Monday, September 30, 2013

Cadence (4' x 15')

Just the first few passes, though I am excited by the possibilities.  At 15' wide, it is pretty expansive.  The notion is that the vertical intervals might provide some cadence, syncopation for the eye as it scans.

The base layer is a recycling of a collaborative brush exercise with my painting class a couple of years ago on heavy drop cloth canvas, though there is little of that layer remaining at this point and will be even less as I progress.  Still, I owe some of the vitality of the impastos and lines of force to that group of art students. Emphasis is on the calligraphy of the brush, the push and pull of values, the play of the analogous color scheme.

Most recent on top:












Sunday, September 29, 2013

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Gamboge I and II

This is about it on Gamboge I.  Here is the base layer of Gamboge II.
Gamboge I, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41" x 53"

Gamboge II (base layer only, incomplete), 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41" x 53"

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Gamboge

May have played up the inner rectangle too much and have to backtrack a bit next session.  The image beneath this one is perhaps better, though I worked up the luminous passages a bit more in this state, changes that I will keep.

Gamboge is a very transparent indian yellow that makes wonderful glazes.

gam·boge  (gm-bj, -bzh)
n.
1. A brownish or orange resin obtained from several trees of the genus Garcinia of south-central Asia and yielding a golden-yellow pigment.
2. A strong reddish yellow.


Gamboge, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41" x 53"



Gamboge, a more perfect yellow, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41" x 53"



Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Midway

This panel is a bit hot for my tastes.  Needs some neutrality as a foil for the intensity.  Next pass...


Sunday, September 15, 2013

A yellow-ochre panel

And so it begins.  This one is on my office-studio wall @ about 40" x 48".   I have a matching panel that I will start along with this one next week.

I like to keep something going there to work on during off moments.  I have found that I can accomplish a surprising amount of work in this fashion.  Counter-intutitive, I know, since I really have little privacy there unless I close the door, and I do so value the solitude in my studio, but it seems to work this way for me too.  Will post progress shots as available.  This one is very young, little more than a beginning...but I like the palette and the flow.  I am sure shapes and forms will be asserted in due course.

Palette: naples yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, hits of paynes grey, transparent burnt sienna, green-gold, unbleached titanium white.


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Recent Drawings



These are but a few of the drawings I have been doing during the last few weeks. This is the sort of automatic doodle-drawing that I do during lectures, meetings, on the plane, etc.

The first two are 11" x 14", the rest are smaller at about 8" x 10".  They are an accompaniment to my paintings.  As such, a recent artist statement (posted below) serves as a general description of what is going on here.  The only difference is that rather than responding to a prepared (decalced) surface, the jitter of my hand sets-up the "given" layer I then mould and intensify, growing forms as I go, little by little, aware of a general flow of visual force but open to incidentals along the way. They are not drawings for any later purpose, not models for paintings, etc.

All were drawn on watercolor paper with .03 drawing pens.

















Sunday, September 8, 2013

"Manganese Blue/Forest Light" and "Wishbone"

Started two new panels on top of some I had abandoned several years ago.  The bases served to stimulate new forms.  Still formative and incomplete but I like the light and abstract association to forest light in the larger of the two and the floating elements in the second.  The second, which carries the working title of Wishbone, is still very much subject to major revisions.

Manganese Blue/Forest Light, acrylic on canvas with charcoal,
2013, 42" x 60"
Wishbone, 2013, acrylic on canvas with charcoal.  24" x 28".
Note: true Manganese Blue has been discontinued from most paint manufacturer's product lines due to environmental concerns and toxic by-products.   I quote from the Golden Paint Co.'s data sheets:
Pigment History: Manganese Blue is a synthetic green-blue pigment made by fixing barium manganate on a barium sulfate base. Manganese Blue was favored by fresco painters and artisans interested in tinting cement. However, it was found to be highly toxic and ingestion or inhalation could cause a nervous system disorder. A difficult pigment to match, the inherent transparency of true Manganese Blue can only be re-created by using Zinc White to lighten the Phthalo blend’s value, then extending it further with a large dose of gel medium. The resulting glaze-like paint yields cool soft fields of color.

Cochineal

After acting on the golden ratio issues in the prior blog post, I feel that the piece is much closer to resolution.  I have tweaked the contrasts, added glazes and imposed new arcs and divided sections to increase the flow.

Cochineal, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 84" x 42"


Saturday, September 7, 2013

Cochineal, Rouge or something...untitled at this point

First layers on a new rather tall panel, a progress shot.  I like the tiered structure created by the recession of forms.  Through looking at it digitally I can see certain compositional characteristics that are less visible to me in the studio.  I am not sure why that is, but I have noticed it in the past.  It was, for example, by looking at early shots of this piece digitally that I decided to rotate what was originally a horizontal composition.  It made all the difference.

Right now, the upward arch mid-way up the panel bothers me a bit...the division of proportion doesn't feel right; it is too central.  I may add a subtle echo of that arch a bit higher up, closer to the golden proportion from the bottom, about 3/5th or so.  That should help life the eye and add to the tier structure at the same time.  Will repost as I go.

I may also add some hot little hits of Mexican pink here and there.  I like the analogous rocking of color (and values) back and forth.  Could then add micro hits of green to introduce more optical simultaneous contrast.


Superimposed golden spirals 
to check possible new alignments.
None of this phi proportion 1.1618 "golden" ration business is an absolute mandate for me, per se, but it is fun to play with the geometry since it frequently leads to a stronger sense of design and compositional unity.  I have employed it often in my past work.  Nature seems to love such geometry and so, alas, do we aesthetically.  See:  http://www.goldennumber.net.

Again, perhaps more clearly, 
an idea of where the golden section would place 
a new horizontal accent.
The hues I committed to, mostly on emotional grounds, remind me in retrospect of Mesoamerican cochineal red often used in weaving from my time living in Oaxaca, Mexico.  The colorant is from the cochineal beetle that nests on cactus that is gathered meticulously, then ground, cooked, etc.   The same colorant is used in cosmetics.