"Choy to the World"

8 x 8 x 0.75, oil on gallery-wrapped canvas

What is it about bok choy that makes you want to crack puns with the name? (I'm referring to this and the prior piece.) Ah well, the title suits the season.

I'm finally starting to put some of my paintings up around the house. Granted, they're pretty small, but they provide a splash of color and liveliness. I find it interesting to see what I choose to hang, and also to listen to what others say about my work. What I choose points me towards what I want to do more of. Comparing notes with others reminds me how different people really are. A painting that I think of as merely OK, sparks a response in someone else. And that response isn't what you think it might be. For instance, someone might call a painting "cool" because it shows, say, glass that warps the shape of what's behind it (note the two stalks in this piece). When I get a reaction like that, I'm sometimes a bit put out at first; I kind of want people to be drawn to the composition, color, perspective, or other feature of the actual execution, rather than to something that's almost a parlor trick. Then again, it's an honest reaction, and might still indicate that I did something right.

"I Want My Baby Bok, Baby Bok, Baby Bok"

6x6, oil on canvas board, NFS

You know, I saw some baby bok choy at the grocery store, and I had to paint one (well, two, since another will be showing up soon). I'd had it a couple of days before I started painting and it was starting to droop, hence the little dish it's in. I don't know if it helped revive it. But somewhere in there I started humming the music with different words. I think the original is for a steak house. (And for those of you who haven't heard it, the song is in 1950s doo-wop style, and it goes "I want my baby back, baby back, baby back... I want my baby back ribs!" OK, the joke is lame, but a few friends cracked up.

Also, I decided to try the outline technique. I remember art teachers telling classes over and over "Don't draw the outlines. Draw on the surface. Draw the volumes." But they sure made this painting pop, and I see it in other current painters. It kind of brings to mind Elizabeth Shippen Green, the great illustrator from early in the 20th century. She worked in charcoal, which gave her bold outlines, as you can see from this page. Ah well, enough history.

"Garlic Party"

About 14 x 17.5", oil on unstretched canvas

Like yesterday's blog entry, this one was painted with the idea of cropping it afterward. But I got a wonderful comment from Kim Vanderhoek about how yesetrday's looked the most powerful uncropped, and now I'm rethinking this one. Now, in an earlier piece, I really liked the splashy parts around the outside, and I pondered whether it would work to frame out the middle and paint the edges in a lower key to kind of attenuate their presence, but still keep them visible. So I experimented with this one using that theory. But it also occurred to me (too much caffeine, perhaps) that this might make two paintings. Take a look. I have no idea if this will make sense or not.

The common element in both paintings would be the small garlic clove in the middle.

Anway, I'm not sure yet, but it's fun to play with.

"Three Persimmons"

Oil on unstretched canvas, about 14.5 x 18

Every once in a while I'll tape a piece of canvas to a board, paint on it, and crop it afterward. I did a batch of these in February of this year. What it does is allow me to crop after the painting is done, rather than choosing the size by painting on an existing board or stretched canvas. It's fun. This time I painted these three persimmons.

So, above is how the painting currently looks. Next I get to play with cropping. I use my computer, so I can try options and undo them. But I also have a couple of L-shaped pieces of foam core, and I can use those, too.

I haven't played with a lot of options yet, but I do like how the persimmons are lined up vertically, and I also like the incomplete shadow at the very bottom. This suggests a tall, narrow cropping. And one reason I paint this way is so I can show the paint strokes at the periphery. Mix those together and you come out with this composition. I like it. Or at least, I like it today.

Or maybe it's too purple...

"Blue Plate Special #3"

11x14, oil on canvas board

Here's the third painting using the see-through plate. I'm working larger, although I don't know why. But art is like that: You go a lot on impulse and but have to learn which parts to discipline. When I first called this finished and looked at it, I kind of didn't like it. It seemed too simple. But then something clicked and it began to look more graphic and more profoundly simple, if that makes sense. I love the work of Euan Uglow and, while I certainly can't compare my work to his, it's possible that what I like about his work is also what I like about this.

"Blue Plate Special #2"

8x10, oil on canvas board

Another in my transparency series. I mean, not an official series, mind you. Just a challenge I want to learn from. And I'm still using the blood oranges.

Interesting recent posting by Aaron Lifferth discusses how to squint, or do something equivalent. Besides what Aaron does, which is interesting, a couple of the people commenting do interesting things, too. Check it out.

"Blue Plate Special #1"

8x10, oil on canvas board

I seem to be into backlit fruit these days. A couple of weeks ago I bought some blood oranges, since the to colors inside are so gorgeous. I also began to plaint the blue glass plate on different backgrounds (I used the matching bowl in an earlier piece). The glass colors were deucedly difficult to figure out! I'd use the little holes in my ViewCatcher to isolate the color in an area, paint that, then notice that it no longer made sense next to another area; something would be too dark or too light. So I'd adjust. Then that would shift something else. So I'd adjust again. It's a doozy. For instance: How do compare the red you see through the glass against the red in the shadow of the glass? So you gotta keep comparing. It's one of the truisms of painting.

Since figuring out the colors was so hard, I figured I needed more practice at it. :) So there are a few more paintings coming with the blue plate on different colors, hence the numbering in the title. For some reason, it felt right to go a little bigger, too. Go figger.

"Starfruit, Backlit"

9x12, acrylic on canvas paper

I was recently in Hilo, on Hawaii's Big Island. At my friend's house there was this beautiful starfruit. I found some fabric in the house to use as a backdrop and set up a lamp so the fruit was backlit (nothing like patient friends who let you use household items to jury rig a studio). I also bought a pad of canvas paper and borrowed brushes and acrylic paints from my friend. I think I did OK getting the glowing effect, and it was interesting to see how transparent some paints are and how opaque others are. But, wow, acrylics do dry awfully fast!

And here's the wikipedia star fruit page, which points out that it's closely related to the bilimbi.

"Last Hurrah"

6x8, oil on canvas board. Sold.

I did this one a few weeks ago. I like doing a bright underpainting and letting spots show through, and sometimes I like doing a bright underpainting and just not bothering to cover it. It works better on a larger canvas (I did a few like that in February of this year).

"Shy Persimmon"

6x8, oil on canvas board

I so admire the blogging painters who can finish something every day and post it. Or even four or five days a week. I seem to go in fits and starts. I'll be on a roll for a few days and won't bother posting, or I'll do something I'm not that crazy about and won't feel like it, at least until I have more things I like. Recently I've found that the daily expectation has become a burden, which makes painting less fun. That's definitely not what I want.

Meanwhile, I felt I was getting too tight, so I painted this over something else so I wouldn't care so much about it. It's better. What I was going for was the sense of the persimmon being half in the shadow, and I also wanted to get the reflection in the tea cup. That's the object on the right (I'm not sure it reads well), and the hash marks are design elements on it.