Thursday, September 29, 2011

Comedy Drama--Going a Different Direction

Jarring--that's what I realized this painting was, jarring. It also had no follow-through with a theme or content. I had started the painting because I love the stone ruin idea. This ancient Roman ruin face just had to have a place in the modern world, and I was determined to make it so. I took heed of comments on the first painting I did when people thought it was scary, so I created the happy face to go with it. The rest of the painting really had no purpose, and was just covering space.

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My stubbornness often doesn't let me quit. Adding black to a painting like this is how I've finished many of my collage pieces, but I really didn't like that solution. I decided that toning the painting down with veils of acrylic paint might add some mystery to the piece and get rid of the jarring quality. So I mixed up matte medium, white, blue and black acrylic paint. Putting this over transparent watercolor was new to me, so I didn't know how the under-painting might react. I created a new stamp copying the pattern from the statue (ovals and lines) and created more interest and continuity.

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My thoughts then went to the question of how to give this piece some content beyond the masks and I came up with the solution of using banners with play titles on them. I did this with more white acrylic, and scratched calligraphy. Can you read the play names in this photo? ( Clouds by Aristophanes, Hamlet, Our Town, West Side Story, Twelfth Night, and The Doll's House.) I'm not sure that's it's done yet, more calligraphy to enhance the play names, perhaps.

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And in the midst of this creative process, I finished another Matisse inspired piece.


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Aloha, Mrs. 29"x21"

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Comedy Tragedy

I've had the beginnings of this piece in a drawer for a few weeks. I painted this Roman ruins face awhile back, but people responded that it looked scary. I love the face and the background of the photo I'm working from. A friend took the photo while in Turkey. It was laying on the ground with other remains of Roman grandeur. I decided to take away the scary and add a second face to create the dramatic masks theme. I'm also using a very different color pallet.

I really enjoyed creating collage paper using a stamp I made in a previous workshop. The collage solved the problems I created by putting an opaque acrylic blue on this transparent watercolor. It just deadened the painting. The blue collage brought back life to the opaque passages.

 
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Comedy Tragedy, 22"x30"

Usually I add some black passages to this type of collage piece. Before making it permanent, I taped on some black pieces of construction paper to help me decide if the black adds anything. What do you think? Black or no black?

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Comedy Tragedy, 22"x30" (with black accents)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

End of Summer-2011

I'll do my best to recap the summer. It is a way for me to feel ready to move on to the fall and winter which will be much quieter and more focused on art.

Family--The Highs

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Grandchildren were a huge part of this summer.

They lept over tall objects.




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They rode horses.


They sat in our kitchen for breakfast.
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Family--The Lows
My mother's physical health declined to the point we had to move her from the memory care facility she's been in for the last two years, to a nursing facility. The move has increased her mental decline. Most visits now, she asks me who I am.
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Around the Place


I love this shot of a small snake surprising me in the garden.







Once again we took down the 30 or so swallow houses,


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emptied out the nests and chased off yellow-jackets,
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found creepy baby bird mummies,

and kept records of each nest.

Due to a cold spring and late summer, we had many fewer successful nests.
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Art--High

After reworking parts of this painting, it was accepted into the Watercolor Society of Oregon Fall 2011 show.



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Art--Lows

I had 3 other paintings rejected from other art competitions this summer.

I roasted at the McKenzie Art Festival--95+ degrees, and ended up in the red financially.
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My classes at the Vida Community Center Ended.

Rogue River Rafting


We felt fortunate to be invited on a Rogue River rafting trip this September, since we did not get a permit ourselves.



Kayaking Mike displayed one of the many dead salmon we saw on this trip.


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This heron was one of several we saw.
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And the bears were out, although we never saw one in camp. This guy has a salmon nearly as large as he was, and further down river, many salmon remains lay on rocks at the river's edge.
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Our friend from New Orleans, Julie, enjoyed being rafted into a small waterfall--a nifty way to cool down!
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And the take-out: all that was left was packing up all this stuff into a trailer, driving 5 hours to home, cleaning and putting away the raft gear until next year.
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Next on my to do list is putting away art fair stuff and cleaning my studio. I will be happy to have that behind me and paintings ahead of me!