genie is out of the bottle

this recent painting started with a squiggly line. i then worked with it and let it emerge. there was no plan until about midway through i started seeing some images and patterns in it. i wonder if there is anything that you see in it.

here is a rough time lapse of it as it developed:

because the very first, dark squiggle was the anchor for the painting, i added a strand of electro luminescent (EL) wire that can be turned on or off to accentuate that curve.

Footprints - Artomatic 2015

This is a photo of my completed space at Artomatic 2015. It is not just about Rhinos, although I use them to emphasize something broader. I will go into more discussion about its meaning in a near-future post.

The two paintings on either side are "bookends" -- a mother and child. The mother in the lead, the child trotting along after. The piece that is second from the left is entitled "Footprints" and is the focal point of the installation -- there is only a bit of one rhino in it, as other parts of nature vie for attention. It is detailed and complicated and deserves its own discussion. The piece to the right of it is "The Abyss" and also contains a rhino, though a bit more abstractly. The rhino in this piece looks into the abyss and is acting as a canary in a coal mine. The piece to the right of The Abyss is my first piece of art to contain an Arduino. A sensor lets the Arduino know when to make the eye sparkle. I learned a lot by doing this and am looking forward to continue to combine technology and art as a way to allow paintings to be more interactive.

If you take a photo of any of my work, please post it on social media with the hashtag #SaveRhinos. 

I hope you can visit Artomatic. It contains the work of 500+ visual artists (2D and 3D), plus many performing artists. There are also workshops and other activities. Meet the Artists night is the next major event and will take place on November 14. Check the calendar for more activities. 

Footprints - at Artomatic 2015 (preliminary)

Artomatic 2015 opens tomorrow. I decided to expand my rhinoceros series into the broader theme of the human impact on the earth. We all leave footprints -- what will you leave behind?  What will you tread upon?

This is the first time I will be showing an Arduino-enabled painting. It is not technologically sophisticated, but I think it adds a sparkle. I plan to do more of this in the near future, to create art that interacts with the viewer, its environment, or both.

Here are some teaser photos of some of my pieces. I will post a photo of my entire space once the show has opened.

It starts with a fresh coat of paint: 

This is a work-in-progress photo of a section of my flagship piece, Footprints:

And a couple more photos of bits and pieces of some of my pieces: 

 I hope you can visit Artomatic and see thousands of works of art by hundreds of artists.

a bigger picture

this mixed media piece of mine was in the show  A Bigger Picture at the fairfax art league gallery.
mixed media (oil, acrylic, pumice, sand, stucco).

and here is how i got it there and back:

some works in progress

just a few things in the hopper

swirl it

feeling the vortex.

oil & acrylic on canvas, 16x20.

multi-painting

one thing i am loving about having studio space is the ability to "multi-paint" -- work on multiple paintings in one session. with oil painting, since the drying time becomes a factor, i find that now that i have the space, i can add bits to several paintings in succession. in a recent evening, i worked on all of these paintings (plus one more that i started after snapping this photo):

it was mind-bending to be able to work on birds, bridges, abstract pieces, and a portrait all in the same session.

the soundry

there is a new cool studio/gallery/coffee shop opening up in vienna, virginia in december 2008. it is called the soundry. i will have studio space there and will have the following pieces hanging there in december (i like the series in this order because to me it shows a progression):

abstraction -- or my version of it

i have been taking an abstract painting class for the past month at the torpedo factory in old town alexandria, va. i took the course for two reasons: 1) to learn how to think more loosely and more creatively; 2) to learn more about how to work with acrylics.

it seems that as i move from realism to abstraction, i have taken a path toward surrealism. it was not intentional, but now it seems logical, as it is so hard for me to let go of realism. here are a few examples of the stuff that has resulted from my classes:

figure study with abstraction

It is always challenging to paint a model in a short 3-hour session using oils. But I love a challenge. For this piece, I covered the canvas with a thinned layer of burnt umber. Then, just as when making a charcoal drawing, I began to remove paint from the highlighted areas, and added thicker paint to the darker areas. At the end of 3 hours I had the following monochrome piece:



One of the artists in the session commented that she liked the wood-grain type of pattern in the background. I realized that I did too. That is something nice about working side-by-side with other artists -- we share thoughts and ideas and it becomes very enriching. I used some "secret" techniques (LOL) to cause the white streaking, which I thought added drama to the piece.

At the session the following week. I planned to add color to the piece. Luckily, we had the same model that week (that is never a given). However, he assumed a seated rather than a standing pose. Another challenge! So, I used the feelings I got from his expression, positioning, and the light to help me to decide which colors to apply. The model (Emmanuel) emanates a warmth which I tried to capture by using mostly warm colors. I like how the lemon yellow communicates his glow. The result of adding color is here:



I kept my colors pretty pure on my pallet, but mixed them a bit on the canvas. Once I had added about as much color as I could without getting things muddy, I still had some time remaining, so I decided to incorporate Emmanuel's seated figure. As I was adding that, it almost felt like it was a shadow of him, rather than another figure.

We will have a different model this week, so I will no longer work on this piece at the O Street studio, but will continue to work on it in my own studio. I will add many more glazes of color. My goal is to get him to glow and burst from the canvas.