"The Shadow Nose"

6x6x0.75", oil on stretched canvas

This was the first painting I did in my series of five still lifes in five days (or so). I've had some good luck with onions in the past, although I don't know why. Maybe it's the textures and the stem.

One thing I was trying to do in this series was to go more neutral in the backgrounds and also to do good solid darks. I tend to brighten up my colors, and then the painting can either lack depth, or you don't really highlight the main item. Of course, after I finished this, I noticed that I had put a focal point -- the tan part of the stem -- almost dead center in the image, which does not make for good composition. In this case I might have skirted the problem through smoke and mirrors: the onion is way off-center, and the shadow of the stem forms another focal point that's more compelling. I also noticed that the brush marks radiate away from the shadow, which is very dynamic (I should remember that as another way to direct the eye). I think that extra dynamism like that can work in small paintings, since they need to have more punch in order to be seen. But in larger paintings it's worth looking at resting places for the eye.

The title was for the crack-up value. (Hey, try hovering your cursor over the picture.) (Applies to most of my paintings.)

"Cozy"

6x6x0.75", oil on stretched canvas

This is the second in the series of five 6x6" paintings I did around New Years. (It helps to be at home, sick...) I think this is my favorite. While the scale isn't right -- the bowl is bigger relative to the eggs -- it has a cozy feeling to it. I also liked the lost edge below the spout on the bowl. By the way, I got this bowl and other gorgeous ceramics at La Honda Pottery. Bay Area folk are encouraged to look them up. They're up in the gorgeous mountains, like we are.

Here's a view of the same canvas from an angle. I had used the quinacridone gold as a base coat, and decided that I liked it on the edges. When I work on wrapped canvases I often extend the painting to the sides. This one I left as is.

In other news, I've now put two layers of gesso on the boards for the show I'm in at the 20th Street Art Gallery in Sacramento. For the second layer, I played with the gesso on a few to build texture, since I'm submitting textured abstracts. I'll be using stucco patch, as usual, but I wanted to try this, too. I used heavy-bodied Utrecht gesso, and it holds a peak. Sort of like meringue.

"Chirp!"

Chirp!, 6x6x0.75", oil on stretched canvas

On New Years Eve I mentioned working on five 6x6" still lifes in five days. I decided to try this because some artists seem to be able to finish something every day, and I can't. I did manage to do 4.5 of them in five days. This was the final one, and it was really hard, so it took a few days (especially since we went out of town). It was the reflections. They're quite befuddling. At one point I had to stop and sketch the face so I could figure out what the reflections did. But it looks reasonably cute. Darker than my usual work.

In other news, my twenty-five panels for the 20th Street Art Gallery have arrived! They're 8x8x0.75" and ungessoed. So tomorrow morning I'll start gessoing them all. I have until March 26 to finish them all and deliver them, dried, to the gallery.

"Ganglia"

8x8", acrylic and mixed media on panel

In my last post I talked about applying to a show. I mentioned that I created two small paintings and chose the one I liked more. This is the other one. (I don't hate it. But on that day I liked the other better.) I did them at the same time, which is easier to do that if you don't have, say, a person posing. I think I was looking for a similar composition: brightness in or near the middle, surrounded by dark, more neutral colors. But, of course, creating a painting (or anything else?) is a dialogue, and this one came out warmer. I found myself thinking the green should be more neutral, more earth colored, then decided to stick with the bright poison color.

I guess that's all for today. Well, the art gallery shipped my twenty-five panels late last week, and I'm eager to get to them, eager to learn what it's like to work for a show, under a schedule. Probably a good discipline.

"Contraband"

8x8", acrylic and mixed media on panel SOLD

About three hours away from here, in Sacramento, CA, is a charming art gallery called the 20th Street Art Gallery. I took a Carol Marine workshop there a couple of years ago, am on their mailing list, and know someone who participated in a show there. That show was one of a series of shows in which artists create a family of small works. I applied to the upcoming show last week and -- woohoo! -- have been accepted! [Doing the happy dance, here.] This show will again feature small works, 8x8". They give you the panels and a time frame. And that time frame is from when the panels arrive until March 26. So I will create 25 small paintings in two months. And deliver them.

In applying to the show, I debated between submitting a still life or an abstract. I had been thinking of submitting a still life, since I seem to do small still lifes and large abstracts. I chose to submit an abstract. What convinced me was this strong motivator: They wanted the sample to be on an 8x8" panel, and I do not have such in a still life, and was running out of time. Now, I have some 8x8" stretched canvas still lifes, and many 6x8" panel still lifes, but no 8x8" panels. But, luckily, I found two blank 8x8" panels, created two paintings in short order (shorter than I want to admit), and submitted the one I liked better. Then I spent six hours on my butt in a car, driving to deliver the application material.

Now, all of that doesn't matter, really. I mean, it's not about convenience or feasibility, for heaven's sake. It's about art that has meaning for you. But I'm tickled by the vagary and whimsy of it all.

And even though I'm currently on a still-life streak, I'm happy to do the abstracts. They come from a more instinctive place in me, and, frankly, I'm more confident that I can create twenty-five that I like in the time frame. The still lifes are much harder. I think they come out of my head, and require more discipline. Maybe that's the yin-yang: gut and brain, instinct and thoughtfulness.

"On the Vine" redux

On the Vine, 6x8", oil on canvas board

Gotta get one more in before the month and year change. :)

This is another redone painting. At the bottom of this post you can see it as it originally looked when I posted it in May of 2008. It was fine. But there was nothing that really grabbed me about it. So I redid it. First, it looked like this:

But it didn't seem right. It was too swirly, because of the shape of the tomatoes. Now, in my color experiments, I seem to keep the original color of the objects in the well-lit portions, and add the creative colors in the shadows. And that seemed a bit bogus, so this one sat on my shelf. Then, a few days ago at the grocery store, I saw another set of yellow tomatoes on the vine. I bought them and used them as a basis to clean this one up. I'm now happier with it. Interestingly, I kind of like the shadows on the table top. I enjoy the effect of cutting in, and I did that with successively lighter colored paint. If I vary the paint color in any area rather than keeping it smooth and matte, it makes it look richer.

FYI, here's the original painting:

I'm working on doing a 6x6 a day for five days. I'd love to be able to do the daily thing, but it seems like I can't. But five days seems doable. They'll be appearing in the next week or so.

Texture paintings

Texture 1, 9x12",
mixed media on gessoed masonite

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Texture 2, 9x12",

mixed media on gessoed masonite

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Texture 3, 9x12",
mixed media on gessoed masonite

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Texture 4, 9x12",

mixed media on gessoed masonite

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I've been meaning to post these for awhile now. They came out of my first abstract period. (I say "first" because I can feel that I'll return to it again, probably in a slightly modified form.) I was experimenting, so I laid out a few panels at once and did slightly different things on them. One thing I was working on was using earth tones. I tend to like saturated color -- hey, I wear Hawaiian shirts a lot -- and I actually get tired of them sometimes. Does that make sense? It's as though I'm tired of the normal colors and I wish they'd invent new ones. Well, of course, they exist; they're just not in tubes.

As I look at these, I'm noticing that even my dark neutrals are pretty saturated. I must go find some acrylic sketches I did with weird greyish greens and yellows, and brownish reds. At least, when I feel pulled to doing abstracts again.

"Purple Shadows"

12x9", oil on stretched canvas

I had meant to do another painting in my recent series of paintings with unusual colors in the right value. But I liked the direction this one was taking, so I went with it. I threw some purple in the shadows because I like green and purple together. I should also mention something funny: Leading the viewer's eye is so important that I spent some time aiming the apple stems when I was creating the set-up.

Initially, this one didn't have the striped cloth; it had a blue-green rectangle where the cloth now is. But as I started to conclude things, it didn't feel complete. So I found a striped dish cloth and had a lot of fun working out what its colors would be in shadow. Next time I might add more wrinkles to the cloth, for interest.

So, you know how some paintings paint themselves and you're just along for the ride? And other paintings are fighters? (I sure wish I knew what caused that.) This painting was not a fighter -- although I struggled a bit with the dark underpainting -- but the JPG sure was. I use Photoshop and have done a lot of color tweaking, and don't know why this one was hard. But I haven't taken the time to learn about gamuts and color profiles. Maybe I should do that sometime.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this. Here's what it looked like after the block-in. (It's not a really good photo, but it was quick 'n' dirty.) There's so often something I like about this phase. Maybe it's the looseness; maybe it's the abstraction, like the mix of rough painting around the sketchy orange lines.

Also, I was recently blog surfing artists, and ran into this excellent post by Jeff Mahorney called What I've Learned (after 120 paintings). The entire thing is well worth reading, but this is the part that struck me:

If there is one important thing I learned about painting this is it: Learn to tolerate the negative thoughts and feelings. ... Building up a tolerance and acceptance of those negative thoughts and emotions along the way is the greatest and most useful thing I've learned. Often when I am painting and about 45 minutes into it, my head might says "You're terrible, you should give this whole thing up" and I then feel the frustration or despair that comes along with that thought. But by now I'm used to it and I say,"Ah there you are. Come have a seat. You are welcome here, but we ARE going to finish this painting".

There's something so beautifully Zen about allowing the thoughts, but moving forward anyway. You should never believe everything you think.

"Bowl of Mandarins"

9x12, oil on stretched canvas

I keep learning from this process. So, I'm looking for a wide range of values in all the colors. To get pale values, I have to add a lot of white. That seems to make the colors look chalky. I walked past this in the semi-dark and noticed that the pale colors jumped out. I think I'll try Zinc white (also known as mixing white) and see if that makes a difference. Titanium might be too stark.

Another solution might be to make a monochrome underpainting first, then go on with colors. I'd really have to learn about transparency!

As far as the painting itself, it seems like another riot of color. I think I mostly kept the orange color for the bright parts of the fruit, since dark orange is brown, and it's more neutral than I want. Also, it's a little cartoon-like, although that's a matter of taste.

Hmm. Neutrals. Neutrals. So far I've found that they sap the energy. I'll have to play with that.

"Scattered Apricots," redux

6x8", oil on canvas board, sold

This is another re-done painting. It's really satisfying to take something that just didn't work for you and turn it into something a lot more interesting. FYI, here's the painting as it originally appeared:

Yes, the new one is more interesting to me.

One of my challenges on this one was to learn about how red works. It really does add heat. If you have shadows in a dark neutral, adding red can make them look like a light is glowing from the inside. It's a powerful color.

At the moment, I'm finding that I first do the painting in colors resembling reality. Then I start to muck with the colors. I think ideally I'd just do the painting in creative colors right from the outset.

I'm also still trying to figure out what a palette is in this case. In the original, it was pretty much blue and orange. But once I added greens and purples and reds and pinks to the orange, the palette widened. It's fun, but the paintings are in danger of looking too much like each other. I'd have a broader skill set, and more tools, if I learned how to lean the palette in different directions. I might be doing it intuitively; check out the cherries two posts ago.

Anyway, this is still way fun. :)