Another Day

A Small Escape is going along smoothly.  There has been an internal debate of whether or not I should have buildings in the background similar to Dreaming of April, but there's this deep gut feel that seems to stop me from disturbing the milky sky behind the figures.  Guess I should listen to that feeling.


I have so many paintings on the easel right now and I'm starting a new one today to add to the madness.  The strategy really is to have as many works going at the same time as possible in order to provide a more cohesive body of work.  When the new studio is built I actually plan to start designing entire shows at the same time and start all the canvases at once for the show with them leaning against the walls in open view.  I will simply bounce back and forth from canvas to canvas.  I think it will produce a very different body of work.  Ah, who knows it could change the way I work period or maybe I'll simply adopt a methodology of working that is a mixture of that strategy and what I do now?  Time will tell.

Pause

A relaxed day of painting.  For the most part I didn't push to hard to finish anything just bounced from canvas to canvas doing bits and pieces.  While things dried I spent time figuring out what the next canvases would be.  I'm planning to start three new works soon before I finish the ones I'm working on.  I want to make sure this body of work is very tightly linked together.  I want the pallet to stay a bit lighter.  I'm planning a series of night paintings as well that will dove tail into these current works as well.  


I don't have any painting shows pinned down at the moment just the knowledge that they're being scheduled sometime after April, so I'm just going to get the work ready to go for as early as May if needed.

Failed Snapshot

Above is a new painting entitled Failed Snapshot. Okay, started off as bit of a joke when I titled my photo.  It was one of those shots where I moved or accidently snapped a photo when I was in Seattle, so it was out of focus.  Somehow though the composition has grown on me.  I'm planning to leave most of the painting out of focus with some elements partially in focus.  The hope is to capture the movement and the reality of how people truly see the world.  When one walks down the street not everything is always in perfect focus due to concentration or movement. 


I'm debating whether or not I will be collaging elements into the canvas or not.  There are time where the collaged elements help tell the story and other times when they're gratuitous, which isn't a good thing.


I also painted more into Pause and A Small Escape, but that will have to wait till tomorrow's update.

A Small Escape

Above is the continuation of Pause (formerly Conversation), a detail of Pause and A Small Escape. Both canvases are going pretty well. I'm finding that I'm having to step back and take them in and not just paint away at the usual pace. There are many passages I might have carelessly painted over if I hadn't had to get a drink or a phone hadn't rung.

What I really like about these two canvases as that the central figures/characters are atypical choices for me. Pause is probably my favorite of the two solely for the reason that the canvas is very intimate and immediate. I used to compose like this a lot back in school. Ironically, back then I was more comfortable with a intimate almost claustrophobic viewing space and actually had to force myself out of that comfort zone to grow. It's nice to revisit that compositional framework. I like the power of it and how emotionally charged it can be.

Lush

Started two new works today and got further along on A Small Escape (not shown). The studio shot showing reference items from Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville. I really would like a book of Jenny Saville's work, but I have yet to get lucky enough to find one. It's amazing how many good artists don't get published. There's always the artists you know on the book shelf. The unfortunate thing is many of the world's best artists aren't on the shelf at the local book store except in compilation (history, or movement) books if us the public are lucky. I guess the thing that sucks for me is often times the artists I'm fortunate enough to have seen in slide shows back in school or in the review section of art magazines are really the ones I'm most interested in. Surprisingly, the information age via web hasn't made many these artists more accessible for me. That was the hope.

Above is a new work with the working title Conversation. I don't think the name will stick, but it works for now. I'm bringing in some color or lots more color than normal. I'm also focusing in on putting lots of paint on the canvas and making it lush feeling. I'm just in the mood after doing so much print work to really focus in on painting the figure. I guess deep down I consider myself a figurative artist.

204 Days

Just finished 204 Days. Tomorrow should be a busy day in the studio. I plan to stretch canvases and start a bunch more works and perform the first printing of Urban Assault Shopper. I need to collage the background tonight, so that it's ready for tomorrow. I also need to work on some designs for the small canvases and t-shirts over the week. The sinus infection still has a bit of a hold on me, so I've been a bit sluggish this week.

51st Post

This is my 51st post. I flew right through the 50th without any cognition that I was doing so. I know probably a small feat, but really it's strange to realize I've had this blog project going so long.

Above is a new piece for the Brand X show entitled Remembered. Within Illustrator it came off very slick, but once it was put on the canvas the grittiness came on through. For that I'm grateful.

Studio Chaos

The works for the Brand X show are coming together nicely. Tonight I inked in some spots on Remembrance and burned the screen for Urban Assault Shopper (originally she was holding an AK47, but I decided a camera was better and a true statement of the times). I was nervous about burning a 24x36 screen. It came out better than expected. I just kept moving it around under the light, so there was no hotspots or underexposed areas. Also, I cut the time they'd given for 18x24 by four minutes. My lamp seems to burn hotter than they a lot for.

New Year

Above is Once Remembered, which is a remix of Steel Bridge from a while back. It's for the Brand X show my print show. I'm in crunch time for the show, but the work is going fast. I had no idea how much the practicality of going from painting to printing would influence my work in general. My ambition and thought process of taking this show on was to develop a mode of work that would lend itself to t-shirts for sell, while keeping artistic integrity and not just being solely commercial. When I was in High School I burned about two screens a week during my junior year. I was a nut making tons of custom t-shirts for myself. I dreamt of starting a t-shirt company and never did it. I went to art school and my focus went towards painting and never bounced back to print until I became a graphic designer.

It's crazy when you realize you've come full circle.