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Here's my latest work. Meanwhile, you may have noticed that I'm asking for donations for art supplies, which are dwindling rapidly, due to the fact that I lost my "day job" back in November and there is nothing currently in sight, yet. If this situation drags on into May and June, I will not be able to renew either my domain or webhosting for my website. Of course, I'd still have this blog, however, assuming I continue to have internet access service at all. So, any help I can get would be very much appreciated and, to show my appreciation, I'm offering an original 8.5"x11" painting on paper to all who make a minimum donation of $25. That's a $180 value for $25, or a discount of about 14% off the regular price.
Anyway, over the last several days (and I skipped a few days), I've completed the following: White No. 15, Blue No. 15, Brown & White No. 15, Blue No. 16, Blue No. 17, Green & White No. 7 and yesterday's Magenta & White No. 5.
A few days ago, I began "slacking off;" i.e., going back to one painting a day from the two paintings I'd been doing since about December or so. Actually, it's certainly not due to a lack of enthusiasm or interest, just that I'm getting low on painting supplies and money, as well. Unless you're one of these yuppies who still hasn't felt the pinch yet, you're aware the economy is imploding all around us. I could say much more on that, but this isn't the appropriate forum for it.
Anyway, here are my three latest paintings, Black & White No. 31, Green & White No. 5 and Blue No. 14.
Note that in Blue No. 14 I have again switched blues and, yes, for economic reasons, as before. I think I have about three or four different blues I can use, so I'm switching between them to extend my supply.
Catching up, yet again. Here are my latest paintings, which includes Orange & White No. 7; three new additions to the Blue series; the first two of a new series titled Yellow Ochre & Brown; two additions to the Black & White series; two additions to the Brown & White series and four new additions to the Jazz series.
Note that, in Jazz 13 through Jazz 16 the heavy texture in the black ground, which was a feature of the first twelve paintings in the series, has not been carried through to these latest four additions. This is due to using fluid black acrylic for the ground, as opposed to the black tube color used in the first paintings. The fluid acrylic, being thinner, doesn't create the heavy textural effects I was getting previously. So, the look is somewhat different in these latest versions.
Also of note is the switch to a different blue in Blue No. 12 and Blue No. 13. This was simply due to the fact I was out of the original blue at the time and so used what I had on hand. I was thinking the two blues were more nearly the same, but, as it turned out, they are slightly different in hue and intensity. Actually, I personally prefer the muted blue of these latest two paintings.
...I need to tie a string around my brush or something, to remind me to post here! I've really fallen behind, this time. Added to my works since Green & White No. 2 are Green & White No. 3 & 4, as well as the start of a new series, Burnt Sienna & White, followed by six new additions to the Black & White series, four additions to the White series, the latest two in the Blue & Purple series, six more additions to the Brown & White series, and a couple of new entries to the Orange & White series.
The casual viewer may get the impression, as Denise Lassaw (daughter of sculptor Ibram Lassaw), a great artist in her own right, did, that my paintings are, as she has said, "...too similar." Well, yes, they are. That is the result of my process and I'm a process-oriented painter, so that will tend to be the case, as I've said here before.
What I'm attempting to do is to build a cohesive body of work that has a certain unity and which is unmistakably mine. To that end, I believe I'm doing rather well. By confining my work - at least, for the time being, anyway; I do intend to work on canvas again and at a larger scale, later in the year - to a set surface (paper), format (portrait) and size (8.5"x11"), the only variables left for me to work within are (1) the type of paint, (2) the tools I'm using, (3) the colors I've selected and (4) the angle, direction, length and velocity of the strokes I make, either with my brushes (for the ground plane) or with the knife. Within these confines, though, I find a myriad of possibilities.
Even so, yes, there is a degree of sameness from one image to the next and I make no apologies for this, as it's fully intentional. First of all, I'm developing a style of my own - one that I hope is as uniquely mine as my signature is. To that end, the process I'm using serves me well, especially since I don't see anyone else painting in the same way I am. That's a good thing. If I were doing what everyone else is doing, what would there be to distinguish myself with? By using the process I started in the late eighties, abandoned for a while and then picked up again last year, and further developing it, I have found that I can create a body of work that is uniquely my own and it is because of the process that drives it.
But the main factor driving the similarity from one painting to the next, aside from confining myself to the set of variables I've listed above, is my own unique stroke. There are certain repetitions of patterns I've used - either consciously or not - that have established a sort of visual vocabularly that I am the only speaker of. From time to time, when I become more conscious of what I'm doing (or about to do), I'll deliberately change my angle of attack or where I place the paint on the paper, just to get away from what I've been doing and to create a different pattern. Even then, though, I find myself returning to the same alternate patterns. So, after noticing my knife had begun leaving marks and lines in the paint, simply from lack of proper cleaning (the dried paint tends to accumulate at the knife edge and this drags through the paint surface, leaving tracks in it), I decided I liked the look and began consciously incorporating deliberate lines into my paintings, which echo the general direction and path of my previous knife strokes. I've done this for no other reason than that I like the look and it adds yet another visual element of interest to direct the eye of the viewer. I suppose that's why I liked it, myself. So, what I am doing is as much a process of self-discovery as it is a process of painting. I am in a feedback loop, so to speak, interacting with the evidence of my own actions. But, doesn't this happen for all artists, to an extent, regardless of their chosen medium?
