Come As You Are or No Trespass in Progress

Come As You Are or No Trespass in progress. I have been working on a big 36 x 120 inches canvas for my upcoming exhibit at Modified Arts with the opening on October 17th. The show will be a mixture of drawings and paintings like last year. There will be a mixture of cityscapes and boonscapes (haven't figured out a good short and sweet term for my paintings of abandoned buildings in the middle of no where.

The bigger the canvas the happier these desert gas stations are. I think that the large canvases help convey the "vastness" of the West. With this one I'm working really hard to to capture the desert sky. There is the washed out blue, but in the morning and evening the sun highlights the dust in the air leaving a dirty yellow/gold at the horizon that fades into the washed out blue. It's the sky I grew up to and distinctive of the desert southwest.

A big part of what this series of works are about is the lose of these places. They represent the character of the west for me. In the west there is a constant wrecking ball and rebuild mentality. Old structures have character - granted when they were built they were as disposable as the buildings that are replacing them within the western landscape, but now they represent our cultural past.

Finally starting to get the studio in good working order. I'm amazed at what a difference putting drywall in has made. I put in some new IKEA shelves that have cubbies that I can put supplies in to declutter myself a bit and also serve as a shelf to place paintings in progress for the show on. It allows the paintings to feed off each other. It's been really humid the last few weeks, so the swamp cooler hasn't done me much good. I've just been working through it. I'm looking forward to the fall and winter months..

All the Dreams We Waste

Finished All the Dreams We Waste last night. Part of the abandoned desert series. There are several more awaiting their turn in the studio. I also have a bridge painting or two planned.

This cafe and the motel behind it was along a frontage road off of I-40 outside of Kingman. I'm not sure, but the frontage road may be part of the old route 66. The modern ruins in the area seem to date from that time period. Just down the road was what was left of a old Standard station. Now the signs just stand like grave markers over cracked concrete foundations.

I guess that brings me to the title of this piece. I'm sure I have probably said this before, but to me I look at these places as someone's dream that they had to abandon. Businesses for one reason or another that didn't survive when the world left these places behind, but someone put their life's blood into running these places. They waited the tables of this cafe cooked food for it's patrons with a smile and started every morning by sweeping up the store front a little after dawn.

Now a guy like me photographs them with the wind howling through the empty shell of the building with the old wiring scraping across fallen ceiling panels. The paint bleached by the sun and cracking off the brick walls.

Illusions of Grandeur

Completed Illusions of Grandeur, acrylic, ink and collaged materials on canvas, 41 x 57 inches - last night. The focus and meaning of the piece for me is the size relationship of the man walking underneath the huge sign for the theater. During the process of painting Illusions of Grandeur I started to think about how truly big the world is and that although the events within your personal realm may seem to be earth shatteringly important - in the grand scheme of things it's mostly of little consequence. Along with re-watching the first episode of Cosmos, when Neil deGrasse Tyson is walking on the giant calendar of the universe and gets to humanity's place on that calendar which is the last minute of December 31st. It's humbling.  

With that said, your name is on the theater marque in the lives of those who love you. Just don't get carried away.

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.

The Slow Down and Cinema Z

I'm doing two posts this evening. I just felt like Middle of the Day had a different feel than these two and a separate post was in order.

Above The Slow Down followed with Cinema Z. I just finished The Slow Down this evening and finished Cinema Z on Wednesday night. I'm very happy with the flow of this body of work. Each piece has been flowing right into the next. I think I should take vacations more often. 

I find it interesting how each time I go to the coffeehouse to draw that even though I may be in the same space and sometimes sit at the same tables the energy is different each time. It's a microcosm in a way for how streets and cities can be. Each day brings something new although the sense of place remains; it's transformed with the influx of the people that flow through them.

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.