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.

4 Square Rural

9×12 in mixed media. As simple as this piece seems to be, it was fairly complex in execution. Lost track of the layers but beneath each square of color I started out very vivid and bright. I really love how the textures allowed some of the full richness of the under lying colors to show. I did have to knock down some of the peaks though to get a more uniformed look. The full body white lines in some areas show well too. Unfortunately this piece can only get full appreciation in person, as the photo can’t capture the subtle tones. This was a follow-up to “Neutrons and Fertilizer,” only taking the tones the opposite direction in values.It kind of gives a wintery feel, although I have seen colors this muted from above when you get a lot of sun reflection in spring time. You have to work at seeing the signature as I didn’t want to disrupt the feel of the piece, lower right hand corner.

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.

The 5th Finger

8.5×11 in. mixed media. It would be nice to have one of the big art supplier’s stores near me so I don’t have to wait for ground shipments. That is the offset of being able to get on-line and get stuff you need but the wait can be frustrating…unless you are one of the 1-%ers that have disposable income to fuel the shipping giant UPS.
Well at least with this idle time I did create another in the series of finger works. Question: if we have ten fingers, then once I reach the 10th piece, do I keep going? or do I start on toes? This piece was going to be just a simple drawing, but I couldn’t resist…had to stretch myself and add color. Got a real nice surface texture going by spraying acrylic finish from a distance, the surface took colored pencil and crayon like sandpaper but not as harsh. So waiting for supplies isn’t a total waste …
PS…GET OUT AND VOTE

Window Treatments By Knieling

9×12 in. mixed media. Until after the 2012 Cookeville Art Prowl this will be my last post. This annual showing for area artists is something I have been going to or volunteering for many years…this will be my first time being one of the featured artist. Should be fun as I am sharing an area with my son Matt Knieling and his art. Please check out their site, and if you find yourself in the area stop by and say HI!
As for this post’s piece…another exploration work, mainly due to using the plastic netting…I could have lived with this before adding the netting, however after it is so much more than it was before…I love the highlights and the shades achieved…for sure a piece best seen in person and up close.

Sunset On Twin Peaks

9×12 in. mixed media.  Sometimes I try to keep it simple, especially when I am recharging the creative juices.  Tape, brush, markers, and white pen an exercise in using the tools at hand without getting too involved. A nice piece that will show well when matted and framed very simple…not sure it will match much, but it will be hard not to notice.

The Primrose Path Ahead

9×12 in. mixed media. The tissue paper is almost not existent in this piece, but believe me the bold pink paper is there under several layers of work. Did quite a bit of sanding and carving through the surface of this piece. I let the finial few layers fill the gouges with their color as the under layers didn’t pop as much as I would like. Might not show very well in the pic but I have a fair amount of fine white and black lines near the surface. The theme in this carries forward my use of circles and angles quite well and with the mix of mat board pieces the texturing is very nice. The title? It is leading towards something and red might be warning as well as orange, where green is off the path…so use caution when stepping down the yellow path laid out…works for me…what do you think?

The Badlands

12×25 in. mixed media. In my younger days I tried my hand at commercial art working for the city of Topeka Parks and Recreation part-time, while working full-time at a Pet Food plant. The assignments were fun and I got a taste of working with a client and what they wanted and what you could deliver at minimum wages. The real nice thing was after doing this for about 2 years I realized if i was doing art like this for 40+ hours a week I would have gotten to a point of losing the zest of creativity. A great job and I met some very interesting people but my dream of being a commercial artist took a big hit plus I was good at making dog food  

At any rate this piece was an idea I had for a science fiction book cover long ago and finally did it recently. Markers, colored pencils, graphite lead, and acrylic created the effect…if you see a reflection in the picture I was too lazy to remove the piece from the frame before shooting, what else can I say.

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.

Smile You Are On Camera

 

 

9×12 in. mixed media. Wasn’t Sure where I was going with this at first, but after the texture started coming thru the netting, everything started to fit nicely. The under layers in this were vastly different from what the viewer is seeing, but I am sure  the results wouldn’t have been as nice. The building up of layers to get the netting to settle in gave me a double bang, as they subdued the under layers quite well. Was going to place some dark rub-on fonts in this but the dark pieces of mat-board served the need better and doesn’t distract the viewer from the rest of the work. I also used a mat knife to dig thru the layers to add contrast and interest in several needed areas. Why the title? This piece feels like night in a  downtown area after a rain storm, some mist, city lights and glares reflecting the urban colors and maybe a photo flash here or there…it would be too easy to say the netting is like metal fencing, not sure about that however the squares the netting creates don’t feel organic but more like man-made structures. I don’t share this much normally about a work as I want viewers to figure for themselves what a piece says to them,however in this case I couldn’t resist…:-)

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.

The 4 Poles

10×14 in. mixed media. A piece from my circle and rectangle period, note signature…not quite as embellished as current. Other than some acrylic this was done mainly with colored pencil and watercolor pencil. Actually if you follow the piece around it was somewhat mathematical in my selection of colors and sizing…then at some point i started adding parts that didn’t follow that rule but felt right. This was the piece that really made me feel good about staying with abstract shapes for my themes. It also presents some challenges as to presentation, due to my working to the very edge. When I mat a piece I always feel like I am hiding part of the expression and my viewers are missing something I intended to be seen. I have given some thought as to mounting them to a black or white mat-board, but haven’t felt good about any process/glue techniques yet. If anybody out there has any thoughts on this, please drop me a comment or line. My e-mail is ken_knieling@hotmail.com. Thanks

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. 

Taping Down The Views #2

10×14 in. mixed media. As I post this second in an exploring series I just finished removing my exhibit from the Putnam Library today. After being there for 2 months I was getting use to being on public display, type of thing I could get use to. Now I will have to wait until Cookeville’s Art Prowl in November, this is a two day tour of local artist’s works and studios through Cookeville, but mainly centered on their West Side businesses. They have a site check it out, Cookeville Art Prowl 2012, you might see another Knieling on display soon.

As to this piece… a variation on #1 continuing with my exploration with acrylic, marker, pencil and ink. I think these might look better on a much larger canvas but alast I can’t bring myself to work that large…yet!

Haunting Aftermath

9×12 in. mixed media. From time to time I try to capture the aftermath or the beginning of a forest fire. I think it is because my sister works for the forest service in the western United States. Her dept. works on supplying the monies and resources so these brave people can work on prevention and fighting the fires when needed. Dauntless task, especially after the fire season we are having this year. My artistic visions fall more into the areas after the fires, and I try to create a feel of what was. In this piece the sun is shining brightly through a forest that is just a memory, reflecting off of ghostly trees rooted in bare exposed soil. I know nature has a way to start anew what these fires destroy, however in our lifetime these forest will never grow to be as majestic as they once were.  Other mediums might lend themselves to creating this piece better, but I was trying to use the ones I know best…pen, marker, tissue paper, pencil, and acrylic.

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.

 

The 4th Finger

12×16 mixed media.  Well I am back, the show at the Putnam Library is going well, just finished putting up the 2nd wave of pictures. But more importantly I have started to make pieces again. What better way than to try my 4th version (the 3rd finger) of the soda, orange, finger and cloud themed piece.  Still think the best is yet to come on this series…stay tuned.

The Other Side

Mixed media 10×14 in. Variation of several ( Between, How Many Trees Make A Forest, The Stage Is Set.) of my other bubbleheaded tree works.  At some point I may revisit these and either on a much smaller or much larger scale try to expand upon this. I don’t believe those are the great pyramids so I have added mountains to the mix.