Category: art

5×8″ acrylic on sketchbook paper

This began with a little leftover scraping paint. Then I used a palette knife to apply three different colors of green over that. I added some magenta to balance out the forms created by the original scrape, but it looked incomplete and lopsided. I added more and more magenta in the cracks and crevices and white spots and more. Then I accidentally got paint on my finger and the paint got on the side of the page (unconnected to the existing paint) and it looked very odd. I tried to lift up the paint but it didn’t work. So, I went all in with a magenta background, adding some transparent yellow to change it up a little. This is the orientation I painted it, and I like it, but something makes me wonder if it is really upside down. I looked at it both ways and was pulled both ways. In the end, I stuck with the original orientation, although I’m not totally convinced. What do you think?

11.5×7″ acrylic, collage on matboard

I had the blue/purple “monolith” (on paper) already scraped and cut out. I was looking for colors that would make it stand out and also complement it. I took this piece of matboard and made a couple of different scraping passes with yellow/magenta/orange acrylic colors. When that was dry, I collaged the painted monolith on top.

And this: Fourteen years ago hijacked planes brought down the Twin Towers and destroyed many lives in NYC, DC, and Pennsylvania. The shock of it in the US lingers even today, although the numbers of lives lost pale in comparison to those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan—both US troops and Afghani and Iraqi civilians—as well as those killed in Syria and beyond. In the months after 9/11, I organized a project documenting Iowa artists’ responses to the terrorist acts (and beyond). It is a good day to revisit those responses by visual artists, musicians, writers, and poets.
www.beyond9-11.org
(Unfortunately, I have not had time to update the site to be mobile friendly, so try to view on a computer or large tablet….)

10×8″ acrylic on matboard

This is a combination of scraping and brushing acrylic onto a piece of matboard.

8×5″ acrylic, ink on sketchbook page

Another page in the sketchbook. I scraped some acrylic, created the lines with ink pen, then added the white acrylic triangles with a brush.

5×8″ acrylic, ink on sketchbook page

A little scraping, a little brushing, a little doodling with ink—all add up to this. What’s with the title? I now cannot un-see the tiny polar bear head appearing in the piece, so respect must be paid.

9×7″ acrylic, collage on matboard

This one began with a scrape of some leftover paint on my palette from another painting. I collaged a small piece from a shade sample (the rectangular two-tone piece) on top of that. Then I added some brushed-on acrylic (cerulean blue) to either side of the scraped-on area, and enhanced the middle red with some alizarin crimson. The final addition was an almost black line on top of (and extending beyond) the collaged piece.

5×8″ acrylic, silk

Page 3 in my occasional sketchbook. I used a print block first (mostly to use up the paint and already inked-up block). Later I collaged on a silk sari strip that had a subtle print on it. I decided to extend that print (with a brush) onto the paper with similar colors of acrylic paint. Lastly, I added a slight background color of mostly transparent zinc white with a little bit of unbleached titanium.