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.

A Tow Away Breakfast

Finished A Tow Away Breakfast. If I weren't on vacation and walking around with a camera I might have missed this small moment of two birds finding a scavenger's feast right before they were joined by three dozen of their feathered brothers and sisters. Yet, there is something just so fitting about these birds feasting in the tow away zone considering how most people think of pigeons and most likely want to do away with them. I confess after living in Hawaii and having to clean lanais up after them as part of my family's cleaning business...

Still, it's a great snapshot of urban life and what it is to live in a large city.

I also started work over the week on a new piece called Dead End that is going to be part of a series of night paintings. I have tons of night photos from San Francisco that I've barely touched. Largely, this clutch of photos is partly due to the fact that with my first trip to San Francisco I had more time to shoot photos at night than during the day. At the same time though there is nothing like wandering through the streets of a city at night. The city has such a different feel at night and some streets and alleyways become haunting where as during the day they are completely benign. 

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.

Isolated States - Working

I'm currently working on Isolated States based on a station outside of Lordsburg, NM. The station was the most graffitied of all the stations that I have made photo studies of so far. I think the fact that it is more readily seen from the highway may play a part in that.

With each of the pieces of this series I'm starting to explore the surface just a little more.  With the figurative city works I have to tone the surface texture elements down just a little. They are the most effectively used in skies and landscape elements. I haven't really explored sanding down surfaces. I'm not sure if it's a technique that will work well on canvas or if I would have to switch over to wood panels to be able to employ the technique properly. It is a technique I've seen other artists use and I think it would fit with this body of work.  I guess for me I let the work dictate the painting techniques I use rather than just having a grab bag of tricks that I use in every painting.

I have also thought of imitating the old worn out signs that I've been seeing at these sites and allowing them to fill the background. I just have to figure out how to incorporate them just right.

Worn Out Life - Finished

Completed Worn Out Life early this morning and delivered it up to the Lanning Gallery in Sedona this afternoon. It was a very rainy trip. At one point I was tempted to pull over and find a place to wait out the storm, but I pressed on. Within another 10 miles it was amazingly dry. The irony of living in Arizona's deserts during the summer. The storms are very localized. 

I painted in my studio from the evening until a couple hours before dawn this morning while it gently rained outside. The humidity slowed down the drying time of my acrylics and allowed me to paint with ease applying layers of glazes and painting semi-opaquely back into them. It's these wonderful moments that make being a painter so wonderful for me. I found that I reworked major portions of the painting and resolved many other areas differently than originally planned.  I also discovered that the painting itself became more haunting, forlorn and monumental. It became much more building focused and the landscape more desolate that originally planned as well. The give and take within the conversation between the artist and the canvas.

A Worn Out Life in Progress

About midway through the first gas station painting A Worn Out Life, from my Benson to Lordsburg I-10 trip. This piece is 36x72 inches, so it's taking just a little while. This station was in Bowie, Arizona. I almost had the feeling that the rest of the town wasn't far behind this station. I have a feeling that most the population depends on the little bit of agriculture in the area. There were groves of pecan trees from the look of it.

I've been listening to Dakota Suite & Emanuele Errante a lot while painting this one, so I named the piece after one of their tracks. Well, the track that I've listened to repeatedly while working on the painting. It's fitting really when I look at this station. There were a few incarnations evident.  I could see several layers of Texaco graphics, followed with a layer or two of when the station became independent.  I could also tell that the pumps were replaced at some point, because they don't match the architecture of the building.  I omitted the background buildings, but it looked like the owner and station mechanics lived on site, so it's very likely this station was open 24hrs or at least had later hours than most. It's  amazing how much you can deduct from simply taking some time to look around at the little details.

I also had a sense that the station and surrounding buildings have been used by transients. At one point I climbed down into a wash beside the station to capture both the Texaco sign and the station in the same shot. I discovered hundreds of foot prints in the wash with discarded clothes and water bottles. Just beyond where I was standing was a tunnel that led underneath the freeway, so my thought is this is likely part of a route into the country from Mexico. That of course explained why the building's lights were still on.