New illustration study

Another bitTorrent study.  I am getting better at handling a circle in ink.  Eventually I will be good enough to paint a complete circle in oil perfectly.  At the moment I just take my time and slowly go over its outer edge, then move into the circle itself.

This composition seems unbalanced at first, and heavy toward the right.  But as you will notice, the unbalanced weight is reestablished by the open space between the arch and angle.  This composition would be most successful if used with a monotone background, lighter complementaries as the forms and triadic complements as the lines.

BitTorrent Study #7

Ink on paper.  2007.

Artwork of the Month: My Favorite Picasso

I have admired the composition of this vase for a long time.  Picasso has long been an artist that I both love and hate.  Today he is on my good side.

Pablo Picasso

Spanish, 1881-1973

Vase

Earthenware, slip, 1950.

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth."
-Pablo Picasso.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts Exhibit

I got the chance to exhibit two of my newest works at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  It is just a staff show and not open the the general public, but it is still cool.  I love my job.

thanks for reading...

...more to come soon.

New illustration study

This is a new study for my upcoming series of oil paintings titled "BitTorrent."  The BitTorrent paintings are going to be a self-created mythology where I take the ideas of our past and combine them with what is in our minds today.  This study is about the disharmony of size and complexity.  I want to work with compositions that are very simple, yet very complex, as the convoluted arrangement and use of the compositional forms within the total space quiets down its own exaggeration.  

I can see these in my mind as very subtle images with many juxtaposing compositional elements.  Each element is at war with one another as their disharmony causes a mindfulness of peace.  I am very interested in how we as mankind see our world, very similar to these ideas of balance and discord.  I wanted to work toward an overbalanced composition that felt as if it almost sprang back on itself.  And I think I got it.

BitTorrent Study 6

Ink on Paper.  2007.

2.2.2_The pallet knife

2.2.2_The pallet knife

The pallet knife is naturally quick and improvisational in its abilities for laying paint on a surface.  There are many varieties as to the edge, shape, and flexibility of a palette knife; most of which mimic the paint brushes various features of each bristle type.  The palette knife has the ability to control the texture of oil paint, manipulating this painting medium into a sculpting medium.  The use of oil paint as a sculpting medium is still painting.  I use the pallet knife to sculpt three-dimensional forms out of oil paint.

     I used a set of 12 palette knives for an entire series of works.  I even found myself using a toaster and a freezer door, for their larger edge, to pull paint.