Light and Dark

I love making these kinds of organic, free flowing, abstract art pieces.  It's quite soothing and gratifying to create.  The biggest challenge is feeling the line between 'not being enough' and 'what is too much'.

This is only 3 x 5".  MiniArt.  Watercolor, color pencil, and ink (Faber-Castel PITT Artist pens) on smooth Strathmore bristol board.

the old paintbrush

This was the best paintbrush.  I used it for about five years.  It is now retired but still holds its position amongst the other tools.

self-portrait

That's me sitting there drawing. The desk is a banquet table with file cabinets as supports. It's very functional for my small space. When I moved here 7 years ago, the scene out my window was pastures with grazing cattle and occasional horses. A few months ago that changed. It's soon to be a 19 home "gated community". It really hurt to sit here and watch the big, stinking deisel monsters rip the trees out of the ground. Yep, I s'pose I'm a tree hugger. This view still beats the heck out of the streets of Dallas. For anyone remotely interested, here is what's being offered to the new next door neighbors.

a color study in light and dark

Well, today is my birthday. Number 46. For as long as I can remember I've been drawing this motif for friends or family birthday cards. It would be interesting to see the collection of them all. My favorite one was for a birthday party. Back before computer graphics, I worked with 35 mm film slides. I created multiple slides and projected them all over the walls. It was really great to walk into big room lit with candles everywhere. Make a wish!

portrait of an artist's self-portrait

I listened to a story on the radio about this painting in a Barcelona museum. It's an artist painting a portrait of himself as an old man. The artist is looking over his shoulder, directly at the viewer. While listening to the description, I sketched this. I missed the name of the artist and the museum, but I'd love to see the painting.

art studio

This is Houston artist, Gail Siptakg's art studio. I am a huge admirer of her art, so when Gail posted a photo of her latest painting in the studio, I had to sketch it. Her spaces and belongings seem to meld into the art and I love that! Go here to see more of Gail's wonderful art. http://www.flickr.com/photos/siptak/

all nite diner

Lately I've been working on large acrylic paintings. At first I was frustrated because the paintings looked like drawings. Now, this drawing looks sort of like a painting. Maybe I should regularly switch between the two styles to let them flow together.

fish art wall hanging

Recently I was commissioned to create a three-dimensional painting of whimsical tropical fish. It will be made of 3 layers of masonite and wood, painted with acrylics. I haven't done one of these in quite some time, so I am really looking forward to this.

where do they come from?

Early this morning when I turned on my desk lamp, I was shocked with how many pens, pencils, and brushes were there. It seems like I'm always getting rid of the worn out and lesser used ones, but they somehow seem to reappear.

windows and portals

Sketches for commissioned art.

swimming

The water is made of EnviroTex Lite resin. It's original purpose was probably for bar tops and tables, I use it for lots of art projects. The resin is very durable and makes a great "water" effect. Another quircky art piece finished.

fish art finished

Made of rubber fish, cabinet door, glass "bubbles", spray paint, acrylic paint, glue and EnviroTex Lite resin.

fish art

The past couple of weeks I have had an underlying boredom with the daily black and white illustrations. The complacent ritual needs a change. I decided to take short a vacation back to my old roots of wildly colorful 3-dimensional mixed media art pieces.
This is made of a school of plastic fish (a thriftshop find), a cabinet door, glass "bubbles" , glue, masonite, spray paint and acrylic paint. It has been a great release to put physical as well as mental muscle into this. Although it's not finished, it was quick with lots of energy. It's not great art, but, man, it's been fun! This is just what I needed. Next step is a very thick coat of clear polyurethane to give it that water look.

fish art close up

I just love their expressions.

Shade!

My out-by-the-barn studio can be very hot and sunny in the afternoons. I finally invested twenty bucks in a big umbrella. It's the little things that make life worth living.

blue bubbles

This was a large part of my weekend, and it was VERY liberating. This is two layers. The top white layer is acrylic splashed on foam core. The bottom blue layer is acrylic painted on masonite. I embedded marbles into the foam core. The entire piece is then covered in a thick coating of polyurethane. I poured this stuff on thick, filling in the blue layers, over the top of the marbles, onto the entire surface of the art. It's sorta like a large piece of hard candy. I had lots of fun figuring out this one.

blue bubbles (close up)

spare pieces

These may or may not be used for something. Spare parts are great for spontaneous art.

bird family

Acrylics and peacock feathers.

Chinese Firedrill

Two pieces. I went through a "light up art" phase a few years ago. The yellow is the inner-most level. Small lights make the yellow light up. The front louvres open and close. They make great night time art.

Constructed of wood, masonite and a bit of luck. Painted with acrylics. Lit with Christmas type lights.