This is such a tight crop, I applied a watercolor filter to it. It seems a bit ironic to apply a watercolor filter to a photograph of acrylic paint.
Art
Copy job no. 2 ~
And this is a copy of “The Blue Fox” (1911), by Franz Marc. Here’s another fabulous work by Marc: “Stables.” It’s at the Guggenheim in New York. I can’t even imagine how one goes about painting something so complex and gorgeous.
Copy job ~
This is a copy of “Night blue fly” (1982) by Chinese-American artist Walasse Ting. I’m not sure where I acquired a postcard of this work. Upon looking for online images (there are some, under copyright), I was chagrined to see that I’d been holding the card upside-down. It works in both orientations, I think.
Palette 2/28/2016 ~
Alas, thus far I seem to have a rather lurid style. I began this painting by trying to copy a lovely, delicate watercolor by a contemporary artist named Jane Voorhees. Other than a slight similarity in the landforms, however, this painting bears no resemblance to the watercolor. The title is thanks to Nick Drake, of course, whose fame exploded a number of years ago after VW used snippets of this song in a commercial where two young couples in a convertible forgo a party to go spinning down the road in the magical moonlight. But “Pink Moon” is not about magic; it is, almost certainly, about death. Nick Drake suffered from depression; he either killed himself or overdosed on antidepressants. But even his darkest songs are beautiful. Have a listen.
Palette 2/25/16 ~
Work in progress.
American Landscape series no. 4 ~
I love glass bricks because I find color and form intoxicating and exuberant. This is one of my earliest and most successful glass-brick photographs; it was juried into the LaGrange Biennial (Georgia), a national art exhibit, in 1998—probably the most competitive show I was ever in. I can only hope to do as well again someday. This photograph was taken at a fast-food chain restaurant in Carbondale; many people may be able to read or recognize the sign. Pentax K-1000.
More glass bricks ~
I should just do what I’ve long thought of doing: buy myself some glass bricks and experiment with them instead of relying on chance. These were taken with my iPhone, highly cropped, and subjected to some color manipulation. I’m going to take some more photos at this same location with my Fuji X10, which should give much better quality images.
Palette 2-15-16 ~
Not really getting into the painting tonight, I guess because I’m not trying to do anything in particular, just messing around with some fresh tubes of paint, trying a little blending and a little amateurish decoration. This may be a self-limiting experiment. However, I’ve confirmed that in fact blue and yellow still do make green, just like they did when I was in kindergarten.
Parakeet and palette ~
El perico
El perico – crop
Palette 2-11-16
The face in the paint
Since I’m also taking Spanish, I decided to use Spanish for the title of my little class painting today. The parakeet needs more work, but is, I think, at least identifiable as some kind of bird. But I’m feeling very excited about doing the close-ups. I needed something like this just now to get back to taking photographs. Can’t always be on a road trip. And I can do this no matter how cold or nasty it gets outside!
Painting class ~
I’m taking my first painting class. Acrylics. Phrases like “Baby’s First Painting” or “Baby’s First Paint Set” keep running through my head. They publish books with titles like that, don’t they? Anyway, regardless of whether or not I prove to have any talent, I’m finding that this is a peaceful and interesting activity. Since my aim is ultimately to paint abstracts (of course!), I’m much more pleased with the appearance of the “palette” from tonight’s messing around than I am with the actual painting. (That messing-around painting is not shown above, in case you’re puzzling over the colors. The top photo shows what is supposed to look like a sphere, painted the first night in class, and what is supposed to look like an apple, which I painted last night in order to practice a bit with dimension in color.) I’m thinking that I could put different colors of paint in a paper bowl, blend them in different ways, photograph them, and just skip the applying-them-to-canvas part. This class may not set me on the road to becoming a painter in a traditional sense, but it may give me a new way of being an artist.
VAPOR AND FLOW 