Sketchbook

I thought it might be worthwhile to include some of my sketchbook pages I've been working on.  These pages are images I found interesting pertaining to my paintings as source material, drawings, thumbnail sketches of composition and writings.  

Some of these ideas I will try, and some of them I put on paper just to get it out of my head.  

Fish idea:

Swallow idea:

Progress on my progress

Here is the finished product.  Everyone who has seen it that is not an artist, art historian, or art critic has loved it.  Everyone that is otherwise feels it is to literal and leading.  Therefore, the other piece I have started in this series will be set aside until Grad school is complete.

My mentor felt the fish pose was too much of a common sport fish pose.  She also felt the hands reaching in were too hulk like and menacing.  Her suggestion was to just make it a common angler painting with trees and such.  I may just do that some day.

I began adding color today.  I'm going to work the hands just a little more before letting the piece dry again.  The last stage I think will be going back in with the palette knives.  I'm thinking the only areas that will not be excessively affected by the blue tones will be the salmon.  I feel this piece is coming along nicely, and if it goes as planned I can see many more in this technique.  

Today I spent some time at the library, and since last night I have been mulling over what makes an image symbolic, a symbol, or just an image.  What do I need to do to make my paintings personal but not private.  I began thinking of the private things I attribute to freedom, and the things that make me feel encroached upon.

New idea drawn in.

For private reasons I have chosen the spawning salmon.  I think, at the same time, the salmon touches many people in different ways.  Especially in the Pacific Northwest.  In mythology the salmon represented wisdom and truth as well.  This particular salmon is a red salmon.  I will also be working with the King, Chum, Pink, and the Steelhead trout/salmon.  I'm not ready to give up the play of the figurative element, but I am trying to simplify.  This is the mockup drawing you see to the left.

I like that I initially started throwing paint on with my palette knife, but stopped, let it dry, and marinated on the piece for about a week prior to jumping in.  This is not my normal mode of painting.  Usually I have an idea and I see it through in as few sittings as possible.  I'm attempting a more personal relationship with this piece.

Beginning to fill in the background colors

The hands in this piece are going to be a study in distortion.  I want the hands to be slightly abstracted, but still be recognizable.  I need to find the fine line between bad drawing and where the hands aesthetically distort.

The only portion of this painting that will be worked into fine detail at this time is the salmon.  As the painting takes shape I may need to redirect and maybe even reposition things, but I believe this is a good jumping off point from the Japanese koi I was working in my previous series.

So this is one idea in my experimentation.  I am still working with military perception through sculpture and mixed media methods.  I have completely set aside film and I am happy with my decision. (sorry Sunanda!)



 UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS

 So, instead of posting many new posts I am going to add to this post until the project is complete.  That way all the pictures stay together.  Today I blocked in more color throughout the piece.  I think once I get the next layer on and the final detail in it will be very nice. 

The colors added are going to be undertones.  Ultimately, the entire piece will be completed with the palette knives with the exception of the Salmon which will be more smoothly rendered to hopefully add a jarring element.

Fail Boating or Success?!

Today and the last couple days for that matter have been trying.  I have recently decided to give up on making a film.  I'm not enjoying it so I think it is perfectly OK to stop.  Since I have stopped I have started to feel less depressed, and I have motivation to start other scary things.  Today I made my very first mold.  EVER!  Here is the chronicle of my fail boat.

Below is the disaster of my first pour.  Before I got to this point I had a bit of a mold meltdown.  I was initially just going to use the wooden box and punch the military pins through some cardboard.  Well, the cardboard got stuck in the box, and I had to cut it out.  Then, being the lazy person I am, I decided to reuse the mutilated perfectly shaped cardboard so I coated it in clear tape, reattached my pins and placed it in the box.  Then I read the directions...

Once I read the directions I realized I couldn't use clear tape and I had to use something that was non-porous or varnished wood.  I had neither of these at this point.  I ran to my shop and got a giant ball of clay.  I used this as my mold base and just stuck the pins into it.  This entire process took me about 3.5 hours.

Not hot enough and not enough!

Due to my impatience I didn't let the Gelflex "moltenize" enough and this was my first pour.  It looked like I had cut up a ton of Gelflex but I guess not.  So I had to recut all of this and melt it again.

This fabulous device is a Ranger Melt Art.  Scrapbookers are genius!

My second melt was maxing out the container, was not enough, and again not hot enough.  Also, there was too much of the blue/large Gelflex resulting in lack of detail in my tiny military pins.  So at this point I scrapped it all recut just the delicate Gelflex (beige), took it into the kitchen and melted it in my toaster oven at 302 degrees for 2 minutes.  End result?

Success!!!

Once it cools I will add a picture of my final mold product.  Tomorrow I will attempt to use plaster of paris in small quantities and enamel resin for the first time.  Sweetness!

I also made an acrylic skin that turned out the wrong color, and a really dumb clay steelhead salmon/trout.  Back to the drawing board with these items.

While I was waiting for my Gelflex to melt I did some research and found two really cool artists:
Michael Rakowitz and Gina LeVay.

I also found some good articles on current military perception and OIF and OEF.

Garry Oak Gallery

I have been invited to display my work this fall at the Garry Oak Gallery in downtown Oak Harbor.  I'm excited about this since it is my first interaction with the local art community here! 

I went in initially to see what local artists are doing, and maybe perk up my lacking enthusiasm towards art lately.  I ended up in a long intriguing conversation with one of the showing artists.  The Gallery is a local artist coop that runs a rather successful business with the Gallery and throughout local events.  The people in this Gallery are your typical western art fair and festival participants, but they make beautiful work all the same.

Outside of that I am still waiting for all of my supplies to show up to begin making casts.  I am experimenting today with soft gel and making transparent color.  Since I have to make a trip to Anacortes I am trying to find things to do in my studio that won't wear me out for my drive this evening.  So...now I'm just watching paint dry (and reading).

Start To My New Idea

Well, I have started the first painting in my new series.  It's a very small painting for me.  I don't usually work this small.

This is the base coat.  I used my palette knives to lay it in thick and just hint at the idea of a flag.  The marks don't necessarily mean flag, but the common image conjured is flag.  I think this is working with symbols without using symbols?  Maybe.

I found this rather insulting image of a "real American hero" and decided to make it transparent.  Then I decided that wasn't enough so I cut it to bits and scattered it on my "flag".  This is all an illusion. 

From here I don't know where it will go.  Does it need to go anywhere else?  I feel like it needs more, but I've set it aside to "stew" for a few days.

At this point my concentration was broken because my dog disappeared.  After calling for 1/2 an hour and him not coming I lost my motivation to paint.  I found him in the woods rolling in a half a deer spine and ribs.  Obviously more important than coming to his master.  My dog makes it hard for me to get my work done.  I wish I didn't have him.  That is my vent for the evening.

What?!! Progress...

Snapped a photo today of my base coat.  Can't guarantee I will remember to do this for all paintings but I'm going to try.  This base layer took a while, and I don't know what it will be when I'm done.  I'm working on just feeling it.  I felt the color blue-green...yeah...so now what?

What?! Is that progress I see?

Products are ordered for my future sculptural endeavors.  They won't be here until maybe the end of next week if I'm really lucky.  So I figured I can prep my paint surface and tomorrow I will build a few more frames.  I have about six more at this dimension I think, which I really like so I'm glad I have some already cut.  Looking forward to playing with badass power tools tomorrow!

The Return Home

Today marks the one week mark since returning home from my first residency in Boston.  As recommended by my Adviser I took the first week home off.  I did type up my notes from everything I recorded on my 6 1/2 hour flight home.  Tomorrow I will start on my Residency Summary to hopefully give me some insight again into my future direction.  I have been working to find a mentor, and start collecting my books from my reading list.  So far no joy for either venture, but I'm sure it will all work out. 

My next step is to create a day planner to track my hours so I stay on track and I have proof of the work I am actually doing.  After that is complete I will begin my first leg of internet and journal research which will hopefully (fingers crossed) lead me to more books to read and artists to research.

Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl

On July 1st I went to the ICA.  I felt I couldn't leave Boston without seeing what they had to offer.  At the time they were showing works by Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl.

I feel like I can relate better to Josiah's reflective work like his scale model of a totally reflective landscape.

Scale model of a totally reflective landscape 2005

 

 

 

I guess it is the simpleton in me that appreciates being reflected in the work and seeing my own landscapes and feeling my own memories.  His "chandelier" work, though amazing, was not as thought provoking for me.  Maybe because I wasn't allowed to touch them and I really wanted to.  Maybe because I was tired from the residency.  Either way I did not get a sense of modernity and the universe.  I felt like I was looking at every day objects. 

Island Universe 2008

Maybe this is what Fia was talking about.  The sense of feeling something personal in relation to the work without seeing the private.  I'm just not feeling the personal in these later works.  They feel cold and rapidly executed.  Maybe that is what I'm supposed to feel.

From the permanent collection the ICA had on display Charline Von Heyl.

Yellow Guitar 2010

 She is an artist working abstractly from abstract forms.  This I find hard to believe.  The brain relates to abstract forms and attempts to make it a known object.  Like seeing a face in something that has no face.  I think the complete dismissal of symbols and known objects is complete bunk, personally.  How can you not be influenced by what you see around you, unless you work in an isolation chamber.
I found this show gave me a lot to think about.  Questions about my own work are surfacing from the questions about these "great" artists' work.