4.
MON 22 AUG 2022
This morning, I worked more yellows into the top oranges - 'sky' - to find another, softer, stripe. Above is the best solution: straight but curved, a quiet presence, an echo of the brushstroke on the bottom edge and the thin line above. It went back into the studio three times: It is pure instinct - pure painting - why each of the three versions below were rejected. . (3) was close, the top-stripe strong, pressing downwards, but too attention grabbing and competing with the force of the charging blue brush-mark. My best brushmark ever? Pure knowing. The final version (above) just 'is': sublime colour and twisting, ambiguous space and form., Porthleven as I've never seen it or painted it.
My only doubt - the title! 'Porthleven 48' was also called 'Orange Pier' - still time to change before I write on the back?
This orange/green thing is getting out of hand!
detail
The big moves were made yesterday, finding Porthleven in the paint. The breakthrough was the loaded cerulean brush mark smashing into the chevron - like a meteor - the same mark reversed on the bottom-edge, dragged through the orange. There is an exciting motion in this piece, contained - barely - by the strength of the green-line, now open on the right edge. The isolated orange brushmark, originally one of five, is very powerful, now the only vertical. Visually, it seems in the right place. I wish I'd recorded the early stages of the painting: random marks, including black, with a possibility of 'harbour'...
(3)
(2).
(1.)