Little Bird

Close-up of my latest little piece. I think it is pretty cute, and it was a lot of fun to do.

A bird in hand

Songbird for a songbird.

I made this small painting for my great friend Jenna when she came back out to Utah for a visit. She's an amazing person and a talented singer/song-writer/guitar-player.

Painting for Jon

I think I'm still going to add some more layers to it, but this is what I've got so far.

December

I know I still have a lot of catching up to do. But for now, this is the only photo I have on hand of any recent stuff. So, while I have internet access, I'll post it.



I had a lot of fun with this one. It was inspired by my time spent in Texas, and painted there. There are lots of subtle layers, and I like the texture.
It has a home already, and I believe it is happy there. :)

August paintings under way

So I didn't make it into the show. But I now have a handful of happy and fresh paintings that I can either try to get into some other show or possible give away. Or then there's etsy. . . maybe there's something worth trying out. We'll see. Either way, artist's block, what artist's block?
I'm back to painting and creating again, and I think that's a way better thing to be able to report than just being in one little ol' show. Don't you agree? :)

In the meantime, here's a few of my latest little ones...

Minnesota

ixulus

The Beginnings Of A Family Tree

Fingers Crossed

I been painting and sketching (I need to photograph those...) and keeping myself artistically busy, when a call for entries link was delivered to my in-box. I only had a few days to get my act together and submit up to five entries. And here was the catch--I had to be prepared to sell the pieces if they were accepted. What could I do? I'd been working on a few things for friends and family lately, so those most definitely couldn't go, even if they are beauties. (Yes, dear friends and winners of my give-away... I have you on my mind and I am working on your prezzies.)

After much scribbling, scrawling, doodling, sawing, gesso-ing, and painting, I came up with four paintings on masonite (hardboard) and a photograph to enter. I sent five of my creations off into the world today.

The photo is the oldest piece that I submitted, and it can be found here. It is one of my favorite Holga photographs and was taken last summer.

The other pieces range from a portrait to an aerial landscape to a couple of more abstract/narrative pieces. I'll include photos of them soon enough. For now I'm just going to relax as much as I can while I await the verdict. I find out on the 19th if I'm in. (Send me good vibes.)

If I get in, I'll celebrate with cake. If I don't... I'll still be happy that I got so much painting and art done in just a short chunk of time. And I'll have more gifts to give.

Inspired

Everything lately is encouraging me to make art. When I've been feeling happy or content, I sketch away. While having a rough day, I lay down color on canvas. When I've been thoughtful, I focus on detail. I've been working on a few different projects all at once and having the best time.

I have 3 canvases going, and one painting on a wood panel. I am sketching out ideas for a children's book that my friend wrote. I have turned an old romance novel into a sketch book and I'm painting, sketching, and writing notes to myself in it.

I'm totally absorbed in creating, and it is wonderful. I haven't been this way in a while. I could feel it coming on, and I'm glad it is finally here. A part of me has been gearing up for this for some time, but something had to give first. And it did. I'm enjoying this productive season in my life, and I am grateful for the people who stand behind me and cheer me on.

And yes, I'm using material I've been getting since my concussion, as mentioned here.

My littlest canvas, and potato print.

I got a little experimental and went back to basics, all at once. I have been wanting to mess around with prints in my paintings for a bit, but I haven't really wanted to go buy the linoleum and other supplies that I used back when I did that sort of thing... so I thought, why not use a potato? I couldn't come up with a good answer for that, so I did. And yes, the shape is roughly one that I saw in my head over and over one of the nights I couldn't sleep.

A sneak-peek of my works in progress.

Here's a grouping of my main three canvases in action. The furthest left is my least complete canvas. I have sketched out a pattern for the background, and that's about it so far. The one on the right is a color pattern that I kept seeing over and over again while listening to the sound of A/C unit outside. I think it may be a self-portrait. (It has been years since I've tried one of those.) The one on the bottom is my first potato-pattern canvas. If it goes well, it will be one of my give-away gifts this year.

The not-so-wonderful romance novel of the 50's (turned sketch book).

This has been a fun one. I found this old book at Desert Industries for $1. It is nicely bound and with a lovely greenish fabric cover. But that was all that it had going for it, as far as I was concerned. Ann of the Woodlands held no magic for me as it was.

I've taken this sad little romance novel and gave it new life. I have doodled in it, painted a couple of water-color sketches, and done some pen and ink drawings. I went in and glued pairs of pages together and then painted out gesso on the front and back of those, so that they can hold up to being painted on with acrylics. Exciting, no? I'll put in more photos of that fun once I get rolling with it.

June paintings

Here are the two paintings I did for my mom back in June. They were my first attempts at doing photo transfers. They are also what got me back into acrylic, at least part-time.

Roots

First of all, this isn't exactly how this piece looks. I left both of the paintings from this post in Texas and forgot to photograph them. My mom tried her best to get a good shot of this piece, but the area she was working in wasn't cooperating, so there are shadows and light streaks... but I think you can get the general idea from it, so here it is.

For this piece, I painted on masonite board. I laid down some background washes, then did the photo transfer. I finished it by distressing it some and adding a few details, like the trees in the background and the roots at my grandparents' feet. It is approximately 5"x7".

I loved this image of my grandparents because I didn't get to see them like this very much as a kid. I'm pretty sure the original photo of them was taken before I was born. I remember them most clearly as either taking walks with us to parks or to the grocery store, or just hanging out/cooking/and cleaning around their place. As a youngster, I didn't photograph them much except outside of the chapel they went to for church, or at their place, in Warsaw, Poland. So I liked that this captured them happily together near the Wistula river.

Heritage

Here, I painted on canvas, 9"x9" I believe. Unlike the previous image, where the printout I used was straight black ink, this was a full-color black and white print. The differences are obvious. While some mid-tone values came out(which I liked), it didn't transfer as well (I'm not a fan of that). I didn't really mind that it went purple-ish. I'm into random "errors" in my art, and think that in this case it added to the piece. After doing the transfer, I went back in and added some more detail and some washes and then glazed the thing for good measure.

I wanted to capture a happy moment for my mom with this painting. The original photo was from her visit with Dale to Poland back in 2004. It was taken in their home, but I cut out all of the background that was initially a part of the image to simplify it. I like all of the different prints that they are wearing. In real life they were all kinds of different colors, so I like how the transfer process helped unify them in a way.

Pilot Whales

I made a little painting for Clint's birthday. It was an interesting process. Parts of it came easily to me. I knew I wanted it to be a seascape, and I had some ideas for patterns I wanted to use in the background. I even knew the colors I wanted to use, in general. However, I was stumped about what else exactly to include. I had so many ideas floating around in my head, but I wasn't sure which to settle on. (There may well be other things that come from all that brain-storming. Later.) Well, sneaky me, I asked Clint a few "random" questions that helped me along. His favorite animal, what he could be if he could be any animal, is a pilot whale. I knew this, we'd even talked about this while walking around Sea World. So how did it escape my memory? I'm not sure. I'm glad he played along, however, and reminded me. I took that idea and ran with it.

Here's what ended up in the painting: Sea, sky, kelp, and pilot whales.

2008, Acrylic on canvas

Even just a few years back, it was really difficult for me to do pieces specifically for other people. I don't know if it was so much that I was worried that they wouldn't like it, but maybe that played a part in it. I think there was also a stubborn part of me that had a hard time wanting my art to be overt/easily deciphered, and I felt that art for gift-giving was meant to be easily read by the recipient. I was scared that gift-art would end up being cheesy or inauthentic.

Whatever the reasons, I used to have the worst time trying to come up with ideas when the art wasn't:
1. specifically for me
2. an experiment
3. a way of problem-solving

But these days, things have changed. I did 3 paintings for my family during the last month and a half. Two for my mom, and one for my step-dad. I'll post images of those just as soon as I get the photos of them. (I forgot to take some pictures of those pieces before I left them with their new owners.) Those paintings came surprisingly easily to me.

I can guarantee you that part of the ease and quickness of those pieces can be attributed to the medium I've been using. Until these last few pieces, I worked almost exclusively with oil paints, making a few ventures with watercolors. Oil paint is what I got used to in college, and let's face it, it is still my main squeeze. But I'm making room for other friends. And lately, I've gotten reacquainted with my old friend Acrylic.

Where Oil is nostalgic, and into long slow walks and drawn-out tales, Acrylic is all about life in the fast lane. Acrylic gets to the point. Acrylic has no time to mess around. That used to be a big turn-off for me, especially when I'd gotten so accustomed to my dear sweet rambling Oil. However, I can now see the benefits of having the option of speeding things up now and again. I have to be in a different state of mind with Acrylic than with any other medium, and I think the practice has been good for me.

I expect that I'll continue to get to know Acrylic better, as well as some of my other long-neglected pals from days gone by.