Eclipse Symphony

There's a glow in this one that I love...


I tend to lean toward the darkest darks, call it a weakness...in the places where I keep it light, I try to make the most of the marks I make, I try not to leave too much 'dead air' in there...call it a compulsion, I would do it in elementary school too, I'd fill the entire sheet of paper, edge to edge with something just to make it look "finished".

I once had an adjunct at SU get on my case about my use of dark colors in my work, she even said something ridiculous (naturally out loud so everyone could hear) "Do you have mental problems?" What an ass, right? I was so insulted, I left the classroom, went down the hall to the office, got an Add/Drop form and did the deed. I had had about enough with her long before that comment, I dropped the class to get rid of her negative influence...at the time I was "in love" with the idea of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings, Joseph Albers' Homage to the Square, and Mark Rothko's work, the subtle differences these artists mixed into each color, and then laying them down on the canvas was positively fascinating to me, a chemistry of color. I guess she wasn't "getting it", and I was too immature to really know what I was trying to do with color and having to conform to the curriculum of the class...I was always doing something wrong or something not to someone's liking, thinking beyond the newsprint pad in figure drawing class, finishing the drawings when the prof wanted them to be unfinished...again the compulsive need to fill the sheet with "something", telling a story, giving the figure a room to sit in, something more than a shadow or a chair...always "playing". Man, I was a lousy student. I was always torn between what I wanted to do with my art and what was expected from me...in some cases it was a battle of egos (not that I have an overwhelmingly huge one, but I was tired of being bullied by those who did.) So, I wound up making a bunch of art that I didn't really like during my junior/senior years, I painted these awful things to annoy people, then sat there at critiques in my paint spattered finery, wearing sunglasses, smoking cigarettes, and then having the nerve to say what annoys everyone the most: "It's too personal to talk about"...it was all an act, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Ha ha! I laugh at it now, but I was really bitter back then, I was so disgusted by the experience, it's no wonder I didn't paint much for a long time after graduation. I pretty much had to start over again, and relearn everything.

Thankfully, I'm in a good place with my art now...I'm where I wanted to be back when I was nineteen, and I was a sponge, soaking up information to think about later...experimenting, and playing, going with my personal flow...following my bliss...I'm truly happy with my work.

Turner's Joy at Dawn

This is a little one, only 8 x 8 inches square on Stonehenge paper, I taped off the square in the middle and painted it with white acrylic, let it dry, took off the tape, then had fun all over it with graphitint pencils, drenched them with water, scumbled all over it with a brush, scribbled with the blue and the white tinted graphite pencils while the paper was still damp, and touched up here and there with a 6H pencil...

Oh, I had so much fun!

The colors reminded me of J.M.W. Turner's work, he's been an influence in my work for many years, so I give him a nod in the title...

The central square has appeared in a couple of other pieces that I've done this past year, I treat it like an additional window, adding a different texture to it's surface creates a different platform to work on, a focal point...a structure in the midst of the natural elements...

It's a nice departure from the complex twists and whorls of my other drawings, I don't ever want to be limited to just one "style" of drawing and painting...there will be more to come from this direction, I have a fresh pad of Stonehenge paper just for this type of "project"!

Black n' Blue

Graphite, watercolor, colored pencil, and a few pinches of salt for texture...this drawing is about playing with texture, letting the salt and the hard lead pencils rough up the paper surface...I had quite a bit of fun with this one...

A touch of purple

Sometimes it's just a touch of color that I want to tip a drawing toward something special...something dear to my heart...but no one else's. This was one of those drawings that blackly rambled without direction until the purple touched off a spark, like a stained glass window, and then I smeared in with a Chinese white colored pencil to make some of the black lines recede into the background...I love the motion of this drawing, it rambles and swirls, ripples and flows...natural chaos...

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding which way is up, usually I settle for how it sat in my lap or which side I worked from the most, but I worked from all directions so for now I like it this way, but I also enjoy looking at it upside down...and from either side...

1 - 2 - 3 - 4...

Must it be? It must be!

The Beethoven String Quartet in F (Opus 135) cries out Must it be? It must be! (Muss es sein? Es muss sein!) in the last movement, the portentous question is replied with an exultant answer...this drawing is my bit of personal inquiry while searching for answers...but mine is less confident than Beethoven's query, this quartet written near the end of his life gives off a sense of being content, cheerful, and "above the fray" after a stormy life filled with frustrations and stress, there was no conflict, just peace.























I crumpled the paper specifically for this piece...a representation of my personal stress, and then initiated peace into it by using the wrinkles, tears, and creases as media along with my pencils, the result satisfies me in a curious way...I adore this piece...

This pair on green paper, continues the process (I love the color), the result remains interesting. I'm looking to make more, only I want to be more bold with the "destruction" of the paper surface...possibly gouging, making tears, holes, and losses, uneven edges, creating fragments to piece together, like a puzzle...or like the pieces of crumbled stones that I find in the yard with fossils impressed into their surface, I like piecing them together, opening the layers to look at the remains...just having fun...

Lumina

This was a drawing I almost gave up on, but pushed it a little bit further figuring, what the hell, I had nothing to lose doing more to it, could it get worse, well, yes it could have, but it didn't...every time I look at it now I'm glad that I did it.

On a Cold Day in July

Forgive the lack of cropping, but why not show the messy parts along with the best...I had sooooo much fun making this little one, I just scanned her this morning and I'm dressing her up in a mat and frame for an exhibition in downtown Syracuse at the Syracuse Technology Garden! This is watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, and salt on Rising Stonehenge paper, it's approximately 8 x 8 in size, just a little one, but it's gorgeous in a big way.

Night Haze

That's what I wrote in the margin when I first finished the drawing, but lately I've been calling it "Dreams on a New Moon Night."

I fooled about with the new point of the pencil on this one, some of the new pencils come from the store with these nifty ridges on the point, I love to roll them on the paper to take advantage of the texture they make until they're worn off and I have to sharpen it...

Pastoral Window

The first day of July actually feels like the first day of September, it's chilly enough to put a fire in the woodstove.

This drawing is a patchwork of mediums, the "window" is a square of white acrylic paint, that fantastic burgundy color is the Derwent Graphitint "Port" pencil after adding water, then additional dry sketching with more tinted graphite pencils , colored pencils, and regular pencil (hard and soft) enhanced the natural flow of the water drenched pigment.

A lovely bit of work.

Rise

Wow. Another inspiration from just a graphite dust smear, my sketchbook is loaded with so much productivity, it's been real fun going with the flow of creativity. I worked with dust, hard leads scratching the surface, and soft leads to "etch" the lines that the hard leads made, create deep shadows, and then lifting soft textures with a kneaded eraser...