green elephant

This is top shelf or at least it was until the elephant went to where gifts go, to the recipient. This jolly green pachyderm is no longer sits atop. Still got the little orange fish though. I like the graphic division of space in this painting. With the underside of the shelf visible the space is divided in to horizontal stripes.

6.5" x 8" oil on board •

Below it can be seen in it's prior environment.

I just finished the first tomato from this years garden. I planted late (july 4) but better late than never. To celebrate this harvest I made Pesto (also first of the year).

I had triangles of toast with pesto and tomato slices. Can't wait to do that again.

not so still lives

This painting with it's curvaceous piece of pottery is a detail of the clutter that surrounds me. Things just pile up, I prefer the term "stack". I tend to create clusters of stacked objects. It is pretty easy when you have a lot to build with, like me. I find these constructions to have unlimited potential taking in limitations of space and gravity.

I like to paint the same subject more than once I don't feel I captured everything I experience in a subject if I don't give it a second try. The proceeding blog entry, the one that follows this, shows another view of this collection. Things are always in transition, these may be still lives but they are always evolving. some subtle additions or subtractions or maybe it's a complete make over. The following are to views of the same area one from last week and is just days past a month ago.  

 

all 10" x 8" oil on board

painting in process

I thought about taking photos of a painting in process, and actually did it. This painting of the stacking by the fireplace is the second I did of this grouping. As always I tinted my panel with a wash of Cadmium Red Light. I then blocked out my composition with more of the Cad. Red, adding Ultramarine Blue as I refine the shapes, blocking in the darker areas.

I add spots of color to hold the shapes. The color at this point will indicate the final color, but it will be added to along the process of the painting. I start thinking about color temperature at this point. If I want something to recede or be in shadow I often push it back with Ultramarine blue, I like the translucent quality of the color so I layer it with the local color.

The final painting.

10" x 8" oil on board 

tiki joy rideDid you hear the one about the tikies

It took only 3 tries to get this image to post.

Did you hear the one about the tikies in the Edsel? Well they it are; carved wooden tikies in a toy '58 Edsel upon the table top that has been in the last few postings. I like the shapes in the upper half of this painting, there is a simplicity in the division of form that contrasts with the more detailed bottom half. Having painted just about all the elements in this painting before it is the handling of the paint that keeps the subject interesting for me. As a bit of an old car buff the rendering of a car can destroy an image for me. I try not to supply to much detail because that is where the errors show up. But I want to know the car when I see it represented in a painting. The '58 Edsel is quite distinct that can make it easier to recognize but still a challenge.

10" x 8" oil on board

cosmos - library table

In my post from earlier today I show paintings with this table top as the background. I was having technical difficulties and could not include these images with that post. Above is a picture of my Studio Gallery taken in May 2007. The table was painted in 1992 in Laguna Beach. I recall spending over an hour painting each layer of the spiral, each spiral and crosshair had numerous layers of paint (6 to 12). I layered the paint and sanded through to reveal the colors. Many of the layers were metallic or iridescent paints. It is hard to commit that much time to a project. If I paint a piece of furniture now I find a faster way to get the effect I want. I do like this painting technique, a detail of the table's top is below.

table top treasures

Here are two recent paintings of small objects sitting on a painted table top. I Incorporated the spirals of the painted surface as part of the composition. I like the division of the negative space that surrounds the focal objects, creating a sense of distance upon a flat surface. Of course painting from the same surface does give me a lot of paintings that have a violet/grey/blue background. The relationship of the subject to it's environment is effected by countless outside influences including light, that make the colors appear different.

both 10" x 8" oil on board

db mid-century

Placing a mirror on my large easel has given me the opportunity to do a self portrait. This view of me with my favorite stack of lamp shades. The lamp had one shade as most do, but the bulb seemed to intense; rather than changing the wattage of the bulb I found placing an second shade on the lamp solved the problem. The top shade having no other place to live (if this can be called living) ended up on top on the other two. I liked it there! With a mid-century star clock like the sun rising (or setting) above it all.

8" x 5.5" oil on board

I cut off 2" of hair from the back of my head yesterday, it was time.

I just posted for the first time in many months at a:

db-artist.blogspot.com 

old enough to need glasses

A mannequin head adorned with costume jewelry, layers of hats and a outdated pair of spectacles is the subject of this painting. This collage of objects stands aside the mantle with a stem of Moneyplant. It seems easier to paint a portrait of a living person than the features of this stationary bust. Sometime in this head's past silver spray paint was used on it. No longer peaches and cream, it's completion more painterly than actual skin, making rendering it  a little more difficult.

10" x 8" oil on board

still lives

Most recently I have been painting more on 10" x 8" panels. I need to guesso more of the 8x8's, but that has not happened yet. These still lives are of things that surround me where i paint. Above the weighty tomato and the vintage postal scale are the only placed objects in this composition. Surrounded by subjects of previous paintings; the old scale and ripe fruit seem to expound a story yet to be told.

In this one, the objects are as they sit across the room from my easel collecting dust. Included in this arrangement there is a found painting on a block of wood I found over a decade ago when I moved into a studio in San Francisco. Objects tend to stack up around me including these vases and glass balls, one of them topped with a cocktail monkey. The branches with dried pods in the background were fresh three years ago when in my studio in Modesto.