to express optimism and forward motion. These paintings are perpetual growth machines.

Art Grows and as a result so do you in their presence. I painted these paintings and after 10 years I am still delighted and surprised by their continued growth. I never fail to get caught up in the search for a pattern only to be washed away with the sheer delight of discovery as new areas , new relationships, reveal themselves.