Evolution of Art

Sometimes art comes easy.  I just finished up on this piece and I although I stared at it for a few days it just felt done.  

I was trying to make it simple and with geometric shapes.  

And then I added just a few things.  Done!

One Project Down

After many hours of frustration and layers of paint, I am finally done with one of the repurposed canvases from the previous post.

I brought this home and after a few hours of living with it, I decided that I didn't like it after all.  I took the canvas off the frame and cut it apart.  Now I am happy.

This is a 10 x 10 and it comes from the lower right section but now it is upside down from the original.  Keeping in the same vein, I cut an 8 x 8 piece out of the upper right and turned it on its side.  I thought it has a landscape feel.

And finally I cut a 5 x 7 and brought out some shapes that looked like a boat which is a very popular theme around here.

In doing this, I learned a few things

          1. It is really hard to use a repurposed canvas from some one else.

          2. My new favorite color is zinc white.

          3. Abstracts look better as a square.

          4. It is ok to cut a canvas apart and stick it in a frame.

More Projects

I have several works in progress at the moment, two of which are below.  I started with a page from a wallpaper book and painted with acrylic, oil sticks, and maybe something else.  I am concurrently working on three canvasses so these will be sitting for quite a while.  Maybe Should finish what I start before moving on.

Workshop

I had the pleasure of taking a two day class with Teresa Girard.  I have admired her work for a number of years and the class did not disappoint.  I left artistically energized and I am looking forward to applying what I learned for more pieces.  This is my best effort of the day:

These are my usual marks but what is different is the dark colors.

These are some quick color studies.  The middle one was made in two minutes by cleaning off the pallet.  I did not have a a lot of paint left on my pallet.  What a great class.

Progression of WorkI

I thought I would go step by step on how my latest piece came to be.  I started off with a layer of collage and some gray paint.  I used some pattern pieces, tissue and some hand made paper.  As an afterthought I put some red paint from the top of the tube and then used a small brayer to smear some of it around.

This is actually step 3 because I had painted over the whole thing with transparent yellow oxide and I kind of liked it.  I wanted to get out of my usual thing by making waves with black, white, more gray, burnt sienna and some ugly brown paint.

 

I wanted to get rid of that ugly brown paint so I covered everything over with white and then softened it with a paper towel and water.

This became the final version but the thing I like best about working with paper is that you don't have to like all of it.

This is the final version.  I cropped out the right hand side and I am saving cropped ends of papers for some future project.

Finally Done

After at least two other incarnations, this is finally done and I am very pleased with myself.  As you can see, it is nothing like the previous posts and maybe that is how this ended.  Any thoughts?

Bits of the other incarnations show through in the corners.  Come to think of it, this is upside-down.

Works in Progress

Here is what I have been working on for the past few days.  This piece started out as this

and then I cut it down to a square

but I was not happy with it because I thought it was just another thing I did.  In other words, it was too much like all the other things I do.  So back to the drawing board and I came up with this:

In retrospect, maybe it was not so bad and at least it was different from what I had been doing.  To make along story short, it did not stay this way.  More on this later.

Yipes! Stripes!

I had some fun making stripes.  These are acrylic on bristol paper.  It is a fun exercise that Jane Davies does on her website so I thought I would give it a try.  I do not know what I will do with them but I think they would look fine by themselves.

I bought a new paint in a tube from Michael's (I forget exactly what it is called) but it makes a fine line with dimensions which is the mark on the upper left.  Maybe I should have started with a clean piece of paper.

This is the second piece I did.  I think I will do some more but with more defined lines.

More on the Previous Post

I have continued working on the previous post and other things.  At this point I am overworking it and it has has many incarnations, none of which make me want to stop and say it is done.  Nevertheless, I am pressing on with it.  The most important thing I learned is to never buy cheap white paint.  It just seems to get sucked into the paper and makes things muddy.

This, however, is done.  It is my experiment with the limited pallet using only black, white, red and yellow.  It is Portland Head Light  from a photo I took last summer.

I started off painting loose but as usual I got fussy with the details.  I discovered that I have no idea how to paint rocks but I am pleased with the over all drawing.

Inspired Work

I have been a follower of Jane Davies' blog for quite some time.  One of her videos shows the 5 minute painting which I thought I would try. I have to say I cheated because once I started, I liked what I saw and continued on for a lot more than 5 minutes.

This is acrylic on a recycled piece of watercolor paper.  I gave it a crop and popped the colors a bit with more paint and my trusty water soluble oil pastels.  I want to add something like a big circle or bold lines but I'm not sure that will be over doing it.  We'll have to see.

A New Revelation

I realized something the other day.  What I realized was if you did not like a painting and decided to recycle it by painting over it, the painting will retain its original character.  In other words it wants to remain ugly and unappealing.  The resulting make over will be a long, painful and frustrating struggle to change its attitude and become beautiful if it is even possible.  So when do you give up or not?

I came upon this discovery when I did a makeover on a wood panel which wasn't too bad to begin with but I just wanted it to be more.  A few new colors later, and voila! a new work that i am very happy with.

Fast forward to an 18 x 24 canvas which was discarded by one of my studio mates.  Yes, I pick trash.  But let me tell you, this was not an easy fix and it wasn't even my work!  I repainted at least 5 times and today I finally have something worth keeping.  I guess it was worth the struggle but I am glad it is almost done.

I began by asking the canvas what it wanted to be.  I didn't hear anything so I decided  to make it a bouquet of flowers even though I don't paint flowers.  It has become abstract/impressionist  or something like that.

Sorry, no pictures. Still the camera thing.  I don't know how to send pictures from my phone to the blog.

Patterns

I have been thinking about patterns which also happens to be the next theme for the Attleboro Arts Museum national juried show next year.  So many ideas, so little time.  Here is what I did with that in mind.  It is acrylyc on canvas. 30 x 40 and  it is currently hanging at the Wickford Art Association in their abstract show.  It was kind of fun to do and I was thinking about making it into a series such as greens, reds, etc.  I called it 50 Shades of blue.

Workshop Photos

I thought I would post some pictures of some of the pieces that may have potential from my recent workshop with Dean Nimmer.  All of these were done as 11 x 17 on copy paper which can take a lot of abuse.

The leaves were from a raised stencil using water soluble oil pastel, my favorite thing

This was just acrylic paint, layered and water added

Layered acrylic paint with a collograph print

This was begun by another student and I added the circles and more water

New Work

I haven't decided whether or not this is done.  It just came together a little quickly and I'm wondering if the blue lines look a little too forced.  Abstract looks so easy and effortless but nothing is further from the truth.  Where are my muses?

This is a 12 x 12 acrylic on a wood panel.  I have been using Dick Blick's matte acrylic in celadon and I love the color as suggested by  Artist and Author Jane Davies of Vermont.  I would love to take one of her classes.

A New Canvas

I was using up some old art supplies the other day and I thoughtI would just have some fun. I hadn't used black gesso as a base coat for a long time so I just slapped some on and went with the brightest colors in the drawer.

I didn't give it too much thought and just went for the color.  It is a 16 x 20 canvas in acrylic.