Summertime Continued Abstractly

After being out of town, to a much cooler climate, I have now returned home to the hottest summer we have had in years. Nothing is green anymore as we have not had any rain, so I am missing seeing the wonderful green colors of summer. In my paintings I am continuing to express the feelings of summer, with light/bright colors. Texture is becoming more important to me and scratching through to what is underneath. Hopefully, I will now have more time to paint as July was devoted mostly to family things.

Summertime

Continuing to work with grids now and expressing the bright/light colors of summer, I am trying to do a series of high-key work to show what this extra hot summer is like. Bright colors are soon turning to brown in this heat, but we do still have some wonderful scenes.

In and Out of a Grid, again, A Work in Progress

Another day of working with grids! My major conflict of styles has always been doing simplified versus "busyness" in my paintings. I love both and cannot seem to stick to just one style. I recently was encouraged to see a quote attributed to Degas that said "I'm glad I haven't found my style yet, I'd be bored to death" and that is the way I feel. Today I have been working with "busyness" in and out of a grid.

April 15

In keeping with my theme of working with numbers, I thought of doing paintings that reflect the date; hence, here is my April 15, 2011. I am starting with the date, covering up, repainting, cevering up etc. hoping that some of the date may or may not show through but the spirit of the day is remebered. I am realizing that in order to give this non-objective style of painting a chance for me, I must work on it for a good while....

Snow Storm

We have had a snow storm here in the South for the past two days. The snow is beautiful, but it creates a real problem here as we are not prepared for snow and ice. Everything closes down, and we are all stuck at home. Of course, that just gives me more incentive to paint! I am still working on abstract images, and this one is an abstract of a snow storm.

Abstract Self Portrait

This is a computer generated self portrait, done in abstract form. It is to be seen as a feeling rather than a realistic picture. It is done completely intuitively without thinking too much, but rather feeling the gestures. After doing this, I realized from comments made about it that it really did reflect "me at that time" and maybe painting from feelings does lead to some truth.

Another Cover-Up

Here is another "cover-up" painting done in the AARP class of Steve Aimone. This is a triptych done with acrylic paint on canvas. I seem to be good at covering up as there is not much left of the original colors put down; I guess in order to get color left on the canvas, I would have to eliminate white paint! Is this the real me?

Minimalist Again

Here is the latest of my minimalist paintings. It is acrylic on canvas. I am finding that this minimalist way of painting is really expressing what I want to say, and it is interesting to be able to reduce the painting down to the bare essentials and still feel that I am getting the message across. I love to play with the materials and can go on forever working on a painting, but it is a challenge to reduce it down to a minimum of action. This painting is named "Beside Still Waters"

and is another of my "still places" series. My suggestion for a website to visit is http://ruth-hunter-studio.blogspot.com.

Abstract Oil Pastel

I am attaching another small abstract oil pastel. These small paintings are so much fun to do, and I really think doing these is helping me to move into more abstract work. It is also nice to be able to finish some work as I find that working large can take forever!