Black and White Series

Painting 2. oil, acrylic and gesso on canvas. 17 x 20"

Lately, I've been playing around with a slightly new idea - to create abstract landscape paintings in black and white. I've always loved black and white work, even my husband has fantastic figurative black and white pieces. See here: http://www.derekoverfield.com . But I have decided to explore this idea. Two have been created already and I am working on a third today. The first one was not very good, but I really enjoyed making it. The second was better - much better and I really liked making it even more, it is featured above.

Already they have become more abstract in nature. The process is much longer than I am used to, no part of the painting is done plein air. First I begin with acrylic paint. Then I incorporate thick spills of gesso onto the stretched canvas, and let that dry overnight. The next day I can begin again with acrylic and then finish it with oil, or put down more gesso and start again. It's all very improvisational and intuitive, more so than my regular work. That's when I can make the most progress with these, it seems.

It's been a long time since I made something just to mess around - no real goals for the work in mind. No certainty that I will show it. I'm allowing myself to do this (in part) with the hope that I will learn something to apply to my main body of work. I'm not sure what it will be, but I have a gut feeling it may work out...