Art for sale
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Kookaburrahs
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
Kookaburras, 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted. Frame unnecessary. Hang on the wall or display on a flat surface. Most of the Magic Square series are signed on the side so as not to impose on the composition. Seen here, the signature is added digitally on the front.
March 13th, 2009 work progress blog post: This painting could have been left at phase 3, but the decision to give the birds more definition and sense of realism created a whole new set of problems. For example, the composition, which was unbalanced from the start, is now exaggerated and more noticeable, so a third element needs to be added in the upper left corner. Not necessarily another object but color or shape that would shift the weight and attention away from the lower left areas.
| Progress details: | |||
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
||
There is a work phase where, once details are added or changes made to one area, every other thing in the picture needs to be brought to the same level of quality: quality meaning style and feeling of the features. I don’t regret proceeding, but it does mean extra effort to solve all the new challenges, and usually while attempting to solve those new ones arise. Other professionals would say this is overworking, but it really depends on what your intentions are as an Artist, and what motivates the work. If risks are not taken sometimes, a painting may never be all that it could be. Phrases we tend to cling to like “less is more” are not written in stone; sometimes more is more…learning is a good thing!
In landscapes details are best left for the imagination, whereas painting animals, birds or other creatures, a purpose needs to be clearer. Is the intention to portray character through shape and silhouette? other traits? specific markings? Is it the main focus or only a part of the whole? Computer tools are also useful in playing with colors and other possibilities.
Sumac Bushes Chair finished
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Sumac Bushes, 47H x 22W x 16D inches refurbished Director’s Chair, acrylics on canvas.
Four cropped pieces of the 1999 painting that inspired this chair hang above it, updated and framed with red narrow plastic w/glass frames. The chair and small paintings are a set.
Interactive
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
At the end of each month Oxide Gallery and Carino’s Italian Restaurant in Denton present an evening of Art, Dinner and Wine Tasting. Offering a new menu each month, an amazing four course dinner is complete with wine pairings for only $29.95. The room is separate from the rest of the restaurant, so offers an intimate setting where, at some point during the evening, the artist discusses and answers questions about their work. A new artist’s work is featured each month, and on Tuesday it’s my turn. Although this is a new idea it has been well received. Reservations are required, but April 28th is now booked solid, so the Dinner and Show is extended to take place on April 29th as well.
The Interaction with Flowering Shavingbrush Tree
I reapplied masking fluid to the painting in order to continue working on it but still preserve all the great marks revealed after removing the first application. At Carino’s on Tuesday others will participate and be a part of helping this painting come to life by removing the dried rubberized medium from the painting, and help unveil the finished piece.
Update, May 1st: Pulling off the rubberized medium was a hit! A few people kept going back to pull more off. If gallery owners are open to it, I’d like to continue doing this at future opening receptions too. Here are some photos of the fun.
“One last peel before I go…”
Fossils Chair, Homage to The Earth – finished
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
January 12th: While sanding the wood for the Sumac Bushes Chair during coffee breaks, I have started the Fossil Chair, paying homage to the fact that without trees, all life on Earth would not be so prolific, and might not exist at all. Fish and Trilobites are carved into the plaster on the front surface of the chair as well. in this series.
January 13th: Lower detail of Fossil Chair, carved plaster, acrylic paint inlay, sanded. In progress. Trilobites will have painted detail.
Jan. 14th and Jan. 24th updates, below: front details, work in progress on back/underside of the chair. After this stage, all details will continue to be refined with more carving and layers of acrylics. Haven’t done many details on the trilobites yet. The colors in the palm leaf still are too vibrant for a fossil, but are a perfect underlying color because it shows through when layers of blues and black are wiped away with a cloth.
Fossils Chair, Homage to The Earth, started in January and finished today, except for refining the bark fossil patterns on the back/underside. 29 x 29 x 29 inches refurbished vintage chair, canvas strips, plaster, carved, acrylics, varnish, waxed.
The back of this chair has authentic 225 – 345-million-year-old fossilized clam shells embedded around the circumference. Next, the Encyclopedia Britannica listing. The fossils were found in a mixture of playground pebbles in Dallas, TX.
The Cycad leaf fossil replica original was discovered in a Wyoming, USA river basin. Portrayed on the front of the chair is the fossil of a Cycad, the first of palm-like trees that grew about 50 million years ago in a Wyoming riverbed. The first trees on Earth were actually nothing more than woody stems standing in and absorbing nutrients from water. Patterns of fossilized Paleozoic Lepidodendron bark- leaf scars are painted on the underside of the chair. Lepidodendron were a primitive species of the very first trees on earth, reaching heights of 130 feet (40 m) tall around 400 million years ago. Can we even relate to those numbers? That’s what I love about fossils – holding one and contemplating Earth’s timeline is mind-blowing.
| Progress details: | |||||
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
|||
| Finished details: | |||||
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
$2,200.00 
The Tree Of Life chair
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
April 18th, above: still in an extremely rough state, and still deciding about which colors to use and how. There must be much more plaster on the Salish chair, because this one is not carving as well. Only the Shou symbol will stand out carved..all else will be implied. Blue, purple and green are the new black! Actually that’s the old impressionist trick of course, but I also rarely use black if those 3 will do – they are much livelier and more interesting than flat black. The Yin-Yang/Aboriginal legend snakes have been eliminated because working them in color-wise was going to be a problem. The Celtic design was getting lost in too much else around it. I am anxious to find another chair because I really want to do one with Australian-inspired motifs and colors.
Post-dated note: Unfortunately, there is not enough room to show this for the premier of the Trees show in Raleigh. I’m mostly relieved that there is extra time in my schedule now for preparations, but this chair now needs to be set aside in light of the other priorities.
April 14th: 29H x 29W x 29D inches vintage chair, canvas strips, layers of sanded plaster.
The design incorporates a few esoteric concepts common to many world cultures: Overall is the idea of the Tree of Life and the theory of As above, So below, represented by branches and roots. Symbolic of longevity along with the pine tree, and central to the design is the Japanese character, Shou. The branches and roots of the pine tree are interwoven in the classic Celtic style, inspired by designs in the Book of Kells, gospel manuscripts that were illustrated by Irish monks around the year 800 A.D., common era. Two snakes drawn in the Yin-Yang placement represent Australian Aboriginal legends; the Rainbow Snake is their most important sacred symbol, believed to be the creator of all things. Christian biblical literature it is the snake who gives the apple from the Tree of Knowledge to Eve. There are more, but the rest you may like to discover yourself!
There is still plenty of intricate work to do with the roots – this’ll be fun! Drawing freehand is much better than casting the original drawing on with light and tracing it because each time it’s drawn, first with graphite, then marker, then many layers of paint, I become more familiar with the lines and the final outline will be steady and clean.
April 7, 2009: While studying some of the previous paintings that are still in progress, I sketched out my version of The Tree of Life, a preliminary drawing for the fourth refurbished vintage chair, and have also been layering and sanding the plaster in preparation for it. Colors planned are black, off-white and greens. The other chairs in this series are shown here.
Eastern Redbuds
Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Eastern Redbuds – Spring in Dallas, TX – finished April 11, 2009, took off all remaining masking fluid. 11H x 11W x 3D inches, acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted. Signature is on the side, so one is superimposed here on the front. Hang on a wall or display on a flat surface.
Eastern Redbuds is the first of sixteen 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas paintings of various aspects of trees, to hang together as a group or flanking other paintings. This one uses masking medium to block out areas of white. The first layer of dried medium was removed in the above thumbnails. Afternoon post, left: Adding another layer of masking fluid, seen as yellow.
Feb. 25th: below left, looks better turned on its side but it could be hung either direction, mask was removed then the painting was overworked unintentionally – all the marks that were the whole point of using masking fluid are hardly visible.
So on Feb. 26th: below right, more mask was applied, then white painted between branches, tore away a few select areas of the dried mask and left the rest on as texture.
$350.00
Paint Arson
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Paint Arson, 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted.
Frame unnecessary. Hang on a wall or display on a flat surface. Signed on the side so as not to impose on the composition.
Progress and process phases 1 and 2 images.
Painting, whatever the subject may be, is a journey through all kinds of unanticipated thoughts and associations; some are short and sweet, ending within 1 – 6 hours and not much more than a visual, but some are packed full of adventure that isn’t even realized until surfacing from a few hours of work.
A new jar of Cadmium Red medium hue was just the thing to reboot, then re-route some old habits I was falling back into, like over-working paintings. Trying a new color invigorates the work process like nothing else can, adding certain life to the results as well. Incorporated as a base, straight out of the tube or mixed with your usual palette, a new color can change everything.
Branching Out
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Branching Out and Conifer, each 6H x 6W x 2D inches Encaustic, side surfaces also done.
Encaustic is designing/painting with beeswax. I’m not usually intimidated by trying any new medium, but wax is so unique and there are so many possibilities for it, I was a little overwhelmed when I took an introductory course with Deanna Wood. She offers her students workshop days where they can use her supplies to continue experimenting with the medium. Although I’d love to have my own supplies to work at home, the encaustic process is so messy, not to mention expensive to get started, so that is a generous offer. Today’s studio work produced 4 small encaustic paintings, and 2 are successful. Compared to other media, wax is so versatile it can be scraped off to whatever degree, reworked, layered, carved and manipulated as much or as long as you wish. It’s a lot of fun!
Myrtle At The Zoo
Monday, March 9th, 2009
Myrtle At The Zoo – Crepe Myrtle branches and seedpods before pruning, February at the Fort Worth Zoo, Texas. 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted. Signature is on the side, so one is superimposed here on the front. Hang on a wall or display on a flat surface.
Howler Monkey
Friday, March 6th, 2009
Young Howler Monkey at the Dallas World Aquarium, 11H x 11W x 3D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted. Frame unnecessary. Hang on a wall or display on a flat surface. Signed on the side so as not to impose on the composition.
Work progress detail images shown, scrubbing and scratching away more paint than adding it.
Showcased in the J. Mane Gallery’s Fins, Feathers and Fur 2020 exhibition (post-dated comment).
« Previous Entries Next Entries »