When your subject makes a house-call

 

I first noticed this visitor in a tree outside my window on my b-day (hopefully not a ominous sign) and since then it appears he/she has decided to roost there for the nights off and on.  Not a great photo but it is the best my camera can do at a distance.  Despite their social stigma they really are graceful birds.  Love to watch them fly, plus they recycle.

It makes me wonder if could solicit a free critique of the pic from my last post by taking it outside and placing it by the tree?.....

Looking for beauty......or past it.

"Ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts." 

-(Serge Gainsbourg)

  I like this quote although I can't say I completely agree with it because not much of anything lasts.  It might seem like "ugly" lasts because for whatever reasons many of us don't spend too much time observing it.

Here is a project I started a little while back.  It may not be a favorable subject for some.  Here is the progression.

 

This unfortunate road crosser happened to end up along the side of the road in some debris where he/she went unnoticed for burial for a few weeks.  After getting used to encountering him/her along many a walk you could sense a presence (of the absence) of the critter that once was.  Although perhaps more sanitary, it was a little sad when someone finally removed him/her.....kinda like he/she died again.

Probably going to add a little more to this a little later on.   

Big Board cont.

A little more work done.....experimenting with gold.

 

What do broke artists paint?





Adding to the board

Design & Style......creating a stylized version of something is usually on the edge of my comfort zone.
Looking at many of the old Indian Court paintings I'd like to incorporate a background utilizing patterns and designs (without too much distraction from the subject).  I attempted to create some of my own simple patterns to add to the board.  Simple done well always seems complex.

 

Trying out colors with a little water mixable oils (a media oxymoron).

Going to take a long time to cover....

A Really Big Blank Board

     I bought this ampersand gesso board 36" x 48" a few years back (when $$$ was more plentiful) and although I had a project idea in mind then I put off working on it (...esp. since lately mistakes & materials are more expensive for the budget than they used to be).  Well knowing me, instead of finishing some of my other projects I find interest in restarting this one.
I have to admit I envy the clean, white, blank state of this board---on those insomnia-full nights I wish I could exchange the sleep-depriving contents of my mind for such but I digress.
 
     Although the board comes with a gesso surface, I sprayed a few coats of Krylon Spray Gesso which seems to help grip and absorb the first few layers of paint a little better.  Next I trace some of my drawings (I worked on previously) and use these to come up with an arrangement to transfer to the board.

   And thus a beginning.  Now to figure out how to obtain enough paint to cover.  In case there is any future curiosity about my subject choices I took inspiration from a marble soda, 16th-19th century Indian Court paintings, the pelican, & Shiva's self-sacrifice in the Samudra Manthan (you can read about the latter here if interested Samudra Manthan ).
More to come.....

In Memoriam--2011 Figurative Artists

     Like many others, I was saddened earlier this year to hear of the loss of the figurative artist Lucian Freud.  You always wonder about that last work in progress that may have gone unfinished, where it ends up, and if anyone was privy to knowing the artist's thoughts about it before his/her departure.

Another artist George Tooker, one of my favorites (who may not have been known as well as Freud) also passed on at the beginning of the year.  Tooker worked almost entirely with egg tempera paint and is probably best known for his paintings done during the 1950s which depict a Kafka-like modern social environment.  They do a good job of expressing that alone in a crowd feeling; human disconnection resulting from a system designed for the masses that overlooks the individual.
     However, Tooker's work is not limited to this subject---he has many other works showing the warmer side of human emotion.  He seems to have a unique way of rendering an expressive face.  I also like the use of perspective in many of his works.  It is interesting to see the pencil studies of these.

Here is one of his works from the Whitney Museum of Art collection, The Subway (1950).  The link to the museum and work is referenced below.

http://www.whitney.org/Collection/GeorgeTooker  
    

Creativity & Vik Muniz

Older but worth watching--here's an interesting talk with artist Vik Muniz

This video among lots of interesting others can be found at the TED website  http://www.ted.com/talks/tags/art.  

If you are curious what kind of art can be made with chocolate syrup, diamonds, and thread check out the artist's own website here http://www.vikmuniz.net/ ( Vik Muniz's oscar nominated documentary Waste Land is also noteworthy.  I love it when art is mixed with social issues and collaborative effort.  On the same topic Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds is another project that comes to mind.)

Pen Sketches & Devils of the Tasmanian type

Here are a few pen sketches of possible subject matter for a new project.  I have a tendency to avoid working with mediums that aren't easily fixable when you make mistakes....gotta get over this.

Interesting fact about Tasmanian devils--they are on the decline due to something called (DFTD) Devil Facial Tumor Disease, a transmissible cancer, meaning that it is contagious among the species.  Transmissible cancer is rare in humans.  It spreads from one "devil" to another "devil" by bite wounds that occur when fighting.  Devils with the disease develop tumors on the face and mouth, are eventually unable to eat, and starve to death---a horrible way to go.
 Just speculation on my part,  but it is interesting that the possibility might exist that individuals whom fight less may be more likely to survive and pass on their peaceful(?) genes.  Typically Nature seems to be unconcerned with moral goals but here might be a case where peace is favored.  Ironically the devils may be evolving into angels after a few Darwinian generations...?
By the way, if you ever listen to a recording of the noise a tasmanian devil makes will understand why they've been given their unfortunate name.

Traffic

My experiment in posting a video.

(may take a while to come up)

A video for the truely bored.  Only using one lane--- but they stay inside the lines pretty well. 

Ostriches, wrinkles, and large scale drawings

Here is the progress of my attempts at rendering a life-size ostrich with mixed media on a large Fredrix "watercolor" canvas started earlier this year.  I find that drawing things on a larger scale is almost another art form.  It also becomes a task requiring more physical activity (which is probably good for you too).  I've only drawn on this scale few times before working on this project.  Without thinking, I started with a pencil sketch and painted a background on the un-stretched canvas with a dilute ink mixture which caused some serious buckling.  After many an hour of ironing it to a flat state I started painting/drawing with ink, gouache, and pastel.  I looked at what seemed like a million images of ostriches before drawing the first smaller version. (Without having a live ostrich to pose it can be tricky to come up with a novel natural looking stance.)  Not sure if it is coincidence, but usually after starting any project I always find that your subject pops up in life somehow.  In this case the HP tablet commercial with Russell Brand and the ostrich seemed to be all over the place--all I could think is forget the tablet, that lucky guy, he has the real thing running around his place!  Honestly, I started the project before seeing the commercial. 

I want to darken things up (I always tend to go too light) and add a sky but wasn't sure yet of how to display an un-stretched canvas which is where I've left off.  I may sew a piece of canvas across the top and put some eyelet holes from which it could hang. (I'm thinking kind of like the Leon Golub canvases.  Speaking of which here is a link if you haven't seen any of his work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0IiAYeHKBc )

Welcome to my blog

In keeping this blog I hope to motivate myself to finish some of the projects I start that have gone to the waiting place (sometimes never to be revived).  I hope that this space can provide others with links and media to inspire or be useful in some way.  There is so much I have learned simply by seeing the process of how others go about creating art. I am grateful to those who share their methods.  I don't consider myself a writer so bear with me thru awkward text.

Art can be a new way of seeing, thinking, or using your senses to experience the world.  I love the feeling of allowing your world to expand when you see the same ole same ole in a new way.  Possibility is freedom.