Connected - New painting on canvas

"Connected"  24x24" Acrylic and collage on Canvas.

This has been a crazy week. I'm still not feeling quite up to snuff, though I am definitely in better shape. My head is cleared and my cough has improved. Enough so that I have actually left my house for a purpose other than work. I'm relieved... it feels like this has been going on forever. It's nice to feel human again. Unfortunately, I think I've passed this on to a couple people....

I've been fussing with this painting for weeks now... I had the canvas hanging around with only a base colour and some texture paste on it. Figured I should try to translate this patterns/grid thing into something more substantial than a book. It will probably be the last thing I can complete before Arts on the Credit next month. I have my display to figure out, I've got a commission piece to put together, and I've got to get caught up at work. It's too bad... I feel like I'm in a kind of groove and I'd like to just keep working... But hey, if I don't sell some of this work I'm going to run out of places to put it. As it is, I have a load of my musician paintings hanging elsewhere, and I still have stuff on every available wall.... and stuff stashed in closets. I'm thinking of starting some kind of "foster home" program... maybe if I can keep a few pieces here and there at friends places it will save me having to rent some kind of storage. Or maybe I should be thinking about taking some of these pieces off the stretchers so they can be rolled and stored more easily? I really don't know... maybe I just need to do more shows so these pieces can find homes. Summer is generally a good time for that. I guess it's time to start filling out applications....

Connect with me

"The Story So Far", Acrylic and Collage on paper 

I've not quite completed my patterns and grids book (I have the front and back cover left), but I felt I was ready to move on to a larger piece. I had a 1/4 sheet of watercolour paper that had been painted in a class with some samples... I can't remember what exactly it was, but it was a lovely intense turquoise with a metallic flake in it. I had been reluctant to paint over it, so it had sat in the pile for probably close to 4 years. Absolutely no point in that... I figured even if it turned out crappy, it was better than it just sitting there. After marking out a basic division of space I collaged on some text I tore out of a magazine and added layers of paint. The bubble wrap makes another appearance... I like the repetition and broken look of the print. By the time I finished I had toned down the intensity of the blue and lost a bit of the reflective quality, but I like it. I think I'm going to frame this one.

After thinking about the whole grid/map thing for the better part of a week, I think I have a solid theme for a series of at least a few paintings, possibly more. Connection. Questioning how we connect to each other today... through text. We don't really talk anymore; most of our communication is online or on our phones. We text, we email, we post things to social media... even when we are sitting across from each other we are obsessed with our phones, not really paying attention to what's going on. We are constantly connected, yet still somehow alone. I will use grids as a compositional format for each piece. I'm hopeful this will tie everything together into a series.

I never know when starting a new series exactly how far or deep I will go with it. When I started painting the musicians I figured it was good for about 10 pieces, and I think I did somewhere around 50. I love the idea of challenging myself to stick with this for the remainder of the year, but I'm afraid I might get bored before the end. The thing about boredom... it shows. I guess I'll just play it by ear.