Monday, December 24, 2007

Lucy Moon


On July 17, 2007 Lucy Moon Papini made her grand entrance in Kamuela,Hawaii. She weighed 9.9 oz. and was 22" long. This painting honors her birth and is a gift to the Papini family.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Painting of two birds, done on my lunch break.


I have been going to this park by my work for about two months now. The park is about 250 yards from giants stadium. I like to go to this park because it is peaceful, the scenery is nice and I enjoy watching the Birds. I usually eat facing the river so I can get a view of the seven or eight post that come out of the water. These post usually filled with birds of two types, Sea Gulls and Mud hens. One time there was a pelican but that was a special case. The birds on these post seem to be tired they don't move often. This makes them good candidates as models to paint from. Today was the first day in a long time that I painted on my lunch break. It was also the first time in a while that I have attempted a Plen Air painting. After eating my sandwich and drinking some water I had about 40 minutes to paint. I lost some more time because a man reported me to park security for riding my bark through the park. With time constraints I was required to be quick and loose. It was a productive paint lunch

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Break through or break down

Breakthrough or Breakdown? As a painter sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between the two. These terms are difficult to distinguish because one is Positive and one in negative. I think at times a breakthrough may seem as a breakdown at first.

Tonight (12/11/2007) I worked for three hours in my studio on a painting that I have been working on for three to four weeks. Like many paintings that I work on for large amounts of time I have high expectations for the results. My thinking behind this is that you spend a lot of time and the results should show through. The more time spent, the better the result. This means that with a painting that takes a lot of time the artist has more pressure to produce a quality product. Nobody wants to spend three weeks on something and have nothing to show for it. Part of me feels like that is what happened tonight. I feel as if I was building a fence for for a month and today the wind blew over. This is the part of me that would consider what happened to me tonight a breakdown.
Another part of me well feels the opposite. It's written in my artist statement that a painter should not be concerned with the outcome of the painting. The reason I have this in my artist statement is to remind myself that a painting should be about the process. Tonight when I worked on the painting I changed course. I abandoned my original vision of the completed painting and forged new waters. I painted with feeling with bold color and emotion. I feel in painting this way I was setting a standard for paintings to come. I can consider tonight a breakthrough because I am now painting with energy again.
Tonight I was really thinking about how the painting process relates to life. While working on the painting I thought about my upbringing. I thought about how that the things that happened to me when I was younger never disappear. These memories and habits that I acquired are what made me who I am today. Throughout life good things and bad things happen to you. Some people are tuff because people bullied them when they were little. Some people have a lack of trust in people because people they cared about let them down. It's the experiences that affect us and the way we deal with them that shape us.
I thought of how this relates to my painting process. While I was painting I noticed the image that I was painting from had an orange spill on it. It was a paint drop that had landed on the image while I was painting. So I decided since I was painting from this image and it had an orange drop on it, then in my painting I would include the orange mark. So I did, I added an orange glaze to the painting. Then I decided I liked that so I added another paint drop to the image I was painting from and tried to reproduce that on the painting. I went a little overboard with this and before I new it my paint image and my painting had orange glazes all over the place. Now the painting was completely changed. Now that the painting was changed the question is how was I going to deal with it? If the painting changes for the better or worse that orange layer would never be obsolete, even if all the orange disappeared. That orange still effects the outcome of the painting. Just as in somebody's life who overcame a drug addiction or cancer. It may of may them stronger, or weaker. They may do a good job of hiding that it ever happened, but it is still there. It is exciting to think something good can come from everything. That is what the orange means to me.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Finished


After 1 hour I finished it. I cleaned up some edges and in small fine lines I brought out distinct shapes. It always tricky finishing a painting.

I worked for about another hour and a half on it since the last post. I did a glaze of red/brown and reworked it. I like what happened, the colors have been dulled because of the glaze. I think it makes you're eyes rest easier.

Raging Bull


Raging Bull
Acrylic on Canvas
3'by3'
2005
If you have ever been to Santa Cruz this painting was at the Tampico Kitchen & Lounge, from 2005 to 2007. Then it was sold from the Lounge in the summer of 2007. I don't know where it is now but I hope it's on a wall.

I found this photo on a google search for Raging Bull.


"Raging Bull"
Gouache on Canvas Board
4" by 7"
12/9/2007
This painting is a revisit to a painting I did in the summer of 2005. It is not complete so stay plugged in for the finished product. In both paintings I used the same image to paint from. The painting I did in 2005 was 3'by 3' and this one is 4" by 7" I decided to work with the same photograph again because I loved that image then and I love that image now. I thought it would be interesting to see how I would render the painting different two years later.

I enjoy the subject matter of this painting. It is not that I am a huge fan of the run of the bulls in Spain. It's more of a visual reason that I am drawn to this image. I enjoy the energy of the big brown beast that takes up the foreground. I enjoy the emotions of the people running from the bull. I like how they position there bodies in unnatural positions to dodge the Bull.
I enjoy the architecture that is filled with people with different emotions than the bull runners. They are cheering and happy because their elevation protects them from the beast.

New Rooster Painting


"Jungle Rooster"
Gouache on Canvas Board
7"by5"


After working on a freeway painting for about three weeks I can not get the painting where I want it. I counted a hundred cars on that painting. This rooster is mostly a release for that freeway painting, a break from the gridlock. This painting took about two hours to complete. I painted it in stages. The painting sat on the table in the living room and I just worked on it when I had a few minutes to spare.