Week 37. "Inside, Outside" 22"x30" charcoal on archival paper

Okay, technically this is not a painting but having put all of my effort into it this week this is the piece being posted. Having gone back to school in and attempt to earn amy degree in graphic design my time has become a bit more limited and some work may have to do double duty, like this one. This is an assignment for my drawing II class. The directions for the assignment are to create an illusion of space using linear and atmospheric perspective. Looking into or out of a window or door is also one of the requirements. This is the view from my kitchen window. I've never considered myself very good at drawing with charcoal. Charcoal is messy and likes to be used in a very free manner. My drawings and sketches tend to start with very precise lines and occasionally I'll give them some shading if I want some volume. This drawing was done with practically no lines but by making shapes of differing value. I tried to find a good balance between free and constrained. The charcoal sort of behaved.
Below are two different photos of the painting I posted last week, "Icon". The color in the top image looks very close to the actual painting while the color in the second image (what was originally seen last week) does not. What a difference a good photo makes. I had to take the first (bottom) photo under artificial light and my silly little Pentax just couldn't get it's little circuits to figure out what it was suppose to be seeing. The more recent photo (top) was taken outside in natural light.

Week 36. "Icon" 16"x20" acrylic on canvas

Through the ages there has been so much iconography produced that it really must be considered an art form all to itself. Most recently, beginning in the mid-19th century or so, artists began shaking off some of the dogma of the church as well as some of the restrictions established by renaissance art and began making more personal and intimate images of iconographic material. These images were Christ images as opposed to images of the man Jesus. In other words artists were attempting to represent the Christ idea as opposed to a believable representation of Jesus's physical body. After all, Jesus wasn't crucified because of his awesome physique but because of his ideas. Edvard Munch is probably the artist that best typifies this for me. Christ figures show up in much of his work. They are always a single luminescent circle floating above a shining pillar of light. The figure isn't identifiable as Jesus or even a man but it is obviously a Christ figure. My Christ figure in "Icon" is much more humanoid than Munch's. Still, I'm aiming to represent an idea or a feeling, not an accurate representation of a body. While I was painting this I was continuously asking myself, "what could someone possibly be saying to shake the world at it's very foundations? Is a message of love truly so powerful?" Sadly, this photo of "Icon" is a very inaccurate representation. Please check back in a day or two and I should have a better one posted.

Week 35. "Scylla and Charybdis" 48"x24" acrylic on wood

Scylla and Charybdis, according to myth, were both sea nymphs who were turned into sea monsters and together created an impossible straight through which to sail. If one is said to be "between Scylla and Charybdis" then they are between two equally undesirable options or dangers. At least that's the most common understanding of the myth. Personally, the story reminds me to never say die. There is always hope... unless you give up. I don't have any idea why this story popped into my head this week. This is my second week rediscovering acrylic paint and really working it and seeing what it can do. I thought painting water would be a good test. It was. It is much more difficult to paint water with acrylic rather than oil. Nevertheless, I really enjoy some of the effects that happening in this painting. There's an echo of traditional Japanese painting in the waves. The colors are appealing and I love the whirlpool in the lower left hand side.

Week 34. "Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, 2010" 24"x48" acrylic on board

This is the third piece I've done with what I call a cock-a-doodle-doo theme. There are obvious Peter Pan influences here. The same visual pun exist in all three paintings with a boy giving a "cock-a-doodle-doo" while behind him is a sun that looks like an egg yolk within an egg shape. When I painted the first one I felt that the boy was saying something like "I'm here... come on! Let's do it!" and saying it with some arrogance. But now I feel that the boy is just joyful. He's enjoying life. He's in the moment and living in the now. He's free of fear, criticism or envy. He just is. This is the first piece I've done using acrylic paint in a few years. Acrylics dry in a matter of minutes where oils dry in a matter of days. That fact alone changes everything about the painting process. There's also the fact that acrylics darken as they dry making it difficult to get the exact tonal quality desired. Still, I had a lot of fun this week and plan on further re-acquainting myself with the possibilities of acrylic paint. Below are the first "Cock-A-Doodle-Doo" (24"x30", acrylic on canvas) as well as the second, titled "Dream 5, Dawn" (12"x12", oil on canvas).

Week 33. "Seahorses" 18"x18" oil on canvas

Oceans have been on my mind having spent most of last week camping along the seashore in Maine and then attending a beautiful wedding right on the water in Rhode Island a couple of days ago. Normally I would never demand a new painting of myself after spending so little time at home but, you see, I have this blog where I said I would paint a painting every week and post it. So here it is, "Seahorses". With the little time I had I fought with this piece. I scraped most of the paint off a couple times and had to start all over. Meanwhile I could hear the clock was ticking. But here it is with 3 hours and 15 minutes before my last moment to post and I'm diggin' it.

Week 31 and 32. Red Light Red 18"x24" and Red Light Green 18"x24"

Anyone paying attention noticed that I did not post a new painting this past Monday. I do have a good excuse. I've been painting Red Light Red and Red Light Green simultaneously. Every time I would bring one of them up a step further I would then set it aside and bring the other up to the same point. So, although I didn't post this past Monday I am still filling my quota. Let's say Red Light Red is for last Monday and Red Light Green is for this Monday coming up.

Both of these pieces are expansions on the idea from "Pomegranate" (week 30) but these two are meant to be shown together.

enjoy... H

Week 31. "Pomegranate" 18"x24" oil on canvas

Pomegranate fruit, pomegranate blossoms and a coquette. As always I was paying very close attention to the colors here. Greens and reds are always fun to juxtapose but the real fun was trying to get the skin of the coquette to really glow. I'm also enjoying the abstract features in my work lately, especially in this piece. The forms and tonalities in the background give a feeling, an idea of a place but not enough to define it. It's left up to the viewer to decide where she is and what's happening.