Original Art Oil Painting Figurative Interior Still life Abstracted

Fifty Years Later
18x24 Oil on Canvas

Robin and I were best buddies at age 4. We lived on Miller Drive in Lawrence, Kansas. When I moved away at age 5 we promised to stay in touch always. Right.  Right? Well, crazy, but it turns out we did.  We wrote letters, then later, made audio cassettes to send each other.  We did this year after year all the way  through high school, then lost touch.  But about 5 years ago, Robin got in contact with me.  She was living in Austin.  I had lived in Austin in the 80's, and it turns out we had been living there at the same time but did not know it.
Finally, last summer,  I made a trip back to Austin to visit several college friends and while there I looked Robin up.  We met for drinks and appetizers at a wonderful Mexican restaurant overlooking the lake.  We talked and laughed for hours, both of us amazed that 50 years had gone by.  And that we'd actually stayed in touch over a lifetime without having seen each other in all the intervening years.  Funny thing, I left knowing that Robin would have turned out to be a very good friend, had we lived in close proximity.  We had quite a bit in common.  Crazy.

Abstracted Figurative Paintings A subset of the Annabelle Series

The Good Model
24x24x1.5 Mixed Media/Cnv

A busy last two weeks as I begin yet another series in a slightly different style.  Prevailing wisdom in the art world says the artist should develop and hold fast to one particular and recognizable style.  Galleries prefer this when taking on an artist.  Collectors don't always appreciate an artist's change in direction.
I started my art career focused on landscapes. I still love landscapes.  
But right now I'm in love with abstracting the figure. 
Last month floral mixed media pieces had my heart.
I don't mean to thumb my nose at prevailing wisdom, but I do believe my best art will come by following my gut and painting only what excites and delights me, regardless of style, medium or subject matter.

Ladies Night 56x24x1" Acrylic/canvas

Acrylic Underpainting by landscape artist Tracy Haines,Figurative, the zone, right brain activity

For so long I've wanted to tackle this image of my daughter, which was taken several years ago.  I liked the casualty of the pose, the attitude. It's Jordyn!

I finally started!  This is the acrylic underpainting.  I don't often start an oil this way, but lately have been playing around with loose acrylic underpaintings to get the canvas covered.  I will continue the painting in oil, and I will attempt to keep the end result loose, too.  I love a painterly quality in works; just not a big fan of especially tight paintings-although I admire the realists.

What is particularly fun about this approach, is that once the tough work is done- the work requiring left brain activity (which is always a strain for me , and why I beat a hasty retreat out of medicine)-one can put in "time out" the chatty, over- analytic left brain by, say, listening to an interesting podcast.  This frees up the right brain to take over and allow a more fluid, intuitive completion of the painting.  For me , this is where the painting really comes to life.  This is that zone where I lose all sense of time and place and self.

Thank you for checking this post out, and I will post the painting again once it's completed.