Leapfrog: The best reason for painting abstracts in a series

Oct 6

I took my studio mobile for a couple of weeks in September. Heading south from my Canadian home I crossed the border into Vermont and settled down in a rural farmhouse for ten days.

Having spent summers as a child among Vermont’s rolling green mountains and dairy farmlands this is a landscape as familiar as family. It was a sure thing that it found its way into the series of 12” x 12” paintings I started there, working on my sister’s kitchen table.

Working abstractly, I normally proceed with multiple paintings at one (for reasons you can find HERE). With eight cradled panels sanded and gesso-ed, my process begins with the loose application of a limited palette to each in an equally loose sequence.

A family of paintings

Paintings I work in a series usually begin together and move as a group through the early stages. Slowly and over many layers, each begins to take on its own character. I’ve heard artists compare a series of paintings to siblings. That’s apt - they are growing up together, related but unique. One or two may move forward quickly, developing strong and sure identities. Others dawdle along, uncommitted to a particular direction, wandering down a few dead ends. The goal is to bring them all up together, eventually, to maturity.

Carrying this little group back home to Canada ten days later, by then most of them had started revealing their individual personalities. And about this time, most of them were entering the messy MIDDLE STAGE too.

I find the middle to be the longest and hardest part of abstract painting. Initial lines of enquiry may get lost and found again, new colours may enter the palette with differing degrees of success. This part of the journey can be notoriously prolonged and sometimes frustrating – like the days when I work hours on all eight paintings, and nothing resolves.

With experience, though, I understand this stage and I cultivate the patience it requires. I know that all the struggle in this part of the process ultimately yields better results. I keep going and I have faith that something good is going to emerge.

Signpost up ahead!

Sooner or later, I do something to one of the eight paintings that shifts it ahead of the rest. This is really a glorious moment! It’s as if this painting is waving its arms overhead and calling, “Over here! This way!”.

It’s become a signpost, a directional signal for the group. What is it about this painting that is working so well? What do I see in this piece that I can use to bring the others along? The key is often something so completely obvious once I see it. Spotting the signpost is a runner’s high, filling me with new energy!

Playing leapfrog

I’d like to say that once this happens, the rest of the series falls easily into place. And while that could happen for one or two of the pieces, this is just one in a series of developmental milestones for the family. The piece that first jumps ahead helps me move the others forward, but only so far. Each piece, unique as it is, will need a different treatment and there’s never a one size solution.

The good news is that another painting will emerge to set a new standard for the group, and after that, another. Paintings in a series play leapfrog with each other, moving ahead and falling back in an asynchronous dance, until one by one they’re finished.

This interplay between individual pieces and the ability to have one help the others along again and again is the very best reason I know for painting in a series.

Do you paint in a series? And if you do, what’s your best reason?