Day 28 - Graffiti Text

I snapped this picture as I was walking out of a Wawa (a PA based convenience store/gas station) a few weeks back. This guy was just perfectly posed right outside the door and I actually had my phone at the ready! The background was of course cars, gas pumps and chaos, but I opted for a background of graffiti, as it seemed appropriate.  I also was experimenting with the paint itself. I typically use a limited palette - Titanium white, Alizarin Crimson, Cad. Yellow, and Ultramarine Blue. (and sometimes Phthalo green)  But this scene called for something different.  The colors needed to be bright and pure.  Sooo, I used... Titanium white, Quinacridone Red (love that word), Transparent yellow, transparent orange, (by Rembrandt) and prussian blue - all of which are transparent colors (minus the white) that have a bit more umph to them.  I only added the white towards the end of the painting.  This is a technique I have known about from reading about another artist who uses this technique (Dreama Tolle Perry) to achieve pure, bright colors.  I am relatively happy with the results but feel I need to experiment with it more.  The graffiti in the background is simply because I am fascinated by graffiti, and have included it in several paintings I have done previously.  I love the ambiguity and abstract quality of it.

Graffiti Text, oil on panel, 18"x24"
to purchase, please click here

Moravska

Wow... June is zipping  by and I am just getting around to posting... I have been so busy painting commissions and with my new responsibilities at Art Plus Gallery that I seem to have no time to post anything!  I don't know how some people keep up with everything you should be doing as an artist in the 21st century.....
Anyway, this is one of my latest paintings.. It is a new one in my latest series of paintings that are more illustrative and narrative.  Although, if you were to ask me what this one is exactly about, I am not sure I could pin it down. At the time that I designed it, I was really thinking about the sad plight of elephants in our world... (and all creatures that are nearing extinction..)  I am just in dis-belief that in our lifetime, we could see a world without elephants.  But it is true.  It has already happened to the Western Black Rhino.  It is sad, terrible, lamentable and a clear testament to some of the worst qualities of human-kind, which is our tremendous disrespect and irreverence for the well being of our home.... Mother Earth.  While contemplating these very concepts, an image began to appear on the slate of my mind and this is how it developed as the painting you see below.  As I said above, I am not entirely sure of it's direct relationship to my thoughts, but, I am fine with that.  I hope you can find some kind of message that you can relate to....
I have entered this one into the 35th annual BAA juried exhibition... Keeping fingers crossed that it will make it in!

Moravska, oil on textured, 3/4" cradled panel, 24" x 30", nfs (yet)

Day 28 - Tagged

So, graffiti has a long and controversial history.  I myself can appreciate some graffiti.  Some would say all graffiti is a form of self expression and is therefore art.  I say, some graffiti is definitely art, and some graffiti is just plain stupid.  Just my opinion though.  Today's painting is titled "Tagged" because the graffiti behind the lady is what I understand to be tags, basically, the 'signature' of the person who wrote it there.  I have never cared for this kind of graffiti.  Much of it looks the same, slap dash and not well thought out.  Nothing artful about it.  However, when wandering around Prague on street view yesterday, I noticed more graffiti on the walls than seemed normal, at least where I am from.  It is literally everywhere... I was intrigued by this lady (who reminded me of my grandmother, how she always dressed impeccably) probably going home from shopping, with the graffiti covered wall behind her.  I almost titled the painting, "Turning a Blind Eye" because it seemed to me that perhaps she has walked down this street her whole life, but it wasn't always riddled with graffiti.  Now it is, and she has to walk by it everyday.... So she turns a blind eye.... Anyway, who knows.  That's what I love about painting.... the stories they tell.  Maybe you see a different story!

Tagged, oil on panel, 6"x6"
to purchase, please click here