A. M.

I've finished my morning walk through the neighborhood. And it was good. I've got to decrease my weight in order to improve the probability of increasing my lifespan. Spring of the year seem to give a fresh breath of life to everything. The flowers, especially the azaleas are in full bloom with dogwoods and pear trees too. Even the less than appreciated dandelion adds a splash of color. Creatures are moving too. The ubiquitous anole is moving quickly now as he changes from tawdry brown to emerald green and "shows his money". Birds are extremely noisy. I watch the ducks feeding at the lake as a great blue heron stretches it's wings and glides effortlessly over the shallows alive with minnows. And somewhere, somewhere, in the darkest shadows the warming too life ...and he's hungry!

Today

Recently, I have been working on updating my website. After toying with many ideas i decided that i wanted and easy maintenance site without many bells and whistles. Working with Photoshop, I found that I could customise some of their gallery templates to work for me. Although they haven't been uploaded yet, it will happen in the near future. Yes, there are more gremlins.

I continue to work with ink jet mono prints but did take some time to watch a Scott Burdick video. He is one of my favorite painters and although his medium is different from mine there is still a lot to learn.

On the web, I have been a fan of David Byrne's journal. he offers and interesting view of the arts, visual as well as performing.

Photographs

I have been working with photographs lately. Mostly they are snapshots that I have sought to improve with image editing software. The picture at the lefts of an eighteenth church ruin I added the treeline and sunset. The foreground is tinted and certain parts of the building is highlighted to improve composition.

To me, photography is just as much art as painting or sculpture. All of the components of picture making are present: composition, texture, perspective, and color harmony. Unfortunately for the photographer the components are not as variable.

Little pix

These are some of my smaller pieces. They are acrylic on paper. Much of the color is scrubbed in with a paper towel. It is a lot of fun but messy. I have always painted very tight and have wanted to loosen up. Using a big brush or no brush at all seems to help this. I'm using watercolor paper which I varnish them I finish. They may be eventually be mounted on foam core.

The size of most of them is only 5 x 7. When I use a 1.5 inch brush it eliminates any detail

The piece above is just a symbol. I find it interesting to create symbols the predecessor of letters in writing as we know it to day. Did you ever want to develop an alphabet? Perhaps paragraphs of description could be reduced to a symbol much as the chop in Japan stands for a signature. But the relationship of the elements create their own message. Above, is the one=eyed giant looking down at you smiling? Or?

other stuff

As I continue to experiment with printing the substrate is my main variable. Different papers absorb ink differently. Some absorb readily while others don't absorb at all. the print at the left Metal head is an example of a substrate that does not absorb at all. The image is printed on metal foil. It takes a long time for it to dry. Another variable is the ink. All printer manufacturers formulate their ink differently. In fact they formulate their ink for the papers they supply. using Epson paper in an HP printer can provide a different result that printing on Epson printer to print on Epson paper. I normally mix up the materials I print on according to the effect I want to create.

I am most successful with the inkjet monoprint technique. I use watercolor paper most of the time.

Studio music today The Art of Segovia

nuttin' special

I've been experimenting with oil pastels. At first I used them on primed canvas. Lately, I've been painting with the pastels over an acrylic underpainting. This seems to work well and I can use the scrylic to create some texture or just the mid-values for the painting. I posted an eariier painting of a head, but this is my first landscape. it seems to be a great technique for small pieces. This one 9 x 12.

I am still working on the inkjet monoprints and recently uploaded another video to YouTube.