Last two weeks before Portland Open Studios

I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad, but Portland Open Studios weekends will finally be upon me in less than 2 weeks. I have spent so much time volunteering on the board (I've logged 570 hours so far this year) that I feel my own work has suffered. I've completed a bunch of the 7x7 panels and a couple of larger pieces, but that's it. I've not completed my senior's book, which I started on last year, yikes!

I know one thing, I'll be happy when my 3 year term is up. I will feel like I've made my contribution, and I can feel good about that. This is also my last year of participating in the event. Of course, never say never, and I might return in the future, but I'm definitely ready for a break.

So I got a commission from a friend, who wanted a painting of a hummingbird. Not having done humming birds before, and having those 7x7 panels that I can experiment with, I figure I'll play with some ideas here. I actually started 4 panels just as shapes and forms, without thinking that I'll put hummingbirds on there. But then, there they are, so I might as well.

I started 4 panels with similar ideas, and you see that on the panel on the right. All 4 had those seed-pod like shapes. I was thinking horse chestnut pods. But they also read like circular cages.

Over the seed pod shapes, I layered a landscape (inspired by my trip to the Steens...come to think of it, I got the horse chestnuts on one of our previous trips to the Steens too), and hummingbirds. This you can see in the left 2 panels. Then the panel on the left has been 'scrubbed'—I take a wet, stiff angle brush and I push the paint around. Before I do this, the left panel is much more like the middle panel:



Then I start to work on bringing out or pushing back the different forms & shapes that I want to work with. They're not finished, I hope to have them done this weekend though.