It has been a long while since I last blogged. Putting into words the processes I am going through in the studio, showing and speaking about the step by step process and breaking down where my art has been and where it's going. Things in the studio are moving fast. Each painting I do leads to the next. Using other things besides the brush to paint with has opened up many doors for me. Right now I am working with the physical form. Taking the barriers of the physical and spreading them out, blending them in, because the physical impression is just that, an impression. There is a domino effect caused by that impression. When you walk into a room full of people the energy you embody affects and is affected by the other embodied energies in the room. In working with this idea I am asking, What are the dynamics of that impression? 

Good Vibrations

And Justice For All

The Flow of Power and Money

The Girl

The Girl With Head In Hand (1st image) was an image I drew while in high school. It came to represent what would be the equivalent to a mission statement. My artist's mission statement. A statement on what I was using art to do; to explore why I thought I was so different from everyone else and why I thought everyone else was so different from me. Why am I not like all the other girls? At that point in my life I used art to explore my psyche in relationship to everyone else. Now so many years later I find that I am using art in a different way or perhaps it is that I am now able or evolved enough to use it in a different way. 

The Girl With Hand In Head (2nd image) represents my new artist's mission statement, an exploration of how the creative thought process works. Instead of holding the world at a distance and trying to figure it all out, I can now let it slam me in the back of the head and come out my eyeballs and onto the canvas and then work to figure it out from there. 

My personal struggle has evolved over time from an emotion one to an intellectual one and my art work is a reflection of that. 

The Artists Prayer

Sleeping Beauty

I was inspired by a photograph of my daughter sleeping on the couch and it became my reference for a new painting. I approached this painting with a new method I've been working on that I call dynamic impressionism. The technique didn't end up working for this particular piece, however, so I decided to pursue a more standard method of impressionism. I proceeded in steps, following the photograph's lead but adding some details (more pillows) and my own interpretation of color and texture. My least favorite type of painting is to try and mimic realism. So I focused on pursuing and exploring the imagined textures in the painting rather than attempting an actual reproduction of the photograph. 

Torch Song

I often begin a painting with something on my mind. I begin this one thinking of the 2008 Olympics. I start with a watered down wash of green and red and I manipulate the flow. 

I drip some more paint and then sit back and look at the results. 

It's surprising to me how I can start a painting with an idea and using drips and manipulation come up with an actual image that represents what's been on my mind. 

I use form and color to build up the image and I look for opportunities to pull symbols out. I give the image a hand and begin to define what I see as a robe. 

I feel like I am exploring the countryside in China in the patterns of her robe. I am looking for more symbols. I find a child for the mother. 

I work on the child. I name this Torch Song as I work. I see the symbolic olympic torch and all the controversy it has brought as a flash in the pan to the long history that is China. 

Spring Is Here Whispered The Deer To The Bear

This is another painting that I photographed and documented during the process. This was done in the spring of 2008.

I lay a clear gessoed linen canvas on the floor and spray it with water, then brush the water down. I splatter with ivory black using a stiff brush. I splatter lightly with yellow oxide and make some broad strokes with a fan brush. Then splatter heavily with blue. I'm looking for something I can work with. Some shape or line with potential. 

I mix hooker's green with water in a spray bottle and spray the canvas. I hold the painting and manipulate the flow of the paint by banging it and moving it around. I sweep parts of the wet canvas with a fan brush. The I see the deer. She will be the beginning. 

I outline the deer and splatter some brown and yellow. 

I need another forest creature. I see the outline of a bear (You can see him above in the previous image). I flesh him out with some red. Then I balance the painting by adding a groundhog beneath one of the mounds in the right corner. I add some green to bring in the feeling of spring. 

The snow melts. Spring arrives. Life emerges from it's long winter rest. Spring is here whispered the deer to the bear. 

Leaves

I am going to take you through a step by step process of how I created this painting. This was done in the very early spring of 2008

I wet sponged yellow oxide on a gessoed canvas and left it to dry. I think about what the canvas looks like while I walk in the woods. It has been a long hard winter and I see the forest floor for the first time in a long time. Now I know what I want for this painting. 

Using a leaf stencil I've made I lay out a pattern of leaves and splatter and sponge around the outline of each leaf. I want this to be a quiet painting so I help set my mood with some peaceful music. 

I get where I want to go very quickly with this piece. Now I need to be careful not to over do it by reminding myself of the effect I intend to create, that of a dank forest floor. I decide to work on the push and pull of the painting using dark and light colors. 

I sketch out a few more objects you might find on a forest floor. I'm not working towards realism but continuing to maintain the mood I've set. So I keep things vague. 

I've been rotating the painting as I work on it, studying it from all sides. One of my goals with a painting like this is to have it work from as many angles as possible. I'm satisfied now. The painting is complete.