Ping Pong
Philip Koch, Adirondack Lake, Late August, oil on panel, 10 x 7 1/2", 2012 When I was a kid I had a pretty large bedroom. This was where my family set up a ping pong table. We played a lot even though none of us were particularly good. I think we all liked the sound of a good long volley more than anything else- ping, bounce, pong, bounce, ping, and on it went, a curious dance between the two paddles. I got to thinking about this as I started going back into this painting, one I'd thought I'd finished last month. It's a new painting I based on a vine charcoal drawing I did last fall up on Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains of northernmost New York State. I really liked how the new oil looked but kept wondering how it might work with a lighter sky. Not wanting to risk the delicate balance it had achieved, I decided to paint a second version with some big variations in the sky's color. So off I went into the new panel. From the get go it see