Numb...

Shattered

So, it's 40 degrees here in St. George and what am I doing? I'm out in my studio/garage in christmas pjs, flip flops and a beanie working on a new collage :)  I'm sure if anyone were watching I look like I've lost my mind.  I only lasted about an hour and a half then I couldn't feel my toes any longer.  I also finished two other paintings, i'm feeling very accomplished and numb.

Painting/Sketch

Just trying something new.  I covered an ugly, old painting and then sketched with watersoluable graphite.  Pretty fun, the texture ate my graphite pretty quick, but I was happy with the final piece.

Fun Again

So I finally spent some time in the studio, good news is I have quite a few paintings going at once so maybe I won't get stuck on just one (now I'll get stuck on multiple paintings at once :)) This one has been my favorite one to work on.  It is different from my usual stuff and i'm liking that.  So I've had this canvas 3'x4' just sitting around the studio for MONTHS, I hadn't used it because I gessoed it in the summer and the heat made it dry so fast it had huge cracks in it. I had to find some way to use it and incorporate the cracked gesso, so i added tons of texture to it, I should take a close up so you can see it, but anyway, it has been fun to play in different media and see if I can make it work.  I'm working on a bunch of paintings for a friend, but I have no idea what her tastes are in paintings.  I guess I'll find out soon enough :)

NIght Drive

Merge Left, oils

So this is just  a quick beginning to a new piece.  It's from a road trip I took with a friend to LA.  I love pictures at night, when everything gets distorted.  Don't worry I didn't shoot the reference while I was driving, I love a good reference as much as the next guy, but I draw the line at taking a picture while I am driving :) i'm about an hour in, I wanna lighten up the foreground to add some dimensions, but really I just wanna keep it loose.

Art Overload and Loving It!

I just spent the best day in Los Angeles, my friend Jorge and I came out to look at some campuses for graduate school and today we checked out UCLA.  I was really hoping I would hate it and I could check it off my list of schools I am interested in (which would be awesome because it is so expensive) and early on it looked promising.....but then we took the tour :( campus is so beautiful and their program is exactly what I would love, and they have  graduate studios off campus, so you only have to come to campus if you were teaching.  Still a long shot, but I'll give 'er a go :)

We even had some down time to sketch a little.  Then we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and it was AMAZING!  I had my first experience seeing a Jackson Polluck, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Gorky, Jasper Johns, Lichtenstein....there are so many!  I never thought I would be one to get starstruck over paintings, but it was really fantastic.



Adrift

I'm sure everyone has felt this way, but lately I feel like I sleep, and work.  Nothing more.  I haven't been able to create anything in a couple weeks :(  not for lack of trying.  I just worked in the studio for a couple hours and have nothing to show for it.  It's like all the ideas are still percolating in my head and a rush to put some paint on the canvas only proves frustrating.  Is it possible to be overloaded with nothing?  like the less I do, the harder it is to start something or make something I am happy with?  I feel like i'm not currently measuring up to my potential and that is the worst feeling of all.

Upon Water



Upon Water oil on panel, 24"x48"

Another piece I did to enter into the Springville show.  These were really fun to do, I messed around with my supports :) for the last two I used panelboard and stained it chestnut, then I just painted directly on that.  It was nice cause I wanted a rich feel to the piece and it was cool to see the stain through the paint and then blend the paint out so it is just wood on the edges.