Maelstrom

Ok, I haven't posted for a while, but life got a bit crazy, and I've gotten out of the groove of painting.  Life isn't going to get much calmer in the near future, but I'm gonna try to get back into the swing of things.

So here is the picture I put in that auction.  It didn't sell which is too bad, because it was for a good cause, but now you get to see what happened when I added colour to one of those black texture paintings.

Maelstrom

8 X 8

You busy on Sunday?

So far it's been quite east of downtown on this G20 weekend.... so if you're looking for something to do, drop on by and support the Make a Wish Foundation!  I put a little 8 X 8 painting in the auction, but it was such a rush to get it dropped off I forgot to take a picture!!!

I'll try to get one tomorrow and post it.  But it's one of the black gel painting that I added colour too.  

The Evolution of "Colourful Grid"

As I mentioned I was fighting with "grid". So I've ended up with a few versions kicking around.  Most have gotten painted over, but I think this one ended up working out.... I wasn't too impressed with it at the beginning.  It was fun and colourful, but that's about it.  

Colourful Grid - Part 1

12 X 24

I liked some of the more subtle squares where the paint was all scraped off, so I figured, what the heck... and took the palette knife out and went nuts.

Colourful Grid - Part 2

But it still wasn't doing it for me, so I coloured outside the lines a bit, and now I think I like it! 

Colourful Grid - Part 3

It's weird,  some pieces I work on and it's obvious when I'm done.  But there are other times, I have no idea if the painting is finished or if I should keep working on it.  I'm thinking this one is done now, but I'm gonna let it sit around for a bit just to make sure.  

Grid and Woofstock

Metallic Grid 

12 X 24

Ok, so I finally got around to the random words.  To be honest, I've been working on a few versions of "grid", but none of them were working for me. Which I didn't understand, because I like grids, cause they are so nice and orderly....   but that was the problem.  They were looking to sterile and flat.  So I loosened up a little.  And things worked much better!

 Metallic Grid - Close Up

Ok, now on to something completely different.... Woofstock!    

And I went out to woofstock this weekend.  No, I don't have a dog, but I do love them, so this is an easy way for me to overload on puppies!!

Ok, you can't really tell in this pic, but even his tail has wrinkles!!!  

Did you notice her toes are painted??

So tired.  Must nap until next Woofsock.  

Bloodshot

So I'm still playing with these glopy paints... and I didn't plan it this way, but this one sort of turned into something you could call "bloodshot".  Guess part of my brain was thinking of the random words, which is good, because I haven't been doing much with those lately.  

Bloodshot

7 X 9

Don't know if this is going to be the final version of bloodshot, or if this is just a study for it.  It does look  more gruesome as it dries.  The reds have been darkening up, and it really is looking like blood.  

I may have to post an update to this one, because even though I did this last week, it's not 100% dry yet, and I'm not sure how much more the texture will change as it dries.  I'll just have to wait and see.  Sigh.  I'm not very good with patience; that's why I paint in acrylic!

Paintings from class

Here are a couple paintings from the acrylics class I took.  

24 X 18

No surprise the portrait that I like the best is the one where we abstracted the background before starting on the portrait.  The more traditional portraits I was painting started to look better as the class progressed; but I the abstract background helped me have a little more fun with it.  Something about a pristine blank canvas seems serious and intimidating, but once you've already "wreaked" it with newspaper and burlap, then it's not so scary.  I don't know, maybe it was just me.  

20 X 16

And in the last class we did a landscape from a photograph.  Again, I had a lot of fun with it, hmm, I 'm sensing a theme here.  It's when I take this art stuff too seriously that things don't seem to work out.  I'll have to think about that.  

Fun with extra paint

18 X 14

A while back a friend gave me some old crappy acrylic paint, which has slowly been drying out in it's containers.  This stuff really does have a strange texture, especially as it starts to get all goopy.  But it was lots fun to play with!!!  

I thought that was the last of it, but I just stumbled on some more, so maybe I'll come up with another one of these.  Ok, now here is the hard part.... any idea what to call this thing?