Chakra Centers Evolve

Energy Centers in the body. The figures from different viewpoints are inside an egg on a blue background. The figure is wading in a puddle of water and land. This work in progress is 22"x30" oil on watercolor paper

This painting I started today originated, like many ideas from the little drawing book I try to always have with me.

This painting includes symbolic colors representing both the energy points (chakras), and the color of life, creativity, nurishment, calm,; blue.

Purple is royalty, majesty, support, wisdom and comfort.

The chakra colors of red for the base, orange for the sacral, yellow for the solar plexus, green for the heat, blue fo rhe throat, indigo for the head and violewt white for the crown are placed as cirles of color.

We'll see how this one developes. Must sleep now.

Summer Days..... Digital Nights

When the days call for adventure out of studio and exploring with the family my camera is my tool and my computer turns into my easel. Fishing was the original purpose of our walk. While we didn't catch any fish a few images were captured.

Of course, with as quickly as my two move, getting THE shot on the card is not always easy. Thankfully there is Photoshop.

Here are a few images in various stages of manipulation.

These 2 are the original shots I combined to make the new one.

Thanks to layers of various transparency, and the clone and patch tools among others this new composition took shape.

Then color was another property to be varied.

I like this one the best of all the variations.

Summer Painting Season HAS Begun

Summer is the time of new creations!

The paintings that were begun and put on hold during late winter, early spring are now getting their due attention. Two paintings that I started months ago and I have been staring at each time I walked through the studio to get very important things other than my brush. Important things like the laundry, or my son's shoes have ways of overshadowing creative outlets. But good news is..... Summer's here, school is out, kids are busy and playing and Mommy gets to paint! Happy Days are here again!

The above painting is an oil on board with watercolor under painting. This is the last in the monochromatic series. All proceeding paintings were keeping with just variation of a line and shape. This one incorporates the figure and then changes its flow. It seems sometimes that when the figure is introduced to a composition a certain level of tension is automatically created. AS with most my paintings, it has no title yet. It has not revealed itself to me yet. Yet.

More work to be done.

These hands hold the spherical egg which has two hands emerging from it. Entwined in rings of light, are spheres of energy. This oil painting on wood is still in progress. More work on the hands and dimensionality of the rings.

NEW CREATION!!! While the same subject/style as many of my previous works, this paintings incorporates a new media. All color is applied on clear velum. All black figurative lines are developed on watercolor paper with charcoal.

At this point I am envisioning a forest with figures emerging from many natural forms all in a cool color scheme.

LAYERS! OMG! It's photoshop with oil and more time.

This New Kid on the Block is unlike anything I have created before. Cartoon like with simple color and black lines.

This began as a drawing on board then is now underway as an oil on board. This time I inked lines firs and concreted the design. In my mind. This is a commentary on our dependence the screen. Dependant to the point of self crippling degeneration. Three different people have melted to only heads, deformed now as they may be. These heads, so lazy as to have melted away their legs, are being pushed in a shoe fitted with a wheel. Because everyone else has fallen to the lazy, the shoe is control ed by remote using the antennas on top.

The background consists of various roads, bridges and screens projecting meaningless mind clutter and a imaginary creature or two.

This one just makes me giggle! Maybe Mind Mush would be a good title?

So I have much work to do. What a great way to spend summer "vacation".

Circles Update

Two paintings in process now are growing slowly into their own. Circles and figures. Hands holding spheres. Rings binding, or is it comforting, encompassing. Whatever.

Now I'm stuck so I put on the computer to play with color and texture in the white areas. I'm leaning towards the purples and reds. WE'll see.

As some planets have rings; we are each our own planet. Rings must be supported by something. Each sphere, or person, or planet is supported by something.

Blue and yellow make green, The center and the ring make one. One of what? Yet to be determined.

New Series

Circles #2

I am begining to believe that it is totaly impossable for me to work on only one thing at a time.

A new seriese is emerging from the pool of energy that is me.

To me these seems a bit more uplifting, but it is early in their development. Cricles #2 began as two touching hands and a solar like ring around them. It is developing in to two hands emerging from a spherical egg which is held by two unrelated hands. The ray of light energy (still too yellow orange) that is also emerging out from the egg then wraps around the central element to then blend to the bottom and cradel the scene.

The Red Sphere in the background has not totaly disclosed its pupose. This 24"x24" oil on wood panel is in the underpainting stage now. Once the design has been worked out Thicker oils will be applied.

I have a more mystical feeling about this one. The difficulty lies in wanting to have bright, bold, vivid color without creating an overwelming energy force. How to get vivid color while keeping a soft easy feeling is showing itself as my challenge.

AS with most of what I create, the final name for these new paintings will be determined at their completion. For now, they get series numbers in order of their original emergence.

Circles #1

This is a watercolor that began as a memeber of the MONOCHROMES series but the birth of the green gave it a new destiny.

Here figures, or parts of them, are stretching to support various spheres.

It does seem that my creations often consist of circles and figures.

What can I say?... They're fun!

Works in Progress

This is the newest painting to be in progress. This one, like most, started with a few quick stroke of paint and then a break. A second look as to what could emerge from it. It is still early in its life yet. However, the charactoristic circles and figures are beginning to appear. I think this one is in the underpainting state. The seed's been planted, so to say. Now I'm not all together sure how it will grow. A variation from the last fiew, this painting has its origins in water color and pensil, rather than oil pastel and oil paint.

Manipulated Monochromes

It's amazing what Photoshop has allowed the artist to do in creating new images from original works. This began as "Purple" then I added various filters to the original painting. From there it's all just select, copy invert, rotate and place. Presto, a new image. Maybe I'll call this "Purple Reflections."
Poster edges and plastic wrap are the two filters used here. After creating new layers to apply the filters, the layers were merged and then copied and transformed. This type of Kalidascope image can be created with any image that has exterior posative and negative spaces. It is the play on posative and negative spaces that gives the image its power.

Purple In Progress

"Purple" is still in progress. I am not yet satisfied with its values and textures. In the photograph it appears more harsh than as I see it in the studio. Seeing the painting on the screen helps me to reevaluate my intentions for the work. I think as artists we often can get so sucked in to what we are doing that we loose site of the total composition. I began this one, as with the other monocromes, with a few lines using the pure color. From there, each line becomes its own form and grows. Then each form has to find where it fits in, around, and through the others.

While I have become entranced with the monochome series, I am still wooking on Evolution of Herstory, some photorestoration and other digital projects. What can I say???? That's what drives me.

Monochroms Live On

Thank you Martin Luther King Jr. for all you did for individual freedoms. You have made it possible for me to create another painting in the monochroms series. This one, for now, is "Yellow" 18x24 Oil on Canvas.

MonoChromes

Here I am working in a monochromatic color scheme with oil on wood panel. I have not yet decided on a title for this one. As it sits in the studio I look at it each day and wait for it to speek it's name. For now, I'll call it "Blue". Its cool blue color gently blends from dark to light and back to dark again. With lines flowing in a circular fashion there are many ways of interpreting its meaning. Depending on the state of mind when viewing it can conjour up thoughts of things from the female reproductive organs to organic patterns. This abstract work is the first in a series of monochromatic works.

I'll call this one "Green" for now. It too is an oil but on canvas. This abstraction of swirling green evolves from its simple primary yellow and blue color to its more complex secondary green color. The central circular formation serves as a base, or seperator, of the two legs. A torsoless figure (meaning you can only see the legs) sits on a ball; or is it an egg emerging from between the two legs?

This painting, like "Blue", is but a piece a greater puzzell. Each panel I create must be able to stand on its own, but fit into a larger design. We'll see how they all emerge.





Ok, so this one is not exactly monochromatic. These colors are the same from "Evolution of Herstory" Again with the swirling, spiral of color evolving from one to the next and back again. The warm colors are full of heated energy. Blue and Green are much calmer paintings than this one which for now I will call "Funnel" All these heated colors funneling into what? The next painting in the series. Time to go paint!