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...