So it's only been four months

Oh well....pretty much all abstracts

Working title "Weeds", ink, pen and acrylics, 24 x 20

Rain, acrylics on canvas, 20 x 16

Untitled, acrylics on canvas 24 x 36

A landscape this time.

I haven't done many landscapes and even fewer have ultimately worked.  I have a book by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher, that has helped me over the last 5 or six years.  I love the cover, a photo of a park in the late fall.  Here's my version of the scene.

The Park.  Acrylics and charcoal on canvas.  18 x 24

A new abstract

This sort of started with a small study I did.  It wasn't intended but Karen immediately said, "What's the little nude about."  That's how her mind works I guess!  This was weeks ago.  So I took a big canvas that had not one, but two (maybe 3?) failed paintings under coats of gesso.

I started with the study and it went fairly well.  Here's what ultimately happened...

Another Nude.  Ink, acrylics on canvas.  24 x 30

Some more pieces based on photos...

First, good news, a friend has bought Dancing Alone and Together which basically didn't change much from what I put in the previous blog post.

Below I've posted two more.  The first is vaguely based on a photo of Robert Mapplethorpe from the Patti Smith memoir.  It is pretty simple at this point and Karen is voting on leaving it that way.  I've played with this photo of the piece in the Gimp (an open source Photoshop) and I'm still on the fence.

Robert.  Ink and acrylics on watercolor paper. 9 x 13

The next one is from a photo on the cover of Art in America.  There are a couple of more realistic versions in previous posts but this one is much more of a departure.  It has already changed some since I photographed it this am and there will likely be more changes.

Untitled.  Oil pastels and acrylics on watercolor paper.  9 x 13

I'm surprised I haven't posted this! New art

I was sure I had posted this but I guess maybe I only sent it to Facebook.  This piece that started as an abstract and ended up something else.  I framed it yesterday and it looks really nice with a black mat and gold leaf wood frame.

Buddha in the Garden.  Pencil, charcoal, acrylic, maybe a bit of oil pastel on watercolor paper.  14 x 16

Quick post before my flight

I'm off to ATL for a few days but I finished something this weekend.  So before I head out...

Jacqueline (based on a Man Ray photo.)    Pencil, charcoal, conte pencil, acrylic on watercolor paper

Back to abstract....

I've wanted to get back into abstracts lately but I was stuck. Nothing seemed to work. I broke down and bought a book by Rolina van Vliet called "Painting Abstracts: Ideas, Projects and Techniques."  Generally I'm cheap -- by spending $$ on a book I effectively forced myself to try some new abstracts.  (FWIW, the same technique, in this case paying for 3 months at the gym, seems to be working!)  Both are acrylic on 12 x 16 canvas board.

The invitation for my new show

I hung most of the pieces today at the Red Bicycle Coffee Shop in Chapel Hill. Photos of many of the pieces -- acrylics, oil pastels, photography -- are on Flickr. I hope you'll stop by, the show will be up through December.

A couple more....

These are two that are long in coming.



The first is actually a painting on top of another painting with parts of another painting collaged in. The vertical stripe in the middle is about the only thing left -- well maybe some of the other blue too. It was originally a landscape of a storm we watched in Cape Breton last summer. Another canvas, that I destroyed with a knife in a fit of pique, was cut and pasted in. The white is really just gesso, not paint.

"The Dance" Mixed media, acrylic, gesso, ink? on canvas. 16 x 24 ??



The second continues my experiment with stain and wash ala Frankenthaler and Morris. It's a smaller piece on unprimed canvas using a number of washes over a month or two. A little dark but I think I like it.

"Head in Hand" Acrylic on unprimed canvas. Small, I'll check

A new piece

I've written about how I was overwhelmed by the now closed Color Field exhibit in DC. The grandeur, colors, and sweeping vision of the pieces was very special. I came back enthused and then failed miserably to reflect what I had absorbed into my own work.

Instead of giving up I decided to try using a common material from their repertoire, namely unprimed canvas. I bought some unprimed cotton, mounted it on a board and started staining and washing with color. The piece sat for a while and then I decided to change it up a bit with some splashed blue.

So here it is, a large -- maybe 54" x 36" -- homage to Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Morris Louis and Sam Francis, amongst others.

Blue Moon. Acrylics on unprimed canvas. 54" x 36"

My pieces in the upcoming show

You can take a look at the pieces that (probably) will be in the upcoming show. I reserve the right to swap out a couple but most likely a subset of these 16 will be there.

Oh and here's a brand new one....

Blue Steer. Acrylics and salt on canvas. 18 x 24

The Snake Charmer

I started a canvas about, oh, six months ago. I created an interesting green background with some gold but then I couldn't figure out what to do next. I came back from the Color Field exhibit with inspiration.

The inspiration stank and I figured I had ruined something that had potential. I started working with it and nothing seemed to work much. Finally I pulled out some paper and started to use collage. It gradually began to make sense. Then some blue lines became snakes before my eyes and viola! inspiration, move me brightly.

Snake Charmer. Acrylics and collage on canvas. 24 x 30

Two now finished

There are a couple of pieces in earlier posts that were incomplete. These two are finished (I think; until you, the consumer, buys them there is always a chance they'll change).

This first one continues in the "it's really easy to sit on the couch and paint with my fancy crayons" series -- otherwise known as the Lazy Suite.

Two faces. Oil pastels on watercolor paper. 11 x 13



Second is the big, evil mixed media piece called Satyr. The eyes are Luis Bunuel's.

Satyr. Mixed media, acrylics, ink, cardboard, paper, oil pastel, birch bark from Cape Breton and the kitchen sink. 24 x 30 ??

An old new one and trying something

First here's an old new one. By that I mean a piece that was started long ago and has morphed several times. There's a good bit of paint underneath what you can see.

Unnamed. Acrylics, ink and who knows what else on mat board. 15" x 21"



Something new....I thought it would be interesting to track how a piece changes as I work on it. Okay, so maybe only interesting to me. This may end up at the wrong end of a cul de sac (I made that expression up). I'll show you the good and the bad as I work on this.

I start with the original -- another Man Ray photo, this time T.S. Eliot. So far T.S. is just pencil on watercolor paper.

Yes I really have been painting

My wonderful niece Becca noted that this blog was pretty damn stale. (Actually she was much nicer about it than that, but I can read between the lines.)

I have actually been painting with even an occasional modicum of success. I'm going to post a bunch of things today without much comment just to prove that I'm not just sitting around watching TV, eating chips and burping on the couch.

The second one is my 2007 holiday card. If you don't get one of the cards it's because I don't know you or I don't have your address. The Satyr (top right)is in flux but he really is a bad man.

The rest are either good or bad, small or large, finished or unfinished, acrylics, oil pastels or mixed media, on canvas, plywood, mat board or paper. Nearly none of them have names. Go figure.

Have a wonderful holiday!

It's complete

Down below in a post titled "I've started a new piece" there is a photo taken through the famous window at the top of the stairs. The painting based on the photo is finished now and will be making its way to Louisiana as a Mother's Day present.

It was fun to make and turned out reasonably well. The photo is, as usual, not very good; the bricks are much too red, the blue isn't dark enough and its crooked and poorly cropped but it's the best I could do. I'll try for a few more shots tomorrow before I go to UPS and see if I can do better.

It's a big piece 48" x 60" or so on one of the 2" deep canvases.

Haw River Night. Mixed medium, acrylics and collage on canvas. 48" x 60"

The storm redux

A second take on the storm.



Haw River Storm #2. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 (I think)








Okay, so here is the picture on which the canvas is based. The black part is the wall surrounding the "window" at the top of the stairs. It is really red brick but with the lighting it shows up as black.

The opening at the top of the stairs

In the landing area outside my 3rd floor loft there is an opening, a window of sorts, that overlooks the Haw River. (See the picture below in the post entitled "I've started a new piece".) The view can be astounding like the other day when a storm rolled in during the early evening hours. The clouds were a beautiful blue-gray varying from light to nearly black. I took a bunch of pictures, many framed in various ways by edges of the opening. This is a piece based on one of the photos where the top of the opening is the framing.

Oh yeah, it's not finished....

Haw River Storm #1. Acrylics on canvas. 24" x 16"

New pieces at Carrboro Town Hall

I got four new pieces up at my show.

One is to the right.

"Phantom"

Acrylics on paper

Two others are below in the "Doubt" posting from Friday November 17th. I've edited that post to tell you about them.

The last is a new collage and I framed it before I took a photo. Oops! With the glass I couldn't get a pic worth posting.

Doubt

Sometimes a painting comes together as if by magic.

Other times the magic isn't there and I believe that I have no talent, no ability. I don't create anything, it's only the lucky times when the muse takes over that art results.

Tonight is a "no talent, no ability" time. I am empty.......

These two are now up at my show. On the top left is "City Life"

Paper, Mixed Media, acrylics, pen and ink

On the right and below is a new collage called "Queen".

Paper, Tibetan rice paper, mixed media, acrylics, collage