"Oak Silhouette, 2015," is 19.5x35.5, acrylic and gesso on gaterboard.  It started with this underpainting.



Then I carved out the oak tree using the white negative shapes.  The last step was to add an iridescent glaze to the whites to give them a sheen and pop from different angles.  It also gave more contrast between the two surfaces.  This piece may go in a location that has weight restrictions so I painted it on gaterboard, a light foam core substrate.  Painting time was about seven hours, most of which was creating the shape of the tree.  Happy Tuesday!

"Laguna, 2015," is 30x30", liquid acrylic on canvas.  Not much to say except I love any excuse to paint water.  This piece took about 12 hours to complete (4-5 sessions).  I got some good basic compositional content from an image I found online but went off-photo for the last session in order to model the water more and give it more dimension and movement.

"Botanical Series I & II," are more small studies of the new technique, 15x11" each, acrylic wash on paper.  These are again meant to be just impressions of things, not full renderings.  I love the implication.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  

I attended a short art workshop this weekend with a local abstract painter named Joe DiGiulio.  He has a wonderfully loose and spontaneous approach to abstract work and I am always looking for new abstract techniques.  I find his method particularly suitable for organic subject matter such as trees, flowers, rocks... I had an hour to create a couple of small pieces in the class and these are what I came up with.  They are quarter sheets (15x11" acrylic on watercolor paper).  I think next I will do some botanical subjects using this strategy.

"Umstead Reflections, 2015," is a large acrylic on canvas painting at 48x60," another installation in my Umstead Park series.  The darks are not quite as heavy as they show in the photograph but it's close.  This piece took about 15 total hours to complete.  I started it half a year ago and then set it aside to work on other projects.  This week I had a chance (and the right mindset) to work on it again.  I don't know yet where it will end up.  Happy Thursday!

"Autumn Cascade" is pastel on sanded tinted paper, 26 1/2 by 19".  I know I'm not alone when I say I get inspired by the amazing fall trees here in central NC this time of year.  I particularly love how the golds pop against a silvery gray sky, even better when there's been rain.  When I started this piece I knew I wanted to capture that glittery feeling but I didn't want to render a realistic tree.  I wanted to do something more stylized and graphic.  Working with pastels on a dark paper gives quick and dynamic results and moves the painting in a very definite direction.  I ended up carving out my forms using negative shapes (the spaces between things), and I left parts of the dark background showing through to add interest and clarity.  I wanted the image of the tree to break free toward the top so there's a lot of the paper showing there.  Here is a snapshot of the process.

I haven't posted in a while but I have a couple of paintings that are close to completion.  They'll be posting soon.  Happy Monday!  

"Cosmic Tapestry I & II" are 30x22" each, acrylic on paper.  It's a minimal concept that started with "what if?"  The square image was simple.  After painting my initial square, I cut it into strips and split them down the middle, then wove them together.  For the circle, in order to end up with a round shape, I had to split the strips not down the middle but alternating each one.  Then when I wove them to together, I still had a circle but also negative shapes within it.  I had no idea when I started piecing these together again what they would look like, hence the "what if?"  I really like the simplicity of the idea and also how it lets the materials take the lead.  These remind me of very early computer graphics...

"Silver Linings I & II," are mixed media collages on paper, 22x30" each.  I started with a vague need to paint clouds with a silver lining (for therapeutic reasons).  I did not have a goal with these works so it was a free process of experimenting with different materials and washes.  They are clearly clouds but the grid adds a layer of meaning to the titles too.  You can't see it very well in the pictures but the surface is quite interesting due to the papers that were used.  Happy Friday!

"Horizons I and II" are 60x60" each, acrylic on gatorboard panels.  These were a collaborative effort with my colleague, Bill Rodgers, who has a masters in Scenic Design.  He airbrushed the under-painting using a blue-green, warm green, and burnt sienna.  I then added brushwork and more color to complete them.  They will be the focal point for a very large cafe so the scale and color needed to be strong and the composition easily read from a distance.  They are meant to be abstract but the stratified application combined with the earthy palette inevitably leads one's mind to a coastal horizon.  I've never done anything quite like these before and it was fun to do something new.  Happy Friday!

"Streaming Reflections, 2015," is 30x40", acrylic on canvas.  If it looks familiar it is because it was inspired by a painting I did in 2004, "Stream of Consciousness," that hangs at the Umstead Hotel and Spa.  The image is from a different section of the same photo that I took at an art workshop near Spruce Pine, NC, in 2001.  This is a personal commission for a client who saw and fell in love with the piece at the hotel.  I aimed to capture the same feeling as the original while also creating something new and unique that speaks to who I am as an artist now.  It took a couple of months to complete since it was created in my "free" time at home.  :)  The water is quite detailed so I'd estimate 20-25 hours of painting time.

"Umstead Light, 2015," is 40x30", acrylic on canvas.  I knew I wanted to do a scene from our local Umstead Forest so I asked my coworker to under-paint the canvas in a deep dark green.  It is a similar approach as creating a pastel painting using a colored or toned paper.  It basically "kills the white," as we say in artist circles.  It puts you in a neutral position on the gray scale and then you can just focus on playing with lights and darks.  In this particular scene, I wanted to emphasize the dramatic shadows one encounters in a forest.  The painting is as a whole intended to be rather dark so as to really draw the eye to the starkly illuminated creek bed.  I did not want to overly define this scene so I left some areas minimally developed.  This painting happened very quickly for me, a total of 7 hours (thanks to starting with a toned background).  I will include some process photos below.

This is actually an older painting that I revisited.  I did this during my first year at SAS, in 2000.  We needed large colorful canvases for a new cafe and the accent color in the space was red.  This is a stylized interpretation of a scene on SAS campus.  I don't think I would create this painting now so it's kind of fun to come back to it.  The changes I made were subtle.  I toned down and warmed up the colors at bit (believe it or not!) and I added lights to the lower horizon to emphasize the negative shapes in the trees.  Other than that, I tried to preserve what I was aiming to accomplish WAY back when I was 23.  :)  Oh, this is big, 48x60", and it's one of my first acrylic paintings.  Back then, I was still very new to the medium and not totally comfortable with it.  I would not have predicted it would become my favorite.  There's a companion piece to this that I will tweak next and post shortly.

Here is the companion piece, "St. Paul Skyline, 2015," 36x48" acrylic on canvas.  This was a really fun project and I think I will remember this technique for future city-scape paintings.

"Minneapolis Skyline, 2015," is 36x48," acrylic on canvas.  This painting was a complete surprise to me.  I had a side project going with a couple of largish abstracts that were inspired by these sample boards we have in our department break room.  Here is the one that inspired this under-painting.

I didn't really know how these paintings would turn out, just messing around.  Then my colleague said he was working on the art package for our Minneapolis regional office and he needed two large companion pieces for a big meeting room.  The under-painting reminded me of reflections in office windows and it occurred to me I could overlay an abstracted skyline, building on the grid pattern.  Here is the result.  The next one will be of the St. Paul skyline, so both of the Twin Cities will be represented.  :) 

"Gathering Reeds" is 36x48", acrylic on canvas.  This piece is a private commission.  My source image was small and low resolution so I had to improvise the color palette and most of the water in the upper portion.  It's interesting working with photos.  They guide you but at some point, you break away and start doing what feels right instead of what you see.  I guess that's where the "art" occurs.  I really enjoyed working on this one, and because I did it at home, I got lots of assistance from my three daughters.  My youngest, 21 months, actually came up to me and held a cup up to the painting and said, "water??"  :)    

"Welcome to SAS" is 19x26", pastel on sanded paper.  I wanted to do a pastel just for a change of pace.  It's a very different process from acrylic painting.  With hard pastels, you get about two layers of color (which is predetermined by the stick) and that's it, so it requires some amount of planning.  In this piece, I experimented with an unfinished look around the edges, hoping to make it feel more handmade.  It's rather detailed so it took 11 hours to complete.  I hope everyone has a great and love-filled Valentines Day!

The first week of 2015, I hit the studio painting!  "An Apple a Day" and "Morning Joe" are 47x47", acrylic on gaterboard (a lightweight foam core product).  I designed and painted them as candidates for a newly-renovated campus cafe but they found a happy home in a different cafe instead.  I wanted something that would read in a large space but also be interesting up close.  I also didn't want them to be traditionally representational but to have a positive, iconic food-and-drink vibe.  Happy Tuesday!