This digital photo is actually a close-up view of more fungi in the woods, but it reminds me of an aerial view of woods and river canyons or some other natural landscape.
Month: January 2015
january 30
10″x10″ acrylic on paper
This is another re-purposed old poem-painting. It’s nice to be able to riff on a piece I’d given up on years ago but kept around in my studio. This improvisation doesn’t always work, but I am interested in the process of finding out if it will—as long as I don’t attach too much to the original piece or to the new product.
Sometimes I can’t leave well enough alone and I want to add just one more color or one more shape, and I go a step too far. I wish I could say I’ve learned my lesson, but more likely I’ll continue to follow my intuition and trust (hope?) that more and more as time goes on the outcome will be pleasant!
january 29
A re-purposed poem-painting from 2008; I scraped acrylic over it in phases. Only a couple of words or letters left that I can see when I look closely. I like it better today than the 2008 version, but I’m not sure it’s really done…. It’s done for today, though. 10″x10″
january 28
Acrylic on silk, approx. 10″x10″
Today I tried to rehabilitate the wayward painting of yesterday. I was relatively satisfied with today’s work (top photo). But as I was removing the piece of silk from the paper block onto which I had taped it, I noticed the image on the BACK of the fabric was also interesting to me. It hints at the look of the original paint scrape (much more than the front does, in any case).
So, I present two works today, front and back. Two sides of a coin. Flip it to see which one appeals to you.
january 27
I have been trying to keep my digital photos to the weekends, but was spinning my wheels with paint today (trying to get some other work done, and got a little frustrated). So, outside I went with my camera (phone).
I walked into the woods down to the pond, where several ducks and a few geese were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, standing on the ice, swimming in the open water, and discussing the latest news amongst themselves. I took a couple of photos of them, but the crunching of dry leaves under my feet urged them to retreat too far away to be very interesting given my lens.
On the path back to the house, though, some very cool fungi on a birch log revealed itself. I took several close-up photos, and then further zoomed in on the computer. This image was the winner today.
january 26
I first played with fitting some pieces of old painting together for a collage as I’ve done before, but I just wasn’t feeling it today. So, I picked up this narrow piece of Yupo paper that a friend gave me some time ago. I haven’t really liked how acrylic paint scrapes and sits on this paper when using it in the past. But I picked out three transparent colors and came up with this (after discarding the first attempt with other colors)—and liked it well enough that I’m now going outside for a windy walk in the sun instead of continuing with inside work. I’ll be out gathering new images—collecting inspiration…yeah, that’s it.
january 25
I took this photo on the sunny porch on Saturday, too. I loved the glow-y effect of the sun backlighting the dried sea oats. I might paint an image of these, too. Love them.
january 24
The sun was streaming in so bright and lovely in the back porch this noon that I decided to try to create some interesting shadows and take some photos. Here is the one that won.
january 23
I collaged some trimmed pieces of photographs (and one piece of painted paper) onto a scraped acrylic painting on matboard (10″x8″). Sometimes I prefer the digital images over the actual piece. This one I like better in person. So, you’ll have to wait for the “daily janes” exhibit for my view. (Is the daily janes exhibit really a thing? Well, not yet. But I’m thinking about the idea.)
january 22
The primary version of today’s painting is on a piece of map paper still sitting on my art table. The image in this post was made with the leftover paint from the scraper after the first pass on the map paper piece. The original one on map paper needs additional work but I did not have enough time. And I liked this piece much better.
I will eventually letter my poem “Iowa hills” on top of the paint.
12.75″x5.5″ acrylic on matboard