Something New - Abstract Landscapes

I’ve been working on this collection – in my head, in little sketches in notebook after notebook – for years. I finally put paint to canvas in July, and worked furiously on these painting through August and September. I think for a lot of people, September, with back-to-school and the change of seasons, feels like a new beginning. These paintings feel like a new beginning too.

These paintings are a new take on places that I love. Four of them are of my favorite place in the world, my oldest muse. Many of them are not just locations, but skies, I have painted before – fresh takes on familiar scenes.

This collection was a huge challenge for me because I was teaching myself something new – teaching, without a textbook or even a finished painting as a guide. I had to figure out what I wanted these paintings to look like, and how to make that happen. While a realistic rendering of say, Mt. Hood, is a challenge, I know the route to get there. This body of work was a different type of challenge and much more mentally demanding.

I worried for a while that some of these paintings didn’t really go together. That they looked more like distant cousins than siblings. But after finishing them all, I think it does look like a cohesive body of work, and like my work. All the paintings have low horizons, they (mostly) have bright, exaggerated colors. They have expansive skies and tidy brushwork in the foreground. They have big swaths of color with tiny, textural details. They have similar lines and movement.

If your enthusiasm in my inbox and on social media is any indication, you guys love these paintings more than anything I have ever done, which makes me feel – in the best way possible – like I am just getting started. XOXO

**Paintings available Thursday, Oct. 7 at 7 a.m. PT to people on my email list. Available publicly on my website on Saturday, Oct. 9 at 10 a.m. PT. Sign up for my email list here.**