I had gotten this great pair of gloves right before the pandemic which sat in their cool little case for so long that I had forgotten about them. Going through my clothes, I came across them, still patiently waiting to be worn out.
This is a selfie on tan paper. New gloves & coat.
11×14 inches watercolor & tan paper
Rarely do I promote my for sale things be it my books or visual works. I want an audience and not customers. Personally, I also find it a turn off to want to see what an artist you are interested in is up to and every post ends w/a sales pitch. However, we are in the gift giving season. I have some art for sale. Have a peek. (these are truly limited, not merely sales pressure verbiage)
I used a toned tan paper for this painting. It requires a slightly different touch as it’ heavier than my usual paper. I am grateful for the trust put in me by my models (mostly friends & acquaintances) . This allows for a relaxed attitude in posing, the mien organic and revealing a truth.
My sculptures are an acquired taste, which I am fine with. The personal appeal of then for me is in their looseness. Unlike my other visual mediums, there is a large component of improvisation to them. Materials help dictate composition.
Currently I am in middle of two projects which are taking up the lion’ share of space in my studio. I can not start a new Cinefield®. I do miss process. I knew that I could do a regular collage and it would not encroach upon other things going on space & time wise.
This is a collage, not Cinefield® because unlike the later, I did not create the base images. Rarely now do I work in the medium of collage utilizing images not from pictures which I personally took. Like my sculptures, this gave me the same pleasure derived from loose improvisation. This rare occurrence of using other’s images is akin to jazz great playing a standard, someone else’s melody providing the frame work for their voice to flow.
The piece is 7×10 inches. No digital magic just scissors & adhesive applied with a brush.
Female of the Species
It is not often that I mention things of mine available for purchase. I have teamed up with a great framer & photo lab to produce a series of extremely limited edition Cinefield® prints. The info can be found here. Once they are gone, that is it.
I always have several things going on at once. Currently I am in the middle of finishing a big project (full length novel) while about to start several others. My CINEFIELD® work tends to start to sprawl across my studio. And despite now vacuuming/sweeping daily when working on one, there is still paper confetti snow flurries and sheets of tiny pieces waiting to be used that find their way onto every available surface.
There is a great pleasure in my working in this medium. Mess aside, they are also very time consuming. I don’t want too long a time to go by without doing a piece as, like all my other mediums, it’s very much become a part of me.
The solution was to do a smaller piece which makes far less mess. Surprisingly though, smaller pieces are more difficult because the already tiny components must be even smaller. And the smaller general area means far less space to create sense of tension and release. (I equate this aspect to way back in the day, early vinyl had technical limitations, so the average record time wise, was shorter than later. Because of this, great jazz soloists, when doing their thing had to take far shorter solos than during the Long Playing era. This limitation forced all the greats to learn to make their statements within the confines of the medium’s limits.) I am always up for a challenge as I feel it facilitates evolution.
Like all my works, ever image used was from photos which I personally took. There is no digital magic, I use scissors & adhesive applied with a brush. The piece is 2×4 inches.
Free Advice: Aside from blogs, most people are on one if not all other social media sites. Adding to the non-stop stream of Twitter. Instagram etc. are new posts from whomever one follows. If a minimum of 500 people are being followed and they are posting every day, when combined with everything else one has going on digitally, it reduces what could be meaningful content (learning something new, interactions etc.) down to white noise babble.
If you are an artist/anything in the arts, then the goal should be interaction, creating an audience who will be curious to what you do next. If you want to exchange ideas/interact, in general, this too will be hindered by the deluge.
Even some of the better blogs would benefit from posting less frequently.
Last time I posted this idea, people got defensive. There are only so many hours in the day a productive person can give to bowing their heads in prayer to the screen of their phone tablet. I am not commenting on anyone’s legitimacy but merely offering way to be a better, more effective blogger.
About to head back to Europe shortly. I had previously written about being able to utilize a pocket printer as to be able to do Cinefield® pieces in my Paris studio. As I live right around many great art supply stores i am sure that I will be able to find adhesive. However, I have never been one to leave things to chance. So i have been experimenting with glues which i can bring with me and are not as outright industrial as my adhesive.
The nature of my pocket printer pieces is that they are small, index card sized at most, 4×5. The first one I did, I tried a liquid glue stick of Elmer’s glue. This wasn’t ideal as when it got on the front side of image it caused discoloration. Also it was so liquid-y that there was no way to really control it despite the fact it was in a pen like delivery system.
In an absolute pinch I could have made due. My final attempt was with the glue sticks with which school children work. This took a bit of learning curve as pieces and sometimes entire sections after the fact would pop off making a brief snow flurry of cut pieces upon my table.
I got a handle on how to best utilize the glue stick, although it made everything more labor intensive. The good thing about it is that I can easily pack a glue stick in luggage w/no hassle from TSA.
There is very little chance though, because of the nature of the glue, that pieces I do would last. The photo I take of the finished piece will be the work/the art. I can’t fully explain why, but there is a freedom in this.
Of course it may be non issue as I find my preferred adhesive once moved back in.
Like all my Cinefield® work, every image is from photos which I personally took. One can see more edge/line of each piece, that is the nature of using pocket printer. The printed material is akin to business card sized photos, there is the impossibility of seamless edge blending as i often achieve w/my regular paper pieces. this piece is roughly 4×4.
Once again, I sought to challenge myself with my Cinefield® as to avoid lapsing into mere mannerism. As with my last piece, I went with a limited color palette, in this case one reminiscent of some of the submariner greens Degas used. I also stuck to sea changing via my cutting, only one image.
I was pleased with the results. As is the case with all my work, I only use images which I personally took the photo(s) of. There is never any digital magic as I utilize the traditional method of my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with a brush.
After a year plus of sheltering in place, one of the first things I did when at liberty to go out again was to restart taking walks. In finding a positive from a negative, the little things now all seemed fresh, new & beautiful. The palms, ferns and other tropical plants which grow up out of the sidewalks looked fantastic to my thirsty eye. The tiny architectural flourishes to be found on various older buildings previously unnoticed, now interesting and meriting a stop to look.
I am in no huge rush to go back to bars or even restaurants. It is my now twice daily walks which have made me once again start to feel among the living. I went to the local farmers market, half a second of apprehension from now finding myself among so many people again. The flower merchants with their plastic buckets offering sprays of color.
It is beauty not merely seen on my computer monitor nor emerging from the end of my hand onto paper that lets me know that I am returning to life.
This piece is 11×14. As always is the case, all the images are from photos I personally took ( in this instance from walks in park and farmers market). There is no digital magic, just my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with a brush.
After all the time spent on my last CINEFIELD®, it felt great to get back to painting. I feel all the mediums in which I create are of equal value even though some of my audience only knows me through one of them.
Life as we know it has remained if not completely on hold, then altered. The rhythms & goals now a familiar stranger. It had rained off and on, so I did two Cinefield® pieces while waiting for my necessary to paint sunlight. The weather finally obliged me and I went to work on a new piece. With the changes of season the ideal times to paint & to photograph the finished paintings change.
Of course I have this memorized, it has become reflexive, a sort of muscle memory of light utilization. One thing which has always served as a reminder of shortly being about to change my painting hours are activities that I am doing beforehand. Coming back from my Parisian residency heralds a shift, etc etc.
Without all my usual activities as prompters, I found out upon completion of this piece, that I have hit a optimal hour to work change. It was an odd sensation, a bitter taste in my mouth. I will be the first to recognize that many have it far worse than I. It once again firmed up my resolve to put my work out there, not as any kind of cure nor solution but to offer up to all, a brief respite from what ever trials are currently being face.
Over the course of the past year have adopted the rhythm of doing a Cinefield® then a painting (while maintaining steady flow of nightly drawings & 8’s). At the start of a painting it rained for days off and on. I put it aside, the novelty of doing so being in itself of value for my creative process.
I started a new Cinefield® , the creation of which I do not need sunlight for.
Even though the shapes are lush and abstract, I wanted to see if I could achieve an open ended, open to interpretation sense of narrative.
“Bing-Bong” The piece is 11×14. As always all the images are from photos I personally took. There is no digital magic just my trusty scissors and adhesive applied by brush.
Paper Life Painting 