Monday, December 28, 2009


"... art is the imbuing of matter with spirit."

-Christopher Day,
in "Places of the Soul; Architecture and
Environmental Design as a Healing Art"
(sculpture by Javier Marin)




Friday, December 11, 2009

Been a while, eh? All I can say is life happens. Just like the moon waxes and wanes, so it goes. Been busy with a million things but creative endeavors have been creeping back in again. Most recently, this has been through a couple of classes I taught at Puget Sound Community School.

The first was a fun drawing class designed to teach the value scale by way of learning about the art of Chuck Close and then emulating his grid portraits technique. I can't lay claim to this lesson plan though. Just do a google search for "Chuck Close portraits" to find many variations listed. We watched a slide show and movie about his life and work, then I took pictures of each student and posterized these in Photoshop, reducing the number of values to 4 or 5. Next, I printed these out and we gridded them and transferred the images to a larger piece of paper to begin the drawing. Each square on the grid was assigned a value (dark, medium dark, medium light and light) and the students would then do a doodle drawing in the squares. The darker the value of the square, the denser the drawing would be. Here's a demo I worked up to show the process --


Lots of little squares to fill in! I should have put more thought into that before choosing such a large piece of paper to transfer the drawings to. I think in total there were nearly 400 squares to do.. poor kids. It's so true -- work like this requires a very specific artistic temperament. You have to enjoy doodling (perhaps I should say ENDLESSLY doodling?). Fortunately, one of my students had it in her and found the whole project very inspiring. She completed a wonderful drawing which she's planning to give to her Mom for Christmas.

Her finished work here. Amazing, no?

For week two I switched gears from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional work, doing a class on plaster masks. Though I don't have pictures from the first two days of class, we spent them paired in two's, as students would place wet plaster bandages on their partner's face to create the base of the mask. On day three we began the process of smoothing and refining the masks as well as adding sculptural embellishments like large cheekbones or protruding noses. Here the kids are doing just that --


The last two days of the class were scheduled for painting and finishing. The rest of the photos here showcase some of that process as well as a few of the finished (or work-in-progress) masks. The class itself was a big success and all were engaged for the whole process. I think the work speaks for itself --







Wednesday, October 14, 2009

So many different interests pull at my attention, but it's all good. One of the perks of not having deadlines to meet. I can do whatever I please. And there is much that pleases me. So on that note, below are some recent studio projects.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Portland, OR, to take part in a week of various art workshops. It's all good fun and a great excuse to play with abandon (not like I'm doing that already!). One class was all about resins, which I've long been interested in. I confess I didn't do all of the intended projects for the class, but as I was working with the material my mind started buzzing about the potential it held for other projects. Specifically, resin is a great substance to reinforce some of the natural materials I'd like to incorporate in other pieces. I have a growing collection of natural eggs of different kinds. Some of these are extremely fragile and hard to come by, so I'm not experimenting with those. But button quail eggs are a dime a dozen. I used a cutting wheel to cut off the top to make little cups and have been using the resin to reinforce the inner chambers. It's working very well and I'm pleased with the results --


Below is the piece I did in a Michael deMeng class. His classes are mostly technique-based (my preference) but with enough of a "theme project" idea to get everyone over that dreaded hump of "what do I do"? Plus he plays great music while we work. I also like that he gathers us all at the end to do a group critique which really extends the learning as well as the inspiration. Good stuff. I apologize for the snapshot photo here. Hard to tell what's going on, but it involves a nice rusty tin, various bits and pieces of.... well shoot. I'll just promise to take some better photos and discuss this in a future post --

The drawing below is not a recent one, but I pulled it out after going to a recent show of an artist/friend of mine, Ellen Garvens. She had several drawings in the show done on mylar and had used the translucent nature of the material to great effect, with layering and utilizing the impermanent and delicate quality of graphite on the surface. I've also used mylar for some of my drawing work and really love working the surface of it. Below is a mylar drawing done with graphite (on the right) layered over a graphite on paper drawing (on the left). Never did finish this piece, but may yet go back to it and continue the process as it pulls to me.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Been a bit slow in the studio this month. So much going on with kids and family. It's my studio time that is often first on the chopping block (hmmm.. make that second -- housework is first!). But a time and place for everything. The moon waxes and wanes, and so does the work in the studio. Speaking of waxing... I'm experimenting with sculptural waxes right now. Still looking for that perfect medium. I have certain ideas brewing that would work great with wax, but need to find a wax that's easy to manipulate. Earlier in the month I tried sculpting with melted plain beeswax, since I already have boxes full of it. Came up with an interesting figure sculpture, but it's quite brittle and fragile, and trying to build form with dripping melted wax is... well, you can imagine. But there are several specialty sculpting waxes available, so I'm trying out a few different varieties right now. Soon I should be getting some wax samples that don't require heat to manipulate, but for now the waxes I have all need heat to soften. And to soften these waxes evenly, I've heard it's best to melt them down and pour them into thin flat sheets, which is what I spent my time doing at the studio yesterday. I think this particular wax is called "Victory Amber Sculpting Wax" --


Poured into the pan and starting to cool... you can see my face reflected in the sheen of the still-liquid wax in the middle --


Another recent project in the studio has been collage work. It's another experiment, really. I have no interest in doing collage work on any large scale. Instead, this was more an exercise in deep personal inquiry. I have a friend who speaks glowingly of something called Soul Collage, and since I'm a believer in the existence of meaningful imagery and symbolism lurking in the subconscious, it seemed like a potentially very interesting exercise for me. Still haven't done a "reading" on these yet (a Soul Collage thing). I tried to create these with very little conscious thought and simply guided by intuition, but am looking forward to revisiting these soon to see what might be there --



Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Nothing too much to look at right now. Just put the first layer of paint on, so there's a long way to go. But here's a glimpse of what's in the works (plus a distant view of the other large one by the door). All abstracts for now. In realist work it's largely about seeing with your eyes and translating that into the painting or drawing, but what I'm working on here is a whole different kind of seeing -- the kind I've longed to learn but which is rarely taught (only once in my years of classwork did I have a teacher/class that approached this both methodically and successfully, taught by artist Patrick Holderfield). So that's what I'm working on. Practicing, really (it's all about the process, right?). That's my single goal.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Two themes for the week: "Livin' large" and "Playing with mud." I've drug out my largest canvases and am having a great time playing with textures. The one pictured below is just the start of the many incarnations yet to come with the oil glazes. And today I pulled out the behemoth -- a 4'x5' canvas -- and began work on it. I'm really excited to see what comes. This is a whole new way of working for me. I'm just enjoying the ride.

Monday, September 7, 2009

I've been in the studio, but haven't been taking pictures and haven't been posting here. Got a couple of things in the works but they're just not at a place to photograph yet. Besides, I'm sure it gets tedious seeing images of every single incarnation of my many creative whims. But to make up for the lack of postings and images, I took a walk around the studio today and have a few pictures of the place. Behind my building is a small grassy area and a pathway along the waterfront. Here's a peek at the boats of Sail Sand Point, whose offices are right below my studio --


And here's that very pathway and grassy knoll, with a view toward my building ("Building 11", officially.. typical no-nonsense name, thanks to the Naval presence that originally built this place) --


Me and my botanical background. Can't resist a few flower pictures! This one of some really plump rose hips --


And here's my favorite Northwest berry -- the snowberry. Usually you see these bushes alongside the freeway, all scraggly and barely surviving. But behind the studio they're growing big and abundantly! Never seen such happy snowberries :)


Friday, September 4, 2009

The Ponds

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of fact

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

-- Mary Oliver

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Broke out the paints again today. Usually I'm itching to do more three-dimensional things but today was all about paint. First, a glimpse at what I worked on yesterday (the lighting was poor so a lot of detail is fuzzed out in this photo). I added the vertical rust-orange elements but still have more to do on this. The orange verticals feel very much "laid on" and not part of the painting yet --

My growing family of patina'd mouths --

A sort of overall view of many of the paintings I've been working on --
And this is how I ended the day. Pulled out one of my larger canvases and tried my hand at texture work again. Was a whole different feel to be working on something this large. I'm usually hunched over much smaller things, working from a chair. But with this I had to be constantly moving back and pacing around, just to be able to take the whole of it in visually --

A peek at how the texture is coming along (this from the right hand side of the canvas) --


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Back in the studio today. Summer is over and I've been eager to get back to work. Brought a camera in as well but it was lacking a card, so no pics for today.

I ended up working some more on an oil painting I started while still in Mark's atelier. It's one of my favorite pieces from that time, but it always felt like it needed more. Spent a good part of the morning goofing around with sketches and geometry before breaking out the paints. This painting was originally done using Doak's balsam medium, but (of course) I didn't have that particular bottle at the studio this morning, so I ended up trying out his copal medium instead. Seemed to work very much the same. Maybe just slightly more viscous, although it's been so long since I've worked on this piece I'm not sure my memory can be trusted. But like the balsam medium it left a very matte finish, which I like (and which is in keeping with the original texture of the piece). Will be interesting to see where this painting goes...


Thursday, August 27, 2009




This is the work of Claire Burbridge, whose work I saw at a gallery in Bath, England. Really stunning. Three-dimensional sculptures created in resin through a lost-wax process. Her work carries all the qualities I love in a work of art -- luminescent, three-dimensional, organic, with strong elements of abstracted realism. As they say in England, "brilliant!"

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

(I will be away from the computer for the month of August. Be back in September!)

Monday, July 27, 2009

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again... So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art to conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."

-- Rene Daumal
A swelteringly hot day today, which means the studio is like a sauna. Went in early to catch what I could of the cooler morning air. Was wanting to do a larger full-face (half life size) sculpt in the water clay, but with the heat and the need for the fan it would have meant too much hassle trying to keep that much clay moist and workable, so I did another quickie smaller face. I like incorporating realism in these works in the form of roughly proper planes and subtle details, but don't want so much perfect realism that it covers up those fingerprints of the unconscious. Still, I feel I'm lacking a good working knowledge of the structure of the eyes. Struggled with that most again in this face, just like all the others. Something I'll continue to work on --


Put some finish wax on the blue patina'd mouth this morning and while I was buffing it out it rubbed off some of the blue, revealing the warm copper tones underneath. *Nice* --


Played around with that little waxed clay face again, this time setting it on a recent texture piece. Some potential here, I think. Kinda speaks to me --


Thursday, July 23, 2009

Didn't work in the studio today, but met a friend there so I was able to pull this piece from the fuming container. Twenty four hours in the fumes left this nice blue patina. Here's a photo next to the enameled piece from yesterday --

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Almost didn't get a blog entry today, even though I spent several hours at the studio. I worked very hard for several hours doing *crap*. No, seriously. I don't even want to go into what I spent my time doing. Couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of it, either. But toward the end of the session I switched gears and did a couple more of those molded copper mouth pieces, hoping to replicate the one I ruined yesterday. I've got one in the fuming container right now and the other I played around with the enamels on it. Sifted it on thick and blasted it with the torch. It turned out just "not bad" enough to warrant a photo. Definitely something that deserves more exploration --

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

messy messy studio! bad-bad-bad! Not a lot of time to hang out today, so I cleaned the place up. But I just couldn't resist futzing with that copper lip piece from yesterday. The one with the patina from heating (the reds) and fuming (the greens). When I fumed it the reds were diminished somewhat and I was hoping I could get them to pop again if I heated the piece one more time. BUT, no dice. As the copper heated up, all those wonderful green specks disappeared! So it's back into the fuming container, hoping to get some green to return. Lesson learned :)


Monday, July 20, 2009

Now that the textured panels have dried I can start painting. It's all a learning process at this point. Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. And (as always) trying to minimize as much as possible any evidence of human manipulation (like brush marks!), while at the same time move the piece toward something that has a certain "visual pop". Here's the current incarnation of one of the textured panels --


Today's studio time was another session of battling inertia. Sometimes when I work I slip into a good zone and things just flow, while other times it feels more like I'm constantly smacking up against one brick wall after another. Today was more the latter, but I was able to keep busy and not let it ruin my day.

There's a four-panel encaustic I did last year that I never finished and which has been stuck ever since in an "ugly phase". It still has potential, but needs a lot more work. One of the things I don't like about it is the shiny surface it has due to the shellac treatment I did on it last. So today I took the far left panel and tried melting off the wax and shellac like I'd done the other day on the paste/pumice panel. Can't say it improved it any, as you can see here. I decided to keep the torch away from the remaining three panels and set it aside once again for another idea in the future --


A little side-project pictured here. This is a large peeling off a mica rock (I think it's officially called a "book"? Or maybe a "page" of mica?). I was playing around trying to stain it with some pigment --

All weekend I had this idea in my head involving metal sheeting that's been enameled. It's been YEARS since I've played around with enamels, so I'm definitely rusty on technique. Didn't have all the right equipment, either. No pickle, no fiberglass brush, and my enamels have been sitting around for a good decade or more so are "dirty" and need to be washed. But that didn't stop me from playing around. Lately I've been hearing about torch-fired enameling. I've only worked with a kiln but have been wanting to try out the torch (in fact, I'm signed up for a workshop on this in the fall). So I prepared a piece of copper, sprinkled on some enamel and put the torch to it, hoping for the best. Below is the result. I was able to fuse the enamel on the top and bottom, but didn't heat the middle part enough, so once it cooled the powder just blew off. Still, I kind of like the result, especially how the half-baked enamel powder created rivulets along the border (I sort of helped that along, too) --


Not only did the enameled side turn out kind of cool, but the back side was impressive, too. The application of heat created a wonderful heat patina on the copper, pictured below. To the right is another piece of copper that I loosely formed over one of the clay lip sculptures. I did a heat patina on this one too, and then fumed it with some salt and ammonia for the specks of blue-green. Mmmmmmm... gotta love those patinated metals!


Thursday, July 16, 2009

mmmmm.. doesn't this look good? Just a pan full of wax scrapings, but beautiful enough to frame. At least I think so. Love the many shades of ivory and those delicate petal-like folds -


Another workday of many different projects. But I like moving between pieces and explorations. When one piece is drying or setting (or cooling down after the torch!) I can pull out another to work on. Keeps me busy and is a nice way to stave off the sort of blockage/inertia that comes up when I'm feeling stuck and without direction.

No clay-play today. Instead, I worked two-dimensionally in a three-dimensional way. That is to say, I did a lot with texture (inspired after looking at all those great Cousins pieces). Started several pieces (one panel and two canvasses) with a thick layer of modeling paste, then tried different ways of creating texture. At one point I was having a lot of success using a dried leaf as a 'paintbrush'. I've never much liked working with paintbrushes. Don't like the marks they leave. It seems that most of the work I do with brushes involves trying to hide all the brushmarks! Maybe I just need to get over it. Or maybe that's just how I work? Anyway, here's one of the texture pieces I worked on today --


Am I creating art? I don't know. That's not the goal anyway. Am I having fun and enjoying the materials and explorations? Most definitely yes! Here's yours truly, holding up the paste/pumice panel in one of it's incarnations today. This was after scraping (and then melting) off most of the wax I'd put on the other day --


Below is what it looked like by the end of the day. Put some layers of oil glaze on, though I have a feeling that might be a no-no on top of wax like this. I guess I'll find out soon enough --


Wednesday, July 15, 2009


This painting is by artist Christopher Cousins. Amazing work, truly. And following, a quote from his website:

"A true symbol takes us to the center of the circle, not to another point on the circumference. It is by symbolism that man enters effectively and consciously into contact with his own deepest self... "
-- Thomas Merton

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Long day in the studio today. Started with the panel I goofed around with last week -- the one with the modeling paste and pumice powder. Thought I'd fire up the wax again for the next step. I so love the smell of that beeswax! Here it is, just starting to heat up -


While the wax was melting I did some more playing with the paste/pumice panel. Got out the propane torch (woohoo!) and worked it over the panel, darkening and browning areas here and there. Then I got out some chalk pastels in a couple of earthy colors and dabbed them on here and there. I have a natural attraction to weathered patina'd surfaces, so that's the direction I found myself moving in --


Didn't get any pictures of the panel with the wax on it (except in the last picture below). But soon I set aside that project and picked up a small (about 2 inches high) face sculpture I did a few months ago. It was sculpted from water clay and simply left to dry. It's not fired. As an experiment I tried dipping the face into the hot wax. I like the result! An interesting surface texture, almost stone-like. The wax filled in the rough areas some and left the high points exposed --


Next I started a new water clay piece. I was going to go for a full face/head scupt, but doing the lips was such a good learning exercise. My knowledge of the structure of the eye is so weak, I figured it'd be a good exercise to just sculpt an eye. Wow -- eyes is TOUGH! Lots going on with planes going this way and that. I really struggled with this and didn't end up with a very good model. Much I need to correct on the next go-around, but here's my first try at an eye sculpt --


This last picture is just me goofing around with various objects in the studio -- the waxed panel from this morning, a couple of lengths from an old folding ruler I took apart last month, an old hand-carved wooden bowl, and the little waxed face in the middle. This isn't a final piece at all. But it speaks to my aesthetic. Maybe the bones for a future work --