from my recent little paintings4/30/09
4/26/09
squiqlly fountain: bam-bam
this is a really shitty pic i took in the kitchen cause it'll be awhile before i carry this beast outside. it's 4x4 feet and weighs like 40 pounds probably.
it's acrylic, oil, silver ink and tape on canvas over panel. i attached my source image, too because i wanna know if you think i should add those trees in on the right hand side. i didn't put them in because i wanted an open part to see the landscape. i made this image huge (sorry) so maybe you could see the different textures...especially where i make the bricks...i put down the ink and then sprayed it and then put a shit ton of gel over it and then made little bricks on top of that. the tape is in those ray color things up top. what do you think of that? is there too much goin' on?
cool thanks for any input
b
4/19/09
how do you think about color?
one thing i'm trying to work on lately is color so i was curious how you guys think about it, plan it out and what not (or if you even do...sometimes i don't think about it at all). a real useful site i go to is: http://www.colourlovers.com/
i use a few color arrangements that i find on there in paintings and i try to limit my pallet to
those 5 colors but it rarely works out. i feel like i use way too many colors in one painting. i also made my own swatches of color...which was hard...so then i took some paintings i liked and took 5 colors from them to make swatches to then use in my own paintings. below are a few.
also i discovered is that it's fun to paint a bunch of tape, arrange it, and put a shit ton of medium over it to immortalize it. i'll post the two paintings i'm workin on now that have that soon. gotta wait for some oil to dry and touch up a few things. i've been working much bigger, too.
when i play around with color a lot i feel like i can hear it a little bit. like it harmonizes. especially with those swatches. so i think it's a good excercise to practice "hearing" color. that's the best way i can describe i deal with it...when it "sounds" right rather than "looks" right. kinda hard to explain but the more i practice with it the better i can get at sort of "hearing" it. so i gotta give a big up to nate for that in a way because he told me about ratatat and when i listen to them i feel like i paint better sometimes. i feel like some of the better parts of my paintings sound like ratatat songs. haha. sounds a little dorky and i could be wrong since i'm not the best judge of my own work. do you guys get this feeling, too?
colors from matthias weischer's "egyptian room" (one of my favorite paintings)
colors from gauguin's "siesta" (a painting i look at at the met a lot...i know he battled with the color on that, changing the girl in the front's dress around a lot)
i use a few color arrangements that i find on there in paintings and i try to limit my pallet to
those 5 colors but it rarely works out. i feel like i use way too many colors in one painting. i also made my own swatches of color...which was hard...so then i took some paintings i liked and took 5 colors from them to make swatches to then use in my own paintings. below are a few.
also i discovered is that it's fun to paint a bunch of tape, arrange it, and put a shit ton of medium over it to immortalize it. i'll post the two paintings i'm workin on now that have that soon. gotta wait for some oil to dry and touch up a few things. i've been working much bigger, too.
when i play around with color a lot i feel like i can hear it a little bit. like it harmonizes. especially with those swatches. so i think it's a good excercise to practice "hearing" color. that's the best way i can describe i deal with it...when it "sounds" right rather than "looks" right. kinda hard to explain but the more i practice with it the better i can get at sort of "hearing" it. so i gotta give a big up to nate for that in a way because he told me about ratatat and when i listen to them i feel like i paint better sometimes. i feel like some of the better parts of my paintings sound like ratatat songs. haha. sounds a little dorky and i could be wrong since i'm not the best judge of my own work. do you guys get this feeling, too?
colors from matthias weischer's "egyptian room" (one of my favorite paintings)
colors from gauguin's "siesta" (a painting i look at at the met a lot...i know he battled with the color on that, changing the girl in the front's dress around a lot)
4/7/09
Framing v. not framing, revisited
[Note: I originally posted this in response to a thread from last September. I assume that few would ever see it. As I gave it some more thought, I thought I'd reopen this can of worms for some further thoughts from anybody out there. As a gallery curator, this was an issue I navigated from both sides. Here is my original comment, slightly edited.]
I'm showing up pretty late to this party, but in regards to framing vs. not framing -- both ways have potential to be a visual distraction. Depends on who you ask and where their aesthetic compass is set to.
Often art (that's not by Vermeer or Rothko or something) lacks psychological "weight" with the potential collecting public. We confront an unfamiliar art object with built in assumptions -- quite different ones than what we confront a Michelangelo or the Mona Lisa with. There is very little we artists can do about this, as non-Vermeers and non-Rothkos. But, one of the very small things we CAN do to distinguish our works and assist them in acquiring psychological weight (other than just painting great paintings) is to give them physicality -- to give them actual, physical mass.
Whether this means framing or not framing is a judgment call on behalf of the artist. I saw a great Raymond Pettibon show where everything was simply pinned up. And I've seen a number of student shows where things are pinned up and/or wrapped in acetate and look like crap.
For most buyers who are "collecting" a piece of art, it's simply not practical to have unframed artwork in their homes, offices, etc. So if they feel compelled to purchase an unframed piece, they're gonna go straight to a frame shop. This, in purely practical terms, adds expense to the piece -- and often quite a bit of expense. A large custom frame can easily cost hundreds -- if not more. One can assume that if they're interested in the piece, they're interested in its longevity.
I read recently (in the book "The Gardner Heist") that there is a single substance on earth which is more valuable per ounce than gold, platinum, diamonds, heroin, you name it -- and it's fine art. Not necessarily MY fine art, but fine art just the same. We're often the worst possible judges of the commodity value of our own work -- we tend to grossly under- or over-value it.
As a consideration to potential buyers, I always put my works on paper into a relatively inexpensive black metal frame with regular window glass over it to protect it. If someone wants to reframe it, fine. I've had to get pretty creative with matting if it's a diptych or an oddly shaped piece. Of course, this adds to my expense and so nudges my prices upward. Back in the day, painters used to hand-carve and gild their own frames. I consider myself lucky.
So in a sense I've capitulated whatever my aesthetic opinion is on having my work ideally be framed/not framed. I've assumed (hoped/prayed/feared) that someone might like it enough to invest in its physical survival -- and I've made that option as attractive to them as my time and financial means allow.
That's my 32 cents.
I'm showing up pretty late to this party, but in regards to framing vs. not framing -- both ways have potential to be a visual distraction. Depends on who you ask and where their aesthetic compass is set to.
Often art (that's not by Vermeer or Rothko or something) lacks psychological "weight" with the potential collecting public. We confront an unfamiliar art object with built in assumptions -- quite different ones than what we confront a Michelangelo or the Mona Lisa with. There is very little we artists can do about this, as non-Vermeers and non-Rothkos. But, one of the very small things we CAN do to distinguish our works and assist them in acquiring psychological weight (other than just painting great paintings) is to give them physicality -- to give them actual, physical mass.
Whether this means framing or not framing is a judgment call on behalf of the artist. I saw a great Raymond Pettibon show where everything was simply pinned up. And I've seen a number of student shows where things are pinned up and/or wrapped in acetate and look like crap.
For most buyers who are "collecting" a piece of art, it's simply not practical to have unframed artwork in their homes, offices, etc. So if they feel compelled to purchase an unframed piece, they're gonna go straight to a frame shop. This, in purely practical terms, adds expense to the piece -- and often quite a bit of expense. A large custom frame can easily cost hundreds -- if not more. One can assume that if they're interested in the piece, they're interested in its longevity.
I read recently (in the book "The Gardner Heist") that there is a single substance on earth which is more valuable per ounce than gold, platinum, diamonds, heroin, you name it -- and it's fine art. Not necessarily MY fine art, but fine art just the same. We're often the worst possible judges of the commodity value of our own work -- we tend to grossly under- or over-value it.
As a consideration to potential buyers, I always put my works on paper into a relatively inexpensive black metal frame with regular window glass over it to protect it. If someone wants to reframe it, fine. I've had to get pretty creative with matting if it's a diptych or an oddly shaped piece. Of course, this adds to my expense and so nudges my prices upward. Back in the day, painters used to hand-carve and gild their own frames. I consider myself lucky.
So in a sense I've capitulated whatever my aesthetic opinion is on having my work ideally be framed/not framed. I've assumed (hoped/prayed/feared) that someone might like it enough to invest in its physical survival -- and I've made that option as attractive to them as my time and financial means allow.
That's my 32 cents.
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