Me and my Mustache posing with my painting at the North Carolina Museum of Art
This was taken at the preview night for the Art of the Auction benefit for the museum. More info on the event is this post.
Chillin with the ‘stache
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Monthly Archives: March 2012
Finally updated the Print Store
03.11.12 Turquoise and Red (Negative) Versions A&B
So I finally updated the Available Prints page with all of the recent work. These prints are now available for sale via my paypal checkout. The buy now button is located at the bottom of the page for each print. I set the price at $60 + $5 shipping for each of them. Many of these prints are one of a kind variations. A few are in small run multiples of a color combination but each is unique, for reasons explained here. Check these posts for more details on the different runs.
3/26/12 New Painting
Number 423
Hard to believe it’s the end of March and this is the first painting of 2012, Number 423. I have been focused on the prints since January so I haven’t spent much time actually painting. It’s been a lot of fun but I needed to paint. I am still planning a giant painting on this roll of canvas I have.The plan has been to go very heavily multilinear on that since I will have space to put a lot of lines. This sketch was not dense enough for that size but I really liked it so I painted it at my regular size of 3′x4′.
2012_02_25-_8-00am001
Color
So first off, this is a palette switch from the last group of paintings. Notably the addition of the orange but also brown instead of yellow and a different pigment green. My last group had some orangey reds, but everything was squarely on the red end of the spectrum. This is definitely orange. I admit it was added because of the red-orange I have been using on the prints. I loved the effect when used with the purples, turquoise and green. The other change is the green is chromium oxide which has a matte finish and an earthy tone compared to the bright phthalo green. It is one of my favorite colors.
Besides the pigment changes, there has been a color pattern change as well. The previous two sets of paintings used 3-level sets for the interior space but in this painting I am using 2-levels. This painting has 5 colors in heavy and light saturation pairs, plus orange. The multilinear red/turquoise/purple/yellow/green paintings from last year (414-422) had two major interior colors and 2 minor interior colors in sets of 3 levels of saturation. Fourth levels of saturation were used for line or background. The yellow series (406-413) before that had a 5-level major color and two minors. The interior space of both groups of paintings was limited to 3 saturation levels of each color.
10 colors in light and heavy saturation pairs. At the time that I took this photo I had not yet mixed the big vat of orange.
Pairs of Blue, Turquoise, Purple
Two saturation variants of each color allow for some interesting patterns. I opted to alternate heavy/light horizontally within color and vertically across color. Here is what it looked like after I established the major color areas and began to identify the minor color clusters:
One application of each of the color pairs plus the second minor color cluster.
One Coat establishing all the color areas.
Fast forward many hours:
Many coats of paint later...
Music
On a side note I have been on a huge Afrobeat kick lately playing a lot of mid-70s Fela Kuti in the studio on repeat. Mostly “Gentleman,” “Zombie,” and “Expensive Shit.” This has been interspersed with some of my favorite Brazilian music, long-time obsession “Carlos, Erasmo” by Erasmo Carlos and “Africa Brasil” by Jorge Ben.
More drawings
I have been going through a lot of drawings while working towards this new painting. These are a few recent drawings I found interesting.
Current favorites:
NCMA – Art of the Auction 2012
I am pleased to announce that my painting Number 418 has been selected for the Art of the Auction 2012 at The North Carolina Museum of Art. It is an honor to be selected and I am very happy to help support such an important cultural institution.
Number 418
This year the event will feature work by more than 160 artists from North Carolina. The list includes several of my friends from Golden Belt: Harriet Bellows, Warren Hicks and Madelyn Smoak. Other friends of mine included are Mathew Curran and Cindy Morefield.
The auction preview is Friday, March 30th at 5:30pm. Admission is free. More info here.
The auction will be held Saturday, April 14th at 7pm. More info here.
Don’t mind me, I will just be hanging out in front of the museum’s giant Frank Stella.
Short interview with me by Radhika Kshatriya for my exhibition at Chapel Hill Town Hall this month:
Tonight at Golden Belt
I like grids. You may have heard this about me.
There are a lot of great things happening at Golden Belt tonight in Durham:
Seven by Constance Pappalardo in Room 100 presented by Durham Arts Guild
Liberty Arts is in the neighborhood now
The Artful Robot in the Green Gallery at Scrap Exchange
Labour Love After Hours with The Beast
Dawn Michelle Williams will be performing live in Room 100 with drummer Michael Rogers at 6pm
Official press-release thingy here.
Golden Belt is located at 807 East Main Street, Durham, NC 27701
Some drawings
I have this giant roll of canvas and I am in the planning stage of a really big painting. I have been doing a lot of drawing lately in preparation. It should be about 6′x8′. Drawing is such a big part of my process that I don’t often share. I usually about 300-500 individual drawings for ever painting I complete. Sometimes I will paint 2 or 3 off the same page but I feel I need to do at least this many before I find something that I like. I will post more soon but here are a few for now:
Negative Space Prints
This set is building off of the negative space prints I did for “This& That” but in the larger format. Those prints were 11″x14″ and these are all closer to 18″x24″. Here is a set of three in orange and green with slightly different registrations:
03-11-12 three versions of Two Figures in Green and Orange - slightly different registrations
So far in my print experiments this year, the 2 and 3 color iterations have been the strongest. For this set I used 3 screens, two negative space iterations and one line. The two negative space screens happen to fit together really well in this set and I was able to get a lot of great variations. Slight differences in registration of the screens can have subtle but distinct effect on the look of the expression. I like how this echoes the chaotic variation in my drawings, small differences in proportion and distance of line changing how the expression manifests. Here are a few more color variations with just the negative space and a few opposite pairings:
03-11-12 two versions of Two Figures in Purple and Turquoise - Each of these prints has slightly different registration.
03-11-12 two versions of Two Figures in Turquoise and Orange - opposite versions
03-11-12 two versions of Two Figures in Raw Umber and Turquoise - opposite versions
I mentioned above that there was a third screen with the line. Here is a split variation, the same line paired with one each of the negative screens:
03-11-12 two versions of Two Figures in Turquoise and Orange (A&B)
Now for all three elements:
03-11-12 two versions of Three Figures in Green, Orange and Turquoise
03-11-12 two versions of Three Figures in Green, Orange and Purple
The color I have been referring to as “orange” in this post is a mixture of Hansa Yellow Light and Napthol Red Light. Against the turquoise it is almost electric:
Orange Paint
A little preview of something I am working on
Here is a little preview of an idea I am developing:
02.29.12 Turquoise and Orange
The idea of printing negative space instead of the line has been on my mind for awhile. I finally figured out a good way to do this and have printed a few tests. I filled one of the On the Run pens with screen filler and just drew directly on the screen. The filler flows out of the pens decently but there is some evidence of the texture visible in the finished product. Not as smooth as the corn syrup mixture I am using as drawing fluid. I kind of like the sketchy quality of the line in some parts. I am still experimenting with colors and overlay. The next set will be combinations of negative space and line.
This print is one of 20 that I made for “This & That,” a print exhibition organized by my friends Regina Jestrow and Jen Basile. The show will feature prints made by 22 current residents and alumni of the Bakehouse and Art Center South Florida. I met Regina and Jen during my own residence at the Bakehouse 2009-2010. The opening is at the Bakehouse April 13, 2012 from 7-10pm in the Swenson Gallery on display through May 1st. The show will also be on display at Art Center South Florida in the 924 Lincoln Road Vitrine from May 17-June 24.