Art Blog » April 2006
Maris’s Cow
This piece is based on a painting by Willem Maris (Dutch, 1885). It’s availble on the Rijkmuseum website here and is called “Cow Beside a Ditch.” I don’t believe I captured the feel of the original painting particularly well, but it was a valubale exersize.
Mary’s Elephant again
Taking a trip away from oils in order to work with watercolors again. I didn’t expect to, but somehow I am missing the feeling of the watercolors. I am enjoying the fact that they dry so much faster than oils, and they allow for layering so much more easily as a result.
bananas on red silk
The bananas have drawn me back. This bunch was pretty green still when they got painted. They posed on red silk for their portrait, with light coming in the window from behind. Maybe I’ll do a dead banana peel, too. Stages in a banana’s life. Anyway, these bananas on red are on a 12 x 9 canvas board. For sale.
These shoes are for walking
These shoes have seen hundreds of miles in the past 3 years. Here they are posing on the floor, kind of like a Van Gogh painting in my calendar, but his shoes are brown. The challenge for this painting was the light — the lamp was on the shoes, and only a small amount of meagre rainy-day light fell through the window onto my canvas. This painting is for sale here.
second figure - two
I had some more time to spend working on this piece that I started last week. I developed the face quite a bit and warmed up the body a bit. She still looks a bit 1920s to me. I think she may still need some work … she’s got to sit for a bit.
elephant is done
I was lucky enough to get one extra day in the metalshop this spring, and took the time to finish the elephant! He’s now got a trail with stringy hairs hanging off of it and, most importantly, he’s got ears. I also heat-treated the legs, gave him toes, and fixed up some areas that needed fixing up. In the picture to the right, he’s cooling off, trunk-up, in a bucket of filthy water. There’s also a picture of him cooling trunk-down! More development photos here.
He’s now for sale - learn more here.
one subway car
Began working on this commissioned papercut last night. On Monday, I’d gone through a two-hour ordeal at Kinko’s, trying to figure out a way to get the design, which I created in photoshop printed onto a nice piece of paper. Last night, I found that the “ink” was rubbing off almost like powder! Have to work very carefully. Here’s a brief glance at the begun cut. Can’t say more, as the one of the ultimate recipients is in the dark about this project.
second figure - step 1
Last night I started this figure painting; next week I hope to spend another 3-4 hours on it and get it all finished up. Right now, she’s got a blueish grey background, but I’m thinking I’ll change it to something more racy, something bright.
five tomatoes
The tomatoes and I had a plan for Tuesday. We talked about it on Sunday and we talked about it on Monday. Tuesday when we sat down together, we discovered that three of the tomatoes had been eaten! But the spirit of the five is still in the painting.
six bananas on blue
This lucky bunch of bananas got to sit by the window on a cloudy day and have their collective portrait painted. I was planning to paint them again the next day, from a different angle, browner, but they all got et up too fast! In reality, the blue towel had a bit more green in it than this, but this blue looks so nice, I just couldn’t bring myself to change it. 8×10 inches. $75. …More info…