More work on my little drawing

It's been a week or so since I've had good time to plug away on my art. And I think the break prompted me to look at this piece in a new way. I added four birds today by tracing an outline over a piece of carbon paper. I love the dark graphite like line this produces.

I returned to this smaller piece that I began a few weeks ago. Happily most of the stand oil pours have dried and I was able to introduce more and develop the visual complexity of the layers. I wonder if these smaller pieces will continue in conjunction with my larger panels. In comparison they are almost secret little portraits - icons perhaps?...

12? x 24"

I began this piece a few weeks ago with the intention of exploring color in my drawings. But then I put it down for quite a while as I began lacrimosa. Today I returned to it introducing some darker colors and expanding the palette. I've also started stitching the paper to create horizontal movement in the composition.

I have been able to work often this week, and I am making headway with this painting. Yesterday I introduced some strong horizontal lines and I think I've hit upon a cohesion that was lacking in my last few oblong compositions. This piece particularly is really exploring mark. I've found a wide variety of ways to work with the paint here without becoming overwhelming.

Quiet morning in the studio

I'm pretty tired after the long weekend at Brookline Open Studios, but it was a wonderful success. It's such a change for me to discuss my art with other people. I found the experience very refreshing.

This morning I spent a quiet hour or two in the studio. I began articulating a second bird in the upper right hand corner of this panel. Then as I grew tired of that I ventured into the abstract work on the rest of the panel. I've added beads, thin washes, goopy piles of pigment and stand oil and some interesting marks with oil stick and straight out of the tube.

I've started articulating a bird! It's always an exciting point in a painting for me - creating the living subject.

Grad School

I forgot to mention anything because it was a whirlwind. But I'll be going to UMass Dartmouth next year!!! It looked like a great program with a balance between conceptual and traditional painting techniques. AND I may get to go along to Sicily for three weeks as a teaching assistant. Yea!!!

Lacrimosa 24 x 48"

Perhaps you can't see this very well, but I have begun another large panel. This one has three crying finches on it. For the moment the birds are vehicles for autobiography - stories about my family and about illness. The subject seems more down to earth to me than earlier ideas about evolution; and I think there is a certain spiritual meditation going on here that will allow me to access and incorporate religious references. We'll see. I did my thinking and this is the path I am walking down right now. While I do it, I have to put the thinking aside and use my intuition instead. Stay tuned...

Improvements

Remember this one? It went from this....

to this..

Beginnings...

Pulmonary: 11 x 14"

I sat down to work on this for two or three hours yesterday, and I'm getting a good start.

Pulmonary

Pulmonary: 11 x 14"

Above is the first sketch of a new painting I am beginning. I am thinking of using the birds in the fashion of Mexican Catholic "milagros" - the word means "miracles" in Spanish. Small charms are fashioned from metal in the shape of ills or trials about which people may offer prayers to God. Small legs, ears, or even children are made to represent illness, disability, or the wish for a baby. I am thinking to introduce tiny beaded milagros on the bodies of the birds which indicate the ares where I pray for the health and safety of those I love. Perhaps capitalizing on the altar idea uncovered in this month's critique.

Buttons and finches

Buttons and finches: 8 x 8"

Above is another variation on the sketch theme - a small painting where I can quickly play with an idea. I am deciding to sand down the larger Darwin's finches piece and instead am using the imagery of the finch heads in this smaller piece - perhaps to work out how best to employ them. This painting is borrowing from the more structured compositions of the earlier Warbler experiments when I worked with orzo and beans.

Sketch paintings

I have been busy lately - too busy. But I am working in the studio as well as flying through my life and hanging on. Below are a series of small paintings wherein I have been working out ideas on abstraction and collage. You may recognize the last image as having been posted earlier. The other three are an expansion on the idea of brainstorming in beads and paint.

sketch 2: 6 x 6"

sketch 4: 5 x 5"

sketch 3: 5 x 5"

sketch 1: 6 x 6"

Fishing for show titles

I'm just putting it out there, but it's time to start coming up with a title for my August solo show. And well, you know how well I do with titles...If I were a wordsmith, I would be a writer not a painter. So I'm looking for ideas. So far I'm considering "Songbirds". I expect to include the two large panels I completed recently - Hunger and Hope/Heal; as well as the four square bird paintings made during the fall - sparrow, oak warbler, chickadee, and house finch; and the small warbler project paintings with the pulses adhered to the panels. That will give you an idea of what you're naming...

Teeny tiny sketch painting 5 x 5"

I bought a few small panels with the idea of working towards an installation painting, as I'll call it. (A series of small pieces installed on a wall in an organic arrangement.) But here I've used the panel to play and work out the new materials I am beginning to incorporate into my work. I'm smitten.

Amazing little embroideries

I beginning to explore the possibilities of textiles in my paintings which makes stumbling upon these very exciting. I like the combination of materials; and the humor in the pieces makes them particularly fun.

Darwin's finches 48 x 24"

This painting is not going well. And the more I work on it I believe that I am fighting the underlying grid I set up with the repeating pattern of birds heads. I have brainstormed lately about the concepts that interest me and I've come to some ideas about science and metaphysics that I would like to explore. The current piece Darwin's finches uses diagrams of the heads of finches that Darwin discovered in the Galapagos which led the development of the idea of evolution and natural selection. Thus far I am awkwardly bridging the gap between thought and it's visual expression; but I am sure after some more time and experimentation I will hit upon a good visual articulation of this idea. The painting is also unfolding quickly which is resulting in some muddying of the color. I am considering putting this aside for a while and allowing it to fully dry before reworking the piece.

Unfinished warbler

Click here to find a wonderfully strange unfinished painitng of a bird I stumbled upon. The text is what makes it intriguing...

Hope

I have tried to open up with this piece. I haven't built up the same layer of paint that is at work in the sister painting, but I am focusing on not letting that be a hindrance. I began tracing the sparrows in this painting then moving them around the composition and transferring them onto the surface of the painting with carbon paper. The result is a nice graphic outline of the birds hidden within the paintwork. They are a type of second generation image. I am also beginning to work with the birdsong. Birdsong came up at the Mass Art interview, and mention of it made me realize that I had yet to explore the attributes of the birds I was so keen on including in my work. So here I've taken the first portion of the Savannah Sparrow song tititi and transcribed it to Morse code, dash dot dash dot dash dot. It is sprinkled throughout the composition.

Maybe now it's called "Hunger"

I apologize for the inexpertly Photoshopped image. It fell victim to my camera work and perhaps I should've reshot it, but I was eager to post the image online.

I had my grad school interview with Mass Art on Tues and it brought up some interesting issues for me concerning my work. It was suggested that I had not really achieved a dialogue or integration between my painted images and the abstract substrate of my paintings. And I agree. The birds are somehow seemingly superfluous. I am thinking on why I incorporate them and what I may be hoping to ask or investigate with them. Formally, I am beginning to allow the paint to violate the borders of the birds. I am also continuing to introduce new realistic elements throughout the entire process of the painting hoping that this will be a start to better integrating them into the many layers of mark. This piece was already on a trajectory to go "over the top" visually, but an issue that I voiced during the interview was that I was seeking to make my work opulent or gaudy. I know that I haven't quite pushed it as far as I can go - so here's my latest effort.