Now What?

The other day I found this drawing while cleaning my room.
I'm pretty sure I've posted a picture of it before, so it's nothing new.
Anyways, I'd forgotten all about it, so I decided to make it a little more
memorable.

I cut the drawing off of the notepad it was onI sprayed the drawing with a fixative spray.

I matted the drawing on white mat board.
I tried black mat board at first, but white
made the drawing pop a little more.

I had this plain black frame, that was a little too plain.
I decided to spray paint it a bit. At first I thought about
spraying it a different solid color, but then I just decided
to do some light sprays of yellow around the frame.

I think the spots effect worked pretty well.

After that I sprayed the frame with a gloss
finish, and put everything together.

The finish product came out pretty sweet I think.
I've never really thought about selling prints of any of my work,
but I think this might be the first one. I'll think about it.

Sometimes People Just Want You To Paint Some Flowers

Over the holidays I painted a few paintings for people. This was one of them. The only instruction I got was that he wanted flowers. He was a horticulture major in college, so he wanted a painting of something he knows a lot about.

My favorite paintings I do for people are always when they give me the freedom to do whatever I want to do. I think I get my best results when I don't feel too much restraint when painting.

I decided to paint a surreal painting involving flowers. I looked at a lot of different pictures of flowers, and sort of came up with a story.

I don't really want to get into the story. I don't generally like explaining what things mean or represent in my paintings. Most of the time other people's own interpretations interests me more than my own....well sometimes.

This Is What Happens...

....When I haven't painted or drawn anything.

Inside Out

This is a self portrait inspired by one of my favorite artists, Rene Magritte. Don't want to get too into meaning, but you should be able to notice how his work influenced this painting by looking here. The painting was done with acrylic paint on a 30" x 40" stretch canvas. Sometimes I like to place my paintings in different surroundings and take a picture. Is that weird?

Look Familiar? -------------------------------------------------->

I started a new painting. It's a little big. I don't know yet if I'm going to go with acrylic or oil paint. I haven't dusted off my oil paints in a while, but I'm scared of what it might do to my brushes. The canvas is 30" x 40". It cost me a few pennies so I really want to take my time with this one. I'll try to update as I go...we'll see.

Running With Manatees.

Another old drawing I found. I did it when I was messing around with Indian ink. The ink was a little hard to control, but I'd like to do more ink drawings. This was a pretty quick drawing/painting...I worked on it for about 15 minutes. I think I can make it into something though. The funny thing about this drawing is that the kid at the far left looks a lot like me when I was a kid. Heh.

Greed...Or Something Like That

When I was cleaning my room the other day I found this painting I started about five years ago. I wasn't really sure where I was trying to go with it, so I stopped working on it. I think the idea is still there, so I'm thinking of trying to finish it. I painted it on a piece of wood, so I'm going to glue a border around it and turn it into a wooden canvas. The idea needs more development, but I think it's still there.

And another one

I started this a while ago. Worked on it for a few hours. Had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to incorporate into it....but then I got frustrated. I didn't touch it for months.

The other day I found it again and covered the canvas with gesso. I need to be more patient.

Before and After

Sometimes I look at a painting or drawing when it's finished, and just don't feel it. When that happens I have to make some changes. Sometimes is works out, and other times it does not. I liked how this one turned out though.



The face, hands, jeans, guitar, and the cloudy sky were all done with color pencil. The rest was painted with acrylic paint on a thick 18x24 sheet of thick watercolor paper.

Bye Bye

I painted this last year. There was no idea or plan set out ahead of time with this one. The face and the hands were done separately with color pencil on a piece of bristol paper. Then they were later glued onto the canvas. The canvas was about 30"x40", which I built.

Sometimes I really liked it, other times I couldn't really stand it. A few months ago, I got really lazy and didn't have time to build a new canvas. Buying one would have been too expensive, so I painted over this.

I regret painting over it now. Mostly I regret not finishing it. The whole thing came together in two days. I don't finish a lot of stuff. Mostly because I simple lose interest. But I miss this one.