Spring

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Bonsai Garden, Singapore

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

Bonsai Garden, Chinese and Japanese Gardens, Singapore, 9H x 12W inches graphite on paper, white mat and 15H x 18W inches white frame with crackle finish.

New Series: Twenty-five days in Singapore

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Parkview Square Building, Singapore 11H x 14W inches graphite on paper

The opportunity to travel to Singapore popped up with a few days notice. While I’m here the plan is to do at least one sketch per day. The new series is called “Twenty-five Days in Singapore”. I drew the upper portion of the very unique Parkview Square building from my hotel room over the course of two days while recuperating after the 28 hour flight from Dallas. At a cost of $87 million, the Art Deco style building was completed in 2002. The eight fiberglass figures each holding a light-ball guard the building, only hint at the sort of art and design to expect on the grounds and the gorgeous interior.

Lilacs

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Lilacs, 36H x 24W x 2D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, narrow frame tidies edges. Hang vertically or horizontally.
Process details, left: a damp cloth is used to remove areas of wet paint to soften and create texture, also dripping water over damp paint and scratching with fingernail under a cloth. Sturdy home-built stretcher frame. The painting can hang horizontally or vertically.

Basic Drawing workshops in May

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Iris, 24 x 18 inches Oil Pastels on paper

Basic Drawing and Color Play

Workshops

Dates:
1) Saturday, May 15th 10:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
2) Saturday, May 22nd 10:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Ages: Young adult (16) – Adult – Seniors

Experience Level:
Beginners to Experienced Artists, maximum number of participants: 6

The Workshop:
We will sketch simple objects using a variety of loosening-up techniques, graduating to a more complex still-life arrangement, fun with color, then a longer study period in the afternoon.
Supplies:
Bring favorite reference photos or items that you’d like to study, sketchpad and supplies that you usually work with. A variety of papers and drawing supplies will be on hand to experiment with during class. Also bring beverage and lunch.

Fees:
Registration (pre-paid) – $50.00 Oxide Gallery 501 West Hickory St., Denton, Texas 940-483-8900

Registration Deadlines:
March 12th and March 19th – Maximum Students per Class 6

The perfect place for masking fluid

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Flowering Shavingbrush Tree, April 11th above: details of 85H x 45W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas,wrapped sides painted, trim frame. Still in progress, but the rubberized mask was removed in order to see exactly what stage things are at before continuing. The painting overall still has a few areas to open up; very little work tomorrow should finish it. Shortly after starting the painting I turned it upside down and applied the masking fluid with a toothpick and let it drip. Gravity can be used as a tool!

April 13th, Left: The top third will still leave as much of the primed canvas as possible; a gradation of unfinished space toward more finished at the bottom. I was hoping to leave it as seen here giving an airy illusion, but it does need to develop along with the rest of it…still not as much, but enough to show the main flower better. This means I’ll be once again dripping masking fluid on the piece upside down to preserve the interesting marks that occurred from the 1st application, and also create some new ones with any further work. For previous posts on earliest progress of this painting click here.

Eastern Redbuds

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

Eastern Redbuds – Spring in Dallas, TX – finished April 11, 2009, took off all remaining masking fluid. 11H x 11W x 3D inches, acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted. Signature is on the side, so one is superimposed here on the front. Hang on a wall or display on a flat surface.

Eastern Redbuds is the first of sixteen 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas paintings of various aspects of trees, to hang together as a group or flanking other paintings. This one uses masking medium to block out areas of white. The first layer of dried medium was removed in the above thumbnails. Afternoon post, left: Adding another layer of masking fluid, seen as yellow.

Feb. 25th: below left, looks better turned on its side but it could be hung either direction, mask was removed then the painting was overworked unintentionally – all the marks that were the whole point of using masking fluid are hardly visible.

So on Feb. 26th: below right, more mask was applied, then white painted between branches, tore away a few select areas of the dried mask and left the rest on as texture.

$350.00

The Shavingbrush Tree

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

The Shavingbrush Tree in front of a flowering Jacaranda tree seen in Chapala, Mexico, 85H x 45W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, work in progress. Thumbnail, left: started March 31st

The last painting helped me more aware of how powerful contrasts of light and dark can be. Here, areas of primer will be purposely be left unpainted. I was going to just carefully avoid the white areas and paint around them, but during the second phase I dripped some of the masking fluid to block out a few details in the main flowers. Already it is a very different painting process-wise; right from the start it has felt like a complicated puzzle; that stage doesn’t usually appear until near finishing. The first stages of painting are usually the most liberating but since I never pencil in an outline before painting, I fought a lazy brain right from the start that did not want to map out the placement… which doesn’t make sense because I really really want to paint this one! These are not typically the colors I use either, so there are a few intimidating factors. I hope to maintain fresh, bright Easter colors — partly because this is when they bloom in Mexico. Painting is much like a runner hitting “the wall” but persevering and breaking through it…however in painting there are many walls to conquer.

Oxide Gallery

There are a few pieces hanging at Oxide Gallery, Denton, TX for the next three months: Rocky Mountain Vista, Zen Garden #6, and all four recent encaustic works.

End of Tulip Season

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Finished today: added some life to End of Tulip Season, 14H x 11W oil pastels on paper.

Images of progress

Except for the fact that paper has a limit to how much it can be reworked before it starts stretching, I could keep revising these drawings in the Paper Places series continually! Some of them are finished in a day, and truly finished. Some drawings seem OK when they are finished, but have areas that are not quite there yet, so they are left for a month or a year or two then taken out and reworked. It’s great exercise playing with color and composition. Some are taken too far, but with regard to learning, effort is never wasted. Change characterizes this series too; change of place, change of time, change of styles, changing what’s already been changed.

Magnolia blossom

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Magnolia trees require so much energy to bloom, when they do the older leaves die and drop to the ground, temporarily leaving a rather shabby-looking tree and leaves on everyone else’s yard too. Above: a honey bee checks out the other side of a flower, and next: a flower in transition.

Plans for Sun Shower 04

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

I inadvertently leaned the large painting of Maple Leaves near the framed photo of Sun Shower 03 that hasn’t made its way to storage yet after a show.

Ever since I took that photo, left, last summer I have wanted to use the idea of dramatic light rays in a painting, but not until this morning did I think to use it in Maple Leaves. One idea leads to another; I’m also going to use some tricks I learned during the painting of Sun Shower 01 (2007) where Watercolor masking medium was dotted on the canvas with a toothpick in areas where I wanted water droplets to remain white or lighter in color.

The thumbnails here are details of that work. It worked great but I removed it too soon before finishing and the results weren’t as obvious as I had hoped, so this is another chance to try again. This time it will be creating small streaks, left it on much longer so the vibrancy of all the colors will show through when the medium is pulled off.

The painting could be left as ‘Maple Leaves’ which is how it started out, but it has that bright glare acrylics are notorious for and I see a lot of potential in trying something fantastic with this painting. It’s one of those huge decisions made at key moments in the life of a painting – to risk or not? The 84 x 45 x 3 inch Maple Leaves title is now changed to Sun Shower 04.