Crush 4, Deadline met!

This week I finished the 4th piece in my Crush series!  In addition, I met a deadline that I set for myself.  The completion date that I was aiming for was based on an entry date for an upcoming show.  This is a juried exhibit that will happen this fall.  I entered 3 pieces from my Crush series.  

Stay tuned and I let you know in September if I get accepted.....

Crush 4 had some new assignments that I gave myself.  First, I wanted to play around with value.  This piece has a range of values / light, dark, and saturated colors, that created a challenge for me.  I also wanted to combine elements that I used construction wise from Crush 2 and Crush 3.

The value assignment was not so easy.  At one time this piece was a little bit bigger length wise.  I was trying to work in some darker values along the bottom area under the pale pink and I just couldn't get it to work.  There was too much contrast in the wrong areas and the piece was a bit chaotic.  

After fighting it for about two / eight hour days in the studio, I took out my rotary cutter and whacked off the sections that were not working.  It was a "gut thing" and I knew it was the best decision.  This piece was all about pushing color around the canvas.  That is the best way for me to describe the process for this work.

Inspiration for this piece started with the desire to work with the palette of aqua fabrics that you see in the mid- lower right side of the composition.  The rest of the colors were selected with Spring in mind.  I started this piece a couple of months ago around the end of April.  Everything was in bloom, and the vines were beginning to bud in the vineyards as I remember.

It has been about a year since I started this series.  I still really enjoy it and will begin another piece soon.  These pieces are all improvisational.  Because of the construction method I use they are slow going.  I thought I might have more completed in my series by now.  In fact, I was hoping for around 8 works to show for my labors as a body of work.  Well that didn't happen....  I am not sure what the next piece will be yet.  I think Crush 4 was all consuming and so that has been where my thoughts and creative energy has been.  Now that it is complete, I can ponder Crush 5.