Originally the rear vase in this piece was black, but it created such a strong sillouete that there was not enough distiction between the 2 vases. Letting some light through a green glass vase slides it far enough into the background so the piece picks up dimensionality.

So here is "Blue Vase II" 9" x 12" acrylic on board. I like the sparkle.

Later

Another Day, another.....Flower I Guess

Lots of yellow leftover on the palette today, so why not a few more flowers. This cute little bunch called "Daffodils" 7 x 12, happened with the speed and freshness you wish every painting could have. Plus I really like yellow, even if it is taking me a while to figure out how to use it.

Today I'm wondering.....are these flowers going to get me to where I want to go?

It ain't easy being Green

Lots of time I lament about the disadvantages of acrylics......frozen texture, wimpy bodied.....etc, etc. Well here is how acrylics shine. I started this little flower as pink with a green background. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make that green work. So after a day....I went right over the top of it with this cad red, the cad orange combo. My little flower gave a sigh of relief to see the last of that green, and so did I.

Now this says just what I want it to...flower, color, and texture...........to where you want to reach out and touch it. So here's "Pink Daisey" 7 x 12.

Later

My favovite RED

I wanted to do another spontaneous flower, so I keep some smaller panels in my studio for just that purpose. If I have a pile of wet color left from a big painting, I'll use that to get these little florals started. Today I had red left, so away we go!!

This is "Gerber Daisey" 7 x 10 and a cute little guy he is. In fact, so cute, the gallery requested I bring him out! Hurray.

One for the good guys. :)

Who painted that?

This is the 1st piece I started after my long work hiatus. I always start with blue when I'm struggling to get things moving. I was shooting for a evening back-lit floral............weird huh, because people like florals for the color. This one almost makes the jump, but kinda got stuck in low gear.
As one of my favorite painters once said...."If the work doesn't excite you, don't expect it to excite your audience". I do feel it was a good starting point and an exercise in building up texture, and it led to the cat painting posted previously, which is as spontaneous and fresh, as this one is not.
I am starting to reach a limiting factor, texture wise with my acrylics. They are too soft to build up in one pass and they dry down so fast that you cannot rework into them, only on top. Its also very hard to make changes in your design mid-stream, as the initial design is always frozen in place underneath. If I did not live in Hawaii, I would be switching to oil painting right about NOW!
Some much more expressive and intimate pieces are drying here in the studio, that will knock your socks of, so enjoy "Back lit Floral" 11 x 14, and I'll see you.........later!

I think I broke something

This piece is new..............painted back in September. My studio has been silent till today! Finally after extended low tone artists block I came back to the surface today.

I must have pushed the color so hard on this piece called "Radical Flowers" 11 x 14 that something somewhere broke. But enough of what was............what is, is that there are 2 new pieces here, with more on the way... Later, and thanks for your patience.

Did Van Gogh know?

Sometimes I look at my finished work and think, "Boy this is pretty good". And I've looked a whole web page of my work and gone "wow". Then you look another day.............and "I don't know..."
So I wonder, when Van Gogh painted his masterpieces, did he finish one and say "that's a masterpiece" ?? Did he know?
Who tells the artist......."That's a masterpiece", or even "That's pretty good" And would we listen, even if they did.

We're having leftovers

Did this little 8 x 10 with some paint I had left over on my palette after I was finished working on a larger piece. Paint is so expensive here, I just hate to waste it. It seems to be receiving response from the people who see it. Why? I don't really know. For some reason this piece of art has a more universal communication. ?
j

Funny how it happens

Needed a break from flowers today, so I decided to try this little landscape. I always see scenes which I photograph and think what marvelous paintings they would make. Then I get back to the studio, and labor to the point of paralysis, on how to make a painting that will have the ability to move people the way the original scene inspired me. No picture is perfect.......no scene is perfect. These defects will show in the painting more so than in the actual scene. This is what causes me to struggle with landscapes. My confidence in my ability to "bend" reality into a good solid painting. I can say I'm pleasantly surprised how this little landscape sort of popped up out of nowhere.
I look at how my ability to paint has improved over the years, and how far I've come. Step by frustrating step. I guess my paintings are like this blog.............You always wish you knew if anyone was out there listening, it would make communicating so much more fun.

Another view point

Sometimes I feel like I'm painting the same thing over and over. Sometimes I feel I should really have "something to say" above and beyond "color". This happens when sales are slow and my inventory starts to pile up, and I think, "Why should I paint more flowers when I have a whole stack of them filling my studio already?"
When this happens, I like to look at the work of some of the Expressionist painters I really admire, for both the courage to try new subjects, and just plain inspiration. I really have trouble painting a painting that I don't think people will "get" or one I don't think someone would buy. I constantly worry about wasting paint or canvases on work I want to do, instead .....I paint something that will sell. I remember seeing a film on Picasso, and he had stacks and stacks of blank canvases in his studio. He would start a work and if it didn't pan out, he would just set it aside, pick up a new canvas and start again. How wonderful would that be. I just about cry when I have to order $100.00 worth of paint, and I very seldom do a large piece of work because of the expense of the canvas, and the possibility that the piece will sit in my studio for the rest of my/its life.
This painting I have here is called "Viewpointe". Its only on a 14 x 18 board. How wonderful, and what magnitude, and majesty it might have attained on a 48 x 60 canvas. Where's my blue paint?

Blue Moods

Sometimes when I'm in my studio here in Hawaii the isolation comes creeping in. I start going round and round about how to get my art off this Island and into mainstream. How do you get into "attention" out here? That's when I feel (like painting) blue. My best works are "blue" because I can really feel the color.
I'm starting to find a comfortable area in between abstraction and expressionism, that allows me the ability to use freedom of color and imagination. I'm hoping to find a way to translate this into some landscapes that look "unique".