Art Thing

Newwww painting!!

Sometimes it's great getting out of work early.

Getting It Down On Paper

I am having a hard time figuring out how to get my feelings expressed through my artwork. After contemplating for a few hours, I made this. I think it's pretty successful.

The Feels are in the Wrong Places

New Painting!!

This painting began as a larger version of a past painting I made (see here). I started it about a year ago. Unfinished, it traveled through the last move up north, and has been waiting to find itself. What it ended up becoming is a dedication to some years of depression, indecisiveness and bad habits. Here's hoping that with it complete, I can become more complete as well.

Dedicated to my Mom.

Lasting Behavioral Changes Take Two to Three Years

Newww Paintingggg!!

Just finished it yesterday. Acrylic, ink and pencil on panel. What do you think?

Stretch Marks

Blox

Made some mini paintings on a set of blocks I had lying around last night. I think they came out pretty great and wanted to share. Not sure what to do with them, now that they're painted, but hey, the process was very fun!

Front

Back

This is the front and back of the first block, called UnSure. Wasn't quite sure what I was up to.
   

This is the front and back of one block called Pasts. 

 This is all four sides of the smallest block, untitled. The blue shirt guy reminds me of the grundge era, though I really enjoy the bike repairer and the woman in love.

Art Trade!

Trading art with a wonderful artist, Fifi Abu Illustrations! I already received more than my fair share in the mail, but I just finished the one I'm trading back yesterday morning. Super excited about it, and if she's reading this she's getting a sneak preview :)

Mail Trade!

Finished product!

New painting! Mixed media on paper.

His Shoulds and Her Shouldn'ts in Your Actions

Snail Mailed Thank You

A few weeks ago I had submitted to a gallery, and had sent this as a thank you card for viewing my materials a week later. I thought you folks might enjoy taking a peek at it. So, thank you!

We - New painting!

A quick piece for December. Been in the yellow bent lately.

We

Dwell & Flood

New paintings over the past few months - since the big move!  Yay!

Dwell

Flood

Painting for my friend Stacy

There was this one time I had posted a picture of a painting in progress on here, and my friend Stacy loved it. Then the painting grew older and changed into something else, and the first image was lost completely. So I made Stacy a new, finished version for her birthday. Below you can see the inspiration, and Version 2 aka Final piece. Pretty cool stuff.
 

Under-painting that is now completely covered.

Finished painting. For Stacy.

Finding the time.

I finally found a half day to paint, which was a pleasure. Knowing I haven't sat down to do so in a while, I wanted to create something successful and finished in an evening. So I made a very small painting, about 4"5" on a piece of board I sawed off. You can tell this because the wood is crooked... Not to worry, this was more an attempt at doing than creating a sellable piece. I didn't have any plans when I sat down with a pencil, and this is where I ended up.

Looking at this I can see my palette isn't changing much. I think it's time for me to buy a larger variety of acrylics. 
Have a good day folks!

Something about Personal Solar Systems

Untitled, but something about Personal Solar Systems.

So I've finished my latest painting, and first painting since moving my life 45 minutes south three months ago. Pretty happy about this. Other good things have been happening too - I will be hanging my artwork in a public space this coming April at Planet Marshmallow, a pretty sweet coffee shop in Manchester NH. I would like to note that this is the first time I will be hanging a solo collection of my work in a public space since...2004. Seriously folks, this is a big deal for me. Good things, good things.

Also on that note - I applied to some artist residencies recently (by some I mean only one) and was accepted. Chalk Hill Residency in Healdsburg, California offers artist residencies for two weeks or longer. The time slot I was accepted for starts next November, so I have some time before I decide to accept it (time and money are factors in this). Despite this, I am suuuuper stoked I was accepted - it is some form of external validation that everyone needs every once in a while.

So folks, happy friday. And keep on keeping on, because chances are you're doing a good job.

Text Texture Piece - Beginning.

Working on a new piece where I am trying to highlight texture. Not sure where I will be heading from here, but the under layer took forever and looks pretty cool now that it's done. Here are a few images from it.

Here it is. 2' x 2'

Detail of the craziness written on here.

Weighty

Today was the first day in weeks I've been able to sleep in, and took advantage of it.
Here's a painting I made in a sketchbook last week in the thick of things.

New Illustration

I think I will call it an illustration, though I have not been illustrating for years. Sat down for a painting session last night, and other than attacking a project I've been spending a month on, this is what resulted. I think it pretty much describes my emotional state as of late.

I am calling it "Of Two Minds." I find it to be an eloquent visual of how I've been handling the changes in my life lately. I thought I was good at moving, moving on, and change, but as I get older I realize I am way more of a nervous nelly than previously thought. As opposed to last month, I am now armed with a new, 'big girl' job that doesn't pay the bills, an hour commute and no free time on my hands. I'm getting good at the juggle though, and am interested to see where I will be a month and a year from now. Cheers, people! This life is a good one.

Mint Green is good.

New painting in progress.  Heck yeah!  For now I shall call it "Elephant."

Git 'er Done

Latest painting finished!  Wicked stoked, I've sat with it for weeks at this point.  It's nice when your brain lets you decide when a work is done.

Done.  Hazzah.  On to the next one.

Persuasion

New Painting, New Website

Working up a sweet new website with my current artwork/fine art based.  Leaving the illustration base behind for now. 
Speaking of current, I have a new painting I'm working on, and am totally stoked about.  It's not quite finished, but I'm putting on here because I'm in love with it.  Thanks for looking, will be changing the website over in the next week or two hopefully with a link to this blog.  Exciting stuff!

Good Habits for the New Year

I do believe that if you allow yourself to pay attention, that helpful suggestions or themes will manifest themselves and even repeat in your life.  In this sense it seems lately that the Universe has been suggesting I reevaluate my relationship with my artwork and mend our differences.  Not an easy task.  I have begun by establishing a sort of morning constitutional with the drawing board, a pot of coffee and the Beirut Pandora station.  It's been good so far.

One snag I have not been able to figure out is the encaustic studio issue (ample ventilation, something not possible in my apartment setting).  To keep forward motion I have been attempting to gain the effect of encaustic layers through other mediums.  The experiment today was acetate and vellum, which was a learning curve but ultimately successful. 

charcoal and acrylic on vellum

So this was a doodle on vellum (fyi: the difference between the two is vellum is opaque while acetate is transparent).  I enjoyed the painting, but didn't like that the loose vellum was wrinkling drastically.  So I stuck it on my acrylic painting on top of an acetate layer.  (And I did paint it a bit pinker.)

acrylic, charcoal, acetate, vellum, not finished!

This is beginning to look like something I'm pretty excited about.  A lot of the detail work and the shine from the acetate gets lost on the blog of course, but for lack of a studio/studio-mates to share it with this will have to do.  I ultimately want layers of line work in these pieces.  This has been an intriguing method to achieve a degree of this goal.

Also today I worked on #2 from my last post.  Now this particular painting has been pissing me off every time I looked at it, I was very unhappy with it.  I mentioned it to a friend of mine who commented that it was surprising I was even trying for abstract.  That's when the lightbulb went off and I threw that goal out the window.  I re-attacked #2, and now it's something I can be much more proud of.  Not done, but it looks waaay better:

I have no idea why these shapes keep reappearing with me, but I love them.  This still needs a few more hours of work, and the colors are a bit sickly in this picture, but I am so happy to have this appearing here to show progress from earlier.  Looking forward to where these pieces will end up.