Subscription cards

Spent the morning working on Periodical Blues - filled in the three subscription cards, and most of the New Yorker cover.

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.

all the balls in the air

My life as a painter is blend of old tools and new technology, big projects and small experiments. I like that.
Lots of paintings and drawings in progress -
•B&K hot is nearly complete.
•I revisited the Tarot card painting and sharpened up some edges of card and reflections, plus another layer of color and texture on the rug.
•Gridded a new linen canvas gessoed with clear gesso (!) for the Periodical Blues.
•Picked up the photos of magnolias, hydrangeas and mimosas I shot this week. They look simple and fun to experiment with. I have to decide what size to make them and whether to paint them on canvas or board. I am thinking of them as little vacations from the big Metamorphosis project.
*I'm excited to be part of Cecelia Kane's Hand to Hand project. http://www.handtohandproject.com/
My task is to pick a news story about Iraq a day from any source (radio, online, newspapers) and create one glove or hand art in response for Monday July 13 through Saturday July 18. I'm to use my normal media (oil) and preferably come at the war issues from the angle of the imagery that I am already using in my art. I'm supposed to date the gloves and can be literal or abstract with the headlines. Being me, my images with be representational and in oil on board. Robert cut six (plus two for back up) glove shapes out of wood for me. Somehow I will have to find a way to make the imagery I choose personal as well as about the war.
•Tomorrow I gesso the cut outs and work on the drawing of Blues.

today's art brought to you by the letter A.

B&K Cold: worked on both letters A, the number 8 and the top third of the cat. Also did more on the front right hand side of the silver tray and some interesting orangish reflections along the lip of the tray.


B&K Hot: Worked on both letter A's, letter P, numbers 7 & 8, the candle, and the business end of the hammer.

progress on B&K Hot and Cold

Worked on B&K Cold yesterday - mostly went over the background adding another layer of color and beginning to add texture and details.


Today, after a morning of ferocious weeding, I worked on B&K Hot building up the colors on the dresser and the candlestick, some more of the bottom book pages and added to the darks here and there. I am going to add a burnt kitchen match below the candlestick.


Saving the detail work on the metal plates for dessert.
We started setting up my little portable studio on wheels in the dining room. I have a new still life set up I want to photograph. And I have an idea about adding a background to the objects that goes a little bit in the direction of magical realism. instead of the wall, maybe a cloud scape, but ghostly, like a double exposure. I am just thinking about it.

third time is a charm

Friday an email confirmed my acceptance to the Hambidge Residency Program (insert celebratory cartwheel and handstand here). That means for three weeks in October I'll be up in Rabun Gap with room and board, zero distractions, and a studio of my own.
http://www.hambidge.org/Residency/Studios/tabid/65/Default.aspx

I fished it out of my spam folder the other night, after I got home from the Local Color show. When I saw the subject header (Hambidge Residency) I actually groaned. I just knew it was a form email rejection. Well, au contraire, as the French say.
Just being accepted is inspirational. My amphibian artist/writer brain (after a moment of blankness, followed by oh my God, what can I do that's worthy of with all that time?) is teeming with ideas. Something ambitious in terms of complexity and scale. Or something exploratory in terms of story and execution.
Art math: the act of researching the options, plus the thrill of anticipation, equals fizzy creative carbonation.

Falcon, revisited

The peregrine falcon was driving me crazy. I had grown to hate it. I thought about sanding it off, painting it over, cutting it off and re-stretching the canvas. Last night I had decided to paint another painting entirely and retire this to a closet. Thus I had nothing to lose. That is a dangerous and exhilerating place to be, artist-wise.
First, I had to give up on the source photo - it looked just like it, and it failed dismally. I started by deepening some of the shading around the wings and tail, then started trying to re-pattern the center of the breast. I made three or four attempts that didn't work. I decided to blank it out and try for another layer of pattern tomorrow. I ended up with a curve of light I may leave as it is, with a few changes at the edges to blend, a touch more shadow on the left side.



I am light years happier with it. Looking at the whole image, there's a blaze of light bounced off the top of the magazines, the crystal ball and the newspapers. I think the falcon is better integrated into the image with a blaze of light of her own. Or that's my theory.

Hot & Cold

More on B&K Cold.

Everything has one layer of paint except the eponymous plate. I worked on the music plate, the letter balanced on top of it, the two letters balanced beside it, the silver tray, the 8, Y, and two letter As.

Then I worked on B&K Hot.

Did the candle, the books and all of the letters, plus the business end of the hammer.
They work best together, like a pair of fraternal twins.

Blood & Knavery, Cold

I've started a new painting. I have two version of these same elements, one very warm in tone, the other - this one - very cool. It's another in the Metamorphosis series.
I worked on the top book, roughed in one of the metal printing plates, did the wooden corners of two other plates and part of the pages of the bottom book. Worked on two wooden printing blocks, the number eight and the letter p.
This painting, named for one of the plates, is relatively subtle in color. It will go slowly because the detail is exacting. The background - one of my favorite parts on this one - is going to get a lot more texture and detail. The shifts of color and pattern on the piece of sheet metal that's the background are the result of it being tempered and colored by frequent exposure to heat.