Little Boats
collage, gel pen, and acrylic on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 x 7 1/2 inches
Category: Paintings
More Little Boats
Little Boats
collage, gel pen, and acrylic on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 x 7 1/2 inches
Little Boats
Little Boats
collage, gel pen, and acrylic on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 x 7 1/2 inches
I wanted a change from bottles and vases and plain old doodling, so I thought I’d work on something else for awhile. I bound this miniature book, using left over scraps of paper and book board I’d pre-painted with acrylics, about a year ago, as a demo for a book binding tutorial I wrote. Because of the sea foam greens used on many of the pages, my intention was to eventually do something water-themed with it.
Little Boats
3 3/8 x 3 15/16 inches, 11 signatures of 2 pages each (22 pages total)
140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor pages, pre-painted with acrylics, bound with waxed linen thread
The Cynic’s Apprentice
The Cynic’s Apprentice (in progress)
20 x 16 inches
collage (child’s dress pattern, glass, nails, knife blade, and bone), oil pastel, and litho crayon on canvas
Tending Medusa
oil, oil pastel, and oil pencil on newspaper adhered to 90lb Stonehenge paper, with mirror and braided dress patterns and tissue paper
11 1/4 x 15 inches
3 July 2006
In Greek mythology, Medusa was one of the three Gorgon sisters. She began life as a beautiful maiden, but after becoming inadvertently entangled in the on-going rivalry between Athene and Poseidon, she was disfigured by Athene. Athene replaced Medus’s hair with a mass of writhing snakes, making her so frightful that all who gazed upon her were turned to stone. Medusa finally met her end when Perseus, using a polished shield as a mirror, beheaded her.
In Progress, Part Deux
It’s been a a month, exactly, since I started this one. The base coat was oil, so I wanted to give it plenty of time to dry before working on it some more. I also was feeling lazy, to be truthful. I’ve had two more goes at it, with oil pastels and oil pencils. I like the visual and tactile texture that’s beginning to develop, but it has a way to go yet.
oil, oil pastel, and oil pencil on newspaper adhered to 90lb Stonehenge paper
11 1/4 x 15 inches
29 June 2006
I’m not sure what this little bowl will eventually hold. I’ve got some gorgeous luna moth wings (thanks, Pyewacket!) that I might combine with leaves. The problem is, figuring out how to adhere the wings without damaging them. I’m also considering something viney, perhaps hair and/or braided paper.
In Progress
oil on newspaper adhered to 90lb Stonehenge paper
11 1/4 x 15 inches
This is just a base coat, but until it dries, I can’t do much more with it. The background colors will probably end up a little more muted and the bowl shape and color need to be fine-tuned. After it’s completely dry, I’ll add collage bits–probably some sort of planty thing.
Three Paintings
Funnel Cloud, oil on canvas
Vessels, oil on canvas
Maps IV, oil on canvas
These are all paintings that now live at my mom’s house. I’ve been meaning to photograph them for quite awhile, but never managed to get to it. Easter was a perfect opportunity, though. It was overcast, which I think is the best time to take outdoor photos. Bright sunlight may seem nice, but it washes out color and flattens everything. Overcast days enhance the saturation of color, so if you’re going to photograph artwork outdoors (and outdoors is far preferable to indoors, with flash), it’s best to do it outdoors on a cloudy day.
The top one and bottom paintings I’m still pretty happy with. I like the middle one, but it has some spacial issues. I’m thinking about having another go at the idea, just so that I can fix the things that now bug me. We’ll see if I ever get around to it.
The third painting belongs to my youngest brother. It was part of the Maps series. I love the underwatery feel of it. The top painting began as part of the same series, but it ended up going in an entirely different direction. I still wasn’t using much white at that point, which is what accounts for the weird, tornado-y glow in that and a few other paintings, like this one.
Greenhouse, oil on canvas
Vessel (In Progress 4)
This one is nearly finished. I added braided tissue paper “vines,” then colored them with oil pastel. Unfortunately, I tried to photograph it outdoors, where it’s approximately 900F, so the pastel melted into a mirror-like finish. I’ll have to buff it a bit with paper towel to re-matte the finish. That’ll be the final step. In the meantime, there is a bit of glare.
oil, oil pastel, and oil pencil on newspaper adhered to 90lb Stonehenge paper, with braided dress patterns and tissue paper
11 1/4 x 15 inches
Who Can See the Wind?
Who Can See the Wind?
by Christina Rossetti
Who can see the wind?
Neither I nor you
But when the leaves are trembling
The wind is passing through.
Who can see the wind?
Neither you nor I,
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
This weekend has been sunny, warm, and generally gorgeous–a welcome contrast to last week’s typical Winter in Indiana dreariness. It’s windy, though, so even though it’s in the mid-50sF, it feels a little brisker than it actually is. Yesterday, we had bright blue skies, but today, even though the sun is out, it’s hazy and the sky is a pale, bleached blue. But, the wind…! It\’s howling and gusting and thundering, by turns. I swear, it’s more solid than not, so that you almost feel as if you could see it[1].
Anyway, no new art today, at least not yet. Perhaps later. After a four-day weekend, most of it spent hacking up bits of lung tissue, I realize that I have had precious little in the way of actual ass-sitting. Sure, I’ve talked about it, but the sitting itself has actually yet to materialize. So, maybe, that’s what I’ll spend the rest of the day doing.
Speaking of not sitting on my behindermost, I did finally manage to finish mucking out the laundry room yesterday. Even though the stuff destined for the Mission is still in there, it’s taking up about half the space it did pre-mucking. I can actually get to the washer without falling over things. The point of the exercise was that the dryer fairy may, at any point, decide to visit. I wanted to make sure I could actually get the old dryer out, before she arrived. I even pulled it out and cleaned behind it, so that I won’t have to do that when we swap out machines. (You would not believe the assortment of junk I found back there!)
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[1] I had a book of poems when I was little, that included several by Christina Rossetti. I’ve always loved this one, in particular. It wasn’t until a college art history class on the Pre-Raphaelites that I realized she was the sister of that Rossetti.
The Pre-Raphaelites were an odd little group. Ruskin, and artist, poet, and critic, was shocked and appalled to discover, that women–or, at least, his wife–had pubic hair. Or so the story goes. Apparently, he had this rude awakening on his wedding night, which disturbed him so much the marriage was not consummated. I’m not sure I buy that story, as someone who had spent his life in the art world, around artists and models, should have known better. True, it was traditional to portray women with pre-pubescent, hairless nether bits, but still, surely he’d seen a real, live woman in her altogether before[2]?
Okaythen, class dismissed!
[2] This total and complete non-sequitur brought to you by NyQuil: The sneezing, stuffy head, sore throat, hallucinogenic, where-the-hell-is-my-brain cold medicine.
red paper boat 