Slop Painting

Why in the world would an artist call a painting that was created with care a Slop Painting? I would because that is exactly what it is. When a painter sets out on a painting session a palette of paints is created by squeezing out the quantities of paint one might think they are going to use. These blobs of oil paints are then mixed and cajoled into an assortment of colors as the painting session continues. Often quantities of other paints are squeezed out and added to the palette as the painting calls for different colors than anticipated at the beginning of the painting session. After anywhere from 3 - 7 hours or more of painting an artist ends up with a palette of meticulously mixed and created colors with added mediums on the palette.

At a certain point in time the painting session comes to an end, maybe there is hunger or maybe there are other life necessities pressing in for time, maybe the muse has gone or the paintings are loaded with wet paint with nowhere else to go at the time. The reasons for ending a painting session are many. What to do with the wet paint still on the palette?

Some artists will come back to it in a few hours or even the next day - oil paint does take a while before it completely dries. Some artists scoop up all the left over paint and toss it into the garbage. Some artists may just leave the mess of beautifully created colors to be dealt with at a later time. Personally, I cannot put paint into the garbage - landfill, bad for the environment all that. However, paint I must because it is the way in which I express myself. Some people give lectures, some play music, some talk - the list goes on people like to express themselves. I paint regularly and as often as I can and I use my "left-over" paint in what I call Slop Paintings. The beauty of this is that the complexity of color in these paintings comes from a minimum of 15 painting sessions from a minimum of 5 other paintings. I hope you enjoy the Slop Paining presented here. Size 36 x 48.