Sunday

Almost-Half-Dozen Paintings

As promised, here are the best of the paintings from my Dozen Artworks Challenge... 


Strangely enough, I thought I'd end up relying on more collage than I did in these pieces. Of course there are plenty of collaged elements represented here in these multi-media works. They each have something glued in them, some are just hidden a lot better than others...


These, my 5 favorites, to me seem to have so much energy - be so lively. Maybe you agree, maybe not? Tell me, what do you think of these pieces? Do they come across as strong or as trying-too-hard? Energetic or overworked? Do you prefer images that have a lot going on, or ones that are calmer and more focused?


Wednesday

What a month and a holiday weekend can do...

The long holiday weekend here in the US is really over, regular life is settling back in along with the rush-hour traffic. Did you have a good weekend? - I hope you did! Mine was a mixture of some good and some bad (but hey, that is life as always, right?)

The Good: Extra time off from work. The day job had a company event on Thursday, so no real working that day, then Friday we only had to work for half the day. Off on Monday for Memorial Day. Always good to have some time off from the j-o-b... Made for what seemed a nice chunk of time away from the work stress :)

The Bad: Allergy season from Hell is still in effect, we're having a bad one here in the Bay Area this year. Eyes are so itchy and sometimes feel like I'm breathing through mud. Like maybe walking through mud too, because it's damn tiring, battling these allergens!

The Good: 5 new paintings now completed that I'm really happy with. Yay! These were part of my Dozen Painting Self-Challenge, and I think that 5 strong pieces out of 12 is a really good ratio (especially considering that 3 are still unfinished, and just might stay that way).

So. I committed to a making a dozen small paintings in a month. How did that turn out?

Well, I spent a little more than a month working on them actually, and as I mentioned before I didn't exaclty finish. But, I did learn a lot, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

The interesting thing about this little challenge / experiment is that it somehow allowed me to try lots of things that I ordinarily wouldn't have, for fear that it wouldn't work out and I'd ruin what I was working on. Counterintuitive perhaps, because you would think - wouldn't you? - that needing a certain number of painting completed would make you try even harder not to mess any up? But, I found that having multiple (and I do mean multiple) pieces in progress at the same time somehow freed me to be more experimental than normal. Because hey, if this one doesn't work out, there are still 4 or 7 others that I'm working on too, so it'll all be ok.

Another thing I discovered is the style that my work is evolving into. For example, I like to have a lot going on in a piece, throughout the canvas, and not have everything in the background fade away to highlight one solitary focal point. I like to give the viewer something to see wherever their eyes may wander across the canvas. I mean, I knew I really wasn't a minimalist at heart, much as I can appreciate that aesthetic, but I was surprised at just how busy I like my compositions to be.

I wanted to share some pictures with you, but the ones I took the other day were blurry. Photography skills definitely need some improvement here! But you can see two of my favorites in my last post. I'll be back in a couple of days with more lessons learned during this last month of painting, and more pictures of these colorful creations!