Grackles

Well, I have a number of new paintings, so rather than dropping them all into one post, I will make several smaller posts in which I may discus the featured images more at length. All of the new work is posted on The Official Website.

Recently, I've been interested in painting grackles and pigeons.

Tomato - 12 x 16 inches - acrylic on board

There Must be Something Good Around Here Someplace - 11 x 14 inches - acrylic on board

French Fries - 11 x 14 inches - acrylic on canvas

Common around Austin, especially during the Spring and Summer, grackles are amongst those critters that tend to be listed under the heading, "general nuisance:" noisy, messy birds, they are known for hanging around in large groups and lurking around eating spots, ready to snap up any random bit of stray food. They are, in fact, habituated to human/urban environments, and being amongst the relatively small number of creatures that dwell in said environments, have been mentioned as representing the lack of biodiversity in these locations.

At any rate, perhaps being scoundrels accounts for some of their appeal, but they also have odd characteristics that have certain charms; then males have beautiful iridescent coats while the females have less dramatic though also beautiful coats that transition from browns to blacks. Do birds have coats? I guess it's plumage.

Hyde Park South

I just... well, just yesterday morning put up the show at Hyde Park Bar and Grill, Westgate, 4521 Westgate Boulevard.

Just kidding: I haven't been very image laden on the blog of late, so wanted to put up something. I don't know who/what/what, here, but find the picture (that I found on some j-rock blog or another that was in I don't remember which non-English language) amusing. Attributions are welcome.

Anyway, the show is up through January 29th.

This evening I'll probably start formatting images of new works to post, so stay tuned.

Popularity with girls being a not unwelcome side effect.

Greetings Face-friends!

Yeah, finally have a Facebook page now. The link is over there on the side... over there with the links to my site and Libertine... I just mentioned, on my Facebook page, that I've been hearing Gary Numan a goodly bit lately and that I find I'm quite digging what I've been hearing. What I really need to do is update here with works in progress (some of which are completed) and recently completed works, but as I need to get dressed soon to go to a Christmas party, I will put that off till I am a bit more at leisure.

Yes, that last bit would have been more appropriate for the Facebook.

Tour's Over

...but my paintings are still up at Brocca Gallery for the next couple weeks; probably till the 16th or 17th when I'll be taking those to put up on the 19th at Hyde Park Bar and Grill, south location. Anyway, thanks again to Augusto Brocca for having me at the gallery and all you folks who came out for the tour.

EAST AUSTIN STUDIO TOUR

One day down... but today, November 14, and then next weekend, the 20th and 21st, the East Austin Studio Tour continues! I have work at Brocca Gallery, 1103 East 6th Street (#6 on the tour map) and will be there, myself, pretty much all the time between 11 and 6 each Saturday and Sunday... I'm on my way there now!

Why I simply MUST learn to use Powerpoint

Well, this post wasn't going to start out with the titular declaration, but I was sufficiently amused by...

... which you can see for yourself at Ralph Lauren Home, that I've decided I must learn Powerpoint for my own amusement... never mind that every office about these days seems to think their receptionists and administrative assistants and other lackeys need to know the program. I suppose it's so they, the employers, can leave it to someone else to produce their cheesy presentations. I don't know if it's possible for a Powerpoint presentation to look, "professional," but I've been sufficiently turned off by the ones to which I've been subjected to promote a general ban (along with one on leaf-blowers), should one be proposed. Of course, I suppose I do have some aesthetic training and sensibilities, whereas...

Anyway, Mr. Lauren's fellows have made me feel much better about perhaps someday confessing the I know Powerpoint, if they haven't inspired me to get to it post haste.

The inspiration for this post all started out, in truth, as a mention of the new issue (November 2010) of Elle Decor, the cover of which features an image of a room - interior designer, Suzanne Rheinstein's place - painted with a grisaille mural, which those of you who know my attraction to pictorial wallpapers and all that, know must excite me. There is also this advertisement (point of departure), I wished to mention, for R.L. Home which one sees when one opens the front cover:

Well, this is the picture used in the advertisement without the text that appears in the magazine, but it's got borzoi. Supposedly, adult borzoi are virtually mute, a feature which particularly appeals to me in this age of everyone having dogs, and dogs that they leave alone all day and whenever long to bark for hours on end... it's worse than Powerpoint presentations.

Really, though, borzoi are beautiful and I haven't seen any in ads or elsewhere in a while, so, yeah. More of these fellows here and there's another breeder's site I like, Valeska Borzoi, which also features nice pictures of their dogs.

I'm trying to think of whom the heiress reminds me.

Oh, it's Autumn again...

...and it's been three weeks since last I made an entry here!

Yeah, it's Autumn again. I won't be wearing a kilt... probably... but yeah, it's about that time of year when I start getting all, "et in arcadia..." so if you catch me sitting under a rock someplace scribbling autumnal waxings, sighing deep sighs, staring off into space instead of painting, don't be surprised...

Where can I get that hat?

Anyway, that's another George Barbier print. I'm awaiting the charging of a new battery to see if the camera will function. If that works, I'll have an update of artwork soon.

In the meantime, hop over to my website to check out old stuff! I've been filling in sections of older work: all the Flower-Pattern pictures are up, and I've added some Teas and Color-Panel paintings. More images will pop up for those latter-listed series, and maybe some even older ones, but I want to use the digital camera to take pictures since I only have slides of some older work and a lot of the prints aren't all that great and then one has to scan them straight or straighten on them on the computer, which tends to make them funky-looking, so that's that.

Perhaps the artwork update will be sooner than three weeks from now... or you may get poetry.

Site Sighting

Still from Frederic Goode's film, "World at Three," which I haven't seen.

Ahoy! As you might guess from the addition of the link over there on the side of the page in the, "view my art," section, the official, art website, JeffreyPrimeaux.com, is now up and running... some parts are still in the works, but my more recent work is up in the, "current work," section.

The camera is still broken, so an update on new and in-progress work will have to wait.

The Obscurer Obscura et La Paresse

The camera is having some sort of issue, so I haven't been able to do the work in progress update of a few days ago that I'd intended. I've removed a couple canvases from stretchers with a plan to work on some parts with oil pastel: I'm hoping the mixing of media will yield a more satisfactory result than that which I foresee from continuing with paint.

I've been asked before what I do with pictures that aren't working out, to which I usually answer, "it depends." Most often, I throw them out; sometimes I just stick them in a drawer; make significant alterations to the image; or, on the rare occasion (this present being the only case within memory), I go after the image with a different medium at some stage.

I'll write more as things progress.

I'm trying to get some new paintings going, as well, but this print from George Barbier would seem not too far off the mark.

My idleness, alas, is short on the Chinoiserie (and I don't smoke)... It's August in Texas.

Also absent are the cat and lolling lovelies.

Cat and Bird

Well, no work or receptions or attic cleaning the past couple days... I haven't know what to do with myself! Yes, should have been paintings - I have done work a bit, in truth, but it has been principally looking. I'm just getting started on a couple new pictures and returning to the squirrel and the young women on the beach (both in WIP sections somewhere down the page).

Oh yeah: thanks to the folks that made it out to the reception - nice turn out - good job keeping it non-regicidal. Thanks also to Anne Ducote, who arranges the shows at Hyde Park (and the openings and is an artist herself, ducotedesigns.com) and to Jeremy and the rest of the Hyde Park crew.

Here are the most recently completed paintings for which I'm still determining titles:

20 x 24 inches - acrylic on canvas

12 x 24 inches - acrylic on canvas

I need to rephotograph the second.

Maybe in my next entry I'll include a picture of a sampling of old wallpaper Bouquet brought back for me from the house in Tyler.

Reception, Ars Sacra, Et Cetera

I'll be having, or rather Hyde Park Bar and Grill will be hosting a reception for my artwork at the restaurant on Wednesday, July 14 (yes, that's Bastille Day), from 4:30-6:30 in the evening. They will be providing some snacks, water, and ice tea along with a cash bar for the cocktail hour beverages. The restaurant is located at 4206 Duval Street. I will be there too, of course.

The event will be regicide-free.

In the recently completed department and the Ars Sacra reference in the title:

Fr. Kevin Rai at San Jose Catholic Church here in Austin, commissioned me, a while back, to make a painting of the Miraculous Medal, a devotional medal representing a Marian apparition (perhaps that's not the best description, but I'll leave it to my readers to do the research and determine designation), that he might use for teaching about the medal. That occupied a good bit of time the past couple weeks before its delivery last Wednesday: of course it took me long enough to actually get it to canvas that I was determined to get it done and delivered before I should be declared irredeemably remiss. Anyway, it's 2 x 3 feet, acrylic on canvas board.

I need to photograph another recently completed work - perhaps today, since it's not wet out. I have a cat and a squirrel in the works, at least one of which will surely be out of the WIP category by the time I next post.

I forgot to put this one up the other month:

It's a companion piece B.B. Keville commissioned to go with this one, and has the same dimension and all that:

What else? Oh, yeah: update from the Antiquities Department. I decided, at least for the time being, to stop showing older work at Yessy.com. No sales, for one thing, over the year I've had stuff there; but also, such a glut of images! and I'm not sure mine are what most buyers there are looking to buy; and, since the money considerations are afoot, I've decided, rather than renewal at Yessy, to put the considerations toward entry fees for exhibitions... and perhaps an official website!

Hyde Park Exhibition, June-July 2010

Just a quick post to announce that I have paintings up now at Hyde Park Bar and Grill, 4206 Duval Street (that's here in Austin, Texas, of course), through July 24th. I'm sharing the space with one, John Mosteller, who principally makes serigraphic work that looks pretty different than my paintings, but my works are mostly up in the rooms to the right (north) of the entrance along with a couple in the main room: one over the fireplace (Haarlem Lion and Cubs), one over the back booth (Winter Coats). Tomorrow, "Koi Pond 3," (below) will go up above the front-most doorway to the south-side, dining room - I'm a bit short, otherwise, on horizontal pieces at the moment.

Koi Poloi

Yeah, goofy title.

I suppose it's been a while since the new koi painting appeared in a works in progress section of a previous entry: it was a while before additional progress, and then I really pushed to get it done in a couple or so days, painting with little enough time in between sessions that I didn't think to bother photographing the progress... or maybe I did think about it and decided not to bother...

Koi Pond 6 22 x 28 inches acrylic on canvas

I'm not sure that I'll be doing many more fish paintings - like I have been doing that many anytime recently - fish don't have a whole lot of personality. The painting has turned out rather nicely, though, so I have considered reconsidering: I was planning on doing a 3 x 4 foot, koi pond as I commenced this one, but then, like I said, fish don't have that much personality. Plus, unless I start doing reflection settings, or fishes out of water, or fish tanks in front of places (that idea is kind of amusing), the variety of fish settings that fit conceptually into my oeuvre is not so appealing to me for painting.

Meanwhile, back in the Antiquities Department...

Ceylon 18 x 24 inches acrylic on canvas 2003

I've been updating over at yessy.com. Most of the Color-Forms are up, a couple of the Tea paintings, and soon I'll get started posting the Tetrachromes. "Ceylon," is one of the earliest in this Pop Art series in which I combined tea bag envelopes with a variety of other images; in this case, a Fortnum and Mason, Orange Pekoe packet serves as the backdrop for a tiger with some bamboo and a waterfall taken from a Japanese screen.

Haven't sent the announcement out yet, but I have a show going up at Hyde Park Bar and Grill in Hyde Park (Austin, not London) this coming Sunday, June 6. I'll mention it again later.

This has been a brief post of recent news - a more content-heavy entry is planned for the near future.

Period Piece... and pieces...

The most recently completed of my new paintings:

Period Piece 18x24 inches acrylic on canvas

In a not usual case, the title for this one came about quite simply. Of course the background, adapted from a Zuber (or is it de Gournay?) wallpaper, suggests period piece movies like the sort of Jane Austen adaptation movies I like, but also, the inclusion of the now no longer extant, "Domino," and, "House and Garden," magazines hint at a more recent period and the use of the term, "period," also implies the punctuation mark, marking ends...

I think the implications there are sufficient to relieve me from waxing for numerous paragraphs.

I suppose if there's anyplace I should wax, it should be here, but perhaps I'll make a special waxing entry later.

Anyway, one of the changes I made to the Zuber (or de Gournay) original was to replace a tall monument with a shorter plinth featuring a Cupid and Psyche sculpture. If I could find my resources for the painting, I could tell you the sculptor - where are my resources? Interestingly, the sculpture depicts the scene in which Psyche spills oil from a lamp onto Eros... yeah, if you don't know the story go for a synopsis at pitt.edu/~dash/cupid.html or wikipedia, because it will take up too much space here and you should know it anyway... an important point in the story distinguishing a particular before from after period.

What does the pigeon have to do with the aforementioned periods theme? Uh, the eye is kind of like a red period punctuating in the middle of the painting? The pigeon was already there for the picture. I have an inkling, though, that the idea(s) of periods is relevant to/in my own work at present.

Meanwhile, back in the Antiquities Department...

I just photographed the Tetrachromes and Color-Form drawings (from the mid '90s) I still have around here to post over on yessy.com in hopes of finding nice homes for them and supplementing my coffers a bit.

However, before I do the posting of those there, I need to find my notes that include such important information as the titles...

This one (above), I know, is, "By Hand" - the images are, in green, a model's gloved hand in which I put a paper airplane; yellow, a blind man from a Japanese or Chinese (additional important information) ink drawing feeling his way across a log crossing a stream; red, a Republic of South Africa, postage stamp featuring a hydro-electric project dam; blue, the hand of a discobolus sculpture from a sketch I made from one of the casts at the University - but seeing the other Tetrachromes did not have

such the ringing-of-bells effect and as far as the titles for the Color-Forms go, those are given by color and number - though my memory of the chronology of their creation is good in general, it is not so exact in the specific.

The size is the same for all of them, about 14x17 inches (something else to check), is the same and all of them are chalk pastel on paper.

I've thought about doing some more of the Tetrachromes: they're kind of amusing in a random association sort of way, but I thought it might be a good, daily, drawing exercise to draw one color panel each day. Of course, if I end up with one completed drawing every four days (unless I don't work each day on the same drawing) I'll have a lot of these things around, but then maybe I can start an every-four-daily-artwork-to-sell-site and sell one each day which wouldn't be bad for the coffers... and would be good for hooking people up with quality, inexpensive art! Although the prices I've had for them is something else I'll have to look up in my records, so perhaps I shouldn't promise anything yet... but the outlook is good!

The text doesn't appear the same on the composing page as it does on the main... that's kind of annoying.

Before I forget...

Thought I'd put up a couple new things and an image of one of the works in progress... which has progressed... Official titles are still pending, but the second (the gray one), at any rate, will be named something like, "The Inestimable Importance of Accent Colors." Both, and especially the latter, pick up off, "The Decorators' Handbook," focusing on the decorative and art-as-decorative idea as well as animal colorations and chromatic similarity in environment, etc. etc.

Both are 16x20 inches, acrylic on canvas.

I think I never posted, "Decorators' Handbook," also 16x20 inches, acrylic on canvas.

This one (below), "Period Piece," has had the most progress made, so I'll put it up, but other paintings are still where they were at last post, a couple are just transfered to canvas from drawings, a couple drawings are not yet transfered to canvas.

Oh, yeah: here's the painting that was a Mothers' Day commission; 11x14 inches on canvas board, "Nest," is the title. B.B. had mentioned that the painting might be like, "Drowsy..." but more subdued in color, which inspired me to sort of reprise that one, but with a different arrangement of elements and the cat has a different personality.

Back from Art ForMS

I've been back from Canada for a week now, but I've been busy with painting a commissioned work that is for a client's mother-in-law's Mothers' Day gift (hurrah, apostrophes - I'll post the image later - pretty swell little picture, if I may say so); taking my car in for transmission fluid leak repair; working a few hours at the Williams-Sonoma; getting back into the swing of things here...

Anyway, back from Canada, Calgary, where I attended the event, Art ForMS, put together by my friend Mali as part of Team Docktor's (teamdocktor.com/art-forms) MS, fundraising activities. The event was - or perhaps I should say, "is," since this is expected to be the first, annual - an auction, principally a silent auction, but also with several works in a live auction, almost exclusively of art: painting, sculpture, print, jewelry, photography, glass, ceramic, belt, quilt, other... from artists from around Calgary as well as from further afield... like from Austin, Texas. In fact I had a couple other Austin artists' works to keep mine company on the walls, some fine, fine, prints from Chelsea Ward and Michael Sullivan. I'll give Mali official Austinite status, too, since, after all, I know her from school here and she lived here for a goodly while: she had a couple paintings as well as a print-triptych.

All around, the art in the show was pretty high on the quality front, so none of the wall-company was bad.

The place that hosted Art ForMS, DaDe Art and Design Lab, has my nomination for, "coolest place in Calgary." It's located in what appears to once have been a mechanic's shop (it has garage doors) in a historic area of town, Inglewood (really, I guess it's the old, main street of what used to be its own, outlying town); an art, contemporary furnishings, and antique Asian furnishings gallery - easy, laid-back cool. Also got to spend time with the owners, Darcy Lundgren and Greg Fraser - very gracious hosts, swell fellows. Mali is working on the DaDe website, so hopefully there will be some more pictures, particularly of Darcy's artworks, constructions of paper on canvas painted in a Pollock-like manner, soon.

Speaking of more art work soon, here's an interlude of works in progress that I was going to post before I left town - some progress has been made since then on these, but I'll save that for another post.

Also speaking of more artwork soon, I'll have to tell Mali she should put up some of her new paintings on her website.

At any rate, Art ForMS was a great party: lots of folks excited about seeing the art (the folks who bought mine were excited about them, so that's pretty excellent - in fact, I heard that one couple was even more excited about the work they'd acquired after I met them and talked with them about it, so that was tres excellent... since I feared the inverse case...); lots of art to see; all lots sold; successful fundraising; lots of interesting people to visit (good turn out despite cold and rain); wine, food, ginger ale, cheese, jelly, wine... So yeah, you Calgarians who missed out, make sure you don't miss it next year.

In all likelihood, there will be more about my Calgary excursion later, but look at the time!

Camera Obscura

That is, the camera has gone missing, so I'm afraid I don't have pictures of some new works in progress (which haven't really progressed very far anyway) and haven't been able to take pictures of the old tetrachromes that I'm planning to put up on yessy.com... or for the related blog entry which will be titled something like, "from the antiquities vault."

At any rate, Katell Keineg has a new album out!

I decided to do the object-free, object-travel-free purchase bit at cdbaby.com/cd/katellkeineg2. I still find the digiformat weird. So far, I've been enjoying the album - I've only listened a couple times and while doing other things, e.g. typing a blog entry - need to sit down to give it a focused listen. My i-pod just finished synching...

Alternative Venue

I realized when I was visiting B.B. Keville, New Alternatives Skin Care, yesterday, that I'd forgotten to mention that she'd invited me to put up some paintings at her New Beginings Wellness Center, http://www.newbeginningswellnesscenter.net/, 3355 Bee Caves Road Suite 606, 293-8077, so I have a few paintings on view there which you might drop by to see if you're in the neighborhood... maybe on your way to a facial or craniosacral massage...

I've yet to have the latter, my sister gave me a gift certificate for one and she says it's pretty excellent, but B.B. does a nice bit of face rubbing, and, like I'd mentioned before, has done some good work in the treatment of facial blight for me.

More Beneficial

B.B. Keville at New Alternative Skincare http://www.newbeginningswellnesscenter.net/, who has been most helpful in healing a face-skin condition that saw fit to afflict me, asked me the other day, when I visited for a bit of face rubbing, if I might donate a picture for a benefit to be held for her old friend and veteran, Austin music fellow, Will Sexton, that is going on next Monday (Feb. 15) at Antone's http://www.antones.net/index.php?content=shows, to help cover expenses from his recent stroke.


So, I've sent, "Summer Pastoral." I thought about sending one of the Pouffy-Pants Hummingbird paintings, but I'm kind of reluctant to seperate them and I want, "Going Courting," just at present, as reference for another picture (by the way, you can see these at the Libertine Gallery site). Yes, I need to get some more small, 11x14 and 10x10 inch paintings underway... yes, I need to get some paintings underway!

At any rate and nevertheless, "Summer Pastoral," came up pretty insistently to my mind as the one to send. I really want it to make its way out into the world and find a good home.

Show Down

Alternatively titled...

ME, ME, ME

...since it shall include a number of pictures of myself.

So, yeah: just took the Brick Oven show down this past Sunday from which sold, "Black and White," "Even In..." and "Incensed Sensibility," all of which you may scroll down to see in the post titled, "Current Body of Work - installation one." My next scheduled gig is at Hyde Park (I think the one in Hyde Park) in June and July, but I need to see if I can line something up in the meantime... and get some more paintings started... and find a full-time job... blech!

At any rate, the self portraits here aren't merely an excercise in obsessive vanity: my friend from art school (yes, I only made and kept one) who now lives in Calgary, Mali Docktor, is arranging a an art auction to benefit the MS Society of Canada to which I'm donating a few things, requested I send a photo of myself for the site http://www.teamdocktor.com/art-forms.html.

This, above is the one she chose - incidentally my favorite which you get to see here in full-color-exclusive edition. It is a sort of redux of the picture I took for such purposes several years ago (which is overexposed a bit so I could probably get away with using it still). Perhaps I'll include the older image in another post - I quite like it - along with the painting in the background, "Three Seasons and Spring at the Heian Shrine," which I started back in the Color Panel phase but didn't complete until sometime during the Flower-Pattern period. I want to do another version of it at some point in time.

A few more I particularly like:

I forgot to put it here, and I'm not sure how to plunk a picture down en media res without difficulty, but I'm sending, "Pond, Evening," for the auction - you can scroll down to also see... oh, wait, you'll have to go to the Libertine Gallery site, http://www.libertinegallery.com/images/JP/JPpondEveningb.jpg (maybe I'll post that image closer to the event) - along with several prints, which are posted here. Mali asked if I might send a particular print, but I only have a test proof (a not too presentable test proof) of that one, so I sent a few others instead. Anyway, a couple intaglios and one linoleum print.

Again, be sure to check out Mali's Team Docktor site, http://www.teamdocktor.com/art-forms.html, which has more information.