wall street is divided

had posted this some time ago:



it has become the left side of a diptych:


now have got to this point and am liking it, not sure what to "finish"
maybe just let it sit awhlie...

skyline

skyline
oil on stitched canvas
73 x 33"


Now finally I feel it is looking good!
Had been thinking of it as finished, mostly because I wasn't sure where to go with it.
Yesterday made the latest changes.... more contrast, more violet, pulling some colours into the foreground, etc. Very glad I did not ship this one last month because it is definitely stronger now!

This is what it looked like before:


only subtle manipulations, but makes a big difference

industrial dawn

a large version of an earlier painting
this one measures 35 x 35"

...city for the trees

stitched quite awhile ago, and gradually worked on in fits & starts until yesterday it got to here:


not finished yet, but I am liking it at this stage.... thinking I will next add translucent glazes of colour over some areas, then maybe draw back into it.

when I first started making these canvasses I was doing the paint-by-numbers staying within the stitched lines kinda thing - but this approach has been gradually abandoned, and lately I have been entirely ignoring the stitching and just painting freely on top, and liking the effects very much!

I was going to call this one "can't see the city for the trees" but so far it's the other way around - can't really see the "trees" because of all the buildings painted on top...

A Tree For Mother

hey mom check it out, I believe they're very close to being finished!
... perhaps a touch more contrast in the branches?


well, yes, they do look rather more like flowers than trees, but that's ok - mom likes flowers too.

and for the record:
oil on 2 stitched canvasses
40"w x 20"h

"pattern recognition" continued...

from there to here:



difficult to photograph because it is so big!

worked on the lower part & also clear-coated the sky bit with alkyd medium, because the difference in texture of the gel was noticeable under a light - damn!
explanation: the seams are sealed with gel medium before gessoing, and usually I paint with many layers of oil colour glazes, but in this case the sky was done in one layer, and where the sealing was done you can see these kind of ghostly edges & they are not a "happy" accident, in fact they look rather crappy.
The coat of alkyd helped a bit, and I hope several more coats will work even better...


really liking that pale blue bit in the almost-center, it sort of floats on top of the other colours

another new beginning

so far just stitched & stretched
and tonight, instead of sealing & gesso'ing & generally getting in gear with it, here I sit blogging...
ah well, tomorrow!

a broken-up day in the city

A few posts back there is a record of the way this one began: 7 canvasses all in a horzontal row, colours running the spectrum. It is not very interesting to me any more, so I am trying to see how it might otherwise be presented...



Hmmm.
Still working on this.

pattern recognition

oil on stitched canvas
66 x 66"

Did this in one 7 hour marathon all-night painting session - and I was so determined not to pull any more all-nighters! 'Cause it screws up my bodyclock and I sometimes have this day job, y'know?

This is my artist-ego painting - so big I can't get my hands quite onto either side to move it around because my arms are about 3 inches too short. Ha.

Liking the drawing-type stuff going on here, but it's not yet finished, I think...
Used only a little linseed oil for flow, so it's gonna take awhile to dry!

o photoshop

Here is a 'real' portrait (a.k.a. the manipulated photograph - as opposed to the painted portrait). So you can see that my painted self portraits are rather, um, idealized.

another self

Made this one about 5.30am, after a very productive all-nighter in the studio.

Leftover paint from my night's work + someone's discarded canvas (a landscape) found in the trash bin next to the communal studio sink. Great way to recycle materials...!

these eyes

were cropped out of several self-portraits & pasted into one picture in photoshop - my favourite computer program!

a tree for mother

...well, several trees, really.
& not finished either!
they had become very ugly & uninspired, so I painted over all with pale blue & began again.
a good start, I think, and I will be more careful this time round!

variations on a theme

autumn on the hill:





3 green trees:





2 yellow trees:




none of them great photographs, and perhaps only the 3 green trees finished - but what the hell, I feel like posting them anyway tonight!

clearing

...from there to here:



oil on stitched canvas
27 x 27cm

xmas cards already!

So, tonight I have begun making this year's xmas cards. Coloured paper, scissors, glue stick, bits of satin ribbon, coloured & metallic pens...
It's a fun break from studio work - still creating visual images but with very different materials from the usual alchemy of oil paints, and with no thought whatsoever as to the archival quality of the end product!

clearing

rather an out-of-focus photograph of a very small canvas, still in progress, which has hit the point of
"ahhh! now I see it!"

skyline

oil on stitched canvas
71 x 33"
180 x 85cm

building the skyline

The first colour glazes:

Really liking the basic shapes laid down here.

Then, adding red shapes & thinking "oh no, way too bright!"


ok, some purples & other colours...


then a bit more detail, yeah, like I need more detail on all those seams, right

Opaline II

oil on stitched canvas
68 x 38"
175 x 95cm