Sunday, June 28, 2009

Now on Etsy

Mysterious Stillness

Have finally gotten my Etsy storefront up and running on a small scale.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5827318
SOOO many paintings hanging around here or stored around here I just have to do something about getting them to market. Starting with some of the landscapes that are from the past year with a lot of texture added. Also listed some of the more subtle landscapes from a few years ago before I hit upon the tissue paper texture for surface interest. Those paintings are strongly influenced by the work of pastel artists. I haven't been a pastelist myself but, boy, I love what a pastelist can do with color.




Digg!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Cat Paintings

Dusty


Rollaflex


Charlie



Tribute
A little tribute in painting to our dear Georgie Porgie who it turned out had cardiomyopathy.....basically a failing heart....known to be found in young large neutered male yellow cats...of which he was all. So...grateful that he lived exuberantly to the last moment of his life and never showed any signs of failure. I have painted watercolors of cats in my life and have some of them here. I have stopped so much with the realistic paintings so have not recently painted any of our present furry kids. Taking more pics and giving more hugs....so glad we have them for the time that we do....







Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Georgie Porgie

And what would be be without our animals?.... a sad post today....our youngest cat George passed away last night without being sick or giving us any sign that there was anything wrong. He came in as a stray a little over a year ago so we are guessing at his age as around 3. He was still pretty timid but had been developing his own quirky ways of being as they all do....and our house ......even with other cats in it seems so sad without him here.
This picture is him in the paper mache' basket I posted on a few days ago. it was one of his favorite places even if he hung over the edges.
He had been called Leo by his former owners (who abandoned him outdoors in the winter) and we changed him to Theodore when we took him in to try to sound similar. That changed to T-dore and then to Georgie-Porgie as he became bigger and bigger. Just recently he enjoyed being called Delray or Delmar or Delbert.
He should be here ....sitting on the file cabinet by my left elbow as I type this.....looking over my shoulder

Monday, June 15, 2009

Finishing the Landscape

Finishing the Landscape
This is another of the landscapes that was not so successful so I set it aside (since February) but had been seeing it around while I worked on other projects. After not thinking so hard about it for so long I picked it up the other day and went to work on it. Warming it up with the red and the yellow helped give it more life. Sometimes hard to see in the midst of the painting of it where it could be called finished. I made a video of the finishing......maybe video or photo at each stage is a good idea. A more objective eye to consider whether to continue on with more paint or hold and call it finished......



Sunday, June 14, 2009

Summer Scrub

Summer Scrub
I seem to be alternating between the painterly and the crafty so now it's back to the the painter. Another attempt at stopping "soon enough" ( I think I did) and trying to keep the color palette true. Feels like a hot summer day on red clay. The vertical lines are part of how the tissue paper textured onto this watercolor paper. The underpainting for this one was the red color and I'm happy I was able to keep so much of it in the finished painting.



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Paper Mache' Bowl

Paper Mache' Bowl
Back to more useful uses for newspapers in the recycling mode. This bowl is big enough to hold a very large sleeping cat curled into a pretty tight ball ....and often does. I was thinking of the coil method of pottery making and I used rounds of twisted newspapers to form the coils and the basic shape. Part of its charm is the off kilter shape that happened because I free-formed the coils of newspaper. I wrapped a circle on itself for the bottom and then added more lengths of twisted newspaper to form up the sides. I taped everything loosely together and then applied bigger pieces of newspaper over the coils to form the outer surface. Once it was all dry ( it didn't take too long because the twists of newspaper aren't as dense as solidly packed paper mache'.)..... I primed it with gesso and used a simple square stencil to put the teal squares over the darker green base coat. The gold band at the top and some gold accents inside and out finished it off! Cats of all shapes and sizes have claimed it as their own.....


Monday, June 8, 2009

Pink Field Pink Sky

Pink Field Pink Sky
Another one of the poured paintings....not from the latest group (still letting them sit around) This..from a group of 4 poured last August. Watercolor paper gessoed to give it some strength and durability as the ground. The acrylic paint was thinned and poured in many many layers. i did add in the foreground yellow fields and pink fields with a brush...couldn't control the color strength or the placement with the really liquid paint. Pouring works best in the warm Summer months....the paintings really dry quickly in the sun.



Sunday, June 7, 2009

Humpty Dumpty
A variation from my wooden folk art days. I used to make this as a small rocking toy about 4 inches by 4 inches. I decided to blow it up and add rockers to stabilize the bigger size so it could rock safely. B-a-l-a-n-c-e seems to be a good word for a fellow like Humpty to contemplate.....


Friday, June 5, 2009

Look Around

Another of my larger landscapes with the crinkled tissue paper on a stretched canvas. I have a series of four and they are all quiet but bold and have some water running through them. I had them hanging around for awhile painted in muted colors but decided to go with much stonger colors. I recently posted another one to my Photobucket page http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m135/mtz15/dark%20paintings/onecloud.jpg
and it got a big spike in interest.....very gratifying




Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Another Mask from the Past

Another older version of my paper mache' mask masking....this one was formed over a low oval basket. I used foil to protect the basket and added the layers of newspaper and paste. I was able to bake it in the oven on low and get it dried fairly quickly. Then I added the features with strips of built up newspaper. After that was dry I gessoed everything and let the whole thing dry again. ( No wonder I have so many things going at once...all this waiting.....) I painted it black first and was unhappy with that ( I really have to remember to photograph things in the process....not enough just to tell you about the color choices and indecision.....) Repainted it out to white and left it hanging around for a while working on other projects (the usual way......to get to the answer......) Ended up thinking of metal and how copper tarnishes to get to the end paint color.
Then I punched holes all along the top of the mask and put twine through it for the "hair" I have holes punched to add more "hair" on the other side but liked it one sided and left it that way. This mask is almost ten years old.....


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Sky Whirl

As mentioned in the October Fields post I haven't always been able to keep the yellows and reds I start a painting with. This board was textured with my favorite tissue paper crumple and then I started with a really dark blue black wash......actually created by layers of colors to create some depth to the very dark base. Then I worked in reverse adding in the horizon line. I also asked myself "How simple can I make this?" The dark layered background was already pleasing to me so the possibility of ruining it was pretty good. The yellow swirls of sky light and ground light happened as very dry brush work. Even though it's dark and different from October Fields I like it for itself. The movement in the sky gives it life........

Monday, June 1, 2009

Dan's Mask



Another idea for how to use and reuse newspapers...not that you can tell they are newspapers but it is good ole paper mache' as the base. I have a cement casting of Dan's face that I poured from a plaster bandage mold so I covered the cement with foil and then laid on newspaper and paste. After baking in the oven and in the sun the paper mache' was ready to be worked. I primed and painted and repainted (as usual) then added some of the circles , squares, words and (of course) a photo of Jessie. Th eye piece is hot melt glue I scribbled onto a foam board in some crazy old shape, let cool and then peeled off. Spray painted gold it adds a certain Terminator look to the mask........