Linger and Lollop

So this is how they turned out, the pieces on paper that I was working on last weekend. They took an unexpected turn in a completely different direction and ended up looking like this, no bright colors, no blue, no orange. Still, I like how they turned out.

Linger (left) and Lollop (right)

18 x 18, Acrylic on Paper

Progressives of New Work

So now that I am once again inspired to make paintings, I thought it would be interesting to post the progress of a project. Shown below is the beginning of a new set of paintings, inspired by a study I did in my new "messy" style. The piece that inspired this is shown below, entitled "Arte de Natura (a study)". It's a small piece, painted on paper. I enjoyed painting it. It happened kind of magically. I love when that happens.

So the pictures below show the start of the new pieces. The idea is that they coordinate with one another, ideally ultimately hanging together. So I paint them simultaneously. This picture was taken after two painting sessions, each about 30 to 40 minutes each.

Then I changed my mind! I was liking the general direction/color scheme and then I hit a block. I couldn't see where to take these. They were too unfinished to be paintings, but I couldn't tell where they needed to go. I started to worry about creative block again, so I knifed over the whole thing and started over. The next post will show the two and how they ultimately turned out. So different! The new ones look more like "Reverie" and "Fall Where They May" than the "Arte de Natura" study. It's funny how these things take unexpected turns!

Latest email blast from the Artful Home

Well, I was very excited to see one of my new paintings featured on the Artful Home’s latest email campaign! Below is an image of the blast as it looked in my email program. Click on the picture to see it full-size. Notice how all the art pieces are color-coordinated in this well-designed blast. "Fall Where They May" goes perfectly with the other items depicted!

Check out the Artful Home:

http://www.artfulhome.com/

The Latest Sticks & Stones

Immediately after the paintings in my previous post, I did a couple of Sticks & Stones in this new looser style. These did not happen as "magically" as as those in the previous post. They started off in a completely different color scheme. Then I changed my mind. Then I changed my mind again. They finally ended up here, not as planned, and I still wasn't so sure when I finished them. It took a couple of days, but these really grew on me. Now I wouldn't consider a different color palette for these. I absolutely love them. They are works on paper measuring 20 inches square and were originally painted for consideration by the poster company, who showed no interest whatsoever. Not able to sell these on the Artful Home, I have posted them online elsewhere for sale, where to my continued disappointment there continues to be  no interest. I have decided that if they do not sell by August, I will take them to the local framer and have them professionally framed for my house. I will hang them in the living room side by side and enjoy them myself! So here they are, the latest in my Sticks & Stones series: #s 60 and 61.

Long time, no paintings…

Okay, well it's been a while since I've posted. And truth be known, painting dropped off for me shortly after that last post in '08. I can't really explain what happened. I guess I just got caught up in the day-to-day work-friends-life experiences and simply lost touch with the creative painting process. I did a few commissions in '09, painted a couple of small pieces in '10 but I didn't create a single painting in the year 2011! It recently came to my attention that my website didn't have any new work in the "new" section. I decided to update the site and discovered how long it had been!

I missed making paintings. I often wondered what it would take to "get it back". I hoped, even prayed for the turnaround. While I occasionally felt "stirrings", nothing seemed to materialize from them. There were a couple of times when I sat down in front of the easel, wanting to paint but nothing happened. I started to disregard the stirrings. Until this past February…

So things have turned around a bit and I have been painting. It started with some figurative work that I had an urge to do, evolving into a return to the abstracts. And the paintings are a little different. Looser, without my usual hard edges and I'm liking what's happening now. Even my color palette has brightened up considerably. Whereas primary colors used to look so "wrong" on my canvases (please understand I have always loved bright colors, just not in my own paintings), now I think it looks completely wonderful!

Two of my recent favorites are shown here that I posted on the Artful Home (artfulhome.com). The first is titled "Reverie" and the second is "Fall Where They May".

Ah, it's good to be painting again.

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.

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…