You Name It II

You Name It II, acrylic on board, 7 1/2 x 16 in.

I had something very specific on my mind when I created this piece but the nature of this game is that you have to make it for you. I am not quite done with it, a few more light layers would be nice to push the ground part a little more. Need some depth.

In my intuitive painting class some of my classmates told me what this was to them. Totally not what it is to me. So, tell me what you think. After the pictures I will explain some of my thinking. Before you read what I wrote, write your own story about it.

Detail of Little Girl 1.

Detail of Little Girl 2.

Detail of Woman.

Detail 2 of Woman. I love when collage wraps around the edge.

Little Girl 1 is looking at Little Girl 2 seeing what will happen if the takes the only present path. The easy route. She ends up brown, on the bottom, covered in my gloppy paint. There are color references that you can't make out in the photos. This was spurred by watching my sister go through her college search. I saw Little Girl 1 and thought of her as a toddler.

Well, there is the quick version of my interpretation.

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3 Oranges

3 Oranges, 8 1/2 x 24 1/2 in., Acrylic on Board, 2008

This is a quick still life I did a few weeks ago. I think I had extra paint and had only been working on collages-a still life was needed. I need to keep in touch with my technical skills. A fun thing about this piece is the board it is on. Marty, Zach and I went to IKEA a few weeks ago and I found amazing board in the junk section. I bought about 20 surfaces for under $5.00.

My favorite part of this painting the inclusion of the natural wood look. Instead of gessoing right over the wood I decided to use it as my background color. An exercise in allowing the materials to guide me.

3 Oranges on my wonderful easel.

You Name It I

You Name It I, 8x8 in., canvas and mixed media

With this piece I am announcing a sub-project to go along with some of my more kitschy collage pieces I have started working on. Each piece has specific meanings to be because I composed them. Some are very directed and others are more ambiguous. Point being, each piece will have a different meaning to each viewer. I want the audience to name the pieces. For the final title, I will either randomly draw from a collection of titles or I will choose my favorite. I would love ideas to be posted on the blog! I would also like to plan a preview party for the first time these pieces are exhibited. This is a plan just beginning to form so bare with me as I test it out. The idea spurred from Anne mentioning another artist doing title parties, so I cannot take credit for the original idea. If I can find her I will link her. So, be my guest, try a title!

This collage I put together during one of the first night at my LillStreet class. I concocted it from a book about a little boy going to the zoo and seeing dinosaurs. I am pulling in my work with the female figure, some of that work I will post soon. At first the raw canvas behind the collage really bothered me but I think adding anything might take away from the simplicity of the composition.


Some of my favorite highlights from this piece: 1) The figure is composed of a stone sidewalk. 2) The bird in the upper right corner. 3)The headless but not figure.

Name it!

Pear

Pear, 28x32 in., acrylic and mixed media, 2008

This painting is composed with acrylic paint and collage. I used the lines of the text from the collage to build the pear figure. Acrylic paint to a new adjustment for me right now and I have been using a lot of string gel which is a thick, puffy paint like substance that gives the acrylic paint for body and transparency. It is a great stepping stone.


Process pictures are a fantastic way to keep track of how my work is evolving and to learn from my process. More often than not I like the painting most somewhere in the process part opposed to the final product. I like the rawness of the process, its more honest. In the end I did not do a great job of embracing the under-painting/collaging. I think that is part of my adjustment back to acrylic. I am used to being able to beat down the oil paint, it is much more flexible. Acrylic kind of sticks and stays. Each piece is a learning process.

Here are a couple of close up shots so that you can appreciate the details. The close up on the left gives you a view of the collage
pages. You can see the text lines embracing the contour of the pear. Sometimes collage is the only piece in a painting that saves it technically, in regards to form.


To the right shot gives a detail of the stem. I used a purple floral print for the collage part. The string gel is pretty this in this part giving it some texture.