Steve's art

Black Rock

2011-06-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is Seneca Creek at Black Rock Maryland. It was a very nice warm day for painting. A few bluegills spalshed around in the shallows.

Some new sketches

2011-04-01T08:15:00.001-07:00

work in progress

2009-07-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

Here is my next work in progress. The stretcher I put together Friday; it measures 43" x 48". This is another in the series of abstractions I've been doing lately. I've titled the piece, City Blocks. The titled comes from an old toy I once had as a child by that name. City blocks were a predecessor to legos and snapped together in a similar fashion. The forms that I mapped out on the canvas reminded me of my old toy so I choice that for the name. You might be able to see the light penciled lines for the composition of the piece; I'm sure this is going to take quite some time to complete but I'm pretty enthused so far.

Logs at the Bottom of the Pamunkey River

2009-06-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

I finally finished this painting (I've been posting the progress on my other blog). It is 4' by 4.5' in size. I'm reasonably pleased with the results. I wish the photo could pick up the green shades in the picture but it doesn't. The tints of permanent green seem washed out in the photo. Nonetheless, This painting has fueled my interest to keep going with this motif for awhile. I like the fact it has slowed me down with completion of my work. I think I was doing my pictures way too fast; the extra time spent is worth the effort.

Re-post

2009-06-15T04:06:00.000-07:00

This re-post was the last in a series of geometric abstract paintings I did last fall. I became very disappointed in my recent bar scene painting and re-stretched the canvas and have started over with a new abstract painting (nothing much to show yet). I titled this painting, Ode to Sheeler since the large table top glued to the panel reminded me of Charles Sheeler's paintings of locomotive drive wheels. I could hang the painting vertically and I think I'd rename it pendulum. My titles come after the fact and have very little bearing on the work. Maybe I should name them number one, two, three, etc., or something like that.

work in progress

2009-06-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

I finally got to work on my painting. This a continuation of my earlier post -a work in progress-and I am reasonably pleased with what I've done so far. Even though this is a naturalistic painting, portions of it utilize abstract paint handling. I find sometimes you have to just about destroy and area then bring it back before you get anything worthwhile when painting in an abstract/gestural style. Anyway, the faces on my figures are handled fairly tightly; probably because I was uncertain if I could pull off just a mere suggestion of a face, so I modeled the forms a little bit.

Green Lake

2009-06-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

I made this painting a little less then a year ago. It had been sitting behind some other canvases I no longer felt were good paintings when I unearthed it the other day and reconsidered my opinion about it. I now have it hanging on my wall. The painting is 36"x36" (why I work with a square format so much, I can't explain) and the image came straight from the imagination. If I recall correctly, there are several abstract paintings underneath this one. Large amounts of the paint here have been troweled onto the surface using a house painter's broad blade; the thick impasto adds flatness to the color areas and shapes. I love painting this way but it makes me nervous because you can't imagine the amount of paint you go through globing up so much pigment on the canvas. I buy the large 225 ml tubes of Daler-Rowney oil paint because they are cheap, or else the large Winton tubes but even at their lower cost, impasto painting still runs up quite a bill. I've never found commercial house paints to be very useful in this regard since they are too runny and their quality is extremely questionable. maybe I can add some sort of substance to the pigment to thicken it and extend the paint but I haven't researched that yet.

work in progress

2009-06-08T04:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm going to try this again: this is another work in progress. I liked the last one sufficiently enough to try this again. I've made my sketch from a drawing I did and posted a couple of weeks ago on my plein air blog. This is a large canvas of 4' x 4.5' and as you can see I am once again painting over another work. This should be the last time, I hope, that I do this but I am cheap enough to not want to waste such a large piece of canvas and the abstract painting underneath never did much for me. Incidentally, the last painting titled, -Seated, standing- I have not painted over and I am going to wait several months and varnish it to bring back some of the sunken areas of color that have dried flat. I have nothing particular in mind beyond the sketch I did at the start of this painting, so I'll just see where it leads me.

Finished

2009-06-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

I finished my painting that I posted a few days ago. I've titled it, "Seated, standing". No other title for the work came to mind so I named it for the actual positions of the two figures. I guess I could have left it untitled but any work with a figure deserves a titled, I feel.. I did this painting from a live sketch but obviously took plenty of liberties in how I interpreted that sketch. It's pretty exciting to use the flat color areas in a cut out fashion like I've done. Placement and the relationship of one color to the next becomes the focus of the painting yet it retains an association to the subject as I sketched it when at the bar. A painting of this style and of this size (36" x 36" ) asserts itself in a room. I particularly enjoy the fact that the figures are near life size. Now to select the next sketch and work up another one of these.

work in progress

2009-06-03T02:38:00.000-07:00

This is a work in progress and I know in the past posting unfinished work was the quickest way to sabotage myself but I am pleased with the results here so I thought I'd try it again. I worked this painting up from a sketch done at my bar. As you might see, I'm painting directly over another painting that I became disenchanted with. Funny thing is, the painting underneath is the very one I posted here for a days until I got so frustrated with it I gave up. Nonetheless, I like this image; the surface is rough hewn due to all the paint I'm covering up but I don't seem to mind that. I shot the picture so you can see the scale of the piece; the figures are almost life size. The man's shirt at left is actually black but I caught a sheen off the surface in my lens. I think I'm going to post this on my other blog too.

Jean d'Aire

2009-06-02T04:27:00.000-07:00

Two versions of Rodin's jean d'Aire. The one at right, I did at the National Gallery of Art. The abstracted one I obviously did from the first sketch. The idea here is to look for future painting ideas. I have always admired the work of John Graham for his use of the portrait as the theme for semi-abstract paintings. Graham is noted for his leadership among the Abstract Expressionists as a critic and writer but his own work seemed to remain true to Picasso and Matisse; at least to my mind it does. What I like about him is his use of bold color in flat planes coupled with a, usually, bust like portrait. I may be groping here in this discussion but perhaps dissecting the face, like I've done above, has some possibilities.

Out fishing

2009-05-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

I would imagine most people have noticed a slow down in posts from me, I simply have felt like taking a little break since I wasn't painting much anyway. I'm afraid the warm days have me out fishing just about every opportunity I can find so I'll be back to posting in due time. I have also embarked on writing stories about fishing which I guess is my way of prolonging the experience as much as I can.

Red Wall

2009-05-05T03:01:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a potpourri of my graphic conventions that I use in these type paintings: check patterns, brick patterns, spheres, bands, etc. I set them out in a surrealist landscape with some sky peeping from behind the mass of jumbled shapes and colors. This is about 3'x4' in size. Although there are no personal images or bazaar people doing strange things, I wonder how this might look in one's living room? (thinking about my comments in my last post)

Football

2009-05-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

This is a really bazaar painting. I find football (that is the television variety) to be a humorous game. It is so filled with hype and anecdote and silly analysis as to be completely invisible but people do like it. I played football as a kid and it was a fun game but I have no interest in it as an adult. I really think it should be played but not observed, then it would side step the vicarious crassness that follows it. Now that I've said that, I would admit that this painting is not about football, anyway. I am unsure what this painting is about but it wants to explain itself about fear and transition and the uncomfortable feeling not being part of something brings. I guess it is estrangement that drives this painting. It is a very large picture at around 4' x 5' and I use to hang these in my home but I think they drove everyone nuts and I don't blame them. Homes are suppose to have quiet pastoral scenes in them to match the decor, not expressions of the inner workings of the mind. Maybe I'll get it right someday but the work that meant something to me, I was always somewhat embarrassed about. Sort of like saying, "you shouldn't have revealed that about yourself" or something like that. Anyway, this is another of the painted over pictures that I did years ago. I sure am glad I photographed them. It use to be titled -Deity- but that was just a grafted on name with no thought. I'll call it -Football- for now.

Red Floor

2009-04-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

This painting is loaded with personal symbols. I could walk you through many of them and also point out some that are poorly understood even by me. The mind has a reason for everything it does, we just miss the rationale a good portion of the time. I think total randomness is impossible because if one achieves it, it was because they consciously decided to be random, which is not being random in my mind, it is contrived. The mind also defends itself. I think this is an instinctual trait carried forward as we evolved into humans. No matter how bazaar or unacceptable human behavior can be, there is a reason behind it. We pass judgement on human behavior with our laws (or lack of them) because we need cultural stability in order to live together but those laws passed down over time and continually being modified are simplistic and cartoon-like and do not address the complex reasons why humans do what they do. Anyway, here is the first in a series of posts I hope to make. I shot this photo a long time ago and wish I could retake it but I have a nasty habit of painting over oil paintings and this painting is long gone now. It was 36" x 40" and painted in oil.

Untitled (filleted winged seal)

2009-04-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

This is another drawing from a number of years ago. I found it interesting on several accounts. Even thought I made this at least 7 or 8 years ago the statue of Diana that I used for my model showed up coincidentally in a drawing project in the blogsphere a few days ago. I feel this brand of surrealism is some of the more fascinating stuff I do. It is a modest size drawing at 14" x 17" and is done in graphite pencil. In rummaging through my pile of drawings and watercolors I found that I have a couple of other older works that were incomplete so I've recently gone back and am finishing them. Wow!! Now I can have a piece that has a date of 2002 - 2009. Makes it seem like a lot of thinking went into it..haha!!

Land forms

2009-04-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have posted this same post to both my blogs in an attempt to begin to merge the two into one blog without losing all my followers. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that but anyway....

Here is a new sketch done with the old motif I abandoned years ago. This may seem a little crude, I didn't use my dip pen which produces a much finer line, I used a marker type pen. Dip pens can be frustrating and more time consuming but you get a much better result. I guess the old ideas and feeling I had years ago still bat around in my head sufficient enough for me to create this sketch. I'm going to see if this takes me anywhere because lately I haven't been doing too much. I think a Freudian psychologist could have a field day with the images I conjure up in these pieces...haha!!! I certainly don't mind that, in fact, it is what I hope for. The more I twist and contort the forms giving them symbolic significance, the better I like the piece. Sometimes an exotic look can just drip with symbolism and personal , as well as universal, meaning even if it is unclear what the complete message may be. Multiple passages and symbols in a painting can be as ephemeral and varied as thoughts passing through our subconscious mind at the speed of light. We don't stop to analyze them but the brain makes a record of them beneath our, pretend to be, real world. Most of us want to create a beautiful picture in the traditional sense but suppose if fidelity to the mental undercurrents working in the piece were more important then to our learned visual aesthetics. Wouldn't this be what makes a Jackson Pollock painting have meaning? Yet, without cubism (a learned visual aesthetic) as a backboard to bounce his images off of, wouldn't we just see his paintings as a jumbled up mess?( some may think that the case, regardless..haha!!) Maybe not, but the difference to me is the difference between talking in a language or babbling. If you decide to babble, then the shadow of language has to be present, simply for the contrast and to be able to recognize the babble as babble. I don't know where I'm going with all this except to say, I feel like writing. I know practically nothing about language and linguistics (except for what we all seem to understand through usage)and all the artsy jargon surrounding it. In fact, I prefer to be ignorant of it. What I think I'm talking about is value in art (hate that word...sounds like a marketing tool) being determined by just how clearly we can express the unseen elements of our world by using only what we can see. What a contradiction that seems to be but it does appear to be the case...maybe.

Journey

2009-04-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

Back in 1996, when my father was dying of cancer, I created this drawing. I guess in a way it symbolizes the life transition to an unknown realm. Mercifully, dad did not last long with his cancer, as it ate through an aorta and he died quickly. We both were taking an art class back then but unfortunately the class was held on the second floor in a building and after only a few times, dad could no longer make the flight of stairs. In my picture, I feel we both are climbing the stone stairs having to meet the impending danger and doom but with an eye on the distant paradise. I really can't add anything else to this piece.

Hidden Valley

2009-04-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

A few years back, I was doing fantasy type landscapes. The murals I recently posted that were done in my old home are an example, as is this painting. I never titled this piece so recently I decided to named it, Hidden Valley. It reminds me of the land of Shangri-la from the Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Coleman. That old movie would come on t.v. when I was a kid and it left a huge impact on me when I was young. The watercolor is 18" x 24". I almost exclusively worked on a DeArchers block for all my paintings back then.

I have a few more I will post in the next few days.

Work Force

2009-04-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

This post appeared on 'Every Photo Tells a Story' a while back. I thought I'd post it here. It is one in a long series of what I referred to as my surrealist paintings, although some people don't consider them surrealist art. Nonetheless, they are a very strange combination of images and textures, illustrated in my cartoonish style. Most of them are done in watercolor and are 18" x 24" in size. This painting is titled, Work Force and I will admit to not being able to explain every activity you see going on in the painting. The way I paint these is to pencil in thoughts that instantly pop into my head without editing them for their contextual inconsistency. In fact, the more inconsistent the idea is, the better. Clearly, some themes reoccur throughout all these pictures and those themes are certainly expressions of fears, aspirations and confusions that go on in my mind (or at least use to) but they are also often just plain humorous. Anyway, I will be posting more of these. Maybe even painting some, too.

Swamp Thing

2009-04-17T03:50:00.000-07:00

This is another pen and ink sketch I made years ago. I titled it, Swamp Thing. I find it to be mildly humorous and sort of theatrical. If you have a chance, go see the new movie, Alien Trespass, it is a spoof on 50's Sci-Fi movies and it is a very entertaining movie, especially from an artistic standpoint. The film's color is outstanding and captures the feel of a time when more optimism was felt nationally, then now. To understand what I mean, just look at the drabness of our contemporary automobiles and compare that to the splash of bright color and inventive design cars from the 50's were. But, so much for cultural analysis.....I have a few more of these sketches that are unfinished,; it might be nice to go back and complete them.

Shadow Hall

2009-04-15T03:49:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm...I'm getting a little too morose here...sorry but I can be overly pessimistic. Time to put my Poe book down. As frightening as this image appears to be (actually, I find my characters somewhat humorous), it is really about the events leading to my divorce. Sometimes people feel isolated and pushed aside and that was how I felt. I am not sure if you can see the image of the boy fishing but clearly that is the only escape available to the man. The symbol of death is pretty universally taken to be change and I was heading for the biggest change in my life at the time. Hallways and interiors are often symbols of a mental state of being, hence the title, Shadow Hall. The women appear as wispy shades, ready to torment the man (this is certainly a one sided view here...haha!! but who's here to defend the opposing view?) I liked being married and I hate living alone but I don't know what is around the bend for me. Hopefully better times.

Clocks

2009-04-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

This is a somber picture I did thirteen years ago. Obviously it is about the passage of time and mortality. It was done shortly after my father died of cancer and there really isn't too much I can add to it that isn't apparent in the picture. It took me awhile to get use to the sight of dad in the hospital after he had passed away but we all come to accept some things in life that we can't control but I must say, the fewer of these experiences the better. My father was also an artist. perhaps I should post some of his work in the future.

grocery continued

2009-04-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

I managed to get a little more done on this painting, although I didn't work on it much. I was downtown with my daughter viewing the Robert Frank exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Man, what a great photographer but the show was almost too many images to digest.

I'm adding the large lamps in my painting because something is needed in the upper half. We'll see when I'm done if they work out or not.

update

2009-04-11T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm still making progress on this painting even if it is only on Saturday or Sunday. These characters make me laugh to look at them but I would have to think that was my intention or I wouldn't have made them such cartoons. It will be nice to finish this work as it has been an involved painting.

A Soldier's Dream

2009-04-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

This is a large file, so I am unsure if it will play. You might have to wait a bit for it to load. I made this video using my animation program and images I took at Bull Run a year ago. It speaks to another side of this battlefield that I don't ordinarily deal with: the suffering and loss. If you walk these grounds on a gray day you will feel how haunted the place really is. This a sacred place where men faced death by the hour and as confusing and seemingly contradictory as the American Civil War was, the men involved were mostly young and impressionable and unaware of what they got themselves into. My great grandfather, Francis Marion Smith ran away from home at age sixteen and fought for three years with the 1st Virginia only to be captured two days before the surrender at Appomattox Court House and thrown into prison for five months. The toll these experiences had on his life was severe as he died at age 50. It wasn't enough to just survive the deadly battles, the war followed those men for the rest of their lives. My great grandfather's brother, Joel Smith was also a prisoner of war and contracted Typhoid fever during the war which debilitated him from working at his railroad job later in life.

Cowboy

2009-04-08T02:13:00.000-07:00

Here is another little short video I made. It does not have sound so don't think things are set incorrectly. This was mostly a trial piece that I made last year titled, Cowboy. Too bad blogger sort of fuzzy's up the Quicktime exports. This video is actually a bit sharper in quality.

Metamorphous

2009-04-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

I've created a few videos over the last year and have tried to upload them to my blog but not successfully. Hopefully this animation will play without too much buffering. I titled it Metamorphous. It was created using toon boom software and a sound editor I have. It plays ok on my computer but it is a little fuzzier than the original should be. All in all, it's not too bad.

progress

2009-04-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

I managed to get more work done on this picture yesterday as well as get outside and paint. I'm pleased with the results so far. It is funny when I do these pictures, I think of the people as my little guys...weird eh? I had so many toy soldiers when I was kid I guess I probably had a full army's worth..haha!!! My mother referred to me as Stephen and his little men. I will not draw too many connections here but obviously there is one lurking in the recesses of my childhood somewhere.

Wood Head

2009-04-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

I am unsure if people who see my blog know that I use to create surrealistic work. I guess I've done pieces much like this one pictured here off and on for years now. Most of these paintings are from about 6 or 7 years ago but I thought I'd start sharing them on my blog. The title for this painting is -Wood Head-, named for the man you see in the lower left corner with branches growing out of his scalp..haha!!! I have to admit, I am very entertained by these paintings. Who knows, maybe it's time to return to the recesses of my imagination where I use to jot down whatever fleeting thought that came across my mind and cram it into my picture. The size for most of these is 18" x24" and they are painted in watercolor.

The road home

2009-04-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Here is another photo from my wanderings around Bull Run. This one I took in the early part of last year. I use a simple 4 mega pixel Kodak camera for all my work because I like the simplicity and the accessibility the camera provides. It is comforting to know that anyone can make pictures like these without expensive equipment.

Falling down fence row

2009-04-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

Here is another photo from my photography website. This was taken last year about this time. Nothing had bloomed yet and although the day was warm, the look was still winter. I am fascinated with abandoned places and Bull Run has many artifacts left in the state they were last found when the place grew as a park. Fence rows and old barns, plus the foundation's of buildings can be found walking the grounds. Most of these reminders of a bygone era are from the fifties and forties but some are the remnants from the early i9th century. These fields are the subject of much of my painting.

Oops!! changed again

2009-04-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

I seem to be having difficulty finding time to work on The Grocery Store so I'm going to set it aside for awhile. I'd rather it not suffer the same fate as the building did. In a way I hate to admit to wanting instant gratification but I do and that is part of the world we live in. That this painting is becoming drawn out causes me to lose interest in it (hmm...short attention span? I'm not sure). One of the best aspects to plein air painting is the completion of the work in one sitting. The same holds true for the small still life painting or sketches done on location. maybe I'll find all this easier whenever I get settled down again. I use to spend long periods of time on a piece when I was still married and had a home to live in but since those days life has a way of feeling jumbled up and I actually hate the time I spend in my apartment so I spend as little as possible. Usually I'm here to eat, sleep and leave. This place can be like Kafka's big room after awhile and it is very empty but, such is life.

I thought I'd share some of my photography (man!!...that's instant enough) from my photo website http://www.photography.stroll-thither.com/battlefield2.html

a little more

2009-03-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

I managed to get quite a bit done on this painting even though I was outdoors painting in the afternoon. I'm pleased with the results. So far, the work offers surprises to me as much as to others. I paint wet into wet which probably explains why I don't cover the entire surface first. I guess you could say each session is a painting unto itself, unfolding like writing a story.

continued

2009-03-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

This painting continues on without any major points of contention; to which I am greatly relieved. I feel the latitude provided by a willful use of caricature, helps a great deal in resolving issues of proportion and perspective that, if not accurately defined in a painting that strives for that end, can become very distracting. Of course, with the exaggeration of form and the humorous faces and bodies, the personalities of the figures painted push out for our attention. I often felt that paintings by Albert Pinkham Ryder, Reginald Marsh or Philip Evergood speak more forcefully about their actors than paintings by Nicholas Poussin or Jacques-Louis David but what do I know?

Grocery Store (in progress)

2009-03-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Since I really lost the painting of the building (tried to turn it into an abstract painting and just flat out lost the surface, image, everything...time to re stretch the canvas), I thought I'd post something different. I made this sketch a while back and have started to work it up into a very modest size painting. I sort of worked up just one corner because I wanted to see how the thing was going to look but now I believe I'll block in some other areas before doing so much finished painting. If you see a ghosted in image of Pancho Villa in the upper left, it is because I had originally planned to do a drawing on this panel but erased him in favor of what I'm doing now. Jeez!!! I sure do wipe-out a lot of my artwork...oh well!!!

the beat goes on

2009-03-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

I feel that when you no longer look at a model but instead rely on your judgement and eyes to tell you what to do next in a painting, than you really are creating an abstract painting. This seems especially true when no inner vision exists in the imagination but rather a simple give and take or trial an error period takes place on the canvas. The reaction to whatever marks or passages preceding the next is all that fuels the process. Certainly, this makes for plenty of surprises and also a lot of frustration and if you've read my last several posts on this painting you can see how aggravating this process has been for me. Since this image seemed to require some sort of uniformity across the surface of the primary building, I was struggling to get things straight enough to be convincing as a building on the one hand but loose enough to be gestures created by the hand. In the struggle, I feel the variety of shapes, strokes, colors and manipulations each contributed to the interest in the image. I am still very unsure where this is all leading me but I am running through my imagination major shifts in what I've painted so far. I think by making such shifts lately, I broke away from cuddling this painting and threw it back into something that now interests me again.

2009-03-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

Done for now.

frustration

2009-03-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, for the life of me, I can't seem to get these windows correct. It is becoming extremely frustrating. When a painting becomes more about correcting mistakes than creating the image, it might be time to stop. I'm reasonably satisfied with the color and the mood of the painting. It is a simple image really, with a focus on the edge light hitting the curved building surface but the inconsistency of the bands of windows distracts so much that I find I have to continually rework them. If this was some abstract painting that, let's say, was about the energy of constantly reshaping something, then that might be of interest but this image requires none of that. What might happen is the entire surface of the building may turn to mud with all the corrections. Measuring accurately at this scale (36" x 36") has proved to be a daunting procedure for me and one I have messed up repeatedly. Right now, this painting is a failure and I might just move on to something else. The biggest mistake I feel I've made is not taking the preparatory phase seriously enough. This image required some careful planning and I rushed through that thinking the loose paint handling and semi-abstract treatment would suffice for the accuracy. that was a bad choice on my part.

Cap Grille (in progress)

2009-03-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

No sooner do I say I can't post an image, and I find I can. I did this from my work computer. Sorry if it leans a little but straightening the image reduces the focus some, so I thought I'd just leave it alone. I'm about halfway done here. There is much to repaint: the lower portion of the building, the building at right, smaller details along the street, etc. but I'm encouraged by the progress. Please ignore the tilted image..haha!!

computer woes

2009-03-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

My computer is in the shop so I cannot post images to my blog. I was hoping to show the new work I've done on this painting because it has been a lot. Hopefully by mid-week I'll be back and running.

Friday

2009-03-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

Continuing on.

The beat goes on

2009-03-19T04:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Nancy's (of Every Photo Tells a Story) encouragement, I decided to continue with this project. I must admit, I took this photo rather hurriedly (it's tilted, or angled away a little bit) but the changes I've made now pushes this painting towards a more abstract image. I'm only finding time to work in the morning before I go to work but the hour or so I get in, is working out well. I think the windows on the yellow portion of the building look better pushed back into the field of color and not standing out as the dark holes the were previously. I probably will unify the brown portion of the building also with closer values in the window shapes but right now I wanted to get something down. In the building at right, I will have to look at google maps, street view, to see what window configuration exists there (I didn't include any detail in my preliminary sketch). I was pretty discourage over this painting but I like what's happening now.

too many mistakes to go forward

2009-03-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest work on my painting. I see so many mistakes in this thing that I'm about ready to shelve it. I didn't get the bands of windows parallel, even though I measured them and their adjustment may require me scraping the entire surface of the building off. Mistakes like this aren't such a problem on a small scale but at this scale they distract so much it is obvious. If I do scrape the paint I'll have to wait for things to dry and I hardly find time to paint on this thing anyway, so it may go back to the closet where it came from. One thing I notice when working on pieces at this scale is (and I'm not making excuses here) my glasses will warp long horizontal lines when I view them up close. I've been fooled several times thinking a canvas was bowed in or out when in reality it was straight. Nonetheless, measurements should be accurate and mine are not, at least in this painting that is.

work in progress

2009-03-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

I am always shaky about posting unfinished paintings but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. This is a fairly large painting at about 40 inches square. It is of a building that stands on the corner of 6th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. The restaurant on the bottom floor is called the Capital Grille (I've never eaten there since it's too rich for my blood). I think of this painting as being an abstract piece: frontal, grid-like, accentuated color, loose brush work, etc. I am working from a sketch I made of the building a few weeks ago. We'll see how it goes.

Moon over land

2009-03-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

I did this painting about two years ago. As abstract pictures go, it's pretty small at 17" x 21". I have a nasty habit of painting over existing works when I get bored with them. This one was actually framed and I decided to paint around the frame when I created it. I was disappointed with it initially and it has spend two years in a closet but a couple of months ago, I pulled it out and now feel it is pretty good. There is an indebtedness to Hans Hofmann in this picture but I certainly don't mind that comparison since I consider him the best of the Abstract Expressionist. To be truthful, I feel very guilty when I execute a painting of this fashion on a large scale because the heavy impasto paint costs money. maybe the small scale can prove a remedy..haha!!

Ode to Charles Sheeler

2009-03-06T04:14:00.000-08:00

Whew!!! Done!!! I've finally finished. As I stated earlier, this painting is titled, Ode to Charles Sheeler. The large circle suggested to me his paintings and photos of steam locomotive drivers and rods. I was not going to leave the white area you see at left but as I stared at the painting I decided it created a nice balance with the black square holding the circle. When I was making these paintings, one after another, I felt no disrupt from my thinking about them but quite frankly, I started this painting back in October and only now got around to finishing it. My attitude and concerns shifted some from then to now but overall I think it is consistent (if that's an issue). This is clearly synthetic cubism (at least to my mind it is) and even though that may be a worn out idiom for many, it still fascinated me. If you check my other blog, you will see I am on a railroad mania these days...haha!!! I'm probably going to continue with this concept for awhile because I've got another semi-finished work that begs for a little more painting. Hmmm....I might show that unfinished piece, too. I'm not so afraid to do so as long as I finish them.

To be continued

2009-03-03T04:34:00.000-08:00

I told myself never to publish unfinished paintings and here I've done just that. I'm afraid I'm growing very impatient while completing this work. Perhaps people might find it interesting as to how I make these things. This one sort of belies much of what I previously explained about my method; this is not fully sequential, as you can see I'm working on two and three areas simultaneously but that's ok in this piece because it revolves around that big circle. I started with an old table top and glued it to the 2' x 4' panel, then added the 1" x 2" center bars. The allusion to a steam locomotive drive wheel is undeniable (also, accidental), so I titled the piece, Ode to Charles Sheeler (since he made such stunning photos and paintings of the same subject). Every edge has to be taped twice, I do not overlap color areas, I butt then together. The white of the ground gives the brightness to the colors. Without acrylics, this painting would take light years to complete and this is the age of impatience anyway.

Pollock, Quran, Congdon

2009-03-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

Since I'm still working on my next painting, I wanted to post something so I found these three works of interest. The first is Jackson Pollock's Portrait of a Dream. Next, the inner cover of the Quran. Lastly, William Congdon's, Conversion of St Paul. I really can't say if there is any relationship between the three outside of a division of the picture space into two halves. This may be a superficial coincidence and nothing more (probably is). The Quran book cover out of necessity is broken into two halves but the flowing text on the left integrates itself with the image on the right. I confess to know nothing about the Quran, so any significance outside what I've observed I'm ignorant of. The Pollock painting is note worthy for being heralded as one of his failures; a complete backwards slip for him away from his gestures acted out as theater on his canvas. What intrigues me is how he created a sort of snapshot of his action painting side by side with a self portrait sort of like a poem spoken in a cartoon balloon. William Congdon is a mostly forgotten abstract artist who dealt heavily with Judeo Christian imagery. His Conversion painting seems integrated by that long road to Damascus connecting the two halves of the picture. All three paintings deal with the charged motifs of psychological and spiritual life, so they are at least connected in that regard. I'm just curious if there is some further connection in how they are created. This is really a long-shot here....haha!!!!

Adore

2009-03-01T05:47:00.000-08:00

This painting is done on a door. I didn't feel like constructing a stretcher and going through a process I detest, so I grab an old door and primed it. It may not be readable in the photo but there is a soup can and coffee can top attached to the door. I thought these objects offset the hole for the door knob nicely, so I stuck them on. This is actually the second piece I did in my series of geometric abstract paintings. it was done before the idea of breaking the painting up into independent divisions had occurred. I will admit, I don't hold fast to any one idea for long so everything might change again.

Moons

2009-02-28T06:59:00.001-08:00

I created this painting on a 2' x 4' piece of hardboard panel with a 1" x 2" offset frame. I will not claim to the originality of the frame idea since I stole it from a Stuart Davis painting I saw in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. The frame sets the art off nicely, I feel, while adding support for the flimsy panel. My image is painted with acrylic paint with loads of masking tape to define the edges and gesso mixed with the colors to create the tints and opaqueness I want. I discussed the idea of titles in a comment on my other blog and I feel unsure as to the usefulness of them for these paintings but I always add them, often after the work is completed and I've looked at it for awhile.