Last Studio Painting

 This is the last painting I will make or will have started in my first year studio in the Master Program. I am moving from my studio 953 on the 9th floor down to a studio on the 8th floor for my last year. At least I will be there for the summer unless I move again after they maintenance crew finishes repairing the ceiling on the 9th floor, which is in bad shape, lots of peeling and chipping paint. As a result everybody has to be off the 9th floor for probably half the summer. I called this my "submarine studio" as it was a long and  narrow studio and I had work stations on either side like an old WWII sub movie.

I am very disappointed I did not get a window studio for my second year in the MFA. Especially since I work in natural light, and many who got window studios don't. But those are the breaks and I guess I have no choice or recourse other than to work off site when needed despite paying for the studio. I think this is partly a result of the program having something like 45 students in my MFA class. The faculty makes their choices on who goes where, get a window studio or not, and they are always in short supply and I think I'll let it stop there.

 Last year I started doing drawings and paintings of these abandoned homes off of Route 1 near the Brandywine. I am just drawn to the mystery and the strange quality of these houses that have been left to slowly decay year by year, like poltergeist of their former lives. I showed these drawing to pretty mixed results in my reviews in my first semester review, but Grad School is about what I want to do, not what my critics want to draw or paint, so I will keep exploring these subjects. One of these house had what looks like its guts strewn about, the furniture of its former tenants laid or tossed out including this old doll house which is being drawn into the trees and bushes. I just couldn't resist at first drawing in  and now painting it in he series of paintings I have been doing with figures in covered or draped heads.

I blocked this in working from a series of pictures I took, not using any photo exactly or using any one photo, but using them as a source to get the shapes where I wanted them. All in all this is about 3 hours-4 hours of painting to get it to this state. Now the painting is at home where it will probably stay for the summer and I'll work on it here. After I move my studio I'll decide how much if at all I'll use it for painting once I settle in. My plans are to go out and do a lot of plein air painting while the summer is here. I'm also trying to line up models to do some figure painting outside as well.