A Fine Example of a Process

So it started out trying to be a Gerhardt Richter and ended up as another Lani Tanaka.  I was going for free/abstract/colorful,  things that apparently, I am not.  So the question is what am I so far?  I am tight, (illustrated by my fondness for painting with one hair brushes.), I am extremely controlled with color, (I get seduced by color so I try to control it, typical), and last and worst, I can’t let things be.  I’ve got to mess with it till it’s something else or has disappeared altogether. 
Enough negativity, considering that this painting started out like a abstract color storm and ended with this.... surprise!  

"Side Swiped" Last incarnation  20"x20" oil on oil on oil on canvas.  It does have a  nice built up surface and it's really heavy now.  It must weigh 4 pounds.  You can see the old painting, with a green glaze,  peeking through in the cast shadow. 

NO.1 It started like this.

NO. 2 Then it looked like this.  More color, this was really fun.

NO. 3 Then it got a little arty

NO. 4 OK, this is really painful

NO. 5 Ohhhh, I really liked this one. Too bad it's gone.  It melted or got buried.  I was pleasantly surprised how shimmery the white looked, glazy over the darkness and texture. However, I got a little too excited and tried to do more, too much and too early.  After that it got really muddy, which is hazard with oil, but also one of the reasons it is so alluring and exciting.  So I waited until it dried, something I should have done before it got like this.  Then I went back in and ended up with the painting  pictured at the top of this blog entry. 

More Donuts For Me

"More Donuts For Me"

I didn't get into the food themed art show.  I did everything I was suppose to, but I think there was something I missed.  I emailed it in on the last day of the deadline and within a couple of hours I got a puzzling reply that they found my image "interesting" but that the show was already "bursting at the seams"....  Well you know in this business one is used to rejection, but this felt so odd to me.  Past practice is that galleries gather all the submissions, up to the stated deadline.  Then they decide which pieces get in, period.  No sugar coating.  Then there are shows at schools, or open studios, where everyone gets a piece in, but you have to meet, again, a deadline. This show was more like first come, first serve, or maybe only friends get in?  Forget the deadline.  It's just a formality. 
In any case I don't feel that bad about not getting in, except that I do love the donut.

Surreal Power of Donuts

Jhina Alvarado is my unofficial art coach and friend and she is so pushy.  Anyway, I need it because otherwise I would just be toiling away in my studio, never looking up, and piling up oil paintings until I had no space to move.  She shows me a way out of my comfort zone that is very manageable.    

So, Jhina offhandedly forwarded me an email about a food themed art show that was looking for entries.  This is right up my alley.  It’s FOOD and PAINT.  What could be better? I picked a pink donut.  To me there is no food more alluring yet disturbingly surreal than a pink donut.    My last blog post illustrated my first efforts to create a donut painting.  It got a little claustrophobic for me and I set it a side until further notice.  In the mean time I picked up an old painting called "Scale"and re-worked it.  I do this all the time and because I do this, occasionally a painting has taken me over a year to finish.  (I have also lost sales because of this practice where I change/sand/over paint something that someone sees an image of and suddenly wants to buy and now it is goooone.  You would think I would learn, but then you wouldn't know me.  :))

Added sprinkles.  I need a better camera. 

I love seagulls too.  They are so beautiful.

"Donut Night" 24"x24" oil on canvas

"I Love Donuts at Night" or "Donut Moon"?

I feel like I have been very busy the last two weeks and have little to show for it.  The last thing I completed was the basset hound "Joey" commission.  That was fun.  Since then I have had this on going struggle with "Bike Chaos", 20"x20", and one painting  for a food themed show at Studio Gallery, plus I am still fine tuning "Tossed".  I usually have at least three paintings going at a time and at least one thing gets resolved a week.  This week has left me hanging.  Here is my food fiasco.  Btw, I love donuts, at night.

"Practice Donut" The sketch, 24"x24", oil on canvas

I had a huge cigarette teetering on the gas tank but it was too much.  This painting is a bit claustrophobic even for me.  Everything is mashed up in the foreground.  I am putting it away for now. 

Look familiar?  I just have to add the rainbow sprinkles when the pink gets drier.  20"x20", oil on canvas

What is the title, "I love Donuts at Night" or "Donut Moon"????

We Love Commissions

New commission for a true art and dog lover.  

"Joey" 30"x24" oil on panel

Stage One

Almost finished?

Floor is driving me a little crazy, but I love shadows. 

 Joey you will be missed.

New Series Called "Tossed"

"Tossed City" 40"x30" oil on canvas

Here is the official line,

"In my current series I am using imagery of the city, bicycles, signs and cigarettes in a fusion of the abstract and realism. I seek to capture a swirl of movement and energy. I use a collage as a starting point and paint the images with a mixture of scale, texture and color. The space is abstract and some of the images are silhouetted, while others are almost realistically rendered."

first stages

All color is down.  What is up with that wacky highway sign shadow?

What is different?