I Blog For…Art!

One thing has led to another to make today unproductive. Letting myself slip yesterday thinking I would pick up the slack today led to plans unraveling.

One distraction occurred when I ran across the street from my apartment out of curiosity to see an old house that had gone up for sale. It saddened me a bit, because we used to hear musicians practicing wonderful French gypsy folk music from that house from the apartment. Anyway, I saw the 1915 style hardwood floors and shelving, large basement for making ceramics, and perfect detached art studio for painting over a two car garage, and I was in love! I digress, but it was quite ironic: an artist’s dream home that there’s no way I could afford, right down the street!

Most of the rest of the distractions were fairly typical of me when I’m in a hurry: I forgot to bring two extra papers for today and tomorrow’s paintings when I raced out of the apartment for an overnight trip to my parent’s ranch today. Then, after making two more primed papers from material I had here, I knocked over a glass jar half-full of water, which spilled over one of the newly primed papers and broke all over the floor where I was getting ready to work.

The rest is yet to come. I have two hours and I hope that’s enough to finish at least yesterday’s work!

Anyone who has showed knows the stress and excitement of it. Here, the rider is composed, waiting in a line to be judged. He is watching the judge make his way around. I positioned him slightly high in the picture to create a sense of nervous isolation. It is just you and the horse, and sometimes, it feels like it’s all about you and the state you are in before and while you ride. As long as your horse behaves, your riding should determine your performance.

Here is the final painting:

Here I’m racing against time to finish:

What do you do when the web, your DSL, and your computer seems to be conspiring against you? You paint, (at least I did.) For some reason, I tried and failed for the first time to upload new videos to my YouTube account, and for two days in a row! Hours of my life, gone with no return… I actually started the drawing for this yesterday while waiting for videos to render. I’m glad some of my work was fruitful!

Karina’s creativity and charisma are contagious! I found this photo going through some old pictures, (from back in the day when I used filmed and got it printed!) I couldn’t resist painting it!

Check out her work:
Karina Puente at the Judith Hale Gallery

Here it is:

Finished!

Almost there:

In progress:

Here’s the drawing:

I liked painting this so much the first time, I decided I’d do it again. Unfortunately, this was a model from W magazine, so, like yesterday’s painting, I don’t know who it is, and thus can’t tell him he now has two portraits painted of him in addition to being on my business card and the header for this blog!

Miraculously, I found a way to photograph it without too much glare:

With the photo:

In progress:

Here’s the drawing:

Here’s the first version I did:

Tonight I wanted to explore the many colors that comprise black. I had “Woman With a Fan” by Veláquez in mind. It’s beautiful, with creamy gradations of black clothing.

Working in my apartment, as I have the past few nights, with the exception of Saturday night while working on the first painting. I was visiting my parents and took of advantage of the studio space they have!

And the final piece, which is once again plagued by glare:

And a detail from it:

And here’s an image of the drawing:

New Photo 4-9-08

This piece left me nostalgic and melancholy, because I meant to complete this painting while my dear friend Susan was alive and regret that she passed away without seeing it. I hope that wherever she is now, that she’s pleased.

Yes, I get a little batty staying up so late. I’m not so sure this challenge is working health-wise. I think I’m energetic only because I’m so psyched to be painting everyday, but I’m not get very much sleep, and the work week has only just begun!

The glare was terrible. I’ll have to rephotograph it when it’s dry.

Here’s a detail of the face. Again the glare distorts it a bit.

I’ve long been interested in the possibilities present in the work of Josef Albers. When I first saw his Homage to the Square, I thought of sunsets, landscapes, and quality of light. Now, I recognize the mathematician in his work. I realized I had enough for two 7 inch Homage to the Square images back to back, but what I didn’t realize at first was how precisely the squares fit concentrically and what a beautiful correlation the squares had in relative size and position.

For this painting, I imagined the pale colors of a fading sunset reflected on the ocean, and tried to portray this with a composition like Albers.

I ended up really liking the sketch for the painting:

I just bought a bunch of very fine pointed brushes for detail, and didn’t think to bring them with me for the occasion of my first painting of the series! Alas, it probably is the only reason I can credit for finishing a painting, satisfactorily or not! (Those of you who know me can attest that I can get a bit obsessive over detail. So being forced to retreat from it can be useful!)

Here it is, (click on it to enlarge photo):

Not the most impressive painting of my career, but I may cheat a little and touch it up later on…

You can see a bunch of paintings in the background, half of which are not finished. I think finishing unfinished paintings may just be my next blog adventure!

Nice to have support when your pulling an red-eye work schedule! Rob took these photos when I was just starting.

Thanks, and tune in for tomorrow’s painting!

I’m exploring the concept in broader terms by doing this challenge; however, I learned that the consistency of gesso is also super important! Last night, when I started priming the papers around midnight, I toiled with the gesso, willing it to mix smoothly on the palette and spread evenly onto the paper. My brush continuously fell apart onto the surface of the paper as it pushed the glue-like gesso across, and I spent about an hour and half priming the paper with the first coat of gesso.

This morning I thought for the second coat, I’d add some color and premix water with the gesso that was left from the previous night. The results were wonderful! First, the color allowed me to easily see where the gesso was applied, and it spread like butter and took only about a half an hour! Second, adding a bit of Burnt Sienna to the white gesso made a beautiful surface that’s much more inviting than the blank stare of bright white. As you can see below, it almost looks like a wood veneer!

Tomorrow, the second coat of gesso will be dry, and the real painting will begin! I can’t wait!

At the scene of the crime!

My kitchen table hasn’t seen this much use for months!

Having not done much painting at all in the last few weeks, I thought I’d challenge myself to carve out a little space in my busy schedule for a painting challenge.

My task: to complete a painting everyday for 20 days on a piece of primed 8″by 15″ paper. I know this may seem fairly small-scale and not challenging to some more regular artists, but this seems far-fetched to me, having over four films to edit and complete, in addition to two websites to design in the next few days. My task for tonight is to prime the papers.

On your mark… Get set… Go!