There are so many shades and tones of red. Hot, cool and soft. In the dead center of this eleven-foot painting is a girl wearing a layered tutu, and my intent was to make the skirt a brilliant red. Left to right, the skirt would go from purple to magenta to fiery red, with a bit of glowing tangerine where the light comes through. As I started to mix colors, I realized that no combination on my palette was going to reproduce my vision. So I ordered new paints: quinacridone red, pyrrol red, bright red, mauve blue and magenta. Sometimes you approach one part of a painting with a "how do I do this?" The tutu was that part. I think I captured the airiness of the fabric, the flounce, and especially the rich and varied hues. Because this is such a large-scale piece, it has taken a long time. I originally thought that I would get tired of painting it and would want to take a break and mix it up with some smaller work. But each section of this piece stands on its own, so I found I could move about from section to section whenever I got stuck or had to wait for the oils to dry. The entire canvas has several layers of paint now - some of it seems finished, other parts still need more work. Adding 8 inches to the bottom was so important - it's one of the upsides of painting on canvas tacked to a wall. Where a composition ends can be a moving target. More detail shots of the painting are below.

There are seven hands to paint in this mural-sized "parade of hope and feathers". I've written about hands before. I have always considered them as expressive as faces, and sometimes even more difficult to portray. Having drawn hands in pencil, ink and charcoal, etched them, sculpted hands in clay, mastered them in pastels, monotypes and oil paints - I have probably portrayed thousands of hands. To the right is a detail of Cape Light, a pastel on a solid gesso panel. See how the hands dominate the narrative. For the past couple of weeks, the hands have had my attention. None are complete, but they are beginning to take on dimension and personality. It would, of course, be easier to hide the hands behind the bodies, or off the edge of the painting. (Actually, if you look at a lot of paintings, the artist often does just that - to avoid having to draw or paint hands accurately!) First I sketch the hands, paying attention to how the palms and fingers are connected, do the hands hold each other or an object? What is the perspective? Where is the light? Then I build up the paint almost like creating a sculpture. I try to think in three dimensions, imagine what can't be seen - in this case, how does her hand cup the top of her hand and hold the bird's feet? Here's a sampling of some of my favorite hands.

I usually have a fairly clear image in my head of where I want a painting to go. Of course, there are days when I stand in front of the canvas and say to myself, "How do I do this?" How do I make the skin tones appear real? What combination of paint colors? Is there a blue undertone? What shape and size brush? Sometimes getting it right surprises me. Other days I paint for hours, overdo it, then take turp and a rag and wipe most of it off. Figurative painting is hard. I have spent a good deal of time in the last week or two working on Hannah (the figure on the left in the raven mask) and on Syd (the girl in the gazebo with the winged helmet). I have been putting off working on Allison (the figure with the seagull) because I am nervous about working on her skirt. I love the way the drawing of the skirt billows and flows and I don't want to lose that effect. And it will be quite red, dead center. My current decision is where to extend or cut off the edges of this painting. The original bottom of the painting stopped at the flamingo's belly and Syd's knees. I keep visualizing it extended so you see more of the girls' legs and a bit of the flamingo's legs too. So I've sketched some of that in. I left plenty of extra canvas on all sides so that stretching it shouldn't be an issue.

In my last post, I wrote about the architecture of a painting - and specifically the very complicated Victorian gazebo that anchors the right-hand side. Of course, "architecture" can mean many things, and doesn't have to be literal. It can refer to compositional structure and balance, or to the organization of shapes and patterns. So where am I now? I am immersed in the midpoint of this painting. After working on the figures, especially the skin, it was clear that the sky color was ready to change. You can't bounce flesh tones against the wrong color background. It's now a lighter, slightly hazy blue infused with cobalt and manganese blue, turquoise, transparent white and a little pthalo green. This is where I was last month. I haven't touched the birds, but they look much more complete against the new sky. I put a glaze on the back left cabana to make it recede. All of the figures have some degree of underpainting now. All along, the young girl wearing the raven mask cried out for a different costume. First she was outfitted in loose white pants. Too pedestrian. Then I tried a long, ruffled skirt in periwinkle blue. Not enough contrast and shape, and didn't quite suit the character. This afternoon I sketched in this short dotted skirt and tights in deep blue and white. What a difference! Patterns have always intrigued me. This project sets stripes against dots against repetitive curlicues and feathers.

Painting people is what I love. The architecture of the painting is what makes them real. As much as I want to get deep into the flesh, muscles, facial expressions and body language of my subjects, I know that "where" they are is such an important element. Architecture can be a man-made structure, like this gazebo. It can be a landscape or seascape, giving credibility, scale and a sense of place to the narrative. I'm slowly working my way across the ornate embellishments of the black and white gazebo that I saw on the lawn of the Cape Cod Museum of Art. As I paint, I discover subtle shades of blue, lilac, rose, green, yellow and gray. Even the black stripes are composed of prussian blue and van dyke brown, or alizarin crimson and viridian green. Because there is so much area to cover, painting the "architecture" can be a little frustrating. Besides finishing the gazebo, I can already see that the sky has to be a lighter, clearer blue, less textured. The striped tents have to recede into the blueness. Only then can I make the figures come alive. Give and take, foreground and background, there is still a long way to go. Want see the progress so far? Watch the video below.

Each of the characters in this painting has at least one bird companion. From a pink flamingo, a feathered mask, a seagull ruffled by the breeze, a landing parrot and a racing raven to a majestic winged helmet, these avian avatars are part of the narrative. What to do with the Plague Doctor's mask? It just occurred to me in the last week - I'm sure because of the current circumstances - that the most distant figure is wearing a traditional gold and white Venetian Plague Doctor mask. I have a collection of Venetian masks, and I wanted to use one with a beak for this painting. I had no idea just how relevant it would be. Another time, another place, but so close to our own. I find it interesting how the story evolves and deepens the longer you paint it. This mural-sized work certainly gives me plenty of time to shape the narrative. As the first layer nears completion, and much of the white canvas disappears, I look forward to working on the details. The sky will lighten, become more luminous. The faces and bodies will, literally, flesh out. What now looks like a cartoon, in a way, will take on dimension and meaning.

The underpainting is so important. The interesting part is that what you're painting isn't quite the vision in your head. It is basically blocking in figure and ground. Often the colors of the underpainting aren't anything like the finished pigments. Even so, this is where I start to create light and shadow, a loosely painted setting, and assess if it all works the way I want. I started by painting the background - sky, land, striped tents. (I'm especially enamored with the negative shapes formed by the gazebo on the right.) I wasn't quite ready to attack the figures, so went for the birds next. Even the birds aren't done - they need quite a bit more work. As I worked on the gull with the ruffled feathers, it made me realize how much lighter the sky needs to be. This is such a large painting - 11 feet wide. Quite a long-term project. I have several smaller primed panels on hand. While I work on this one I will start some new paintings that will give me the satisfaction of actually completing something.

It's always exciting to begin a new painting. Solidifying the concept can often take months. This new one combines many of the ideas, figures and settings from my series of the past 10 or so years. It is the largest in scale and very horizontal, at almost eleven feet wide! This is the full-size drawing on canvas, pinned to my studio wall. Before finalizing the sketch, I created a 12" x 12" oil painting on a wood panel of the masked figure on the left, just the head, to see how it would look. The whimsical gazebo on the right was on the lawn of the Cape Cod Museum of Art. The red parrot on the upper left is native to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, where I've spent some time over the last couple of years. The figures are all young women I've painted many times: Hannah, Amanda, Alison and Sydney. I digitally superimposed the small portrait on the large sketch here. The complete digital sketch, a photo collage, months in the making, below. As I paint, the narrative will change and deepen, just as it did when I was working on the photo collage. I can't wait! #oilpainting #birds #figurativepainting #magicalrealism #blue

Remember the unfinished painting that my solo exhibit at R. Michelson Galleries, The Willing Suspension of Disbelief, was organized around? When the show came down, the painting returned to my studio for some finishing touches. Once it was back on my wall, I realized that there were still some major elements that had to be changed. That's the thing about sending art out into the world. You look at everything with a fresh perspective. The sky was desperate for more definition. The tents were lined up like soldiers in a row - I had to start from scratch on those, redraw them, add more luminosity. The wooden fence lacked the detail to support the figures. The birds needed more volume and shadow. And so on. Now I know The Willing Suspension of Disbelief is complete. Perhaps it will go out into the world again sometime soon! The image below is the painting as it was exhibited in May. Most gallery patrons thought it was finished - they couldn't see the changes that had to be made. Do you see the difference? #oilpainting #figurativepainting #tents #seagull #magicalrealism #sunset

My latest exhibit, "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief", opened on April 25 in the big, sunlit upstairs gallery space at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA. This was my 9th solo show at the gallery. Over the course of the next two weeks, as more space opened up in the gallery, my show expanded. By May 10, the opening reception, it was complete. The exhibition was extended twice, finally coming down on May 26. Four of my paintings were displayed in the center of the street-level gallery. Ascending the staircase, "Beach and Disco" on the landing directed visitors to the main upstairs gallery. The long anteroom held two large-scale paintings, "Sirens" and "Birdwatchers of Chappaquiddick". In addition to the nine paintings in the main exhibition space, I mounted the series of blog posts about the central piece, "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief". The gallery also produced a video (below). It really gives insight into my thoughts and process over the ten years working on this series. Read the extensive feature article in the April 27 Springfield Republican and online on MassLive: Linda Post Artwork Featured at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton #artexhibit #magicrealism #figurativepainting #seascapes #birds #oilpainting