"Costumes"

30x48x1.5", mixed media on canvas

I  mentioned in yesterday's post that I was going to be on a community cable show. It was wonderful! The hostess was Pauline, and she was quite a firecracker. There were four guests: Our teacher, another student, and the woman who manages the Radius gallery where we have our current show. We had an hour, and Pauline asked us all questions. Now I want to get a copy of the show.

OK, the piece shown here was a leap. Here's what I did: I put down texture material and added pieces of an old pair of shorts that I had. I slathered some fluorescent orange paint hither and yon. I added some soft tree bark I had, then later pulled it off. Finally, I had found some small white figures, which are probably for architectural layouts, but I liked them and added them to the painting, adhering them with silicone glue . 

Somewhere in there, I added the other colors. I felt I needed to tone down the fluorescent orange, so I painted a mix of yellow ochre and other colors over it. I rolled on the blue-gray with my small paint roller.

Here's a close-up of one of the white figurines and a piece of the shorts. I liked the section with the zipper and button. 

I think I'm learning to live with discomfort. I really wasn't sure this painting was right while I was doing it, but now I like it.

"Volcano"

30x24x1.5", mixed media on canvas

One of the interesting things about creating a dialogue with a painting is that you don't know what will happen. I started working on this, and the half face is what came about. I don't know if I would have done a painting where half the face was out of the picture -- especially the eyes! -- if I hadn't been guided that way. And I certainly didn't have that in mind when I was putting down the texture or adding the random color marks. Whoda thunk?

"Akimbo"

36x36x1.5", mixed media on canvas

This was another one where I threw down the texture material, then created a tremendous mess, then decided what to paint. She was suggested by lines and edges in the painting, which is why it's kind of a dialogue. And I named her Akimbo because she's kind of all corners and knees and wrists.

"Flight"

30x48x1.5", mixed media on canvas

As I've mentioned before, I have a painting process, which is to make a tremendous* mess on the canvas then resolve it. The mess is usually made up of texture materials from the hardware store (patching compound, stucco patch), maybe some paper or sand, and paint thrown hither and yon. This picture was surprisingly difficult, not to paint, but to figure out an approach. When I resolve the tremendous mess, I often look at the painting at different rotations. With this one, I kept turning and turning and turning it. I did some work in resolving the darks and lights. I added more paint texture. I saw various shapes, but I kept returning to a small face I saw, so I finally painted it. Suddenly, the face brought the whole work into focus.

* I like the word "tremendous" here. I used to say I'd make a "terrible mess," but, you know, it's really not terrible. So I looked for a colorful word that would express my effect on the canvas. And I thought of "tremendous." I like it. Today, at least. Could use some other word tomorrow, I suppose.

"Naif"

6x6", oil on canvas board

This one came out looking young. That wasn't on purpose. Just the proportions. But it's interesting.

"Caffeine"

6x6", oil on canvas board

One of the benefits of working small is that you can go over the top. If this was a 36'x36" painting, it would be too much, at least for most spaces.

"Bionic"

6x6", acrylic an mixed media on canvas board

I'm still doing my small paintings of abstract faces, and am still on a roll. I am so strangely fond of these, even though the paintings are funny little things, with weird emotions. Or maybe that's why I'm fond of them.

"Bedazzled"

6x6", oil on canvas board

I've found that it's interesting to use a 6x6" board that I previously painted on. These are paintings I don't like very much, so using them as a base coat is a great way to make them mean more to me. In some cases, I go in and scribble with oil-based pens (I mostly use Sharpies and some Uni brands). Then I like to let some of the scribble work show through. This one is moving further away from reality, but you can still see that it's a face. Or most people can. Not sure if that matters. I'm also experimenting with pencil and scratch lines.

"Blond"

6x6", oil on canvas board

So I called this blog "Painting what feels right" for a reason: I want to create works that come from who I am. In fact, who I am today. Not tomorrow. Not when I was in college. And it feels like I'm starting something good with these faces I'm painting.

The way it came about was that I saw the work of Catherine Woskow, and was blown away by her head series. The paintings seem elemental, emotional, yet also have a focus on the surface qualities of the painting, on textures in the paint. Now, I love texture, but at the same time I've been moving more and more toward figurative work. But while I like some of the things I've done, it didn't seem like I had an arc, a direction. But doing these paintings of abstract faces, with a focus on paint and on character, feels right. Maybe I'll do some figures in there, too.

I've started working small, at least at first. I learned from the still lifes I used to do that executing a lot of small paintings, and doing them frequently, makes you learn really fast.

You know what's weird? I still don't know why I love these. I mean, they're not normal. They're not what people usually want on their walls. They're hard for most people to live with. But maybe a head, a face, is the most basic form of a human picture? Could be. Whatever, it feels right! And that's what matters.

"Not Yet II"

30x48x1.5", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

NFS. This one is a bit of an enigma. I built the texture and threw paint hither and yon, then saw shapes and started to paint, and this emerged. In feeling for the title, I saw a sense of waiting, of holding on, but the posture makes it look to me like someone in the starting blocks for a running race. Which fits the title very well. So I left it.

"Skyward"

30x30x1.5", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

This was another painting that started differently. I was painting along, fighting with it (as I've said, some paintings are fighters), then got frustrated because it just looked wrong. So I started turning it, looking at it this way and that, until I saw an image I liked. I started to bring that out, and this is what happened. And it's kind of unusual. You don't usually see the eyes out of the frame like this. But that's one thing I like about it. I also like the crackly textures in the face. And the drippies (but then, I always like drippies).

"Two More Hours"

20x20x1.5", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

Since I love texture, I'm always trying new things. For this one, I stapled some strips of cheesecloth across the painting. Then I started to paint and didn't like them -- they wanted to take over -- so I cut them apart then used a medium to immobilize them. Then I scribbled with water pens and painted, leaving pieces of fabric at the edge.

In my striving to be loose, I find that I sometimes start a painting, then, not feeling right, I turn it. And turn it. And turn it again until I can see a composition I like, or I can see how my image will fit on the canvas. I did the latter thing here. I also had some cobalt blue and teal on my palette, and they added an element I like. Almost like graffiti.

"The Unendurable Intensity"

24x24x1.5", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

I'm a lot about texture, and this one has a lot of texture material, both gravelly as well as cardboard. Now, I have abstracts that focus on the texture as part of the composition. But in the figurative work, while the texture is present, the focus is on the person. And I like that you can't see her eyes.

"Inhale, Exhale"

18x36", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

I started experimenting with turquoise and found that it's a powerful color! I kept having to return to the area where I painted it and try to cover it up. Eventually it calmed down to the point where it's just present. Meanwhile, this emotional painting emerged. 

Also, after taking the picture and cleaning it up, I suddenly see new things in it. Do I change them? Leave them? I think I'll live with it and see what happens.

"The Game"

(Not available.)

30x40", acrylic and mixed media on canvas

One weekend a couple of years ago, when a few of us were touring wine country, I surreptitiously took pictures of people. This came out of one such picture. I think my two favorite things about it are the way that the focal point is way off center, and the eyes behind the sunglasses, which I invented and which came out surprisingly well!

"Abstract Figure 2"

14x11", oil on canvas board

This was another fast painting done in class. The straight edges and lines come from using a color shaper, which is sort of like a palette knife, but softer. Someone in class wanted some additional color, so we added a scarf to the pose. Maybe I should have titled this "The Striped Scarf" or some such.

"Abstract Figure 1"

14x11", oil on canvas board

This was a fast painting I did in an abstract figurative class that artist and teacher Michael Azgour taught at the Pacific Art League. So, in class we would have warm-ups and exercises, of course. In one we would have only a limited amount of time to fill the entire canvas. Then, in this lesson he also suggested that we add a geometric shape (in this case a grid) and use elements of it to abstract the figure. I'm not sure I integrated the grid and the figure, but it did keep my painting looser.

This is painted from a live model, and there is an immediacy that I like, and the rapid brush strokes (and some pencil scribbles) worked. In this case. You often end up with dimensions that are way out of whack. I assume that the better you get, the more often you get accurate dimensions. But even very experienced artists say they do a lot of throw-away paintings. Or paint-overs, I guess.

"Figure With Shadow"

8x10",  oil on canvas board

This is another one of those paintings that I like, but I don't quite know why, and it's not a good likeness. But it has something. I think there's a freedom to it. I'd recently been looking at my Nathan Oliveira book, and an abstract figure occurred by and by. It does have a few things I normally do, like all the scratches for texture, and juxtaposing green and purple. 

"Not Yet"

30x30x1.5", acrylic and mixed media, SOLD

This one has soul. There's some stillness to it, and discomfort. And some mystery.

I seem to want to make three kinds of paintings: small still lifes that are also skill builders, abstracts, and abstract figurative, as with this one. A few people had trouble figuring out what it was at first, but that doesn't bother me. It just feels right.

"Perception: Contemplation"

30x40x1.5", acrylic on stretched canvas

As with yesterday's painting, this was done on a textured surface. In fact, this surface had loads of texture and was painted yellow. Now, when I do my figurative paintings, I usually start with an image as a jumping-off point, and ideally I put that image away after painting the framework. I say "ideally" because sometimes I get caught up in making all the details completely accurate, which is not what abstract painting is about. It's better to start the dialogue with the painting. To do that, you constantly ask "What does it need?" (Well, not in words, perhaps.) The trap is that, since you're always looking for how to improve it, it means you're looking for what's not right, and you can become very critical of yourself and your painting. 

This one was a bit of a surprise in that I was painting it up close, but it really came to life from a distance, or if you suddenly saw it while coming around a corner.