Ya Know Why Squirrels Lose Acorns

9×11 mixed media on watercolor paper.
Discovered some watercolor paper I had purchased from a Ben Franklin store in Topeka, most likely early 80′s…figured that based on the price of $2.65 for a pad of 20 sheets of 9×12. 80lb. stock. It is holding up to my techniques pretty well, normally I would prefer a heavier weight. Matters not as it works and having it in my hands I am making art…not sure if the dry streak is totally over, but it is a start…by the way I did do a 8th finger piece, I will save it for a later post.
Why do squirrels lose acorns? I think they are having so much fun gathering them, finding cool hiding places, teasing dogs, chasing other squirrels that once they go to sleep and wake up the next day its like “Groundhog Day”, …but with no recall of yesterday! I guess that’s just a nicer way of saying scientifically they have no memory of their stash, thus they gather hundreds…in hopes of finding dozens.

What Was Your First Clue

20×20 in. mixed media.
Lately I have been going thru some of my unfinished and forgotten projects from many a year ago. So for your viewing pleasure a piece that has taking me 40 years to complete. This piece was one started in college and was going to be a colorful sunset type thing, or maybe bright trees. At any rate I started seeing this endless range of clouds and vast depth in a strange landscape and kind of went with that. Seems so clear now not sure why I couldn’t have seen that back then. As for the title, being a Kansas boy I thought about a saying that is old hat…”We aren’t in Kansas anymore Toto!” I believe the picture speaks to that fairly well, don’t you?

Dermatological Wonder At 6 Fathoms

9×12 in. mixed media.  Let me start by saying thank you to everyone, I have hit a milestone I never imagined I would get to…1000 followers!!!!!! … I reached that early today, it is very humbling and at the same time extremely uplifting . THANK YOU ALL

The long winded titled piece was done like some of my bubble tree series, without the trees. I had a preconceived idea about goosebumps…thus the title. It has a different feel than the others like it…but I can sense being in the water for sure. Not many have seen this piece so I will let you guys and gals tell me what you think.

Neutrons and Fertilizer

9×12 in. mixed media. Title speaks for the work, right? Layered process like my earlier works, 6-8 deep, lots of texture. This is a similar process that was used to make 5 Finger Blues. Title took awhile to hit me, but once I started to think along those lines the name stuck. Inspiration? Ever been up 10,000 ft. while flying over Kansas farm land in late spring? Different crops some fairing better than others…hmmm seems like we have some crop circles.

By the way Cookeville Artprowl 2012 went well…will show a few pictures from it soon.

Lost Finding Olympic Hop-Scotch

9×12 in. mixed media. Been working on and off on this one since the last very days of the London Olympics. Should have taking pictures of this as I was going along, I believe it changed at least a dozen times before I could keep my hands  off it. Biggest issue was putting names of rail stations in, or not. It is what I envisioned in my head, names and letters, but I never could make it look the way I wanted. So then the challenge became making it work for my eye without. This is another piece that is better appreciated in person, for the coloring and details and texture. By the way Rio has some large shoes to fill, really enjoyed the opening and closing ceremories…plus track and field felt importance again…Mr. Bond and Mr. Bolt, thank you.

What’s On Your Desk?

9×12 in. mixed media. The closest thing to a still life I have done since Shawnee Heights H.S. days and Mr. Miller. This is one of those pieces I do from time to time to recharge my creative juices, plus it keeps me productive. Fun to do the different shapes that adorn my desktop…note the pencil scribbles i put on the blotter, too much white had to do something. My current blotter is covered with ideas for names, web sites, spellings, simple sketches, and blots of color…maybe when i get ready to change it out i should frame it, might be interesting years from now.

Nude Bathing By Moonlight

9×12 in. mixed media. If it’s too cold to skinney dip, then one can only bask in the warm rays of the mountain highlands by the lake during a full moon. Most likely this would just be slightly better than skinney dipping, goosebumps would be maxed out either way. Title obviously came to me as a continuation to my last BUBBLE TREE piece. Didn’t use as much tissue paper in this and I pulled out a trick I learned many years ago to get the right shading…shoe polish! Prior to that the shading wasn’t right for the feel I wanted…want to say the first time I saw this used was by a fellow student at Ottawa University. Never used it too much, kinda messy and gets on everything…the liquid polish doesn’t work as well as the paste type…rub and remove till you like it, then acrylic sealer. Funny how old studio tricks come back to ya… with this piece I believe I have enough to start a new catagory…Bubble Trees

Cornsilk and Jasper Johns

9×12 in. mixed media. American flags by Jasper Johns are so iconic in modern art and I felt like doing something in that light, but different. Look close enough and you can see actual cornsilk in the piece, thought the name was just a bit of humor only…huh!  Love the colors in this and besides using the cornsilk i had, i finally found a good use of my polka-dotted tissue paper. Mixed media artists can be such hoarders, for stuff they think they might need in the future…worked for me this time.

You Can Only Clean Fish Once

9×12 in. mixed media. Details on the lighter areas not showing very well, you will have to take my word on there is more to be seen. Used some of that 42 year old ink in getting my colors just right. Had a few on lookers thinking I was doing something with football laces or clocks…nice observation but can’t say I was on that path. Watercolor paper does such a nice job of taking my early layers before I start glazing over with finishes, inks, and acrylic. Not sure I have mentioned my process in naming pieces before…once I have completed a piece I spend some time with it and see what comes to mind…I have almost as much fun doing this as I do working on them. Not sure what my titles say about me as an artist but I do know it is enjoyable. 

It Is Too Cold To Skinney Dip

11×14 in mixed media. The 3rd and final wave is up and running at the Putnam County Library and this is one of the pieces. Not  sure how normal shows go but I was able to provide the public with 27 hand picked works over a 2 month period, 9 at a time. Feedback continues to be very favorable from visitors, which is greatly appreciated.  Thanks again to Stacie Johnson.

On to this current piece…nature and the elements, kind of played with a reflective type theme…water, deep and shallow and moonlight…are those snowflakes?…maybe…is that mountains?…possible .  The colors and texture have a brisk cool feel to them, and I really enjoyed changing the shades and hues as the trees came thru the piece. I might over-play the white outlining, but at this point I can’t see the work without it. I have used this style and technique on several pieces now, each one creates a different but pleasant mood for me while glazing at them…I hope it catches you in a similar fashion.

42 Year Old Ink

11×14 mixed media on bristol board. The title is a statement of fact, I used 42 year old ink. Not sure if that is special or not, but I can tell you it works a lot differently that newer inks I have. Has a nice grainy texture that leaves nice spaces for other colors to layer over it. I must of been a genius to think of that 42 years ago…or a little bit of a hoarding issue when it comes to art supplies. I was watching the London  Olympics while doing this, but for the life of me couldn’t come up with a Olympic theme title that felt right…Floor Exercise in Yellow?  Opportunity for me, a Olympic inspired piece before they end.

 

Down 2 Duchamp’s

Mixed media 10×14 in.  To think that such a modern abstract classic was done 100 yrs. ago by Marcel Duchamp (1912- Nude Descending Staircase,No.2). My way/my style of doing a piece inspired by Duchamp. His piece/work would make my top 20 and Duchamp would make my top 20 favorite artists. (note I find it very hard to make a top 10 list or be able to rank them, so I have empowered myself to have a top 20 unranked…list to be published at a later date.)

Trapped Inside Of An Electrolux

Mixed media 9×12 in. I was going to name it after the Hoover, but that might make a good follow-up to this  instead. The Electrolux vacuum cleaners were so cool looking, I believe the switcher-roo  in Rocketman  was an electrolux. These machines were so Buck Rogers…I think as a kid I tried to ride my mom’s around until I got caught…several times.  I think I upgraded to a 3 wheeler to save my behind.

Seeking Nemo

Mixed media 12×18 in.  Companion piece to ” 3 Jaw Clamp “, can’t remember which one was first but this one doesn’t use tissue paper or have a lot of surface texturing. I took some rough photos of this as it was being created, actually completed it in one day…thanks to inventive use of a space heater to dry the layers (I can be inpatient when my creative juices are flowing). Walked down to my lair after dinner and when I came back up at 3am…nobody awake to share my new treasure with…but I slept well dreaming of little Nemo.

How Many Trees Make A Forest

Mixed media 9×12 in. This is a piece that I came back to many times before I felt it was finished. I liked the division of the work and the way the squares formed up, but I kept struggling with the ovals … until I started shading the lighter one. That was when it started to fall into place for me. As to the title…it seemed very obvious to me once I stared at it for 10 days or better.

Channel Surfing With Rabbit Ears

Mixed media 9×12 in. What baby boomer hasn’t been up late at night to see the test pattern come on…or be trying to get stations late at night that you can only get when there was a temperature inversion.  Who knew those satellites would take away all of these late night adventures. To me seeing the Indian Chief was iconic to those days…by the way, I cheated … those test patterns were in black and white…oh well, imagination is nice. The station to my knowledge is my invention using some letters that have meaning to me.

BP Lied To Us

Very mixed media 9×12 in. This is a very confused piece, at times green (environmental) and at times just the opposite. The beach is green…used home made glue and for color would you believe color pencil shaving I have saved for months.  Now I couldn’t stay true and for the foreground I used marker, ink, and good old nasty solvent…I did have gloves on and preformed this experiment outside in fresh air.  Nice results but not sure I would do this again, messy, smelly, and my gloves weren’t in very good shape afterwards… kinda like working the beaches in the Gulf during the BP mess… Title seemed natural,at least for me.  The title and the piece poke fun at this mess, however I know it was anything but funny…so no offense, just art.

Hide N Seek

Mixed media 9×12 in.  My first in a series of octopus and ocean series, not as much factual as, colorful with a bit of whimsey. This was the piece I traded with a fellow artist at the ” Picasso Doesn’t Live Here art fair.”  The octopus has almost a pearly finished skin with multiple colors.  To contrast against it I used paint-sticks for the coral and the goofy fish (my version of a type of parrot fish).  Not sure if there is treasure around or not but we do have a shipwreck, anchor and oil.   Don’t ask about the magenta flow to the right it’s either a crack in the mantle or the remains of a missing tanker full of silly putty… or it might be just the right color to offset the octopus’s brite eyes. Regardless a very fun piece.

Bath Night On Liberty Island

Mixed media 9×12. Had fun with this and did a little experimenting to boot. The spikes on liberty’s head were actually colored from the back side of the paper, as was the orange, and the sage outline on her body. The white was a thick layer of acrylic and gel medium, which I textured before it dried. Notice the Van Gogh type sky? I love that shape and those lines,  a lot of my earlier works were thick with it. Just remember even a statue gets a bath from time to time.

Coral Octopus Garden

Mixed media 9×12 acrylic, enamel paint, pen, marker, and ink. This is a little more complex than it looks…the kelp has slits cut following their profile and the octopus (which was drawn on a different sheet and cut out) is then woven into the drawing. The coral is multiple layers of paint and has a nice texture to it.  So far I have done three in this series Octopus/ocean-floor. A fellow artist has the first and we traded pieces, I would like to say I got ahead in that deal. (a very inside joke…check out David Pound )