"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.