Abstract/Realism
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Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Above: Central detail of 2D Pinecone, woven canvas strips, acrylics - painting in progress
March 6th and 7th: 2D Pinecone, 24 x 24 x .5 inches, woven canvas strips. Work in progress shows 1) weaving and 2) a very rough sketch on the primed canvas.
Norway Maple: final progress, combined posts
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
March 9th: have been working more on tones in the background, which weren’t planned initially; I had hoped to use only pure colors without the usual layering, but it’s otherwise too hard to look at. Also am connecting a few shapes horizontally, and it’s almost “there”, but 2D Pinecone was started in order to avoid overworking this.
March 6th: a huge thanks, Virginia for taking the time to write and digitize a detailed, objective critique. I sure appreciate your opinion about what might improve this. Spotted Cow Syndrome eh? Yes, you’re absolutely right. There needs to be one focus somewhere; left thumbnail shows another day of work..still in progress.
Sorry if you’re having problems registering to this site in order to make comments, but those rotten spams get through..
Norway Maple in Madison, Wisconsin, 36 x 48 x 2 inches acrylics and modeling gel on canvas, gallery wrapped sides painted.
Feb. 28th, above right: detail of above, left Adding a solid patch of turquoise to lower left and some tiny details like that may ground the whole thing, but that’s about it; am leaving it out of sight for a while. This really is a carnival of color, I love it!
Below thumbnails: Combined, edited posts of progression between Dec. 8th, 2009 - Feb. 27th, 2010 1) Started December 8th, 2009 2) Modeling gel is available in varied textures, finishes and viscosities. Acrylics paint can be mixed with the medium or when dry paint can be applied over top. 3) January 18th, 2010: work in progress; applying modeling paste to the base painting, and sculpting with a small trowel. 4) February 27th: lighter background colors were added in order to open up the space. The painting is too busy at this stage - a little heavy with brushstrokes actually, and needs to flow better.
Left: Jan 28th, detail image - used a dry brush so paint would catch mostly on the textures, and kept the feeling soft. Intentions are to maintain the fresh pure colors. Studied from a distance for about a week after this stage to contemplate what the next move will be.
All paintings and Art forms created from now until the end of April will be specifically toward the Dancing With Trees Exhibition to be held at the Steinhaur Trust Gallery, Wisconsin-Madison University Arboretum, scheduled May through June 2010.
Breathing new life into work
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
At The Alamo, San Antonio, TX 15 x 22 inches watercolors
Left: just started, before drip techniques Above: finished
Rather than continue with an “I’ve scene it all before” approach, the paper was held up straight let drips happen. Blowing through a straw cut in half (less effort than a whole straw to create the effects) the paint was directed around half-planned, half not.
Preliminary value study
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Trumpet Flowers, San Antonio Riverwalk, Texas -12 x 16 inches value study in progress, Tombo pen wash on 140 lb. WC paper.
The Tombo pen is a two-in-one water-soluble marker available in colors as well as black. One tip is medium-fine and the other looks and behaves like a Chinese paintbrush, where thickness of lines can be controlled. What’s more difficult to control is that black once it’s on the page! The edge of the ledges on the bridge here were much brighter, but I couldn’t lighten them without making a mess of the surrounding areas, so they are OK. It’s something to pay attention to when painting the colored version.
Dancing With Trees #02 - WIP
Monday, September 17th, 2007
Dancing With Trees - a work in progress, as most paintings are, even after submitting them in to juried exhibitions! Am still having doubts about the sky; not quite dark enough to contrast with the small amounts of bright coming from sunset and stars; will study that and possibly adjust. Layers of glaze used in the recent stages: Hansa yellow light, Pthalo blue, Pthalo green, Permanent green, thio violet, Mars black, Cadmium red light, Dioxazine violet
Redbuds, misty morning
Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Redbuds, misty morning, 11 x 14 oil pastels, watercolor graphite pencils
This drawing was an experiment with oil pastels and water soluable graphite to see if the two could cooperate vin the same drawing. This post shows the final piece that dulled as improvements progressed, so here it is now, not as nice as a work on paper, butbegging to become a large acrylics painting.
It was about 8 A.M… the sun barely shone through the thick mist this early Spring morning. The surrounding forest was grey, and the brilliant pink blossoms of the Redbud bush pushed through it all, with the only other colors being patches of green grass starting to grow in the feild.
Dancing With Trees #1
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
Dancing With Trees #1, 11 x 14 Oil Pastels
… is a good example of how the right medium makes all the difference; despite a couple of days spent continually working on this one it is almost cartoonish. This subject needs to be painted because, although I do like certain things about the drawing, I’d like to attempt more realistic colors and subtleties of movement with paint.
Speeding By The Poppies
Saturday, September 30th, 2006
Speeding By The Poppies on Hwy 40, Tennessee - 11 x 14 Oil Pastels - framed, available
Critique received that this was not dynamic enough, (below, Sept. 30, 2006 version). The drawing was at a fragile stage where I was 95% happy with it, but still the critique was valid. Above: I carefully scraped a few more lines in and highlighted some that were already there but not as prominent.
Tennessee Poppies
Thursday, September 28th, 2006
Tennessee Poppies Hwy 40- 11 x 14 inches Oil Pastels on paper- framed 23 x 26 inches
Moon Over Myrtle - 1st stage
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
14 x 11 Oil Pastels ~ Available, framed size 26 x 22 inches
Moon Over Myrtle is another oil pastel drawing that went through transformations while posting on a popular interactive Artits’ website, wetcanvas.com - It was noted after posting this stage that the sky looked more like water, so I played around with ideas that might make it look less so, using computer alterations (a new tool for me!) as well as trials altering the drawing itself.
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