New painting is finished

In my last post I was on my way to finishing the eleventh painting in my new series.


I continue to change and add new shapes to the painting. Often, at certain stages I stop working and get away from the painting for a while. Later when I return I can view it with a fresh eye.


When I am almost finished with DANCING LADY I decide to add a purple color to some of the shapes which gives more life to the painting. I sign it and off it goes to the gallery. This is a fun series to do, I love experimenting with new techniques and plan to do about twenty paintings in this series.


My cats are usually around when I'm working, here's Laura sleeping nearby in a cardboard box.
Today is Gloria's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY and love from Jpeg, Tiff, Laura and Harry !

Another painting in my new series

I have been working on a series of paintings based on studies created on the computer. DANCING LADY is the eleventh in the series which are acrylic paintings done on canvas.


I first enlarge my sketch using a Beseler projector and trace the image on the canvas using a marker pen. By using a Design Art Marker to do my drawing the image will show through after I paint in the background color.


I decide to change the background to more of a brighter orange color. You can see that the basic drawing is still visible.


I begin to add some of the white shapes.


I gradually add some of the other colors. It will probably take a couple more days to finish the painting as I have many more shapes and colors to add. During this process some of the colors and values will also be changed. I will post more pictures as the work progresses. In September, on my other blog, I posted demos on other paintings in this series.


Here's a teaser ad that I designed for Craig that shows a sketch of the new painting.


Here are a few of these paintings in the Craig Smith Gallery in Harbert, Michigan.


Craig even has some of my work hanging in the bathroom, THE TENTH MUSE is perfect hanging on these orange walls.


Here is DECONSTRUCTED NUDE.

Last of the sculpture

These are some of my earlier carvings which were done at the same period when I carved the masks shown in a previous post.


A head and a mermaid carved out of Mahogany. The mermaid was constructed by gluing several pieces of wood together.


The front and rear of a head constructed of pieces of Mahogany.


A cat carved from Douglas fir.


Two views of CARYATID carved out of Walnut.

A few more NEW LANDSCAPES

A few more of my NEW LANDSCAPES from my 1985 New York exhibition at the Allen Wincor Galley.


JUNCTURE


WADI


STRUCTURE


CITY IN THE SAND


IN FOCUS
I exhibited at the gallery for two or three years. If I remember correctly, the owners had some kind of a dispute and they closed. I tried to get other gallery representation but had no luck, I couldn't interest any gallery in my work. Fortunately, I had plenty of storyboard and illustration work which enabled me to earn a living. I will show some of this work in future posts.

How time flies

More New Landscapes

More paintings from my 1985 exhibition at the Allen Wincor Gallery in New York. These were all acrylic paintings done on canvas.


VECTOR


NORTH BY WEST


TRANSFORMATION


MIRAGE


EXPERIMENTAL GEOGRAPHY

Moving back to the USA

In 1983, after six years in Paris, my wife and I decided to move back to the States as my tax situation became exorbitant when the Socialists were voted in. We decided to take on the Big Apple.


Above is the card I designed to let my friends know of our move. Pictured is PARADOX, one of the last paintings that I did while in Paris.


This is one of the first paintings that I did in New York. I was still in my black and white mode and continued this series after our move. The painting is titled BROADWAY LOCAL and measures 72 x 60".


This one is titled MANHATTAN and measures 64 x 50".


MIDTOWN is one of the last of the series measuring 72 x 60". I was not able to interest any galleries in exhibiting them. After painting several of these I began my new series which were titled titled NEW LANDSCAPES.


I was recommended to the Allen/Wincor Gallery by several artists and they gave me an exhibition and a few paintings were sold. The painting on the poster was titled ANCIENT SITE.


PROPSAL FOR A LANDSCAPE measured 36 x 36" I produced twenty paintings in this series and will show a few more of them on the next posts.
My wife Jeanne had a job at the New Museum a short distance from our apartment. I was painting a great deal and also was immersed in the commercial art business doing a lot of storyboards as well as some illustration.

More unusual concepts

The images above and below are of a carved wooden sculpture titled PROMETHEUS. The wood used for this carving was Catalpa.




This head was carved out of Basswood then painted silver. The final version will be a cast metal piece. It is a tribute to my son Kurt who died a few years ago.



Gerry Mulligan was one of my favorite musicians and I decided to do a tribute to him by carving MULLIGAN'S EAR. It was carved from Douglas Fir.

More outdoor sculpture proposals

Examples of more of my outdoor sculptural proposals. These mock ups are quite large, four feet tall and constructed of wood. They were submitted to the Chicago Midway Airport Project, the City of Emeryville, California Civic Center, the City of South San Francisco Westborough Sculpture Project and the University of North Florida. The final pieces would have been thirty feet tall, constructed of steel and painted.





The sculpture at the top of this photo was submitted to the Westborough boulevard Competition sponsored by the city of South San Francisco, the Midway Airport Project and the Emeryville Civic Center competition. The model was constructed of wood and was 30 inches high. The other painted metal sculpture as well as the ones in the photo below were just projects that I did to enter in future competitions.

Proposals for outdoor sculpture

The three renderings below were additional work done for the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts sculpture proposals.








Three different views of a model of a proposed outdoor sculpture for the city of Emeryville Civic Center in California. This model is constructed of wood, the finished sculpture would have been about twenty feet high, made of steel and painted white. None of these projects materialized, but they were fun projects to work on.

Another outdoor sculpture proposal

Sometime in the mid '90's I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see a Peter Max exhibition that that a lady that was representing my fine art curated. I met some of the museum staff while there and was asked to submit a proposal for a garden area and wall sculpture for the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.


I decided to do masks representing the Muses from Greek mythology, these are on the wall in the sketch above. On a pedestal front of the row of masks are Apollo and Morpheus.


Here is a sketch of how the sculptures would look lit up at night. These renderings are marker sketches done on layout paper very much like the rendering I would do for my advertising clients.


Here are two views of the carvings that I did for Apollo, the god of fine arts and Morpheus, the god of dreams.


Wooden carvings of the wall masks, the final pieces would have been cast in bronze. All of these carvings were done on a small scale.



These abstract dancing figures were another part of my presentation. Above is a marker sketch and below is a small scale metal mock up. Building a small model helps greatly in determining the design of the piece.



It would have been a great project for me, unfortunately it was not accepted.

Just a reminder that Craig is having an opening tomorrow which will feature some of my new paintings as well as new work from some of his other artists. If you are anywhere near Harbert, Michigan this weekend be sure to stop by, his openings are always fun.