"Ponder"

20x24x0.75, oil on canvas

I did this a few months ago. It was one of the early ones where I used a technique from my class with Melinda Cootsona: You start with abstraction and play with it until you find a figure. I find the playing really important, since it's when you apply paint intuitively, and it doesn't matter how it looks, so you're more free. You also get to experiment with marks, so you improve your painting vocabulary. Melinda likes to create more layers in her paintings before she finds the figure. I can see where that would add richness. I should do that. I guess I need more patience.

Here, I started with a painting that hadn't worked for me, then painted on that, so it had two layers under the figure. The earlier painting had had a chair with slats in it, and the paint had formed ridges. I kept those and liked how they overlapped the figure. (I later used this overlapping in another painting, posted earlier this month.) I'm also really enjoying the oil crayons. I like the scribbly texture.

I took a picture of the painting during development. You can see the random marks and drippies and scribbles. As I recall, I turned it in different directions while playing with it. And you can also see that I kept the large round shape in the upper left corner.

Painting upside down

11x14x1.5", oil on canvas

In my last post I mentioned that I'd painted a head by turning the reference photo and the canvas upside down. (Thanks, Melinda.) This was the picture that came out of that. It's a pretty cool exercise. You're less attached to how realistic it is -- these aren't portraits -- so it lets you start painting looser and not get buried in details. I decided to place him in the corner of the canvas because I'd chosen a kind of grizzled picture, and I thought he looked more expressive this way. Sort of like he's hiding or something.

"Introspection"

36x36x0.75", oil on stretched canvas

OK, this one surprised me. I had a background with lots of texture and color, then started working on a face and got frustrated. So, using a trick from a recent class with Melinda Cootsona, I decided to turn the reference photo and painting upside down. When you work with an image upside down, you're less invested in how accurate the shapes are. Rather, you're more in touch with the composition. Also, I had seen some paintings where light blue was used as a way to articulate contours on a dark background, so I used that. Eventually, when I turned it right-side up, I liked it much more, and I clarified a few things and balanced the values better.

That blue really is kind of neon, isn't it?

"Geometric"

30x24x1.5", oil on stretched canvas 

In an earlier painting (that I haven't posted yet), I had a figure with lines crossing it. Wherever that happened, colors changed on the figure. I used that approach here. It's relatee to some earlier work I did, where I painted still lifes in non-representational colors. The theory is that, if you keep the value the same, you can still figure out what the subject is. I can't say that I stuck with actual values here, but I hope that makes the work more interesting. You can still see the figure, but it merges in the background more.

"Pensive"

30x24x1.5", oil on stretched canvas

As time goes by, I'm migrating towards two styles of paintings: abstract, and abstract figurative. I'm still collecting found objects that might one day make their way into a piece, and I'm also working on learning to depict the figure.

This one has a mood that I like. It came from a photo taken during a photography session in a class I took. But the painting itself came out really neon. One comment was, "I looks really modern." 

Hmm. As I look at it, I see a few things I might want to tweak. That's hard to do after you put it on the blog. Then again, until I sell it, I guess it's mine to modify.

"Empathy"

24x20x1.5", oil on stretched canvas

This might sound strange, but I'm not entirely sure what to make of this painting.  It surprises me.

The way I developed it was that I worked on an abstract painting first. After awhile, I saw the beginnings of a figure, and decided to go where that led. And that was here. The body position isn't a normal one, but it's what came out. But I do love the red in the middle. So, I'm not sure it makes sense, but there's something kind of compelling to me about it.

"Caldera"

20x20x1.5", oil on canvas

I've been studying with Melinda Cootsona the last month or two. She's a marvelous teacher who does abstracts and figurative abstracts, both of which I'm interested in. Her classes are small -- maximum of four people -- and held in her studio. Because of the small size, she's able to really see how we work, and help with the process. For example, the other day I got snarled in poking at a specific part of a painting, and it didn't improve? She could see that I needed to change something, and suggested that I use a bigger brush. Boom! I was past it.

The painting on this page came from a process that she works with: You start by building an abstract painting, adding layers and depth and richness. Then, if you can find the suggestion of a figure in it, you can make your painting into a figurative abstract. On the other hand, you might find that you like the abstract that you did. This was one of the latter.

"As If"

12x12x2", acrylic and mixed media on board

I've mentioned the awesome Stella Zhang, whom I've taken textured abstract classes with. I think this was one of my first works with her. I came into the class with all the subtlety of a Hawaiian shirt, and she toned me down. Now, some people in her classes would like to use more color, but I do get the point: If you have too much color, you obscure the texture.

I decided to include the figure below so you can see that I put the texture material around the outsides, too.

"Yin Yang"

12x12x1.5", acrylic, pigment powder, and rubber gloves on canvas

One of the fun things about the textured abstract class I took was that anything could become part of a work of art. In this case, I had some rubber gloves such as artists use to protect their hands when painting, and I played with arranging them on a canvas. This arrangement reminded me of the Yin Yang symbol, and also a circle, which I've used in paintings before. I went over the top with white pigment powder in a solution of white glue and water.

"Network"

36x36x0.75" acrylic, pigment powder, and mixed media

This one has cool texture. It's kind of a part of history, for me. A couple of years ago I had been doing my small oil still lifes, mostly about 6x8", for a year or two, and wanted to go bigger. So I took a workshop with Robert Burridge. (I wrote about this before, so sorry for the repeat.) In the instructions sent out, Burridge said that if students really wanted to challenge themselves, they should bring ten canvases that were about 36x36". TEN! So I did. I didn't touch them for the first day and a half, but then I dove in and, by the middle of the fifth day had filled nine of them. This was one. So I'm fond of it. FYI, the texture is made by tissue from the hotel room. Heehee!

However! I wasn't sure I liked how it came out. So I took it to one of my textured abstract classes with Stella Zhang, who does amazing work. I simplified it, using paint and adding pigment powder mixed with white glue. Powder has the benefit that it sinks into the texture, where paint covers the entire surface. Eventually the wonderful texture emerged, and it only needed a focal point, which came from the black drip in the middle. It's pretty cool looking. If you feel like it, try clicking it to see the texture and subtle colors.