Manatee with Balloons

Fun with hair sketches.

Taking a Short Break, but in the Meantime... SOLD!!!

I've been taking a little post-art show break, but still managed to sell a couple of pieces this weekend (both from the show and not from the show). I'll tag the sales later, but for now here's a photo of one of them.

Nude Descending a Staircase

It's really hard to photograph this one. There might be too much red, but I still kind of like what is going on. Finishing it and framing it may be the true test of whether it's worth any kind of salt.

With a Plant...

"Trumpet Player".

Bowling Pins

Haha.

I think this one is done. I'd like to frame it and put it on the wall. Or frame it and sell it. Or sell it and let someone else worry about framing it.

I added the white to it (on suggestion from my art friend) and I think it really worked out. Perhaps I compromised the orange in the bottom left of the painting, but I think it's okay either way.

Mediums: Mildly Amazing

It's mildly amazing to me how much of an impact mediums can have on a painting. I'm still not totally sold on the stuff (read: I don't quite know how to use it still), but I am coming around to it.

I've used it here and I find that it's easier to manipulate the top layer of paint if you have mediums built into the bottom layers. Paint also comes off easier if you mess something up!

Here's the first iteration of this painting. Today I added paint of varying thicknesses applied with various brushes using these colors: charcoal black, alizarin crimson hue permanent (I still have some Liquitex tubes!!), naples yellow hue, and c.p. cadmium orange. The most amazing part of the work is that I didn't really put that much more paint on the canvas and yet the painting looks so vibrant!

Attempting a Painting

I'm going to attempt a painting based on the hair sketches from the other night.

The method so far includes 1 layer of gesso on each side of the paper (Strathmore Medium 400 Series Drawing paper; 11 x 14 inches), sketch in charcoal pencil, red and lavendar colored pencil worked in over the charcoal, and naples yellow hue mixed with soft gel (semi gloss) applied over everything with a 14 short flat bright brush. I dig how the charcoal smudged when the paint was applied.

If you rotate the piece 90 degrees clockwise, you can kind of see an old man with a cane hiking up a mountain...

Hair Sketch from Last Night: High Heels

Embryonic heart penis in high heels! It kind of looks like a hamster or something...

This sketch was inspired by the same hair configuration as the previous sketch. I added colored pencil to this one.

Hair Sketch from Last Night: Orgasm Personified?

Well, now this is fun, isn't it?

Bad Hair Day

Remember my shower hair sketches? Well, I attempted to paint one on this piece of paper (with gesso applied to both sides of the paper), but it didn't look right so I ended up painting this abstract over it. I call it Bad Hair Day, which I find to be mildly whimsical!

The colors in this are: c.p. cadmium orange and titanium white mixed with soft gel (semi-gloss) to form the base coat (which is basically no longer visible), and then there are the following colors mixed in to form the abstract: red oxide, c.p. cadmium orange, titanium white, and burnt umber covered with paynes gray, plus paynes gray accents.

I don't know if this is any good and it sure doesn't seem to represent my work, but it was spontaneous and it felt good to paint it out.

14 x 11 inches.

Hair Inspired?

So... this is kind of gross to admit, but it must be done for art's sake. Many years ago - when I still lived at my parents' house - I would get yelled at for my long hair coming out in the shower. It seems I couldn't win either way... if I stuck it to the wall, I got yelled at for leaving my hair on the wall; if I pulled it off the wall to go down with the water, I got yelled at for clogging the drain! These days, I stick most of it to the wall, then throw it in the trash later. No one yells at me anymore for forgetting about it on the wall for a few days... I've recently begun to notice abstract figurative inspiration in the "wall art," if you will. So I decided to sketch it. Here's one sketch (blind contour, for the record). After I did a few, I cleaned the wall and so turned my "hair art" into fleeting art... temporary art... momentary art... almost like certain kinds of street art that gets painted over upon discovery...

This almost looks like an elaborate signature!!