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.