Green and Gray @ Tempe Center for the Arts

Here's a photo from the opening at the Green and Gray show at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The show runs from October 2nd to January 2nd. Here's a link for more information: http://www.tempe.gov/city-hall/community-services/tempe-center-for-the-arts/gallery-at-tca

The Uncertainty Is Always There - Finished

Finished up on The Uncertainty Is Always There this morning. It's funny, but I try to be as true to my street photos as I can, but at times there are elements like a piece of litter or an architectural element in the photo just don't seem to make sense in the final painting. Those elements look like a mistake and detract more than anything, so it's best to edit them out. Nonetheless, I am not quick to omit them, usually paint them in initially and then reluctantly strike them out within the last day or two of working on a canvas.  One aspect of the original photo I kept was the angle. I felt it added to the precarious nature of being uncertain about the future and what one should do next.

I sort of relate to the main figure in this painting. He's the tattooed punk rocker type like me. He wasn't at ease like he had something eating at him. Something he didn't really know what to do to fix. I feel like we're all there with things in our lives, but we just push them to the back of our minds most of the time and get on with it. Even though they're pushed to the back burner - they resurface and bug us on our way to work later on. No matter what though - uncertainty is a fact of life and is always there.

Fraction

Finished Fraction, oil on canvas 12x12 inches on Thursday night. My first completed oil painting in 15 years. Thankfully, Gamblin's new solvents and mediums don't trigger my asthma as badly as traditional turpentine and damar varnish do. The drying time of alkyd resin is a little bit different, but the window for the drying time in comparison to acrylics is nice.

I don't think I will be abandoning the act of painting with acrylics, but it's nice to have options, depending on the piece.

I opted to do a detail from Preoccupation. It's interesting, but sharing my work on Instagram (@jhowardpaintings) has enlightened my process a bit. Due to the forced square format I often shoot details of works in progress rather than the full piece. Sometimes I actually like the details better than the whole piece.

Now that the show is up at Modified Arts - "Lost in Transition" October 17th to November 16th. I'm still busy in the studio, just taking some time to play with new medias and techniques. Need to have a little fun before I get back to work on the next major body of work.

Preoccupation

Finished Preoccupation, acrylic and collage on canvas, 36 x 36 inches this morning. It's nice that the last three and the painting still in progress are Phoenix based. Tomorrow evening I deliver the paintings and drawings to Modified Arts for my solo exhibit "Lost in Transition" with the opening this Friday October 17th 6-9pm.

It's been a long haul getting ready for this show. There were even two works that although nearly done that I juried out of the show. They will be great paintings when completed, but they didn't fit into the whole theme overall. 

It's odd how shows come together, really. I'm sure musical artist go through the same feelings when putting albumns together. There are just songs that don't fit and are either used for b-sides or saved for another albumn.

The Little Comforts of a Busy Day

Finished The Little Comforts of a Busy Day, acrylic and collage on canvas, 12 x 12 inches last night. My hope is to get two more 12 x12 inch works done for the show. The title comes from the gentleman's baggy of convenience store items. It seems like when I'm working tons of hours that sodas and candy bars really hit the spot. They're the little comforts that help me get through my busy day. 

Standoff

Just finished Standoff acrylic, ink and collage on canvas 12 x 12 inches. I've been working on the big 36 x 120 inches painting, but thought a break was in order, soirée turned toone of the smaller works. The large canvases can seem to last forever with tons of little details to wrap up in the end.

Using iPad to reference my photos instead of print outs has be extremely efficient. I wish I would have thought of doing this sooner. It's really nice to be able to zoom in when needed.

The Modified Arts show - Opening October 17th is quickly approaching. With what I complete this weekend I should be set, but as usual I will be trying to get a couple more works done. I think it's purely a case where; when you are at full throttle you just want to keep going no matter what. There's always more fleshing out to do. I think I'm done with the abandoned highway works for this show. I'm anxious to get out and photograph more stations. Kinda hungry for the open road as well. 

Lunch Hour: In Progress

A progress shot of Lunch Hour. Last night I was able to get a lot done with a nice monsoon storm. It cooled things down wonderfully and the really humid air  gave me a wonderful drying time window. The extra blending time was fantastic. 

This is the first piece of a series of works dealing with more intimate urban moments. Along with playing with extremely bright light. It's amazing how sunlight can be so bright that it washes everything out as well as causing details to be lost and forms to become abstracted.

Middle of the Day

Here's a Drawing from last week that I did. I'm working on a large painting based on it now in the studio as well. I'll share that later this weekend. The drawings for the upcoming Modified Arts show are going really well. My habit has been to set up at the coffeehouse; drink coffee, listen to music and work. I like the energy of the space that matches what I'm drawing.

Ragtime

A drawing that was completed upon my return from my Portland trip that didn't get posted. Ragtime, pen & ink and marker on paper. The title is from the sign of the clothing store in the background. It's sorta fitting considering that almost everyone in the photo looked as if they'd been shopping or were going shopping. I was standing outside of the Target City store at the time.

The drawings for my upcoming Modified Arts exhibit are going really well. I've really broken into a good rhythm. I find myself out of my studio sitting at a coffeehouse drawing with a mocha and a bottle of sparkling water drawing away as the people come and go. Something about drawing a street scene while sitting in a public place with lots of coming and going of people seems fitting - energy wise.  

Catching Up Part 2

Another Day and Unrecorded Moment were completed during the second leg of the trip before returning home. Another Day was started at a campsite in the Redwoods, which felt a little amusing considering that I was sitting in the woods performing a city scene. It was more of a matter of staying on course and getting some work done for the upcoming show though.

The tentative title for the show is "Lost in Transition". My thought is that the title is both about what I'm going through and what I see the world around me going through as well. It's more of an artist's view of the world at play, but it seems like music, fine arts, film and fashion seem to be borrowing from the past and remixing elements from different eras rather than creating something new. Now, something new can and will likely spring out of these explorations and that's the "transition" part of it. I feel like we're on the brink lost within that transitional moment. For the rest of the world I feel like we're running late, but that we haven't fully entered into a new age as well.

Now personally, I guess I just feel like I'm entering into another big period of my work. A new level of understanding and working. I'm just in that transitional period right before making the next leap, of course you only know that you've made a huge leap a year after the fact sometimes.

Any Other Evening

Completed Any Other Evening. It's a nice little piece. I kept to a more monochromatic color scheme to let the line tell the story. I'm starting to draw into my paintings more. I like the definition of the line and the less defined areas that cause the viewer to fill in the blanks more. 

The works for the show are now getting finished in a steady stream for the show. The show being "Night and Day" at the Lanning Gallery up in Sedona, AZ with the opening Friday evening April 4th. I'll make a link to the gallery's announcement when it's up.

The Weight

Finished The Weight this evening.  I had pretty much called this one done a few weeks back, but decided to rework things a bit this week. The title for the piece is inspired by the fact that the woman walking across the street seems to me weighed down by more than just her groceries. For me it's as if the weight of the world is upon her shoulders. I think we've all been there. It's really a slice of modern life.

Gum Wrappers and Fancy Cars

Just finished Gum Wrappers and Fancy Cars. It's a whimsical title really.  Maybe a musing really.  As I was looking at the drawing thinking of a name it dawned on me that there's fancy cars, dirty streets with gum wrappers, lots of signs and...

I think it's an interesting contrast between super clean expensive cars and liter strewn sidewalks. I respond somehow to San Francisco - Chinatown's mixture of glitz, high intensity colors, decaying buildings and liter strewn streets. I remember when I was a kid the first time I went to LA's Chinatown I felt like I'd stepped into a scene from Bladerunner that I'd only seen six months earlier. 

When I lived in Honolulu, Hawaii it was very similar. Once you made it out of the touristy parts I remember walking down alleyways where there were street vendors, grocers with chickens hanging from hooks, the guys with merchandise inside their coats, street performers, street preachers and lots of people. I lived in three different buildings. Initially, we stayed in a 20 story building that was okay, then we moved and lived in a 40 story and ultimately lived in a 30 story on the 28th floor. The last building was really the best for living space, ocean view and location. It was only five blocks from the beach where the bus stop that I rode to school was as well. It's odd to think about it, but I rode a public bus to school in Hawaii rather than a school bus. Nonetheless, I thought I was in heaven to be able to watch the waves and smell the ocean air during my 30 minute wait for the bus every morning.

Coasting

Just finished Coasting - pen & ink and marker on paper. I'm experimenting with a new paper - Canson Pro Layout Marker/18 lb 70 g. It's very bright white and the markers work wonderfully on it. With the last drawing I used a standard high quality drawing paper that was soaking the markers up greatly. I made it work, but it's a better idea to find a paper that works best for your media. I personally am a huge advocate of not fighting your materials if you don't have to. I really have grown to like using markers. Back in college I hated them, but when I went back to school for graphic design classes I took a cartooning class and something just clicked. They were like watercolors in a pen form. I also developed a technique apart from what the teacher taught that worked well for me.

I've read that collectors prefer to collect paintings rather than drawings. I haven't researched the reasons for the preference. I do know that I love looking at the drawings of other artists. In fact many of works I admire most are the drawings from artists like Bellows, Sargent, Eakins and Johns. There is something so raw and spontaneous about drawing. It's a fight to maintain the initial vitality of the drawing within a painting. I guess in a way an artist's drawings are equivalent to MTV's Unplugged Series in the 90's. It's my equivalent to going acoustic.

Cling in Progress - almost

Cling is closer to being finished, but there's still more to do.  It's a great piece, so I'm not too concerned about rushing it off the easel yet.  The strategy of pre-mixing large batches of base colors has worked out very well.  I'm trying to walk a fine line between having a large mixture of colors while maintaining a monochromatic/cinematic lens filtered look for mood.  The weather has been kind to me with rain throughout the weekend slowing my drying time down a lot and making it easier to blend large areas.

I also started working on the first of many drawings that will make up the show as well.  Usually, when I exhibit it's paintings only without any drawings.  Modified has requested a mixture and I'm more than happy to oblige.  I really feel like I don't draw nearly enough.  I have a tendency to work only on the easel and only sketch when out of town or while sitting at a coffee house.  My camera in a lot of ways has replaced my sketchbook.  I can see pros and cons to both really.  Maybe, as a result of this show I'll find a balance between the two.

Cling - In Progress

A quick progress shot of Cling. I'm just getting a chance to return back to this painting. It may likely be the postcard piece for the October showing at Modified Arts. It has been a very challenging piece. I think that the composition  coupled with it's size has had something to do with that. The fact it's been a challenge will make it just that much sweeter when I finish the piece. My goal is to try to finish it this weekend. I have some other works in progress, but I think if I can complete this one that it will create a sense of momentum. Next weekend will be a three day weekend for me, which will allow me to get a lot done for the show. I've been working extra at work, so it's pulled me away from the studio over the last month. I'm taking time off in September to make sure I finish all the works for the show.

This exhibit is going to be really interesting. It will be a mixture of my normal urban paintings, night paintings, and the gas station works. I'm going through my Bisbee photos for some new work. I have a feeling that performing some more paintings from my Bisbee photographs will serve as a bridge between the two bodies of work. Really, the gas station paintings are very much like my bridge paintings in feel. I know in some crazy way all these works dove tail into each other and although they may seem disparate they're actually part of a really big story.  I just need to figure out the chapters and characters to link them all together.

Isolated States - Completed

I completed Isolated States before leaving for vacation, but with the rush of getting everything together for the trip - I didn't have time to post. This station was in the middle of nowhere just East of Lordsburg, New Mexico. It was a very desolate place and the distance between the sign and the station made me think of how they were two isolated islands in a sea of dirt and gravel.

The last two works have been a little more desolate than the previous ones.  That has a lot to do with the environment and how hot the day was when I went shooting for the source photos. Maybe a little on how I felt that day as well. I start painting these pieces in my mind while photographing them.

I also think that these paintings are portraits of the buildings as living things in themselves. In this case two structures isolated from each other that face the extreme elements of this desolate landscape together, but hundreds of feet apart. In the summer it's hot, in the winter it's cold always windy with hardly any rain. 

The concept of buildings as living entities has been a big part of my work for the last several years and a big part of my return to realism. The first paintings where I returned from abstraction to realism contained buildings. From there I started taking source photos and taught myself to become a better street photographer and my work became more realistic. Of course keeping the abstract and collage elements within them. When I paint buildings I am painting their soul as a living being or the stain left by all those who have inhabited them. When I paint an old hotel or gas station I'm thinking of all the lives that have passed through them. The lover's quarrels and makeups, the family ups and downs, the lonesome travelers who have passed through, the life and times of the ownership and employees, and everything else that could've happened there. I feel the stain of time that haunts these places and while I paint these works I do my best to infuse them with those feelings.

Dreaming of Empties

I completed Dreaming of Empties and All Your False Projections this morning and will be delivering them along with Lonely Outpost up to the Lanning Gallery this afternoon. It will be a relief to get up North and out of this hellish heat for a few hours.

I have been purchasing some new brushes/tools for these paintings namely the Catalyst series from Princeton http://princetonbrush.com/catalyst-blades-acrylic.html. These are fantastic for achieving really nice impasto techniques. They really make a nice addition to my current textures.

Hunkering Down for the Long Haul

Sometimes I realize with some paintings that they're just going to take time and lots of it. That there is nothing to do, but hunker down on them for the long haul. I am also reminded of the importance of working on other works while performing the long haul works to keep loose and fresh. The Color Study for Cling has helped me figure out a color scheme that will work for Cling.  I'm greying things out a little more on the actual work. This morning I realized that I really do like the current pavement's color interaction with the main figures in the foreground, so as I'm putting in more color I'm muting it back down with grey tones. It's this balancing act with a piece with this much size and detail that really slows the production process down, but I have to remind myself that being an artist is about quality over quantity. That is somehow out of sync with how the rest of the world is today, but maybe artists have always been out of sync.

Later today I plan to get back to work on a few other paintings that have been on the easel for a while as well. I'm also going to be starting the next piece in the "Lost" series that focuses in on abandoned highway structures, gas stations, diners, and like alongside desert highways. I feel like hoping in the truck and going for a drive sometime this weekend to photograph more.  Maybe after breakfast with my mentor tomorrow.

I'm preparing work for two shows this Fall. I will be part of a group showing of Arizona artists at the Lanning Gallery in September and I will have a solo show at Modified Arts in October.

Lonely Outpost Completed

I just completed Lonely Outpost. This last weekend I headed out to White Sands, NM for some fun. I also took some time to photograph several abandoned gas stations, motels, and cafes that were on the way.  There are a few good ones that I didn't see until after I flew past the freeway exit ramp and sometimes the only chance to turn around was 10 to 20 miles down the road. Next time...

When photographing one site over the weekend it occurred to me that maybe this new body of work isn't really that much of a divergence for me. When I consider that my artist statement states "that my interest is in capturing the ephemeral nature of our existence", "exposing the fragility of our existence" and "the effect mankind has had on the planet".  I can't help, but feel that this new body of work does all those things.  Granted the environments are not the urban environments I usually paint, but the message remains the same.  I'm just fleshing out my artistic vision a bit more.

The new body of work is also allowing me to explore some different color palette ideas.  I have always enjoyed when film and television directors have used color filters to mute the color of a film or cast a distinct hue on all of the scenes. It will be interesting to see how this influences the more urban works.