Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Progress of "Inclined to Agree"

I didn't have much time this evening, but I wanted to get a bit of glaze on it so that it would set by tomorrow. I scumbled up a bit in the dark areas and glazed the entire lower half back down with Alizarin Crimson mixed with some Cadmium Red Medium to give it more intensity of color. I love how the red-tinted glaze got caught in all the little crevasses. Now it’s looking truer to my vision. Circles are starting to be added into the upper left quadrant. These will probably almost disappear in the end, ultimately they'll likely just be "ghosts" of circles. And the blue area was a little too intense, so I cut that back with a little white mixed with muted turquoise. The change in that area is subtle, but it is looking much better to me. Sometimes the subtlest shift of hue and value is all that it takes to make me more comfortable with a painting’s progress.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

A New Painting (in progress)

I just started this commissioned piece for Shelley and thought I’d post some progress images. I started off with a layout based on a couple of older paintings that Shelley liked.


After preparing the board with texture paste and painting it black, I started by blocking in the general colors.


Then I masked the areas that were going to get stripes. I used black fluid acrylic combined with heavy gel and knifed in the thin lines. I used a brush for the wider stripes.


Masks removed, revealing the stripes.


Then I continued glazing to get the colors a little closer. Here’s where it stands right now. More to come…

Saturday, October 25, 2008

A 3-hour Painting

Lately I’ve have had the urge to do some figurative work, so Thursday evening I decided to do a quick painting, mentally limiting myself to spending only three hours on it altogether. The idea was to have fun with the painting and work as quickly as I could. The first evening I spent one hour on it. The first image shows where I was at about fifteen minutes, then I let that dry a wile and went back to it later and spent another 45. That’s when I took the second image. Didn’t look like much was happening, but I know that the exciting stuff starts to happen about two hours in.




The next image shows where I was at after spending another hour on it last night. Now she is starting to take shape. I was consciously trying to stay loose, not getting too hung up on the details and letting myself be okay with the brush strokes showing.



This last image is where I was after spending another hour (and a half, I guess I’m cheating a little here). Now she has really come together, but in some areas I’ve worked it a bit hard, smoothing out the face and losing the brushwork effect. In truth, this painting could use more work, the background is quite nebulous. It could be worked further but I am posting it as is. Maybe I’ll go back and work on it some more but for right now, here is my latest painting, Girl in a Hat, 14” x 18”, acrylic on canvas.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I just finished these…

…and I am very pleased. It's funny, when I started them earlier this week I thought it wasn't going well and even commented to a friend that I'd had a "bad painting day". But when I returned to them yesterday, a couple of glazings seemed to coax them into something I liked, even though the composition and color scheme hadn't changed all that much. Sometimes I think it's as much my state of mind as it is what is actually happening with the paintings. I know this because there have been many past paintings that I have disliked, and sold without much thought only to (years later) come to appreciate them and wish I could do more like them. Anyway, these two didn't have to wait years for me to get excited about them, they will be included in my submission to the Emerging Artists' show. Here they are in their completed state. And below are a couple of pictures of them in progress, during the texture phase.

I haven't officially titled them yet. For now, they have been tagged Reclamations 34 and 35, but I only designate numerically for commissioned pieces. These two deserve titles, I just haven't come up with the right ones. They measure 18” square each and are acrylic on cradled hardboard.


In the photo below, you can see the circle masks that are in the process of being laid down.


This next photo shows the complete texturization with masks removed, revealing the circular "debossed" areas and the assemblaged domed circular pieces.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

New Paintings

These were commissioned by Corporate Art in West Caldwell, New Jersey. This is the third set that Corporate Art has ordered. I think these two are the best pair yet.

Reclamations 32 and 33

Monday, September 22, 2008

My Work on The Artful Home

I just had a request to post a link to my work on The Artful Home! So here it is:

https://www.artfulhome.com/artist/6364.html


I only have five pieces left. Recently, I submitted some new pieces. It's taking The Artful Home longer than usual to post new work to their website because they have reecently gone through a complete redesign of their website, including the content management system. But I am hoping some new paintings will be uploaded soon.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Exhibit at the Alex Haleigh Gallery

The artists’ reception was held last night at the Alex Haleigh Gallery in Gardena. I had 10 pieces in this show including Bouquet, which was in the figurative show last May. The rest were abstracts, mostly in the Reclamation series. A lot of my friends came by, which meant so much to me. Thanks to everyone!

Click on any of the pictures to see a larger view.

Interplay and Happenstance, two of the “New Reclamations”, were displayed together.





From left to right: Marcia, Tamar, Linda and Kevin.


Mirth and Strata made it into the show.


From left to right: Sophia, Elizabeth and Jill. Everyone is standing in front of Within. My friend Jill came all the way from Florida for the exhibit! It was great for my friends to finally get to meet one another.


My friend Steve had three paintings in this show. Great work Steve!




Linda and Tamar pose in front of Happenstance, their favorite in the show (and mine, too!)




A live band, good snacks and lots of art lovers.


Other artists’ work in the show.


It was a very nice turnout. I had so much fun seeing my friends. Thanks everyone!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bed, Bath & Beyond

I heard from a friend that my Sticks & Stones prints were in Bed Bath & Beyond this week. So I went to the store in Stevenson Ranch to see for myself. And sure enough, there they were! They’re selling for $39.99 each and they’ve been matted and recessed in the frame. It’s difficult to see them amidst so many other art prints, but they’re there, sort of in the lower middle area.


The photo below is a detail. I had to separate them because they are displayed on top of one another on the same shelf in the store.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

My Two Latest

Recently completed, I have been meaning to post these for weeks. Some Circles further explores the idea I started with Dapple and continued with Strata. It's very watery-looking. Lots of layers. Then there is Mirth, a cheery little painting that I really like. When I look at Mirth, it doesn't look like something I would paint and maybe that's why I like it. It's a bit of an unexpected direction and color palette, but like I said, I really like this one. I'm going to hang it in my house for a while. They're both scheduled to go up on The Artful Home.

Both of these are the completed versions from my post dated July 14, "A Different Work Flow".

Some Circles, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 2008


Mirth, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 2008

Saturday, August 30, 2008

More Orders for August

Well, August really is turning into a record-breaking month for me in terms of committed sales. Yesterday, I got a Purchase Order from an art consulting firm I’ve worked with previously. They seem to gravitate toward my Eclipse series, as that is what they commissioned from me last year. This time, they want me to reproduce Eclipse #1 and Eclipse #3. In addition, they have ordered Reclamation #18. Interestingly, in early ‘07, Image Conscious also requested that I reproduce Eclipse #3 . That painting is titled Passage and I still have the original. I just need to embellish it a bit to add back in the bubble wrap texture that Image Conscious specifically wanted left off. So I have one commission and two purchases. In addition to all this, the art consulting firm will be arranging to have reproductions made of the three pieces, 100 each. So in addition to the paintings’ purchase prices, I’ll also receive royalties on their reproductions. Aaaaah, it’s good to have work. This is actually making me feel like an artist today!

Eclipse #3 (2002), and Passage (2007)


Eclipse #3 was sold in ‘02. But I still have Passage. As you can see, the paintings are similar, but I’m going to have to glaze some yellow over areas of Passage and add back in the bubble wrap texture.

Reclamation #18, 12” x 12”, 2005


Eclipse #1, 20” x 20”, 2002


This one was also sold in 2002, so I have to reproduce it as faithfully as I can from my photographs of it. I’ll post its image side-by-side with this one when I’m finished so we’ll see how close I can get. Gotta go paint!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Wow, Another One Sold from The Artful Home!

Fandangle, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 2008

Well, August has been a banner month! Fandangle makes the 5th painting The Artful Home has sold for me. I do believe this is a record. Anyway, I painted Fandangle earlier this year, it’s sort of "Jumble meets the Reclamations", but I like it. I always thought I might include it in the “Reclamation” body of work and try for an exhibition somewhere, but Fate has made other plans for it. It's on its way to Connecticut.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

The two in the catalog sold…

Quadrants 1 & 2, 24" x 24" each, 2007


I originally painted these on spec for an art consultant who, it turned out, was not interested in them. Then Image Conscious was interested in making posters and off they went to San Francisco. Yes, they wanted to make reproductions of them! They kept them for a couple months and finally, when I called to inquire about their status, it turned out that they weren’t going to use them after all and they were sent back. I’ve had a couple of inquiries from the trade about them but nothing came of it. Then the Guild (now called the Artful Home) put them up on their retail site and there they sat for nearly a year. I have been rather surprised that they didn’t sell quickly because I think they are good. In fact, I made a whole set of layouts to extend the series but for whatever reason have never continued with them. I used the knife on these and I really like the effect. Some very interesting things are going on in these pieces. Anyway, I’m glad that someone has finally purchased them.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

And another sold from The Artful Home!

Sentiment, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 2006

I painted Sentiment in late '06, sort of as a tribute to a series of paintings that I had done in 2004. That series has no official name, I just refer to it as the "Jumble" series, as Jumble was the first painting in that idea or style. Interestingly, Jumble was a painting that I very nearly painted over. It was one of those "magic" paintings, the kind that practically paint themselves, and it was fun to paint, but it didn't look like "me" for whatever reason and I had determined that it wasn't any good. It had gone too smoothly, I didn’t know where else to take it and it didn’t seem right that a painting that had only taken a couple of hours could be considered “finished”. I had started on a different canvas when my sister Dianne came by my studio one afternoon to see what I was working on. She pointed at Jumble, which had been tossed to the side and exclaimed that she loved that one! Oh no, I said, that one is bad and must be painted over. She said, “no way, I’m buying it from you”. I felt bad, the painting really wasn’t anything to me at the time. How could I charge my own sister the $200 I was asking for such paintings at the time? Really, I said, let me try to sell it on eBay (this was back when I did such things) and it probably won’t sell and then you can have it if you buy me a new canvas. She said yes, but probably it would sell and boy did it ever! My reserve price for 24” squares on eBay at that time was $200 and this one got itself into a little bidding war. Not just between two bidders, but three or four. The high bid was $340 which was the highest amount I had ever received for one of my paintings on eBay until that time and I just couldn’t believe it.

Jumble, 24” x 24”, acrylic on canvas, 2004


Hmmm, there was something there. People seemed to like little Jumble! Maybe I should paint more of them. So I did. The next one went for $425! These were pretty hefty prices for a new, unknown artist on eBay back in those days. I painted a couple more after that and they all sold, Lost & Found fetching me the highest price of $600 on Gallery Today.

More in the “Jumble” series:


All of those paintings were fun to paint and I don’t know why I stopped them after just a few, or why I never titled series. I sometimes think about doing something with it again and maybe I should, since I’ve gotten a bit stuck and don’t know what to paint right now. It seems that this series is just as good an idea as any other I’m currently considering. Maybe Sentiment is trying to tell me something. In any case, it is now on its way to Connecticut.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Just sold from the Artful Home.com

Yup, Encounter, a painting I did earlier this year. I really like this painting, maybe because it doesn't look like I painted it. (But I did!)

Encounter, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Artful Home Catalog

Well, it arrived yesterday, the 2008 Fall Catalog from the Artful Home (formerly known as the Guild). This year, the Fall Catalog has three versions, only one of which contains my art (the version with the red vase on the cover). But there they were, my two Quadrants paintings, on page 4. I must say, I am a bit disappointed in the photography. The sheen on the paintings makes them look washed out. That combined with a terrible color separation makes me wonder if these will even sell from this catalog. I can only hope that it may inspire people to look at the Artful Home's website, where my images of them look so much better. Any time The Artful Home has featured a painting in one of their catalogs, it has sold, so I remain hopeful.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The New Reclamations

So I have finished what I have been previously referring to as “painting 3” and I am quite happy with it. I definitely like this new direction for my Reclamation series and find myself heartened to hope for submitting to the emerging artists’ show at the Art Sales and Rental Gallery at LACMA. Of course, I need at least 15 pieces in this new direction, but I am enthusiastic and am willing to work toward that. I actually think these may have a chance for consideration. In any event, it will be good to build up my inventory of this series, since art consultants seem to gravitate towards these and when my ad in the Guild Sourcebook comes out next year, I’ll have some on hand. Anyway, here it is, my latest in the Reclamation series:

Happenstance: 24” x 24”, acrylic on canvas, 2008

And below is an image of the painting in various stages of progress, from its very first texturizing and assemblage to progress points with paint. If you want to see an enlarged image, just click on it.

One very interesting thing worth mentioning is that I have switched paint brands. I have discovered Nova Color, a professional, artist-grade acrylic paint manufacturer in Culver City and this paint is fantastic. There is so much pigment in the paint, and its creamy consistency is “brush-ready” meaning that I don’t have to thin it down with mediums. In fact its coverage is so strong that I actually had to work to tone the hues down! Still, it is brighter than Interplay and its brightness is taking a little getting used to for me. Now I will get back to working on completing the other two paintings-in-progress.

Monday, July 14, 2008

A Different Work Flow

This past weekend I decided to try working on a few canvases at the same time to see if this could help keep me focused in my studio. My general tendency is to work on one piece at a time, not counting prep and finish which is always ongoing. But prep work and finish work are so mechanical, those processes don't shift my mind from a creative quandary and sometimes I need that. My theory is that this shift could keep me thinking creatively even though I’ve hit a sticking point. When get "stuck" on a piece, my tendency is to shift to the more basic set of tasks and if that’s not enough I have even been known to resort to housework. But mostly when I get stuck I just watch TV, run errands, go shopping, talk to friends, and that is not productive.

So I found that I actually spent more time in the studio, even though I do not have a finished painting to show for it. It’s a different way of working for me so I may just have to get used to it. Anyway, I have three paintings in progress, all 24” squares, which I worked on in between getting my Guild Sourcebook artwork finished, packing up a painting and working on redesigning my website. So I feel I had a very productive weekend.

Painting 1 has subsequently been nearly ruined in my last painting session on it, not sure if I’m going to do a complete paint-over or if when I return to it this evening I get a flash of an idea for a salvage. In any event, I didn’t take a photo of it in its depleted state, I’ll wait to see what happens. Painting 2 has turned out to be a bit of a weird color combination but I like what’s happening with the circles. The third painting could technically qualify as being in the prep phase, but what I have found with my new approach to the Reclamation series is that the creative process is actively engaged in that phase as I have to figure out the layout, experiment with the arrangement of the materials for the assemblage, finalize areas to be masked and plan for the gauged-out lines.


Painting 3, in the early phases of planning the assemblage:

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Painting Complete?

I actually finished this one last Thursday, but I keep pondering whether it is complete. I feel like it needs something, but I am at a complete loss as to what that might be. So I am leaving it alone for the moment and moving on to other pieces. There is one thing I really like about this one and that is the lower left quadrant with the three circles. I really like what happened in the removal process and the reapplication of thinned white, that juxtaposition of transparent and opaque. I almost wish the whole painting was just that area. In fact, my intention is to try that again on one of my next pieces, making it more of a focal point. So here it is, I'm calling it a "Quadrant" for right now. It may remain as is, it may be painted further, it may get completely painted over. As a matter of fact, this one is a complete paint-over of an older painting that I was never really happy with. Sometimes a canvas gets painted over as many as three times before I get something that I like.

Quadrants 3, 24 x 24, acrylic on canvas, 2008

Friday, July 11, 2008

Another sold from the Guild's Studio Sale

Industria #12, 12" x 12", acrylic on canvas, 2005

This piece was originally painted for my very first art show back in '05 at Remmi Fine Art Gallery in Denver, CO.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Struggling still…

I had really hoped that something would have “occurred” to me by now to solve this little painting’s dilemma. Last night I put in some thin horizontal lines in the lower right quadrant, an effect that I like, but it seems I always resort to that when I am in conflict over a painting’s direction. Then I put in some circles. The balance seems off there, I need to glaze that big one down a LOT, even though I did a removal procedure after I painted it in so it’s not even as strong as initially applied. I like the smaller circles in the lower left, but that area muddied up a bit in the removal process (black always does that). And now I am in quandary over the little horizontal strip applied in the lower center portion. I got the idea to put something there from removing some of the masking tape from an earlier session. I re-use my masking tape sometimes, and this piece of tape had masked some other painting while I was using red. I just tacked the tape in the lower area of the painting, just to get it out of the way while I toiled at some other task but when I stepped back and looked at the painting the strip of red seemed just what the painting needed, a little unexpected color. So last night, remembering that little observation, I actually masked off a small area and applied the red. But now I am not so sure. I may have to paint over a bit, we’ll see what happens tonight!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Struggling…

Well, I haven’t been able to completely salvage this one yet. It started out as a “Quadrant” painting and I suppose it still has the look. What is different about this one from the other Quadrants is that I went back to brush painting and my previous two Quadrants were painted primarily with a knife. The knife yields a different look from the brush, in some ways a more interesting result, but then there are things that happen with a brush and very thinly layered glazes that I find myself missing in knife paintings. You can see my inspiration layouts tacked up on the wall, I have obviously completely abandoned those references in any but the most general way.

This work is far from complete, it still needs circles and additional embellishments. Maybe it will be a “Quadrant”, maybe it will become something else completely.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Friday's Disappointment, Saturday's Success

Friday was a bad painting day, the work in progress just wasn’t going anywhere. But I had gotten an idea for a piece that I thought I could include as a sample in my Guild Sourcebook 2009 ad, so in between bad painting sessions with the one that wasn’t going anywhere, I worked on the assemblage for this piece which I have entitled Interplay. By Saturday, it was ready to receive paint and I was ready to paint something good after Friday’s “disaster” (actually, I believe I can salvage that painting, but that’s a post for another day). Interplay was fun to paint, in fact it was almost magic.

Interplay, 2008, 36” x 12”, acrylic on canvas

Art for the Guild ad is due on the 15th, so I really wanted to include at least one piece that was truly representative of my work, either a Sticks & Stones or a Reclamation. This one obviously falls into the latter category (Reclamations are no longer numerically designated, they now get unique titles) and although there are probably things I would change in terms of layout, I am overall pleased with the outcome. I have decided to include Interplay along with Strata, my other recent favorite. The two are different enough, yet both are indicative of new directions. I even did a layout of the ad in QuarkXpress to see how the page will look:

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Just Sold from the Guild's Studio Sale!

Sticks & Stones #39, 2008, 30" x 15", acrylic on canvas

I just painted this one a couple of weeks ago (see post entitled "New Direction").

Monday, June 30, 2008

The return of passion…

To my surprise, I had a magic painting yesterday! Strata was a planned painting, inspired after my experimentation on Composition 6 and Dapple earlier this year. Both of those paintings were interesting learning experiences for me, but they were by no means “magic”. Yet I knew there was something in both of those pieces that I wanted to pursue. Composition 6 was completely “evolutionary” in nature, meaning that I had no idea what was going to happen when I approached the blank paper, not even an idea of color. One thing just lead to another, and finally I had something that I liked. Dapple was a take-off from the former as I tried to recapture some of the amazing mistakes that had happened in the first piece. I even used the same color palette. From there I did a few layouts in Adobe Illustrator, and that is when I got the idea for Strata. So when I started this piece late Saturday evening, I had had a definite idea of where it was going. Even so, starting with a firm idea in my head does not insure I will have a successful painting. But from the minute I laid in the initial background glazes, I had the excitement that has eluded me for (seemingly) months. I couldn’t seem to leave the painting alone. I took several breaks throughout the day to run errands, and yet I wanted to get back to work on it. I even wired it last night at 10:00pm and hung it up!

Strata, 2008, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas


Inspirations: Composition 6 and Dapple


The layout for Strata (Adobe Illustrator)