Tattoo

Yet another sprayed composition.

Being a neophyte artist at middle age feels strange to me. I'm carrying the baggage of all the things I've found interesting over the years but, now there is little time to explore. I don't know if starting out at an advanced age is an advantage or a hindrance. It's a little like taking classes at my age, there's just never a good fit. Always, there's a feeling of being out-of -place. Also, I have so many techniques I like, it's hard to focus on one or two. I read in a blog in the past couple of days the author's lament about being frustrated with not having enough time to carry out all the creative impulses they were having. I find that with the growth of frustration I, myself, get more creative and find it difficult to focus or edit my creativity.

A friend of mine, a counselor and social worker, was doing creative therapy workshops using art and writing as cathartic mediums. I always argued with her my point that the mind was always working on ways to solve its problems and it was not the relating of them that helped but rather that by inducing it to become more creative it came to a solution sooner. So much for my psycho-idiocy.

Back to my sprayed work. I'm trying to pare down my laundry list of techniques and interests so that I might be more productive. I'm going to maybe used sprayed techniques in concert with my work in oils as under painting and details instead of stand alone works. I'm working on an engraving now based on the 'Masquerade' painting from a previous post. I'm hoping to combine this with other techniques, monoprint and inkjet printing as a venue to concentrate on.

There, the problem of the day spelled out. How to curb my enthusiasm and work in a more structured, focus way. Have a lovely day.

Brad

Chambered Nautilus

The sun is out this morning and it will be a much warmer day than yesterday, Sunday. The first flush of blooms, the jonaquils, hyacinths, plums, and such have faded and have given way to the first leaves. It is getting quite green now, and we have jungle. It's thick woods, viney and thick with mountain laurel. Camp Frank Merrill is just a few miles outside of town where the U.S.Army Rangers are based and train. There's a reason, the terrain can be brutal.

I heard the first whiporwill this morning. We will hear them from now until June. We are starting to hear the turkeys also, gobbling in the mornings. In the spirit of natural things I'm posting shell drawings.

The first is executed with liquid acrylic, Dr. P.H. Martin Spectralite and a croquil pen on Yupo synthetic paper. Yupo is actually polypropylene sheets. I'm not sure what the advantage of Yupo is other than it is very durable. I like the Spectralite because it can be applied with airbrush, brush or pen.

This illustration was created with the same materials. The basic shapes and background were created with airbrush. the details were added with an airbrush and worked with a brush and a pen. The effect around the shells was created with an electric eraser.

Good Monday,

Brad

Painting in Oil

I love to paint in oils. I use Windsor and Newton and Gamblin paints and mediums. I especially like to use Gamblin alkyd mediums. These work well with alkyd spray paints and allow me to work quickly mixing the techniques. I also find that the alkyd mediums work well with oil sticks, coating the surface lightly, then drawing with the oil sticks and working afterwards with one of the brush shaped silicon tools. This is a painting I did for a fund-raiser promoted by a friend.

The event, produced by my friend Kelly, was called 'The Masquerade,' and was held to raise money to support local arts and the local children's theatre. Kelly had been a fellow non-traditional student, a fine artist and a talented, tireless promoter. The event was held at a local restaurant which has several rooms and multiple outdoor decks. My participation was to execute the painting and take part in a vignette of painter and model in a Parisian boudoir. I started the painting a couple of weeks before the affair so that it was well along in the process and then we set up the vignette to match the painting. The background for the painting was the fireplace in the restaurant and I met with the model to make sketches and photos. The night of the affair, I donned my tuxedo and top hat, set up my french easel next to the chaise, the model took her place on the chaise and we proceeded to perpetuate one of the fiction of art.

In the spirit of the masquerade and since the Lenten season, the beginning of which is marked by Mardi Gras, is drawing to a close, I thought I would add a little New Orleans piano blues.  



Enjoy.

Brad

A Pair

On a rainy, foggy Georgia morning paintings of rain seem appropriate. I produced these two paintings simultaneously using Krylon on primed 140 lb. watercolor paper. I produced the two of them in little more time than one could be accomplished. I could do five in the same time because the drying and masking require about the same amount of time.

I created the spatter effect by spraying the paint into a spoon, quite messy but effective. There is enough variation to make each interesting in its own right not identical copies. I like the process method of painting. Also, I am trying to synthesize the immediacy of graffiti in a painting. Sprayed work, for me, offers the delightful effects that can be seen in the paintings of David Smith, the mask effects and over-spray.

 
Have a dry and comfortable Saturday.

Brad

Catching Up

It's been a few days since I posted anything and I a little at a loss. I've been keeping up with the blogs I follow and appreciate your diligence in posting something for my entertainment. I've been working away at a drafting project and as is usual just before I was to send my first approval submittal to the engineers, I'm talking about my finger moving toward the email send button, I received a call from my customer sending me off on a complete reworking of what had finished and breaking it apart to realign it with a new plan of scheduling.

Here is a portion of an elevation and a wall section before "remodeling." I have tried to keep my hand in at some artistic activities. I have posted here a sprayed figurative piece, liquid acrylic paint, airbrush, brush on a panel.  

I used a drawing produced in a figure drawing class for the model. The drawing is a fifteen minute study and I was very interested in the shadows of the chair back falling across the model. The chair belonged to an artist friend and he had painted the chair. I tried to capture the flavor of his work in my painting.

I've been working on some of my Photoshop paintings also. This is the first stage of one and I will post the stages as I complete it. I can work quite quickly but I run Photoshop on an old G3 Mac which is slow saving and opening files. It's fifteen years old and only a 233mhz processor but still an excellent art machine.

Thanks for stopping by.

Brad

Sunday Evening

I thought I would post something this evening. I haven't been posting this week; rather, I have been tied to my CAD station hammering away on a drafting job. I thought I would post a piece of music I have been enjoying and will enjoy as I work throughout the night.



Have a good Sunday evening.

Brad

Redux

A re-post of the portrait executed in Photoshop. I save the photoshop file as a tiff and then converted it to jpeg format on the computer I use for posting. Seems to have cured the problem.

Good Monday.

Brad

For this Blog

This is a painting created for my blog. The background is made up of several photos. the VW is painted in Photoshop and is saved as a Photoshop file for future use and I will probably revise it for another work. I thought since I posted a link for some contemporary reggae yesterday: today I will post a link for some pre-Bob Marley reggae. It has a great bass line.

 

Good weekend and enjoy!

Brad

Miscellaneous Items

I'm busy, busy these days grinding away at my CAD work station. I thought I would take a few minutes to post a couple of items. The first is a painting I executed in photoshop. The colors reversed when I uploaded the file to Blogger even though I used a web safe palette, hummm. I had this problem before, Oh, I'll post it anyway. Any ideas why, I would like to hear. I'm going to execute some Photoshop painting especially for posting mainly for the practice and I like to do them.

I'm also posting another piece of working background music I'm enjoying these days. Enjoy!