Behind the Magic 8 Ball

This morning I worked on my pro bono, non-profit Hand to Hand pieces, adding red acrylic painted edges. I am going to add a snippet of barbed wire to each one, so they will be my first mixed media pieces as well.

After a restorative nap, I worked on Periodical, painting in the Magic 8 ball, and the binding cover of the dictionary


Here's a detail. I think it went pretty well.

Periodical Blues

Great painting day. Worked on the dictionary, the chest, and the lock. This stage, when you're turning blank canvas into image feels so productive. Once there's paint all over, it goes back to looking rough and sketchy, but now it's like galloping along with the wind at your back.

Periodical Blues

Worked on roughing in the blue drapery, and the blue and gold star background. After a week of painting images of the Iraq war, I'm enjoying returning to my series on journalism.

Hand to Hand project July 13-18

I finalized the six images I am doing for the Hand2Hand project. I've done my preliminary sketches, drawn them directly on the wooden cut-outs, and painted them.
There's a crashing helicopter, a shrouded corpse being lowered into a grave, a sniper in front of car with a shattered windshield, a pilgrim holding a dying child, a woman in a burkha holding a shovel by a shattered cross, and a woman sewing camo quilts for army cots. Each image corresponds to a specific story in the news this past week. Still have some background and detail work to do. Painting the child was painful.

Blood & Knavery Hot

Not yet varnished, but finished.

Paintings x 7

Here's one of the first flower paintings. I went back over the leaves this afternoon, but white takes slightly longer than forever to dry, so refining the petals will have to wait. I hope I can keep the soft, gauzy feel when I deepen the value changes. I want all the creamy edges to melt.


And here's some backgrounds I've blended for a painting of hydrangeas, falling through the frame like it's raining hydrangeas, and another magnolia. I'm not sure the opalescent colors will read on this photo, but you get the idea.

There is something very relaxing about doing small paintings with a single focus, after working for months on large, complex paintings.


Here's Blood & Knavery Hot - I added the burnt match and the wisp of smoke from the candle, all the detail of the B&K plate, and brightened up the book pages yesterday.

B&K Cold is lagging a little behind, but not far.

And today I mixed a dozen blues for Periodical Blues, and started on the background drapery

At last count, I'm working on seven paintings. By the 18th I'll be working on 13, counting the six small works for the Hand to Hand project. I've gessoed the wooden cut outs and am ready to start.

My goal is to finish all of these by the end of August. Meanwhile, I am not starting anything else, no matter how tempting the idea is. I feel like Ben-Hur during the chariot race.

On the positive business side, HHFA sold the Delft Swing, and last Friday we shipped Rembrandt at the Kunsthistoriche to Hawaii.

Home from the north woods

Back from the north woods of Wisconsin and happy to be up to my elbows in paint again. Finished drawing Periodical Blues yesterday; blue drapery and background, with The New Yorker and Art in America magazines beside a globe that's next to a huge Webster's dictionary, a Magic 8-ball and a crystal ball. Subscription cards are falling, similar to the falling tarot cards in Publishing's Bleak House.
Also did a life-size drawing of a magnolia on a 10x10" canvas. I mixed petal colors (about 20 variations on 'white', plus green for the leaves) all morning. I'm got the neutrals of the vague drapery background blocked in.