Protrusion Confusion and just general confusion

 

Protrusion Confusion   20 x 16 x 1.5

The way we see things evolves continually.  The bell bottom jeans I wore in 1970 were replaced by many, way too many, other styles.  

In the beginning of my art career, my work was so much more precise....and I felt success if my work looked exactly like the subject...no strokes out of line, colors fenced in and made to obey.  It wasn't long before I started taking chances and my work became known as loose.  But the risk-taking didn't end there, as I yearned for more and more challenges and a simpler and simpler manner of visual story-telling.  My palette was limited and soon became mostly blues and browns, as well as the resultant colors of the mixing of the two.  Less and less detail.  Oh, the freedom!  My process, for some time, had become create and destroy. All but the essential was merged into the ground.  My eyes simply could not tolerate all of the visual chaos. I became happier and happier. I distained all manner of formula and wished for a singular experience each time I was behind the easel.

The gentleman at the right posed for my art group in 2007.  He was a parttime employee at the local post office.  I was tingling with excitement as I further set my brush to this painting from 2007, in which everything was so realistically described.  This process became all-encompassing as I was able to see the visuals in a completely new way....more creativity, more shape-oriented.  Broad strokes, pencil detailing.

Complete bliss.

The artists who inspired me to move beyond myself  were Alex Kanevsky, Tor-Arne Moen and, more recently, Ron Hicks.  There truly is no one way to paint.

Glory be!

Fishes or Brushes

Fishes or Brushes   oil/canvas   14 x 11 x .5

 After one has been drawing and painting for a while, the notion of transparency arises....the background seen behind the object, the shape of the object, the material of which the object is made and yes, the lighting as well.  All of these factors came together for me as I painted this set up at the art center where I teach, right down the overhead fluorescent lighting tubes.  I have always found the distortions intriguing...a simple-yet-complex idea.  Paint the confusion.  Paint what you see not what you know.

And while I have been tempted to buy some gold fish for the sake of painting them, the responsibility seems daunting and I am content to house art supplies therein.