acrylic painting
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
2D Pine Cone, diagonal 28 x 28 x 1 inches, acrylics on woven canvas strips, wrapped sides painted, signed on the back so as not to intrude on the design.
Norway Maple: finished, combined posts
Friday, April 9th, 2010
Norway Maple, 36H x 48W x 3D inches acrylics, gel paste on canvas, wrapped sides painted, navy colored narrow frame.
Thumbnails: Combined, edited posts of progression between Dec. 8th, 2009 – March, 2010. Started December 8th, 2009: modeling gel is available in varied textures, finishes and viscosity. Acrylics paint can be mixed with the medium or when dry paint can be applied over top. 3) January 18th, 2010: applying modeling paste to the base painting and sculpting with a small trowel.
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Jan. 28th:– used a dry brush so paint would catch mostly on the textures, and kept the feeling soft. Intentions are to maintain the fresh pure colors. Studied from a distance for about a week after this stage to contemplate what the next move will be.
Feb. 27th: lighter background colors were added in order to open up the space.
Feb. 28th: Adding a solid patch of turquoise to lower left and some tiny details like that may ground the whole thing, but that’s about it; am leaving it out of sight for a while. This really is a carnival of color, I love it!
March 9th: Subtle changes since last post…have been working more on tones in the background which weren’t planned initially; I had hoped to use only pure colors without the usual layering, but it’s otherwise too hard to look at. Also am connecting a few shapes horizontally, and it’s almost “there”, but ‘2D Pinecone’ was started in the meantime to avoid overworking this.
March 6th: Thanks, Virginia for taking the time to write and digitize a detailed, objective critique. I sure appreciate your opinion about what might improve this.
A Heart Filled to the Brim
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
A Heart Filled to the Brim, 36H x 48W x 2D inches, water soluble graphite, acrylics on canvas. On exhibit along with Polypore Fungi February through May at the Oxide Gallery, Denton, Texas
An excerpt from the song, I Don’t Believe by Paul Simon on the CD, Surprise:
I don’t believe a heart can be filled to the brim
then vanish like mist as though life were a whim.
Maybe the heart is part of the mist
And that’s all that there is and could ever exist.
A portrait of Alzheimer’s honoring my Grandmother, my Mother-in-law (whose portrait this is, and whose 80th birthday is in two days), and now recently my own Mother who is in the earliest stages; and with empathy for all those afflicted, including the families dealing with the awful emotional reverberations caused by this disease.
Here are a few websites providing information about Alzheimer’s Disease
http://www.alz.org/index.asp
http://www.alzheimersrxtreatment.com/learnaboutalz.html
http://www.alzheimers.org/
Norway Maple, work in progress
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Norway Maple, work in progress: 36H x 48W x 2D inches acrylics, will sculpt edges of leaves with modeling paste medium on canvas. Gallery wrapped sides painted. The watercolor classes really helped with awareness of color choices, keeping those colors pure and marks fresh, and also a desire to leave more abstract elements alone; less realism and more expressionism. All of those things will be magnified in this painting.
After today, blogging and Artwork will be infrequent until mid-January. Driving up to western Canada, there will be plenty of snow-covered trees and winter photo opportunities along the way to Alberta, B.C. and back. Working up until the last possible moment, I started this painting of purple Maple leaves that were seen in Madison, WI during late August. Modeling/Molding paste will be applied, then painted with acrylics when dry, this will be a 3 dimensional-ish painting.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Learning to give critique
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Creating Art and talking about are truly two different ways of seeing; the theory of right and left-brain thinking is matter of fact. As an Artist it takes some effort to “switch brains” and reflect on the processes and progress of work in order to accompany my Art with writing on this blog, so I’m really impressed with the mature quality of the critiques given by students at Olive Stevens Elementary School of paintings on their school Art blog every month.
In collaboration with Oxide Gallery, the Denton school has started a blog where students – or anyone else actually – can give a critique of a different work of Art each month. This month the comments regard the recently finished Sounds of Silence, which is also at the gallery.
Exhibition Opening Dec. 1st
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Chapala Wind, 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted
Upcoming exhibition: monthly featured artist at Oxide Gallery in Denton, TX. Among the items on exhibit: most of the Magic Square series, Dawn at Bell Rock, Sounds of Silence, Polypore Fungi, Shadows of Summer, Eastern White Pine, and three of the vintage chairs. Opening Reception Tuesday, December 1st, 6:00 p.m. – 8 p.m., and the show runs until December 31st.
Dawn at Bell Rock
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Dawn at Bell Rock, Arizona – 24H x 18W x 2D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, trim frame. Below: phases 01, 02 and 07
The Sound of Silence
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
The Sound of Silence, 36H x 24W x 2D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, narrow frame – finished today. After a second application of mask medium only on the snowflakes this time, some unbleached titanium and yellow ochre brought color back to the trunks. Snowflake mask was then removed.
Oct 13th, above: Phase 01 and 02
Oct 14th, Phase 03 and 04: Mask medium removal, then highlighting snowflakes.
500X Gallery: Landscape
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Saint Catherine’s Sunset, Ontario, Canada – 11H x 11W x 3D acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, showingOctober 1 0 – 31st, 2009 500X Gallery Open Show: Landscape, 500 Exposition Ave. Dallas, TX. Opening Reception Saturday, October 10th, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Oxide Gallery 1st Year Anniversary celebration today, Tuesday October 6th, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Happy Anniversary Oxide Gallery!
I’ll be giving a demo on the use of Masking Fluid in acrylics paintings, so come and reveal one painting by helping to peel off the rubberized mask – I don’t even know what it looks like underneath, so it will be a surprise for all of us. Techniques on applying the fluid will be demonstrated on another painting already in progress. Three pieces accepted in the current show at Oxide Gallery are:
Perpetual painting
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Like music
where silence between the notes sets the rhythm,
not painting is half the work.
For all artists, the most mysterious question of all might be “is it finished?” , but for the sake of clarity and the examples here I’ll just refer to painters. One popular opinion is that the best painting is one that’s finished quickly; one that retains the artist’s first fresh impressions, otherwise it should be painted over or tossed in the garbage and a new one started immediately. There are solid reasons for not lingering too long on a painting, but in matters of the Art I’m always suspicious when I hear the word should being used in a sentence containing advice. Some art rumors are accepted as absolute when they could stand some explanation. It can be confusing enough for the experienced, but especially for beginners looking for ground rules and a map to follow.
In Art though, for every should there is another option. The same suggestions don’t work for everyone. Have you ever felt guilty or embarrassed – even ashamed – because you took a painting too far? I have, but it’s only when I’ve compared my work and methods to others’ judgment that I should’ve quit while I was ahead…and guilt has no business hanging around in our daily work if it isn’t useful! Frustration can be an excellent motivator if it’s allowed to be.
If it’s going to make sense – not exclusively the sole intention – every painting reaches stages where we need to make the call to leave it alone and say it’s finished, or proceed; stages where placing one more mark means the entire painting has to change and be brought up to par around it. If things that need correcting are not dealt with honestly, the work will not be as successful as it could be. There are phases in each painting that are truly intimidating, when painting is anything but leisurely; when we’re faced with: do we climb that mountain or not?
A lot of Plein Aire artists swear that their methods of painting outdoors on-site produce the highest quality work. The limitations of sunlight, location, outdoor temperatures and so on, mean that to finish successfully they need to splash down a lot of information within a short period of time. Doing so, when the thinking brain is disengaged and just responding to the subject, a lot of amazing unintentional surprises show up in the painting. Spontaneity and spurts of enthusiasm for being fully in the present tense can bring great results that need no further efforts at the end of the day. Plein Aire artists are in a field of their own (literally too!).
It’s a curious thing how creativity warps and reforms into amazing things when pressure is applied. Many people who aren’t artists will agree that the greatest ideas can occur when under pressure to produce them. For those who have orders to complete, at its best the challenge is like a beautiful sort of panic, where there’s an understanding of the time restrictions while fully trusting that whatever needs to happen is going to be successful. The abilities are less trustworthy when the pace and demand for finished work increases, time allotted decreases and the quality of the product diminishes. If this imbalance continues over extended periods of time, like years, sloppy and care-less habits take hold too easily. If there is work that must be accomplished though, these things can be controlled to some extent –this is one benefit of pushing personal boundaries: it puts tenacity to practice – but creativity is fickle and that’s a fact.
What has all that got to do with the question about finishing? The best paintings are not necessarily those that are finished in a few hours or a day. There are other purposes for painting besides finishing it to admire, be admired or to sell. Nothing replenishes the quality of our creative energy like being lost in the timeless, pure enjoyment of study and detail for no reason in particular. “The Zone” is like an addiction where the high is fairly elusive but we’re compelled compulsively to track it down again and again, discovering and rediscovering the source of it all. One painting could be someone’s lifetime of work.
I’m saying that if you personally feel you’d like to keep going with a painting for days or years… or never finish, then you ought to follow your own intuition about it. I’m not saying you should. I just recommend considering what other artists say, but also consider each painting as a new experience with new rules, new goals and new circumstances.
Experience, masterpiece to failure, will always apply to future work somehow. That’s the great thing about painting: no time spent searching for answers is ever wasted. It’s all recyclable material! Every decision about finishing – or not – is relative to individuality, and relative to each new painting as it develops your way.
Pushing the boundaries
Myrtle At The Zoo, first version, Phase 18, unfinished – Crepe Myrtle branches and seedpods – 20 x 34 x 2 inches acrylics on canvas, gallery wrapped.
Work daily March 10th through April 2nd, 2008:
Finished for now…this one needs a rest, and I may or may not return to it. Regardless, I’ve learned a lot ad enjoyed playing with different ideas. It’s been interesting teetering back and forth between frustration and fun, but sometimes that’s what painting is all about. There’s been such a tension over this one as with no other painting, where the urge to throw it away is pitted against the determination to see what could happen. I still like a lot of things in it, such as the technique of dripping paint down the front that I’ve tried in previous paintings. Dripping re-energized the painting and me, and took the work in unexpected directions.
Myrtle At The Zoo, 2nd version – 11 x 11 x 3 inches acrylics on canvas, gallery wrapped sides painted. Many of the issues were worked through on the previous larger version, and I’m pleased with this boxy little painting…still not completely satisfied that I’m finished with this subject because it’s so complex, and it’s like a puzzle that’s nagging at me to figure out, so will probably attempt this same painting at least one more time.
Perpetual painting
Painting animals with distinct and specific characteristics calls for a different approach from start to finish, for example, compared to generic landscapes. The boas are one of my favorite exhibits at the Dallas World Aquarium, downtown Dallas, Texas. The phosphorescent green skin has striking black and white scale patterns along the spine and a turquoise mother-of-pearl overall sheen that’s most visible at certain angles where the body delicately curls and bends, so this painting accumulates finer detail than is typical of my work, except in graphite illustrations.
Emerald Tree Boas, 24 x 57 x 2 inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted (August, 2005 – ? )
As shown in the thumbnail above, there are only a few small things left to do, a little on the skin then some barely visible brushstrokes in the background like ones that were there in earlier phases, thumbnail…so it really is just about finished, but I’m not in any hurry. Of course I’ll stop in my tracks if you want to buy it!
I like having one painting around that’s going to get the full treatment! Emerald Tree Boas has become like an old friend, even hanging out celebrating holidays in the dining room with the rest of us. It would be nice if this painting could carry enough potency to alter the automatic responses of fear and disgust that are associated with snakes. It just occurred to me that it might be fun to offer the buyer an assortment of hats and hearts and ribbons for different occasions. Where I used tape, instead I’d put magnets on the back and magnets on all the little hats and accessories. It’s a little nutty maybe, but it also opens up the target market a little doesn’t it!
Nature is perfectly imperfect. I paint with acrylics, so if the surface is washed back and scrubbed regularly in areas that need change. Scrubbing paint away with a pot scrubber or wet cloth used to remove paint helps texturize, give atmosphere, and also ensure that paint won’t cake up in areas, unless that’s the intention. More debates about spending too long on a painting are that it stiffens the whole look and feel because 1) it tidies things up too much, and 2) due to the plastic properties of acrylics, if they are allowed to pile up they will harden and shine, no longer catching the tooth of the canvas.
These are all things that can also be used to advantage though. In sports you need to know your opponent… well the same is true here. You can use the buildup to create the effects it produces if that’s what you want to achieve. To keep the canvas texture for as long as possible, paint diluted with gels or water is perfect to start, then as confidence builds, so can your applications of paint. My philosophy is that if things need to change they do, until the word “finished” is loud and clear.
…practice and even failure can be applied to future work…
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