"Organic Silhouette in Blue, Magenta, and Gold" is acrylic on canvas, 30x24."  This is a personal commission.  My client requested a bright and dramatic pouring using those three colors.  I made sure she was okay with the wide range of secondary colors that could result from that combination.  She said go for it!

This pouring gave me unexpected results.  My intention was a "wet-into-wet" approach, or watered-down paints on a watered-down surface.  However, two factors took the painting in a different direction that day.  First, it was cold in my garage where I was doing this.  Second, the way that particular canvas was prepared by the manufacturer, it wasn't absorbing the water well.  The paint moved around on the canvas in tight rivulets with occasional bursts of feathering and blending.  I sprayed it with water to encourage the pigment to spread in a splattered fashion.  Then, as with all pourings, I had to walk away and come back the next morning! 

My next step was to start carving out my organic shape using a mask of neutral gray paint.  I let the shape of the pour guide me as I cut away around it. 

I then began experimenting with glazes, or thin layers of transparent paint, to rein the colors in.  I chose to eliminate the white because it was detracting from the soft glow of the pigments.  You may also notice the canvas has rotated 180 degrees at this point.  I try to turn abstract pieces regularly while working on them.  Changing the perspective helps me design and problem-solve.  The final orientation ended up being vertical because, well, it just felt right to me.  I also changed the background color to a warm brown instead of gray.

"Poplar Tulip" is 36x36," acrylic on canvas.  This is the first piece I've completed during the current stay-at-home conditions.  After we became locked down, I quickly got into the much-needed habit of going for daily walks in my neighborhood.  I find I'm endlessly inspired by the beauty of nature and the incredible spring weather we've had this year.  On one of my walks, I kept seeing poplar tulips on the ground.

I know these are commonplace here, but I think the bright warm green and orange in them is remarkable.  I decided I would attempt to capture those colors in a pouring.  This would also be a chance to test-drive the painting corner I had cleaned out in my garage.  I can't do pourings in my home studio because they are extremely messy; that space is in the middle of my house and shared with my kids.  I prepared my paints and canvas.

Pourings are very much a hurry-up-and-wait process.  I laid down the initial pour, then had to force myself to walk away.  I've been asked why I don't use a blow dryer to accelerate the drying process.  While that works for some types of painting, I don't like how the air pressure from the dryer pushes the paint around.  It fights with the slow evolution driven by the water's motion.  Here was the initial pour, still very wet.

Here is how it dried... quite different!  The piece has been rotated 180 degrees between these two images.

From here, I used my original inspiration photo to carve out my poplar shapes using a light sky blue mask.  I rotated it many times while working on it.  This piece brings me joy because it conveys the feeling I get when I look up at my poplar trees on a sunny, warm day and see them full of those colorful tulips.

"Iris" is acrylic on canvas, 48x60."  This was a spontaneous piece.  In December, I had made a flower arrangement for my kitchen using white calla lilies, purple alstroemeria, and a cobalt blue glass vase.  The drama and rich color combination inspired me, and I came into work simply having to capture it somehow.  Here is a photo of the arrangement.

I mixed up my colors based on the flower arrangement.  I find with pours, the more limited the palette the better.  Too many different colors will fight and ultimately become muddy.

I laid down the pour, which initially looked like this.  I knew it might change a lot through the drying process, and I would have to wait until the next day to see what I really had to work with.

This is what it looked like the next day, not too different from how it began.

I had established color.  The next step was to create the botanical shapes.  I really enjoy rendering by using masks to create negative shapes (the spaces between objects).  I used my original photograph of the flower arrangement to guide me as I cut in those shapes.  Carefully the piece started to take on its leaves, stems, and petals.  For the mask, I chose a range of soft greens.  I know there were no irises in the inspirational arrangement, but for me, the painting itself took on the qualities of an iris.

"Dancing Stones I & II" are acrylic on paper, 26x40" each.  These pieces evolved slowly on the back burner in my studio.  Almost two years ago, I did a big pouring on loose canvas on my studio floor.  The paint soaked through and created a mess.  There were some interesting shapes and colors happening in that mess, so I grabbed a couple of large sheets of watercolor paper and laid them down to absorb the paint.  Then I set them aside to dry, not really concerned with the results at that point.  Every now and then, when I needed to get my hands into something, I'd pull out these papers and play, pouring and splattering paint, gradually building up what became a very active and multi-layered surface.

    

When we needed a large pair of paintings for a certain location, I decided it was time to tame these into finished works.  I used glazes (thin, transparent applications of paint) to create the rounded shapes.  To push depth, I added shadows to make the shapes appear to overlap.  I continued to build back levels on levels of these floating pebbles.  The largest, lightest shapes sit at the back and anchor the tumbling composition.  Those were created by carving in negative shapes (the spaces between) with a smooth, light gray mask.  I wanted the gray to be clean and quiet to contrast with and accentuate the textures in the stones.  

 

"Fluidity I & II" are acrylic on canvas, 36x60" each.  These works were created in late 2019 for a specific location, so I was asked for a particular size and palette.  The designer requested fresh, dynamic, and abstract content.  I've been experimenting with the pouring technique lately and wanted to go in that direction.  This is what you'd call a "wet into wet" approach.  The substrate (canvas, in this case) has been saturated with water, and the paints applied have been mixed with water.  

You may notice some edges are soft and feathered, while others are hard.  That happens because the water is evaporating at varying rates all over the canvas as the paints are being poured.  It's one of the unpredictable and chaotic aspects of water media I really love!  As the artist, I can try to guide the painting and manipulate the results, but really the water is in charge. These were done in two stages.  The first application was a golden green and range of blues.  Once that dried (about 24 hours), I added a layer of violet.  The lighter rounded shapes were created using an alcohol resist.  Alcohol disrupts most types of acrylic paint if the paint is still wet enough.  You can apply it in a variety of ways.  Here I poured little pools to see what would happen.

The walls where these paintings will live are a light gray, so I left the background white for contrast.