The Joys of Cough Syrup

I've been knocked out with the flu for about a week and a half and, thanks to the Joys of Cough Syrup, have a new series living in my head that's eeking it's way out. I have a bunch of new paintings sculpted and drying. One is the "Shared Joy" piece I've been building for months. It's very wet and heavy at the moment. Then there are four small pieces that are part of a series that began to sprout this past week - a series focusing on the crown chakra at different states of mind / soul.

Some will be more medium sized, like in the sketch shown, but all are tightly-cropped and focus on the head and immediate surrounding energy. One, called "Preoccupation" is weighted down at the top with fabric and shows the tension of energy from the rest of a person's existence being held down by worrisome thought.


I also want to go ahead and make a painting that my friend Helen and I were planning to do before she passed away last month. It involves a person at the center, curled up and sheltering themselves from prying hands. We were discussing her extensive experiences as a cancer patient and the inner resistance to always being "worked on" even though you know it's helping. She often talked about us collaborating on a whole show called "Fear Gone", a joint venture between my sculpted canvases, her notebooks, sketches, medical records and leftover medical devices, but now I think creation of this piece and another one that shows the same person unfurled and free despite the hands would probably complete the process for me. Her courage and determination in the face of catastrophic, life-changing illness was a tremendous inspiration. Her ability to never let her spirit fall, no matter what happened to her physically was amazing.

Anyway .... I'm going to need a LOT more casts.
Hoping to recruit a bunch more models for this round. Anyone who's interested in volunteering, let me know! I've also found a great way to process my latex goop into a smoother consistency. It's almost buttery, but still has some stucco-like qualities and doesn't need to sit for months in the latex to get there.

New progress!

The graphics business has been *very* busy since June, so not much time to work on artwork. The show at Lotus and Orchid was good, but unfortunately, like so many galleries these days, they had to close. Noelle Ellis was a wonderful gallery manager and I hope she'll be able to start another one up when the economy picks up again.

I've finished one commissioned piece - well almost. When it dries, we're going to mount a board with a wood plane embedded into the hands of the figure. There will probably be some touch-ups after that. He person commissioning the piece is the figure cast for it and he's known for his trademark pink logo and company vehicles, so I leaned more to the red, rather than blue base-tone. It's a fiery looking piece with only touches of greens and blues along the physical pieces and heart chakra area.





I'm also starting a pair of related paintings. The first one is the initiator/emitter of a thought pattern. The second is the receiver of that thought, showing his response to it.

They'll be primarily blues and light yellows with inclusions of other colors, a bit like "Resolution". Just started blocking in the basic colors on the first one today.

Haven't thought of titles for any of these yet. I hate titles.

Opening Tomorrow Night!

Opening Reception is tomorrow night -
Fri, June 5, 2009
5-7 pm

Lotus and Orchid Gallery
21 West Street, Keene, NH

Hope to see you there!

Still breathing!

Haven't posted in a while. Life has been busy!

THE BIG NEWS
This week, I'm wrapping up a bunch of paintings and bringing them to Keene, NH for a show at Lotus and Orchid, an eclectic little gallery with a broad range of art. I'm being paired up with a sculptor, so it will be interesting to see the combo.

Being a commercial gallery, not a public space exhibit, I'm finally allowed to show Introspect. It's generally been considered too R-rated for civic building shows. I'm so excited it's finally being seen that I've put it on the show card.

The show is running June 5-30, with the opening reception on June 5 from 5-7 pm. For anyone who wants to come, Lotus and Orchid is located at 21 West Street, Keene, New Hampshire. It's about a half block off the big rotary around the green on Main Street. Everyone is welcome!


ON THE PAINTING FRONT
I've started working on the New Allegiances painting, but can't stand it's progress so far. My schedule has only allowed an hour or two here and there, and I really think I need to wait until I have a couple of whole days to work on it in one stretch.

The pair of paintings for Distant Sharing are coming along. "Transmitter" is all primed and ready to be painted and "Receiver" is all molded, but needs to dry more solidly before priming.

I've started the frame for Bereft, but still have to put in the cross-bracing before stretching the canvas. It's a whopper, one of the biggest I've done in a while.

Finished?

I did more painting this afternoon and I think this one is done.
This is part of a series (I've yet to tell Dad I need a bunch more casts - uh oh). It's one of the more subdued ones, a quiet transfer of energy, including an entire rainbow of undertones, but just hinted in the underlayers. The next one I want to do is similar in composition, but will have more of a rush of energy - more bright colors and less regard for the forms on the canvas. This one has colors contained within the bounds of sculpted elements on the canvas.

If there's any more to do on it, it will only be some small integration of brighter over-strokes of color here and there.

I took a long look from a good distance (about 45 feet?) From far away, it looks like it's too subtle, but from a normal viewing distance (about 10 feet) it looks understated, but discernible and most of all, balanced. It's signed and ready to dry for the upcoming show. It's just very hard to know when you're done a lot of the time.


As I mentioned before, I'm painting outdoors. The lighting and air quality can't be beat. Here's a view from a bench at the edge of the yard. I'm hanging the paintings off the front steps and have a chair and work table set up about 10 feet away.

Next up?
I'm eager to get going on the "Forming and Shedding Allegiances" piece, but also want to repaint a couple of previously exhibited paintings that I'm just not happy with - "Opening" and "Re-Entry". Those are very large and I have a show in a smaller space coming up in June, so I'll focus on the medium to small pieces for now.

Middle phase

Worked on Intercedence again. Mid-tones and some of the final blue. It's not quite done at this point. I'm still working out the arms and third level of circles from the top character. I was surprised that much of the paint from last week had dried substantially, but it loosened when I started working on it.


The dark blue I use for "background" is a special mix of colors I work up in large quantities. It's kind of the background field of energy through which we all move. I work in the background colors with a kind of cross-hatch brush stroke. There will be more over-painting after that to refine and integrate the colors. It's really the best way to pull out bright spots and work over some of the rough areas. It's a slow build-up of layers. It's evolving.


I was hoping that the lower area around the lower face would have a glowing lower edge above the billowy areas at the bottom. This took some work. I kept going for way too much light and finally darkened it enough to make the edge glow.

Let Spring Painting Begin!

Well, yesterday it was finally warm enough on a day I had off from other work to bring a canvas outdoors to paint. It's better than working with the not quite balanced light downstairs in my studio space. These are just the first few layers of color. I always work in light-to-dark stages. In the interim, it looks absolutely hideous, but the bright colors eventually just peep out from the dark blue base color.

This one finally has a title I can live with, "Intercedence of the Guiding Soul". It shows a subject being worked on by another, with hands cupping the subject's head. The idea is a depiction of an elder or spirit guide (guardian angel, whatever term you want to use) pouring as much energy into the person as possible, bringing a more centered energy into their field. This influx of higher energy floods the person being worked on, causing the cloudy, more chaotic energy to surge up momentarily as it flushes out.

I started with the light blue of the etheric body, then started to add the more clear colors of the concentric spheres of the guiding soul's aura, gold, violet, pink (with green) and red to reflect the chakras being guided into a more balanced state.

The areas along the top will show the same range of colors as well as tinges of the bright blue as the upflow of old energies from the being below is recognized by the guiding soul, then released upward at the same time the other colors spill down.


This is what Wendy often refers to as "the ugly baby stage" when it's not quite formed, but you can tell where it's going. You can get an idea of how the finished painting will look at the bottom center of this last image.

The casts on this canvas are my Dad for the head and hands of the guiding soul and my head for the subject below. It's the first in a string of images showing someone's transformation on the path of becoming a shaman.

Remember, I welcome all comments and questions, so as always, feel free!