Tag Archives: abstract

09/1/11

Black Eye and Cypher

Presenting one old and one new abstract. Both are acrylic paint on watercolor paper, a habit I just can’t break. Cypher is probably my favorite painting of mine of all time. Seriously, it cheers me up. It’s funny that I completely forgot about it and just found it a couple of weeks ago. I propped it up on the wall and thought, If I didn’t already have this, I would really need to own it. I hardly ever feel that way about my own paintings.

Cypher

“Cypher” actually feels cheerful to me, unlike “Black Eye”, which you can see below. It’s a new painting and I could write a story about it, and maybe some day I will.
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04/29/11

Anniversary

Maybe the inescapable royal wedding made me think of weddings, but I mentally re-worked this from the original, which was to be far more abstract than it turned out, into a marriage-themed painting. The finished painting is almost like a graphic design. It’s often true that what you see as a finished painting is nothing (or little) like the original concept intended by the artist, believe it or not.

That’s not always true of course. I just watched an interesting video of painting an urban landscape scene by an artist who plans his paintings more than anyone I’ve ever seen, down to making a painting from a detailed drawing using a grid. I have no idea if I would ever have the patience to work like that, but I sincerely doubt it. After I take a decent photo of this one, titled “Anniversary”, it will appear on Artspan (see right column for link) where you can get a print of it.

02/4/11

Biológico Primario

From these two details you can get a feeling for how the “organic” painting I just finished turned out.

These are two details of one painting, believe it or not.  The colors are not exactly representational in either photo because of some weird lighting in my “studio” right now.

The painting is called Biológico Primario Border Walls and it’s 36″ x 24″.  It will be available on my Leitworks site as soon as I can get a great photo of it.  I will also put it on my Artspan gallery.

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02/3/11

Pour Painting

This painting is in progress — it’s being done using a pouring technique that I’m experimenting with. I started it Wednesday night and decided I was making such a mess I better really attack it tomorrow after I’ve laid down a plastic drop cloth and covered everything within a 10′ radius. This is one of those messy procedures that I like a lot but the house can suffer. I don’t have a real studio at all. Just a table.

I love abstract art, but nothing makes me more frustrated than seeing two lumps of color on a canvas in an art magazine with an enormous price underneath it and a prestigious gallery representing it. Even worse, one dark lump of color. That’s just laziness and it’s being rewarded, even though intellectually I understand how it’s art. This happened the other day, as I was paging through an art magazine, which is the only reason I mention it. Most days I love abstract art and feel that it is more meaningful than representational art that looks like a photo. Photorealistic art usually leaves me cold. At least, looking through the magazine inspired me. . . . My painting will be acrylic and it’s about 32″ X 26.

01/31/11

Exotic Hat

I finished this last week and scanned it for prints, which I am offering for sale on Artspan. Yes, it’s rather unusual. It was inspired by a photo of a woman I found online but became part of an abstract I had already started so it really looks hardly at all like the original photo. I completely imagined her face and body.  It’s a small acrylic painting, only 8″ x 10″ so it was easy to scan.

"Exotic Hat"

Next week I’m starting to draw again as a way to get back to basics.