MINI, but Mighty!

"Valley Sunset" , SOLD, (c) Lesley Powell 2020

During the quiet of the pandemic, when so many plans have been cancelled, I've had the luxury of time to experiment in the studio. When I want to try new things, I often start small.  

""Village Houses", SOLD, (c) Lesley Powell 2020

The problems of composition, color and value are the same, whether you are painting a big picture or a small one.  But when working on a small scale, you can complete more paintings in less time. That means that you can learn more! As a bonus, when you experience the inevitable failures, you have not wasted yards and yards of expensive linen.

I am now offering a selection of my best small works for sale.  I call them "MINI, but MIGHTY."  They are Mighty because a small painting can have a big impact. And the options for placing them in your home are limitless--filling that empty spot on your wall, completing a bookcase arrangement, highlighting a tabletop arrangement--you name it. 

"Ménerbes", 4 x 6 inches, (c) Lesley Powell 2020

The MINIs are priced at $100 or less. You can check them out on my website here.  They speak of the joy of discovery, and the promise of new things to come. Thanks for taking a look!

Can't Live Without, Part II

By popular demand:  Things I Can't Live Without, Part II.  The scoop in this post will have studio tips for fellow painters, and a peek behind the scenes of a working studio, for you non-painters. Actually, I'm only talking about one item this time: Gaffer Tape.

"Gaffer" is a strange name, no? A "gaffer" is the head electrician on a movie or TV set. Gaffer tape gets its name because it is the preferred tape for use on the film sets. Wikipedia calls it "a heavy cotton-cloth pressure sensitive tape, with strong adhesive and tensile properties".  Strong is an understatement.  If two things are capable of being held together, gaffer tape will hold them. 

I love gaffer tape for so many reasons.  I've used it to hold an umbrella in place when plein air painting. I've used it to repair equipment that breaks during a painting trip. 

I also use gaffer tape to finish paintings for presentation. I often  paint on loose pieces of linen. Later, when they are dry, I mount them on panels. Unlike most people, I don't cut off the overhanging edges of the linen after mounting, because that leaves the raw edge of the panel showing. Instead, I wrap the linen around the panel. Wrapping can leave the back of the panel looking messy, like this:

But I use my trusty gaffer tape to finish the back side of the panel. I paint the raw panel with gray gesso. It ends up with a clean, professional look. Check it out below:

Gaffer tape is also great for covering the white edges of stretched canvas, when the painting is going to be put in a floater frame. Darkening the edges insures that no bits of raw white canvas will be visible when the painting is framed. Many times I just paint the edges of the canvas black with an acrylic paint or gesso. But oil primed linen won't accept those materials. So presto: gaffer tape to the rescue!~

I'm sure I'm overlooking other uses of gaffer tape. But you can see why I love it! Stay tuned for more "Can't Life Without" to come...

Uncovered

Sometimes it's very hard to know when a painting is finished.  I study the canvas carefully, over a few days (or even weeks), constantly asking myself whether there are aspects that could be improved, or areas that need to be corrected.

I'm not alone in this struggle. Even the greatest artists of all time have been known to go back and make revisions--sometimes even after the painting has left the studio!  I have written about this phenomenon before, because I find it fascinating. But a recent discovery has prompted me to return to it now.

This time the tables are turned: It's not the painter who made the late-breaking revisions, but rather an unknown subsequent owner.  A painting by none other than the great Dutch master Johannes Vermeer has been determined to have been altered long after Vermeer's death. 

Experts have known for about 40 years that the original canvas featured a large Cupid on the (now plain) back wall.  But they believed that Vermeer himself was the one who had painted over it.  Recently, it was determined that the overpainting of the Cupid had happened decades after Vermeer's death. So now the experts are painstakingly removing the overpainting, to restore the canvas to the state in which Vermeer intended it. The middle image above shows the painting in mid-restoration.

I for one will miss the quietude and serenity of the light on that simple back wall. But presence of the Cupid does tip us off that the letter being read is probably a love letter.  So something is lost and something gained.  I'm staying tuned for the final reveal. And I would love to have been a fly on the wall to learn why the owner of the painting decided to have it altered!