What’s Up With The Dome?
“Welcome To Cascadia” is what I call this series. I’ve mostly written about my process and painting technique, so I’ll talk a little about the imagery. There’s a loose narrative that is evolving, even if it’s surreal and aloof. When things are vague, we can imagine our own scenarios. (That’s not a cop out, I have my own ideas about the story but it’s still unfolding for me. There’s a lot of possible timelines for us.) The first image that I came up with was the three volcanos erupting; I’ve thought about that scene for a long time, in some form. Adding the First image of the domed city, in the Heron painting called “Seekers”, pushed the scenario into science fiction. I think the buildings look abandoned, like ruins. It’s fun to try for both futuristic and historical feel. Were the cities domed to protect us from the volcanoes? Did they not work? They are big cities, so the dome maybe worked for a long time….hmmm. It’s protection from the elements, but maybe not enough. Mother Nature is a bad ass.
“Dome” 12×12 inches
“The Bubble” 18×24
“Blue Crane” 12×18 inches
Art Show At The Goodfoot (Portland, OR)
I have an exhibit at at The Goodfoot! The opening was super fun and the show looks great. Art will be on display for most of February. My paintings are hanging along side the work of Nathan Turner, Brett Bowers and Eric Buchman. There’s some nice overlap in style and technique. Check out the work here: http://thegoodfoot.com/gallery/
I feel pretty accomplished with my work for the month of January. I started out with seven pieces from a show in September. That was the beginning of this series, called “Welcome To Cascadia”. In October, I finished a collaboration that Natalie Oswald, started while we were working on our mural in Tacoma. (Check out the Mural video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpXaaUTX6K4.) In January, I Built 20 panels and painted backgrounds; I finished 14 new pieces. I also carved and printed two editions of linocuts and hung a few of the Analog Owls. I even printed about 50 custom drink coasters for the evening. I’ll probably finish a few more Analog Owls to add to the show next week.
I’ll keep posting the images from this show; here’s a few from the first batch.
“Seekers”, 24×36 inches, Acrylic
“Hunter”, 24×36 inches, Acrylic
“Migration”, 24×36 inches, acrylic (check out the purple iridescent in the reflection!)
“Glow Koi”, 18×40 inches, acrylic. This is a collaboration with Natalie Oswald. We’ve done a lot of collaboration work over the years. You can see more of that here: http://natalieoswald.com/collab_picto.html. These collaborations are always influential to the way that I paint, both in approach and style.
Here’s a new version of the Koi that I made in January:
“Alder Beetle”, 24×36 inches, acrylic
I’ve had a couple evenings at home, thanks to the snow in Portland. I’ve been taking a break from painting, to rest up and clean my house after the art bomb went off. I’ve been switching it up by doing some music related stuff, setting up my audio space and mixing a long dj set. I’ve also been doing some pinhole photography and carved a lino block for the Love Of Portland show. There’s a test print in my instagram feed. (below) I’ll post some links to prints for sale soon!
Art Studio progress (One Week to Goodfoot Show)
The last couple of days are a terrific blur. I’m in various stages of production, which you can see in the photo below. I’ve got finished backgrounds, a handful of completed pieces, some that are ready for collaboration, some that are masked and ready for paint. I took the photo in the day yesterday, then spent the night painting in squids, whales, and octopi.
I’m posting progress shots as I go, via artdamaged instagram. (also, they may show up down at bottom of the page)
Art Show Progress (and Process) – Two Weeks To Go
The last week has been productive, but things are getting fun now! I started out the new pieces by layering up the panels: black primer, sanding, more primer or glazes of color, sanding, then back and forth with layers of metallics for shimmer and color shift effects. The order of the layering really affects the way the iridescent pigments react to the light. (I don’t have any of the formulas memorized; I just know something cool is likely to happen and I stop when I’m excited about it.) All of the woodgrain is painted on. I have a faux finishing tool that makes it pretty easy; the woodgrain gets layered in once or twice in the process. Once I’m happy with it, I try to make it pretty level and smooth, so it masks cleanly. This is the background layer.
For most of the images, I want this background to work as the “black” outline; why not make black complex and interesting. The aesthetic that I’m drawn to for this is sort of weathered patina with greenish and bronze or copper that’s stained and scuffed up.
Once most of my panels were layered up, I was excited to do some illustration on top, so I painted an owl with a volcano. I enjoy making variants, versions, whatever. Themes/Motifs/Series within series. I like to try all the options; I used to get stuck trying to decide the best way to finish a piece. Now I like to see them all in context and appreciate how they relate to one another. Repetition adds a weird twist to how we think about the pieces too: how original is it? Is the print on wood have value over a print on paper? We think of prints as copies sometimes. When it’s painted, is that a print or a painting? — Yeah, this is the stuff that I think about during those hours of brushing layers and sanding; it’s very contemplative and zen. Haha! (for real tho.)
This is the newest one. It’s a little guy. 12×12 inches. Acrylic on wood panel.
I cut the stencil after working the image up in photoshop, from this photo of an 8×8 print:
I printed it from this block that I carved:
I sketched the block out, while looking at this painting:
I used the 8×8 block to print 6 pieces for the Big 400 Art Show. They looked like this:
There’s some bigger versions with a similar composition, one with mt. hood, one with multiple volcanoes. I’ll share those another time.
I’ve also drawn up two new compositions and I’m working on the stencils tonight. I’ll share designs and progress tomorrow. I expect to have illustrative images going down onto the bottom layers over the weekend! My schedule has been working in the early afternoon (day job) and then napping for about three hours, then studio arting from about ten until late (bed around 5 or 6am) then about five hours of sleep for the night. It’s working alright; tho, I think I prefer to get started in the afternoon so I’m in a groove by night time.
My new images are squids and octopi…More tomorrow!
Volcanoes! (Boom For Real)
I remember the day that Mt. Saint Helens erupted. The big one, on May 18th, 1980. I have a photo album of newspaper clippings and a small canister of volcanic ash. It was a big deal for me as a kid. I didn’t make a specific decision to paint volcanoes, but somehow it keeps happening. (why doesn’t spell check catch “volcanos”? I really want to spell it without the e.)
This digital drawing was the springboard for this recent series:
I grew up in the cold war, but never really worried too much about the Russians bombing us. I have friends that had “day after” type dreams fairly often. Me, not so much. I had a fair grasp of Mutually Assured Destruction. In recent decades, I’ve had a fair amount of dreams where volcanoes are erupting, including some flooding, landslides and Pompei-esque ash fallout. I don’t consider them nightmares though. Not so much scary, as intense. It’s a reality it the Pacific Northwest (and all of the Pacific Rim). Before we were here and long after…
Over the last few years, I’ve done some album art for bands that I know and love. The requests for imagery weren’t specific in every case; however, some sort of volcano was the final result for these three! The image of the Cascade Range going off is something that I’ve been thinking about for some time, and that was part of The Health Dose back cover (and cropped for the front, below right). Mt. Saint Helens worked her way into the Fulero//Lehe cover (below middle, “Cocoon”). For The New Up “Gold” (below left), it was maybe a crater, but could also be a volcano.
Once again, I’ll mention that each piece in my new series has at least one volcano in it. I’m not sure how long that will be necessary, but for now, I like it (and the reference to “views of Mt. Fuji”). There’s somewhat of a narrative that is evolving around it, but I’m not ready to get into that. 😉 So far, I’ve represented Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Bachelor. I think I’ll add a few more locals. Maybe Adams and Rainier.
So, Here’s my work progress:
Jan 10: Today, I shopped for vinyl masking film and some cool spray paint colors. I worked the ol day job. I went by the goodwill and did some treasure hunting (I’ve been learning to fly my new remote control gyrocopter. Score!!). I gessoed up some black on 20 panels and painted outlines and a background on a giant squid painting. (both the squid and the painting are giant…) It was a studio session night with the homies, painting and eating snacks.
Coming up: Owls…
Happy 2014! (Time To Revive This Blog)
Time passes quickly and things have distracted me from this blog. The Globe closed in late 2011 so my curation of that venue ended. Also, I bought a house and began setting up my new studio space. I’ve been busy; however, most of my sharing has been via Facebook and Instagram. One of the reasons that I began this blog was to share some of my process and that’s what I’m here to do this month. I have an art opening on January 30th and will do my best to share the progress and process via images and technical descriptions. I’ll be open to questions, feedback, suggestions; I’m down to talk shop and hear any ideas you’d like to share. At this point, I’m not even sure if anybody is going to see this, so it’s an experiment.
This art show will be a good way to share how I focus on a series. I have some finished pieces, that haven’t really been seen and I’m going to use this series as the basis for my work this month. There may be another series as well, but I’m going to just see how it goes. I’ll talk more about these pieces later — That’s my owl in the photo.
Here’s my progress so far:
Jan 1 – I slept in. It was a late night at work on NYE and I went to bed after sunrise, then slept past sunset! In the evening, I made a list of finished pieces that are new and ready to show. There’s 8 from the new Volcano series and stash of figure paintings that I’m not sure about including. I also brainstormed imagery for new work and made a good list. I’d like to paint an elk, some squid and octopus, maybe some salmon.
Jan 2 – I worked my day job and planned out cuts for wooden panels and linear feet of small lumber for cradling the sides. I build my own supports and have been researching smoother surfaces and denser wood for the sides, to prevent any warpage over time. I like the 24×36 inch size and want to add some smaller sizes so there’s a good range of price points.
coming up: building, prep work, more media, images
artdamagedportland 