"Su Camino" (draft 1)

"Espera en Jehova, y guarda su camino." This verse from Psalm 37: 34 is translated...."Wait for the Lord and keep his way." It is a short verse packed with two specific commands that give guidance in all kinds of circumstances.

This piece is a continuation of a new path I am taking with acrylics and fiber on canvas. If you look closely, you can see texture and writing in the background.

The background was created with Super Heavy Gesso (Liquitex) on a 12" x 12" stretch canvas. I used a strip of grid like mesh used in taping and bedding a wall by laying it in rows on top of the wet gesso and picking it up with a palette knife. This was repeated until the whole piece had this texture. I then used a bamboo pen to write my text in Spanish at the top and bottom.

After all was completely dry (overnight), I primed it with black gesso...allowed that to dry....and then mixed up the yellow orange color from Fluid Acrylics. This mixture was applied with a sponge brush in two applications...drying in between.

After the last coat of paint was thoroughly dry, I lightly sanded it to reveal some of the black and white gesso underneath and cause the texture to be more visible. While all of that was going on, I was also painting black gesso on my fiber followed by sanding, painting, sanding, painting, etc. until the texture you see today was achieved.

It has not been adhered to the support because I like to write on a flat, hard surface rather than fighting with a canvas. Of course, lettering will make all the difference in the world and I will be posting that tomorrow. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Cathedrals" (final)

($250.00.....11" x 14".....gesso work on 140 lb. HP....mounted on a 2" depth cradled board)

"Cathedrals in all their grandeur cannot compare to the cathedral of the heart." You can see that the lettering was done in a gothic style called "textura". I deliberately left them in a lighter value. Most of the time, especially on this type of surface, white lettering has to be retouched to deepen the value.

Another intentional decision was to slightly angle the lettering to mimic the line work throughout the piece. It also gives movement and makes it less contrived.

There are several "take aways" from this piece that I would like to share. First of all, when creating erratic lines and shapes with gesso as well as white gouache....the value of these areas can be muted by brushing on a bit of charcoal powder after they're dry.  You can see it quite clearly in the cathedrals where there is a grayish/ whitish texture. It adds an ethereal look and is a very useful technique. If you consistently create mixed media work, black charcoal powder and a soft brush (Hake brush or blush brush) are an absolute necessity.

Line work is your friend when it comes to integration. By creating white lines in the dark areas and black lines in the white areas, I created conversations between the shapes which results in integration. 

Breaking up solid shapes of color with rubbing alcohol and a brayer or laying down color with gouache and brayer and then spraying lightly with water can create very interesting texture. I did this on the left side where you see texture in the dark area.

Using a pointed pen and a press/release technique can help create lines that are thicker and thinner in places which makes them much more interesting. It is also good to have line work created with a variety of different mediums....such as gesso applied with a credit card....pencil lines....pointed pen and ink lines....scratching into damp paint with the corner of a credit card or palette knife...etc

As I mentioned in draft (1), I attempted to write down most of the questions that needed answers as I moved through the steps of creating. There were approximately (50) in all which simply illustrates that it takes many steps to create a piece of artwork. Asking the right questions will give you the right answers. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Cathedrals" (draft 2)

(image 1)

(image 2)

No quote yet, but by tomorrow, I feel sure I will have one. As you can see, there have been many changes since yesterday. I am going for a very ethereal look.

Last evening, after viewing my piece several times during the day, I had the urge to go over the cathedral imagery again with the same colors plus adding some alizarin crimson to the yellow shape. I also laid a kleenex in a place or two to lift part of the color. It was left to dry overnight.

This morning, one of my first questions was how much detail to add....what tool to use....what color and type of pigment. I began with moon palace ink and a pointed nib, but decided to go with something a bit more graphic and found a hand cut stamp of a cathedral that I cut several years ago. Rather than inking the whole stamp, I chose fragments and stamped those on with Speedball Printing Ink applied with a brayer.

After writing a few words and creating different types of line work, I dried the piece...sprayed (3x) with spray acrylic coating. The reason I sprayed that many times was due to the thickness of some of the ink. After drying the piece again, I used a sponge brush and applied dilute gel matte medium 2x. After drying that layer, I laid in the dark shape which was cobalt blue + brt. sienna gouache. The reason I chose that medium is the ability to lift it if I didn't like the result. Because it is an opaque watercolor, it also has a bit of a translucent effect in places. (You do need to brayer it on and then keep brayering until it becomes smooth.)

White gesso was also added (1:1 ratio with water) and dried. Alcohol and a brayer were used alternately over the gesso to create the texture you see in image (2). I also repeated all of these steps....spraying...brushing on med...adding more gesso...etc. until satisfied.

Today I will be studying this image and seeing if I need to do anymore "tweaking" of values and shapes before deciding on the lettering. So far...I have asked and answered (30) questions about this piece. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"New Leaf" (final)

($50.00......6" x 6".....mixed media on 140 lb HP....mounted on a flat panel gessobord)

"A new leaf is a fresh start." Most of us have made declarations about turning over a new leaf. It is a fresh start if the goal is reached. It's a known fact that it takes 21 days to break an old habit. It has worked for me, but not in every situation. So this piece is about associating a fresh start with breaking an old habit.

Color wise I like this piece a lot, but it is very risky to include stamped designs of very particular images in a piece of fine art. Even though this is a hand cut stamp based on a real leaf, it can become a bit cliched. Actually, it is much better to paint an actual image that requires skill level than become too "cute" with these kind of devices.

When dealing with techniques that deal with texture, I prefer to stick with geometric forms which have a long history in the arts because all images (painted, stamped, or drawn) are made up of shapes. And the more an artist goes towards the pure geometry of a shape, the more abstract it becomes.

Pure color blocks with no texture, however, can become quite sterile and boring. So one of my purposes right now is to fine the happy place where I feel totally satisfied with my divisions of space and the shapes formed within shapes that are indicative of this type of work.

So instead of beating up myself too badly about using such a purely decorative device as a leaf stamped on and into the paint, I simply consider it something I will probably not do again. And there is the other reason for blogging and working on my work every day.

It is a disconnect in learning how to do art, if the creative process is interrupted for too long a period of time. It makes much more sense to do a daily analysis of your work and identify the weak and strong points so as to redirect the course of the work. It has and always will be about process. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this work.

"New Leaf" (Part 1 of 2)

(Part 1 of 2)

The quote will come tomorrow, but what you are viewing today is a few pieces of watercolor paper with texture created with heavy body acrylics, a palette knife, commercial texture stamps, a handmade leaf stamp, and the sharp corner of an old credit card. What I will be posting tomorrow will be a finished 6" x 6". I obviously have way too many pieces, but the idea is to have a multitude of options. 

The piece I completed yesterday ("The Coast") is now being displayed at Solas Gallery in Salado. There is a range of my work being displayed there with Photographic Portraiture, since it is a Photography Gallery. What the owners of the gallery and I have discovered is that abstract work with very realistic photography is a wonderful mix.

Today I want to share a few things I've learned about the "color block" pieces I've been creating. One of the primary decisions that will help to feature the blocks with more detail or strong color is to surround those particular ones with neutral colors or blocks with minimal detail. For instance, "The Coast" had a featured block that was actually a small painting that could have stood on its own. What I did was surround that particular block with colors and texture that complemented the featured block but did not compete with the fact that it was the feature.

Since many of you have experimented with pouring medium, you would not want to place blocks of pouring medium together that all had swirling color. Some of those blocks might need to be solid colors that complement the one or two blocks that had several colors.

Another example would be the large piece I created for "The Psalms". All of the old text pages, and rice paper, as well as the hand lettering of the first verse of Psalm 91 were all placed within the gray/black or neutral blocks. The yellow/green and blue/green blocks had no text...no rice paper...and minimal texture.

So it is these kind of decisions that will help to create a successful "color block"....should you want to give it a try. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Old Shack" (draft 2)

(draft 2)

Today is the birth of a very different kind of color block piece. All of the colors were mixed on a limited palette which gives a completely different flavor to the presentation. The jury is still out on this one.

The final size of this piece is an 8" x 16". I have painted the support a medium gray color mixed from the same colors in the piece. So that means there will not be any black in the piece, but several areas of a dark brown.

This one may grow on me, but I will not be adhering it to the support until I know for sure that it's a keeper. What I've decided to do today is adhere all of the pieces to a 300 lb HP section cut to the size of the board. That allows me to study it for a while before committing. I might even tape the pieces down first so that I can keep my options open about changing any color blocks or simply moving them around. And that is the way it goes with all experimental works. To not try different designs and techniques is to stay the same and that is simply not an option for me.

I have gone on and on about the benefits of color blocking and here are some more. If any of you are like me and like a variety of techniques such as simple printmaking, sgraffito, collage, palette knife painting, sanding, etc.....then you would like doing this because all of these looks can be incorporated in the blocks. And the variety of space division possibilities is infinite.

So what I will likely do today is suspend this piece for a few days or forever and move on to a new piece while I let this one simmer on the back burner. And there your have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Interval" (Final)

($200.00.....11" x 14".....Mixed media and Kiln Formed Glass...Mounted on a 2" Depth Clayboard)

"Interval is an expression of time or space." And here is the final...finally! It changed considerable since yesterday, but I am happy to have explored the concept of interval visually by playing around with intervals of space.

It often happens when creating work and minding your own business. Techniques and particular looks that you may have created several years ago crop up again in an unexpected way. And so it is with this piece. Even before I was creating kiln formed glass pieces, I enjoyed cutting a window in an old book cover and mounting it on a support with background textures etc.

So as I was bumping along yesterday, I remembered I had already fired some glass with this zigzag pattern in it so I could not resist including it in the piece. It is the only black zigzag element in the piece so it is easy to recognize. And it just provides another texture and echo of what is already going on.

So after posting yesterday's draft, I decided to tone down all of the values a bit by sanding and adding soft pastels in key areas. I also including a strip of rice paper on each bass wood covered piece that added another shape and a very light value. 

Because the bass wood elements were not adhered, I played around with those pieces until I was satisfied with the division of space. All three are touching each other with the glass piece nestled in between. They are also touching (3) sides of the design space. So I did achieve my goals of creating a piece using a single motif and selecting a quote that was completely married to the abstract visual. 

It is a bit dark and moody, but I like the texture, the dimensional quality of the bass wood, and the expressive lettering. This kind of lettering (indeed, most all lettering) requires abstraction in order to be complementary of each other. This is precisely why it is not a good idea to adhere lettering on top of a totally realistic image. Graphic designers do it all the time, but it is best to place it in a world of abstract elements for fine art.  And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Interval" (Draft 2)

(unavailable.....11" x 14".....Mixed Media....Mounted on a 2" Depth Clayboard)

"Interval is an expression of time or space." Another way to look at interval is the time it takes to make a good decision or procrastinating. It makes all the difference in the world. In some cases it could save your life.

Today I have introduced color. And I must tell you, it was very difficult for me to post this today because you are seeing the piece in mid stream. The colors have not been sufficiently adjusted...no text fragments included...and no plain rice papers. The reason I am showing it to you at this stage is because I need a few hours of drying time before sanding anything else.  And I also know it helps to see what layering is all about so you don't throw up your hands and quit before the piece is finished.

Sanding is a form of deconstruction. After I had stamped the background with additional colors, using Speedball Printing Ink, I blotted much of the stamped areas with a tissue dipped in water to remove some of the hard edges. Even though I still wasn't satisfied, I went ahead and dried it with a hair dryer and sprayed it with Acrylic Coating. After also drying that with a hair dryer, I took some rough sand paper and hand sanded the "dickens" out of the background, being careful not to disturb my lettering. What this did was further integrate the stamped imagery into the background by revealing parts of the previous layer through the sanded areas. This is a very good layering technique. And if you're really brave, you might want to use a palm sander with a variable speed setting. (In times past, I have sanded the edge of paper into oblivion!) 

The other addition to the piece is the covered bass wood pieces. They are not adhered to the support yet so that I can study it a bit more and also do additional lettering on the background without having to work around these raised areas. I am excited to show you the final tomorrow and trust me, it will be totally different. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.