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)

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.

been way too long...

"Lambent Terminal," 2'x2'. I finished this one this morning.




"Navigators," 2'x2'.




"Meridians," 2'x2', my friend Justin commissioned this to give to his best friends for their wedding.


I finally figured out a way around a problem I've been having with my camera, so here are some paintings from late fall/winter 2008 and, well, today. The top two are very textury -- I started them out by gessoing two boards and then squishing them together and letting the gesso dry. The bottom piece is on canvas. Forgive the slight fuzziness of the photos!

- Peter

looked good

i liked this, as i was scanning my images in, the background white was being confused and not scanning the whole of my images.... i had to put something color in the background to get my image to come out.

This is the front and back of the quilt I just finished. It is 26 1/2" X 21."

5" x 7"s

these are the 5" x 7" mini paintings i've been doing for the past month or so and i think i'm going to stop now. there're 32 in all. acrylic, oil, graphite, stickers and ink. it's funny...i got some flourecent golden paint and it totally doesn't show up on the scanner. turns to weird gray. biggest example is the cube on the bottom.

The Big Stage

The Big Stage, 2009
acrylic and dryer lint on board
24"x24"

tim lane
inlovewithplaid@comcast.net

some info

yo i just was reading this blog written by an art dealer in nyc and he's a real good writer and has a lot of very useful info so i just thought i'd share it:

http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2009/02/advice-for-artists-seeking-gallery.html

there are a lot of good links and shit too. also he recommended this book comin out in a few
weeks:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ARTWORK-Everything-You-Need-to-Know-and-Do-As-You-Pursue-Your-Art-Career/61944093096

it's really hard to find honest useful info about art on the internet. soooo much of the info
is directed for different kinds of artists...like non contemporary i guess...and vanity galleries
trying to screw people over. it took me a lot of trolling around to find this stuff...

b

some bird ideas

need your help

yo guys,

i'm gettin ready to ship some stuff for april and i have 7 of these 4 feet long paintings.
i want to leave one at home and i can't decide which one is the worst. i narrowed it down to
three. so out of these three links...which one do you think i should leave at home?
thanks for any input...
http://secretmuseum.matterwave.net/PAINTINGS/spaceroom.jpg
http://secretmuseum.matterwave.net/PAINTINGS/homestudio.jpg
http://secretmuseum.matterwave.net/PAINTINGS/pinkpyramid.jpg

new stuff

the first painting i have two pictures of.. just thought it might be interesting. what do you think of the changes? the top one is the first draft...(shitty pic) and the bottom one is more final. (4 feet by 2 feet)

middle pic is of spain on paper (19"x24") mostly acrylic. shadows are oil glazes.

last one is acrylic and oil 4 feet by 2 feet. i was putting some paint in a little squeeze tube and squeezing it out on the floor of the room. the tv screen image is what i remember of some vuillard painting of WWI that i loved. thought i could steal it since our last names are so similar.
so travis and molly these are prolly the last before the show. so be brutally honest since we're selling them together as friends.

The Big I #2

here it is.
26.5"X10.5"

more new work

new piece
not unlike my others ,
still making women/package/explosions
this time i put a little person insider her heart area
cheering
the banner says "between"

the big i #2

so, i'm working on this little guy. i'm going to redo the whole right side. i'm happy with how the left side looks and i think i'm going to simplify color and pattern on the right square. i think i'll make the right side bottom green stripes match the left side bottom. i think i'll make that green and black and white highway on the right only one or two fabrics, and brown or just green. i think i will change the dark highway into oranges similar to the left side. then i will change the blackground on the right to match the background on the left. obviously i was going for a peaceful side and a more complex side, but i got a little too carried away. i'm not totally sure what to do with the three stripes in the divide. in the picture they were part of one tower and i want them to look close to the viewer. things will line up more in the finished piece, my picture is a little messed up. the top lines of the ground will line up and the orange stripe in the background of the righ side will line up with the orange highway from the left. let me know if you have any ideas.

heres a new piece i have been brewing a few weeks...
the pic is a little fuzzy ,
my thinking was to make a large figure with an outfit that takes up a large space for abstraction-sake.
when that wasnt enough i added some op-elements

95 percent done
open to reflection

bird book

im working on a new project,
11 paintings for a book an e-friend wrote
birds are the characters in the book
heres the first good drawing
i might switch from gals to birds for the next few months
on my personal work too
a challenging thing to draw for sure

Tim Lane: New Work

Girl Power, 2009

acrylic, gouache, pencil, collage, dryer lint, tacks, ponytail holder, socks

on canvas

40"x30"




Happy Couple, 2009

acrylic, oil paintstick, gouache, crayon, collage, fabric, dryer lint, nail, socks

on plywood

24"x24"

two new interiors

Miami Room 18"x30" acrylic (with a wiiii little bit of oil on the shadows) on canvas
vestibule two (soccer ball) 26"x34" acrlic, embossing powder and oil on canvas


these paintings are most likely for the show in april. i'm pretty sure they're done. i've been making little teeny changes for the past month. what do you think of the embossing powder in the vestibule two? it's mostly on the stairwell...nate i took your advice about the back room and put an inside edge on the doorway for depth...

Miami Room is taken from a little tiny two inch tall photograph of an apartment for sale in Miami. i really liked how the light came through the curtain thing and made all kinds of crazy lines. it's probably my least weird painting. i was trying to be more mature or something. i don't know...i used a trashbag full of tape to do that painting. it's almost entirely done with a knife and tape...just a little bit of brush work with the furniture.

fancy flags

ok...i really need some help/advice with these. i went to michael's over break and got a bunch of beads and sequins and shit and also some embossing powder which i put in the acrylic and blast with heat. i put the beads in gel medium...i saw a raqib shaw show at the met (nate you gotta see it) and it blew me away and i wanna try to do some things he does...
but basically these are studies with the beads and embossing and acrylic paint.
do they suck? i can't completely tell. annie doesn't like them so much. should i use the beads as
just accent or do you like them all over? what about the embossing stuff? should i put stuff in the background or do you like the matte color? do these look too craftyish?
my plan is to make big 4 feet long cities (2 feet high) that are done in this style. with little teeny details and sequins and embossing stuff. kind of abstract/cartoony a bit...from my mind and not from pictures. it will cost a lot in beads and other materials and take a loooong time. (these flags
take about 8 hours each) so i might do one slightly bigger study before i invest myself in that.
i have some other paintings i'll post soon...waiting for a good picture day. these were scanned in and are 8x8 inches.
thanks for any critique

b

from tim

I finished this painting some time in late October/early November, I really can't remember. I can't remember it's title. Mainly acrylic, I think. 30"x17" on paper. Not a great photo, poor lighting, but had to make do. This painting is important to me because it's the first time I've been able to really nail a good image of my daughter.