Art by Wendy: 2010

Friday, December 17, 2010

Seeing About Water Colors

Many professional artists see water colors as a medium used only by amateurs. "Real" artists use oil paint, ink, or gouache. Well, I don't care! Over 70% of our planet is water and over 60% of our own bodies is made up of water (and over 70% of our blood is water). The very liquidity and transparent quality of water colors make for unique combinations of color and form. Colors can run down, around, and into each other, creating new colors. I can paint new worlds using them. The colors are very bright like sun light! Natural forms and landscapes are the inspiration for the forms.

Reflection
2011

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Dual Nature
2011

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2011

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Irises Redux

Making a new painting of an image I have already worked does not happen very often. If I do go back "in" it's because I've become inspired once again to spend time with that image, or have found another "angle" on it. I might change the size, shape, or color of the image. Otherwise, to do the same painting over would be boring boring boring.

I recently made a huge painting of two small irises. I was inspired to make the painting again on a much smaller scale. Would the flowers lose their monumentality? Probably. But something different came out, and I'm satisfied with the result.

Irises
Oil: 18" x 24"

Ha Ha! Just kidding. It is often the case that after I think I've finished something, I look at it over a period of time and eventually begin to despise it. Then, there is a choice to be made: rip it apart! Work on it some more? Depending on my state of interest/boredom with the image, I usually wade in. Sometimes the results are a disaster, and sometimes, I am happy to say, the painting improves. Here now is the latest version of Irises:

I really like the new version so much better!

I think I'm getting better at painting. I look at previous paintings that I've made and have the need to enter back in and change them. This particular painting was all yellow and now is blue. I had been looking at the painting for years and although I was basically happy with it, I felt the yellow color was over done and not that interesting. So, years later, I went back "in" and changed it completely. I also, I think, resolved a composition problem in the bottom half of the painting. I like to think that the painting has been moved forward in some way and I can continue to live with it in its new form.

Blue Rose
Oil Painting from "White Rose" 2011

Here's the original:

Monday, November 22, 2010

That Receding Horizon

I have two new paintings which come from two very different impulses. Pink Rose derives from an ever growing body of work with flowers. I see them as joyous dancing forms and viewing them this way combines the sensation of life as a force, and the correlation of movement, rhythm and joy. I think any activity which makes me feel this happy should be continued!

Pink Rose
Oil Painting: 16" x 16"
2010

"When the Ocean Leaves You" tracks the horizon, and my musings on departures. When we leave something or someone, the loss is mutual

"When the Ocean Leaves You"
Oil painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Friday, October 15, 2010

Return of Happy Train

I ride the happy train. Sometimes, if I'm not on it, I think about going on another ride. Soon enough, the train arrives and off I go. I realize that happiness is a choice. No matter how bad things may seem, and this is not often, really, I hope I always can still make this choice. If I choose to be happy, then I'm back on Happy Train. In this painting (sorry the flash bounced off the wet oil paint all over the place) I'm trying to show you what Happy Train might look like, or convey the feeling of being on Happy Train. This is hard to show.

Return of Happy Train
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Remembering Barbara Arteta

I never intended my art or this blog to be about sadness. In fact, and I have said this many times, it seems like the sun is always shining and it's a very nice day in my art.

I can't expect that some untoward events won't find themselves seeping into what I paint. That is certainly the case with this poor woman, Barbara Arteta, who sat across the aisle from me on the train to Florida a few weeks ago. Some time, during the night, she was presumably thrown off the train and she died. In the weeks after this tragic event, I began to have small memories of sounds that I overheard that night, of what I now believe were her last minutes on the train.

I did not know her, but somehow there is a connection that I can't or won't move away from. So, I made these paintings knowing that she was on my mind.

Certainty
Oil: 12" x 12"
2010

Landscape for Barbara Arteta
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010

Blue Garden
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010

Monday, October 4, 2010

Lisi's Pink Rose

I've been working on this painting for the last few days. It comes from a photo made by one of my contacts on flickr, Lisi. I wrote to her last week saying how much I liked the photo and asked permission to use her photo as the basis for an oil painting. I liked the rhythmic arrangement of the flower petals, how they danced around. She was delighted (well, wait and see what she thinks now that the painting is done).

I cropped her photo to make it my favorite square shape, I took the pink out and replaced with lighter tones and turquoise, purples, greens and blues (my latest color palette) and voila! The original petal shapes are there, reoriented in a happy way.

I wrote to her today to say the painting was done, but I see she was feeling poorly and is in the hospital. So we'll correspond another time. Well anyway, here it is...

Lisi's Pink Rose
Oil Painting: 18" x 18"
2010

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Floridadada

Spending time in Florida is inspiring. The colors are brighter there, the ambiance is happier, it's different!!! As a result, an up coming trip to Florida gave me the creative energy to make these flower paintings.

Peony
Oil painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

White Tiger Lily
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Rose of Sharon
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Gerbera Daisy
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Hibiscus
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Dahlialala
Oil painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Small Hibiscus
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
Fall 2010

Water Lily
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"

White Rose #5
Oil Painting: 40" x 40"
Fall 2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Boomerang!

I alternate between straight abstract paintings, in which there is no discernible subject, and figurative paintings. Each type of painting generates a creative energy in a way that life events or other forces of my imagination do not. It seems as if all the pent up energy which is being stored while subjecting myself to the rigors of creating a realistic image then zam out onto a new canvas in ways I can't predict. In fact, I don't really know why I create either type of painting. I just go with whatever inspires me.

Here are some paintings which haven't appeared on the blog yet. Eventually, I will catch up to present day and begin posting work as I complete it.

Stained Glass Bouquet
Oil: 16" x 20"
2010

Floaters
Oil: 12" x 12"
2009

White Rose Redux
Oil: 20" x 20"
2010
Inspiration from a photo by
Gordon McKinlay

Edge of the Garden
Oi: 16" x 16"

Southern City
Oil: 12" x 12"
2010

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Flowers and More Flowers

Sources of Inspiration:

I love color and mixing new colors. Sometimes, as one color over-laps another on the canvas a new color is serendipitously created that wasn't planned. That color will often find its way into another painting.

I often listen to classical music when I paint. The rhythms, sound, and emotions I hear impel me to create graceful curved forms in my paintings. I don't know the reason for this affect, just am aware as I choose what music to listen to, that it happens.

I enjoy growing, photographing, and then making paintings of the flowers in my garden. The paintings are not intended to be realistic, but are based on my fantasies of how the flowers look.

I make large paintings to show the monumental importance to me of the subjects. Large size also causes images to become abstract, and I think, more interesting. The gesture and motion of painting is also influenced in a good way with large size.

Paintings freeze subjects in time and we the viewers become the owners of both the subject and the moment. I love to work in winter with images of the flowers and colors we see in warm weather.