One Man Out

One Man Out  Acrylic 8x8" Click to buy

A Rose is a Rose (is a Rose)

"A Rose is a Rose"  8x8"  Acrylic on Gessoboard  Click to buy

Pink roses are my favorite. But I also can't resist those elegant creamy white roses. Then again red roses are so sumptuous. Nevermind... they are all magnificent!

Fields of Gold

Fields of Gold, 8x10", acrylic Click to Buy

A painting from Tuscany, one of the most beautiful places in the world...

Painting Demos, again

Red Petals  8x10"  Acrylic

I've been practicing demo paintings for an upcoming video shoot... landscapes, tuscany scenes, still life, etc. Here is a little flower painting ... still trying to decide what subjects would be best for the demos. Yikes, getting filmed...its a bit scary!

Painting Demos

It has been a busy summer - with very little time to post - or paint! Mostly I have been teaching painting and "painterly collage" classes, and teaching workshops in monoprinting, how to create textural, layered surfaces using acrylics, and image transfer techniques, amongst others. 

Yesterday and today I made up for lost time - I did 9 paintings as practice exercises for my upcoming video shoot in Ohio. I will be teaching a little bit of everything in these 3 videos - designing with values, color theory, and fast, loose painting.  Posted here are some exercises I will demo for the "translating values to color" segment. 

Now that summer is coming to a close I am ready for it to start. Tomorrow I'll be taking off for a few days to go camping and canoeing in the Adirondacks and the weather is supposed to be perfect... I can't wait! 

Zig Zag Thru Midtown (again)

Zig Zag Thru Midtown II,  Acrylic  14x14"  Click to buy 

Have you ever finished a painting and then said to yourself - ' It works, but it's not what I was aiming for'.  That happens to me often enough, and it usually means I want the painting to have a looser, more abstract quality about it.  

Often before I start a painting, I will sketch it out in charcoal to get the basic drawing and proportions accurate. This is how I started the painting in my previous post from July 3. The only problem with this approach is that it can feel like I'm just "filling-in-the-lines", working in a coloring-book manner, which can feel constricting.  For this painting I decided to just jump in head first with paint, without working out the drawing first, and gradually "sculpt out" the shapes and whatever detail was necessary. This approach, to me, is much more engaging, and feels less mechanical. It forces me to work out the drawing while I'm painting, without the security of a safety net. It also makes me "react"more, stroke by stroke, to continually make choices about the balance of shapes and overall design. 

As I look at both paintings side by side, I'm not sure there is an obvious difference that I started them in completely different manners. But as the artist, my experience working on each was so different. I was more creatively engaged in the second one, and felt much freer in every way, including more freedom in color choices. 

In the end, for me, its about keeping the experience imaginative, fresh and somewhat unpredictable.  Which means experimentation and going outside my comfort zone... I suppose that translates into a higher liklihood of more pieces that "fail"... but how can one grow or have breakthroughs if they are not experimenting and taking risks? In other words, that old saying comes to mind... no pain, no gain.

Zig Zag thru Midtown NYC

Zig Zag thru Midtown  14x14" Acrylic  Click to buy

So where was I before I left for Indiana? ... oh yeah - Bikers in NYC. Here's another on that theme...

Commissioned Portraits

"Charlotte"  Charcoal on Paper

A trip back to memory lane in the 70's, doing 10 minute portraits at a booth in a Syracuse mall, one after the other, all day long ... I don't do many commissioned portraits anymore, but I made an exception for this one. Cute as a button, right?

Traffic Patterns

"Traffic Patterns" 14x14" Acrylic  

Anyone who has been to New York City knows that the performance provided by these bike messengers rivals any broadway show entertainment - and it's free! They are amazingly agile and graceful as they weave in and out of a blur of racing traffic, a real sight to behold.

I'm leaving for Indiana to teach a "How to Paint Fast, Loose and Bold" workshop - and looking forward to seeing that part of the country. Be back early next week to continue indulging my biker fascination...I'm really having fun with these guys!

Opposing Forces in NYC

"Opposing Forces"  14x14" Acrylic

In NYC, anything goes. So why not teal streets?

Howard Street Grunge

Howard Street Grunge  9x9" Acrylic

Playing around with shapes and colors... This was painted from an old photo of a Soho building which I took back in the days when there was actually grunge in that neighborhood. It is long gone!

Northbound on 10th II

Northbound on 10th (II)  18x24" Acrylic  Buy Now

This is the same subject I painted yesterday, just playing around with new colors and exploring other methods. Normally I start out with a rough drawing but in this case I just started out with big colored shapes and then honed in gradually. The painting went from totally abstract to fairly representational.  

I was actually aiming for more abstract depiction but no one was in the studio to take my brush away, so I kept breaking up the shapes and turning them into recognizable things. I like it, even tho I had something else in mind. Maybe next time. 

The piece is 18x24", here's a detail. I may cut it up and crop it like this...

"Northbound on 10th"  18x24" Acrylic  Buy Now

Summertime is here and it's time to ... paint the city! I have an upcoming show at Simie Maryles Gallery in  Provincetown starting Labor Day weekend and there is no better time than now to start creating new work. The gallery is known for its New York City artwork, so that will be my main painting focus this summer. 

My goal on this piece was just loosen up and play with color, do some abstraction, create movement, simplify, etc.  It's the type of image I'd like to play with many more times, and keep experimenting, trying new things each time. I may do that - or not. In our garden the roses, foxglove, cosmos and begonias are in full bloom and begging to be painted.  Hmmm, decisions, decisions. What's that I said about focus?

Orange and Cherry Reflections

"Orange and Cherry Reflections"  8x8" Acrylic  Click to bid

This still life was set up for my Wednesday morning painting class, specifically to learn about dealing with the interesting reflections cast on a shiny metallic surface.  After class ended, I just had to jump in and paint it myself. 

A new summer session of 8 classes is beginning soon, and we are switching to Thursday mornings for painting, and Thursday afternoons for "Painterly Collage".  Below is a sample of the type of project that incorporates collage, acrylic gels, pastes and mediums, stamping, spraying and more. Working in a mixed media style is big fun, and I for one can't wait for class to begin. There is something very freeing about layering and mixed media, its a completely different approach than working only with paint and brushes. If you are local (NYC / Hudson River Valley), come join us!

"Heading Downtown"  18x24"  Mixed Media (SOLD)

Two Pears

Barbara's Pears  6x6"  acrylic  (SOLD)

Finally back from traveling and spending some time with my folks. The Syracuse workshop went great although we all wished it were longer. We have already begun planning a 5 day workshop in spring 2014 to cover more ground - namely color theory and color schemes.
Here is one of the demo paintings I did. I set up a simple still life and composed two value studies, using black, grey and white values to illustrate a big point about seeing values - namely that there are many ways to translate an image into a simple value structure. It's up to the artist to simplify and push the values one way or another to make the painting work. In otherwords, the artist is the designer, not the transcriber. I often push students to do more than one value study, to determine which ones work best, and to get them into the habit of doing what works - rather than copying what's there. (IMHO) designing the overall value structure is key to strong compositions!

Tulips and Cherries

Tulips and Cherries  Acrylic, 6x6"

This is a painting of the still life I set up for my Wednesday morning class. After the students left I decided to paint it myself. 

Today I'm leaving for about a week, to teach a workshop in Syracuse NY, my hometown. I'm looking forward to the workshop, as well as spending some time with my family!

New York City Impressions 2

City Impressions  2  Acrylic on WC Paper  14x14"

Another piece for the show... the view is from Soho looking North. I like working on paper, but when the time comes, I am not going to enjoy all the framing.

New York City Impressions

City Impressions 1  Acrylic on WC Paper 10x10"

I'm creating a lot of new work for my upcoming show in Provincetown at Simie Maryles Gallery. It starts on Labor Day weekend in September and will be up for a month. The entire show will be a collection of urban landscapes based on NYC. 

Only the Good Die Young

A Few Good 'Maters   Acrylic on Gessoboard  8x8"  $150  Buy Now  

Every artist knows that at a certain point you stop looking at your subject altogether, and just start giving the painting what it needs.  At that certain point, apparently, the far left tomato rolled off my table and landed near my right foot. Needless to say, the little guy got squished mercilessly, after posing so patiently. Well, life ain't fair. At least he was immortalized in paint -- a better fate than most tomatoes get!

The (dreaded) self-portrait

Self Portrait  Acrylic on Gessoboard, 8x10"

Egad, I have not done a self portrait since college. I mean really, who wants to stare at themselves for hours on end... it is not for the faint of heart. But alas, I couldn't avoid it any longer. I am in the home stretch of completing my third book, which is all step-by-step demos of various subjects and issues that painters encounter, such as painting glass and reflections, creating depth with color temperature, layering in glazes, experimenting with color, etc etc.  I've finished nine topics, and the very last one, which I have been avoiding like the plague was... you guessed it, the self-portrait. With my deadline closing in and my excuses running thin, I took a deep breath and faced it - er, me. It wasn't as painful as I expected (isn't that usually the case?) and I may even attempt a few more, now that I've gotten over the hump. One nice benefit of painting with the big brushes in a looser style -- I don't pay much attention to fine detail or, (ahem) lines and wrinkles.  When I squint to see the big shapes and the values, they all drop away so nicely!