Maybe this is not your style?

  

I first spotted these twin Lawrence of Siberia lions with snow on their heads in early February.  By the time I'd returned with my camera, the snow was gone, perhaps just as well.  They're one of the wittiest treatments I've seen of the stereotypical gate on the stereotypical fence in front of the stereotypical Vancouver Special-style house. 

It's time for T-shirts to replace the thawbs (okay, I just looked that up, and you can, too) but I still have winter-clothed figures on the easel and for artistic purposes, I'm going to miss those winter garments.  The piece I just finished is based on a young woman I saw on the bus --white-blonde hair, light cream coat with black sleeves, rich golden-orange scarf and headband, and red boots!!!

Challenging myself to make an interesting painting of the prominent cream and black, I set to work.

But something had happened by the time I started laying in the colours.

  

 

I got bored.  Even though I'd planned ahead, I hadn't planned enough.  I had really wanted to do those red boots, but the figure's placement....yawn.   Decision:  Forget the boots and enlarge the figure.

Deep sigh.  Still boring.  But I *still* wanted to do this figure.  Decision:  White-out the whole thing and begin again.

Okay -- I liked the size now.  Will I be able to I pull this off?  (One of the questions I often ask myself mid-stream)

 

All right -- the placement of the darks seemed promising, and away I went.

 

And as I reached the final version of "Dressed for Winter",  I found myself really liking my big flat colour splashes:

It's almost a given that a painter's style evolves of itself as the artist keeps working -- trying new things, pushing boundaries, making experiments.  Best not to give too much thought to it except I can't help but notice an irrepressible impulse towards big shapes, definite edges, and vibrant colours. 

When my esteemed teacher Thomas came for coffee at The Yellow House, he said, "Just keep doing your thing."  And as he talked randomly, deliberately not wanting to give specific advice, he said, "Alex Katz is a painter you might like." 

I'd only vaguely heard of Alex Katz but when I checked him out (scroll down on the page to see the paintings),...yeah, I did like him a lot.  My beloved friend A. did better than that -- she confessed to *loving* Alex Katz and last fall in Maine took me to the Colby College Museum.  Katz donated about 400 of his works to Colby College, where they can be seen in rotation in a specially-built wing -- and there I saw the real thing, very much larger than life!

Katz, by the way, is still going strong at age 90, and he describes his own style this way:

"I like to make an image that is so simple you can't avoid it, and so complicated you can't figure it out."

Now, about those Lawrence-Lions that kicked off this discussion of style:--  They win a prize, but only second place.  The major award for "Most Distinctive Ornaments on a Vancouver- Special Fence" goes to a house several more blocks away, with the Seven Dwarfs each perched on its own brick pedestal.  Modestly accepting the prize is Bashful.