Nothing… again

Last week’s painting in the One Painting Per Week For A Year project is the “simplest” yet… just a specific shade of blue.  This particular shade was a tough one to photograph, and not completely simple to obtain on the canvas.  There are about a dozen layers of paint on this… and, the absence of any other mark on the composition was a decision that I fought for much of the latter half of the week.  I love pure color panels that have a vibration… sure, countless painters have done it before, and done it very well.  The impulse all last week was to add a border or some simple symbol to lend the piece a little bit of dimensionality.  Alas, I opted this time for the purity of color.  Is it “successful?”  There’s not a right answer to that question, in my opinion.  Last summer, I executed a painting titled, Nothing, for an exhibit of works that utilized cardboard in their production.  I burned the cardboard and used the ash and linseed oil to create a stain that I applied in layers to the canvas.  The finished “image” was magical to me, and I have wanted to return to the idea of nothing.  I, oftentimes, feel like my mind has been hacked by the effects of the internet and social media… So, a pure blue canvas usually seems like a viable remedy to the overstimulated head space.  Anyways,  I hope to have the next canvas photographed and posted in a more timely manner.  Six down, forty-six to go.