In May/June 2022 I attended an abstract painting studio class at Woodmere Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Our group met in the museum’s teaching studio and spent 3 hours each Tuesday morning just painting with critiques from our instructor, Val Rossman. You may remember I took an earlier session of this class with her at the same location in fall, 2021.
This time was just as much fun. Thanks to her and my fellow students for a nice experience.
Continuing with the assignment given in the first class (to look around the studio at the random splashes of color left behind on surfaces by the many students who have passed through the studio, and to take them as inspiration for some work), I started this large painting with blocks of color.
As a bit of history, I had ordered a couple of 40″ x 30″ canvases some time back, and I don’t know why, as I usually don’t paint that large. Anyway, they sat in storage until I happened to remember them, and I thought – why not try something on one of them?
I hauled it over to the class and got busy. By the time I left class, I had covered the canvas with a totally abstract composition of colors. I stood back to admire it and then I got back to work, because I knew that in its second life it would find its voice and meaning. I worked on it for the next week and here is where it ended up.
It’s called “In the Current State of Things” and is 40″ x 30″ on canvas.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
Wow!
Thank you. A lot of serendipity in the creation of this painting, I don’t know where it came from.
Would love to see this in real life (art). It must be staggering in its large format. What a remarkable work. Love the title too
Thank you. I surprised myself with this one. I am not used to working on such a large amount of acreage, canvas size wise I mean! I am happy with how it turned out.
let me add another wow! (K)
Thank you. This painting took a lot of twists and turns getting here but I am happy with it.
Fabulous!
Thank you. I surprised myself with this one.
I love this one Claudia, there is something intriguing about the composition and color that draws me in. Did you finish this large painting during the class?
Thank you. During the class, I painted a selection of shapes and colors kind of at random and then refined them. But the bulk of this work was done over the next two weeks at home.