THE FIREFLY DANCE

My favorite thing about this painting is the three dimensionality of the whole thing when you look at it close up. I wasn't all that happy with the finished product as it was far too dark for my taste, but then we wouldn't be able to see the bugs lighting up if I made it any brighter. The part of the painting I enjoyed working with the most was the field in front of the classical gazeebo - top center. Enlarge the painting of this area so you can see the joys of the lightning bug.

UFO

This collage was assembled and painted back in 1993. I had used a brand of tissue paper that was "guaranteed" not to fade over the years, but that guarantee didn't hold up very long. The sky was a nice cerulean blue as found in the objects below. After a few years the paper faded and left some areas nearly white. The cresent in the middle originally looked like a bronzed three dimensional plate but faded as well. I liked the way the cresent turned out but had to change the sky thru the magic of Photoshop.
I only have about a half dozen more collages to photograph, but it should be enough for everyone to have their fill of them. Tomorrow's entry will be a Mayan inspired collage.

YOU ASKED FOR IT

This is my largest collage in progress to date. I began it some 7 years ago and have yet to finish it. The painting was inspired by Dante's Inferno, probably the very first scifi fantasy book ever written which still evokes symbols and images from the reader's id. Fortunately, the artist as the reader is able to translate his own subconscious symbols and present them in a painting like this one. It measures roughly 5ft X 3 1/2ft. I may have to read the book again in order to adequately finish the work. Rest assured, it will get finished one day. I'll be posting more of my collages until I finally get my air brush compressor. Then it'll be back to the 3M vinyl business as usual. At least it's still a form of collage.

LAST OF THE COLLAGE SERIES

After doing this type of collage work, using National Geographic photos and bits of paper, even wallpaper samples mixed with my own brushwork, the series played itself out and I walked away from it for a while. This one was painted in early 2000. I never really gave it a proper name and am not satisfied with just calling it "Bridge II", but I'm only in the market of creating these children, not naming them.

Take note of the expanse of the bridge near the top of the painting. The left half of the bridge is cut out from Natl' Geo while the right side is actually painted. My friends like to look at this series of collages to discover which is a photo and which is painted. I was just showing off, but it served no purpose to the painting. Still, my friends without any esthetic merit considers this showing off as "art".

STATION 3

Some of my older paintings are so large I wasn't able to get a decent photo of them. What with my new camera I'm able to do that and more. Here's another painting done before I started using vinyl in my collages. It's the same size as the Office Cubical from yesterday's blog but you can definitely see a difference. I'm not sure what I had in mind when I was painting this, I was making things up as I went along in the work. One thing I did intentionally and carried it over into the next painting was the circular lens-like viewing found in a 35mm camera. I liked the way the concentric circles captured and distorted the images. Then when I ran out of room or inspiration (usually this went hand in hand) the painting was considered complete. This one is hanging over my chair in the living room. It, too, is about 18 years old.

THE GENESIS OF VINYL PAINTINGS

Long before I started doing the Haiku idea in vinyl or even considered it as a possible artform in itself, I did this large painting. It was done 18 years ago during a convalescence from an operation. I had this idea of doing an office cubical with flowers and designs found within the office and architecture, including a stylized wind chime. The original measures approx. four feet by two feet and hangs over my father's chair in the living room. I began to use vinyl more and more in later collages when the nature of progression led me to do the first series of small vinyl works to see if it could be a workable medium. The jury might still be out on that decision but I'll continue to work with it for the next year or so.

ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES

I made sure that the very first photo I took with my new camera would be this nude I did several years ago. It's one of my favorite cubist works that will remain in my private collection.

Seems like I can never get a break. I've been moping around the studio waiting for the delivery of a new airbrush compressor so I can begin my Venice series and can only do one study after another. This is all well and good but to not be able to strike while the iron is hot is next to intolerable. So in keeping with the Venice spirit I have started doing some small studies of ladies wearing beautiful gowns and ornamented ballroom Venetian masks (below the nude). I might get four or five of these done before I finally get the compressor and begin work on the larger paintings. To all things there is a purpose and I guess this is as good a reason for the failed compressor as any. Besides, the drafts of the women I've done so far look like they might be interesting enough to continue.

LATEST TASKING

I've been fooling around with brighter colors on a flat plane and came up with this nice little study done on Photoshop 6. It looks a lot like one of those paint by numbers but if done on a larger format (10 X 16) or even larger, it might have it's own merit. For fun, rather than using the usual mundane hot air balloons, I decided to use a fish motif to give it a little more of a fantasy. Will have to flatten the design of those balloons to keep within the composition, but this looks like it could very well be my next painting once I work all the bugs out of it.

For those interested parties, I will soon be the owner of a Panasonic DMC FZ-5 digital camera which will largely improve the quality of my photos, ergo my blogpage.

BUSY WEEKEND

The entries above are from my "Junk Art Journal" in which I throw interesting bits of vinyl used in my paintings. Never one for throwing away valuable materials, this seems to be the best way to get rid of them. Besides, the journal is a fun and free form of art.


I finished up the Rheinmaidens about an hour ago. As always, I will wait a few days before looking at it again, then if I don't see anything major needing changed I will frame it. This one turned out a lot nicer than I expected considering the refracting lights in the water. Will try this idea again and try to improve on those lights. The children that visit obviously like the little Nemos swimming with the mermaids. They wouldn't have been there if I didn't think the kids would like them.

A VIEWING ON SATURDAY

I can finally say that this could be the last digital I take with this crappy camera of mine. My best buddy has decided to upgrade his own digital and consented to sell me his Panasonic DMC FZ-5 which will do away with anymore lousy photos like the one on this post.

But this is how far I've gotten with the Rhein maidens and the solution I found for the reflective light. Well, I'm supposed to get the new camera on Saturday so I'll have a much better photo to show you then.

DAS RHEINMAIDENS

I haven't decided whether to continue working on this study. I like what I have so far but to be able to actually do the painting I will have to buy two more variations of green. The mermaids have a nice Erte kind of look about them and their color nearly projects them off the painting. The only thing left to do is research the grasses and shrubs that grow underwater and make designs of them for the compostion. Maybe I'll just go and buy those other green vinyls in the hope that I'll be able to use them again down the road. Seems like a lot of money for one project. Or I could just mask and paint those gradients in. The actual sketch is fifty inches high but I think in the long run the painting won't be but maybe 20 inches at the most. I have a couple more days to decide whether I'll start this one or not.

LATEST VINYL PAINTING

The comet was one of those quick ones done in a week's time. I'm still not sure if it's done yet, need to walk away from it for a couple of days then return to see what it looks like. Already I'm not too fond of the little girl to the right in the green jacket. A minor detail like a lifted arm touching the wall like the two people in front of her is enough to offset the boring two parallel lines that form her torso. And that ribbon in her hat could be another color like red. But we'll see how I feel about it all in a couple of days. Right now I'm working on some studies of an underwater ballet danced over the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis.

SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT

I'm guessing as to how long ago I did these studies for Dantes Inferno, but it seems like maybe 10 years would be a good assessment. I was experimenting with digital pictures I shot myself then transformed them on Photoshop. Then the images of Dante and Virgil were scanned, cut and pasted onto the 3D background stage. I thought the effect was very interesting at that time and wanted to share them with you all. I literally set up pieces of soap stone in a shadow box for the marble-like slabs creating the stylized rocks. The bottom study is of "Minos" who decides which circle of Hell some poor soul goes to. He is perched on a piece of photographed driftwood. All the mountain range images and peaks are from the same piece of driftwood. It was a fun exercise.

LATEST UPDATE

Apparently the only difficult part of this painting is going to be the buildings so I tackled those first. The people won't be any problem at all so they will be the next thing to work on. But the task will be in the treatment of the comet flying overhead. I have three ways to consider so far, all of them seem fun enough. The task with the comet will first be deciding on how to execute it. Then I'll have to think about what colors to use to make it jump off the painting. I did buy some neon acrylics the other day that might do the job. It'll certainly make the comet the most noticable thing in the painting.

Maryland had experienced the driest March in the recorded history of my state. For what little rain we had you may as well say we didn't get a drop of it. Today we had two drops of rain with more drops expected later on this afternoon. I was going to take a nap but don't want to chance missing this deluge. Who says I live with the "glass half full" philosophy?