Yespa

A painting of my friend Ed's Vespa scooter I've been working on for about a year, off and on. Kept thinking I wanted it to be more than just a pretty picture. I've done some things in the past that incorporated collage and type, perhaps from my graphic design days. I did paste-up a few lifetimes ago and remembered liking how my desktop looked when all the elements were there but not assembled yet. You could get the same message just looking at the pieces, but it was an enjoyable exercise to put them together mentally. I suppose the intellectual art term for this would be deconstructivist. So, I went back to my piece and added some collage elements. The scooter painting satisfies the part of my thinking that likes rendering stuff, and the collage adds a quirkiness that makes it less predictable realism. The last part was adding the word "Vespa". I didn't like how it looked so I started sanding it off and was struggling with it a bit so I stopped. I looked at the texture from the sanding and realized I liked the way it looked and all of a sudden it wasn't the problem I thought it was. The word was still legible, so I decided to leave it that way. One of those rare occasions where I let something spontaneous happen instead of being determined to get to where I would have normally gone--completely sanding off the word, repainting the area, and redoing the type in a different way.

Molly

A portrait of my cousin's cat. Was quite pleased that she felt that I had captured the cat's character, something I always hope for but is sometimes elusive. Typically I like odd things the average person wouldn't even notice, like the dark spot on her back against the dark background. Acrylic on canvas, 11x14.

reflections

I liked the demeanor of this dog and wanted to create an image for practice as it had been a while since I did any critter art. I started it about six months ago and it has been sitting around partially finished underneath a bunch of other projects. I finally completed it a couple days ago and was happy it was looser than my usual work. Acrylic on canvas.

white dress

A companion piece to Black Dress and my first diptych. Haven't seen them together as BD is in a show right now, but it should be interesting to see them together. Acrylic on wood panel 8x10.

Mouse

Betty, an artist friend, has piqued my interest in botanical/natural science art by showing me her botanical drawings so I created this critter as a gift for my cousin. There's something very satisfying, straightforward, and pure about a drawing. A lot of my paintings are a bit like wandering around until you get someplace, but drawing is much less forgiving. If you overwork something or make a big mistake there's no going back. When I do an illustration for reproduction I will use white out or sometimes scan it and clean it up in Photoshop but for this, I wanted it to be right without any messing around or corrections. I really enjoyed doing it, got on a roll, and did about six other drawings as gifts. Dang! I just realized that I never scanned the other pieces. Just wrapped them up and mailed them off to avoid the holiday rush. Being too efficient can have its drawbacks...Been messing with my signature too, with this one being influenced by printmaker's chops. This drawing is small, 4x4 inches, ink pen on Arches 140 pound cold press watercolour paper.

iMarv

I took a class in portraiture a while back and really enjoyed it but haven't done one since, so I decided to remedy that. I was inspired by some David Park and Diebenkorn paintings and was determined to be loose and not try for a resemblance. Well, as you can see, that didn't happen. Something took over and...oh well. I'm happy with it anyway. Marv is a friend that absolutely loves Apple products and is well-equipped with them at all times, hence the title of this piece. Acrylic on canvas, 8x10.

Field

I've always loved black and white images but for some reason I rarely do them. I finally got around to creating this one. I'm quite pleased with the feeling of it so it won't be the last. Acrylic on canvas, 11x14.