"Time For Pie" - SOLD

 

 

SOLD!

 

5" x 7" oil on gessoed panel

 

(How long should I stay on the Star Trek movie title theme?) Circumstances on July 4th prohibited me from blowing up anything, barbecueing, or going shooting, so I did the next best thing and made an apple pie, per the instructions of Our Lord and Master of Good Eats, Alton Brown. Unfortunately since the pie done got 'et (and it was good) the next best thing was to paint the pie bird and pie server, and since it looked like the antique pie bird is calling out, I figured he was saying "Time for pie!", and I put him next to the pie server - get it? I'm so clever.

 

This one frustrated me at the time. The velvety foreground cloth texture gave me a hard time, and I was painting well into the evening. In retrospect, though, it's become one of my favorites.

Painting Trek 2: The Wrath of Backlog - "Home-Made", July 8th, 2008

 

 

Available via my Direct Sale Page!

 

6" x 6" oil on gessoed panel

 

This is painting #2, from back on July 8th. I made a batch of cookies on the previous Monday night, and saved a trio for painting on Tuesday. At the end of the workday the milk had been out for too long, but the cookies were still perfectly edible... And they were good.

Here we go... #1: "Minerva", July 7th, 2008

 

 

Contact me for sale!

 

5" x 7" oil painting on 1/8th" thick Ampersand Gessobord

 

Here is my first-ever "daily painting". I have a bit of a backlog, so in truth, this one was done back on July 7th. The owl is a candle holder acquired at a local thrift store, and the apples were the finest quality available from Kroger. They were left over from my July 4th applie pie, and if I recall correctly, they were made into pastries not long after this painting was finished. They were good.

New Direction

 

There have been some big changes going on behind the scenes here, but they don't make for terribly exciting reading. The important development is that I will soon begin posting daily oil paintings for sale through my shop on Etsy. My goal is one painting a day, sold for about $100 shipped, and I've spent the last couple of months setting up and starting this new venture. I'll post the paintings here with commentary. I also have quite a bit of digital housekeeping to do. There are accounts to set up, graphics to be made, and layouts to be adjusted.

 

"Daily Painting" is a petite phrase, but it contains an entire Operation Overlord of change. I have re-arranged my office/studio, researched the market, purcha$$$ed a painfully large pile of $$$upplies, acquired materials for setup and lighting, discovered (or re-discovered) the ins and outs of producing good work in a hurry, and then of course there is the ever-present trial-by-fire in which the brush hits the gesso board, and planning meets reality. Of course, none of this is revolutionary - or news - but for me it's a very moving process. A new artistic start is simultaneously fun and excruciating, and unfortunately I don't have anyone to share it with, except you, the reader. Hopefully daily sales will mean traffic, which will mean comments and communications with other artists? That's what it's all about, in the end, I think... Work produced, and ideas shared. Progress!

Napoleon in Hell - Gouache 6x8

I've been working on painting characters and scenarios in gouache on illustration board. This is my first result, developed from a truly random brush & ink sketch. Between Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series, Peter Padfield's books on Maritime supremacy, and HBO's "John Adams", I've had 18th Century on the brain for a while. Random sketching while meditating on the literal idea of personal demons produced a twisted little figure in a big hat which bore a remarkable resemblance to Napoleon. If he's anywhere, I figure it's someplace cold.

Life imitates Henri Rousseau

Not pictured: Nude women, French Post-Impressionism.

I was on the porch sketching with pen & ink and had gotten up to get another glass of iced tea when I turned around and saw Roland "hiding" in the houseplants. They had been taken down because of a storm, and became a convenient mini-jungle right out of Henri Rousseau's "The Dream". I can't believe he stayed still long enough for me to get the camera.

Sketching with a waterbrush and either sumi-e or a fountain pen/grayscale marker combination is my way to get around a mental block. When all else fails, grab the big sketchbook, put the ink in the left hand and the water in the right, and get through it. I start with random strokes and build from there. It doesn't result in beautiful, perfect composition, but it gets the basics on paper. Lately my quick & dirty ink sketches have been images of the jungle:

These are serving as preliminary work for illustrations in support of one of my long-term animation projects. I'll put more from this project up soon.

I see the doorway to a thousand churches

My goodness, it's been a long time since I posted. That's sad, but I have a (partial) excuse:

I got new eyes.

On February 29th I had IntraLASIK done. I went from "between 20/300 and 20/700 uncorrected" (!) to better than 20/20. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Every day I see something in a new way or notice things that I had been unaware of before - it's truly amazing. Just FYI, being able to see comes in damned handy for an artist - who knew?

Not long ago in human history I would have been uselessly near-blind, but in the 21st century I can get my corneas reshaped with a frickin' laser beam and see better than new. I figured a photo was in order. This is me, glasses-free, in the middle of a workday, in my painting shirt, unshaven, mussed up, overheated, and holding my cat.

(Any other time Kali follows me around, wanting attention or playtime with her feather toy, but of course when I need her to stay still and shut up for a second, she freaks out. I guess they wouldn't be called "cats" if they were sensible.)

I'm sufficiently recovered to pick up where I left off around the new year, so regular posting will begin again shortly.