Moth and butterfly wings have captured my attention – or more specifically, the gazillion ways I might paint them have!
I keep thinking I should do more with picture composition. Or perhaps it bugs me (pun alert!) that each time I do one of these, it ends up on the paper in the same basic pose and shape anybody drawing a b-fly would use? Huh. Is that maybe the point? Maybe the simple pose IS the graphic for these little flappers – and it comes down then to what you do next with it?
Moth antennae are kinda cool too!
As is so often the case lately, things are super busy – especially so as I continue to prep for a big exhibition this Autumn/Winter!! More info on that will come soon.
Also, ants are still putting on attitudes, sometimes dancing and even occasionally turning into a mountain!
Yep. Didn’t know they could do that but so they can. Actually the last mountain picture (below) started as a moth, so apparently other insects have this super power too!
Wow – time does fly and it’s busy, busy, busy. Thus no word here for far too long. Sorry!
I’m really done with ants now, but have a bunch still to go as show-n-tell. Gotta say – there is some pretty fine mark making in these.
Lots of new stuff is now on the boards. You’ll see soon!
I feel like I’ve drawn every ant in the gang – but it’s easy to concentrate on working my brush when I’m painting such intrinsically graphic little critters. Fair warning – for the sake of art safety: some of these troublemakers have gone rogue! I ‘spect we’ll be seeing even more of that.
Some are pretty good – and it seems ants can be playful, even a little surreal or elegant!
But I am wondering if they’re going to overstay their welcome? Still, I keep making ’em – one more I will have reached 200! The last two are especially odd – or maybe wonderful?
My little buddies, the Ants, have popped up again. It’s kind of a surprise – – – and they’re more gestural and abstract than ever!
They bloom too!
I keep thinking how wonderfully cool it would be to have a whole gallery wall of these mugshots! Maybe even stacked in two or three rows?
I can’t believe how many of these have popped out of my brain and brush! Hope you are enjoying seeing them.
These guys are stacking up like crazy in my studio! I’m gonna be scanning forever, in order to give you hi-res images, but for now here are some morning snapshots.
Hope you have the finest day!
Landscapes can take a long time to do, but turtles happen fast – – – and they’re fun to run away to when I need it. So, while I’m at work on hard pictures, guess what I’m gonna start showing you?
To launch back into these landscapes, I’m sacrificing a number of unfinished Norwegian mountain pictures. Am tearing, cutting and reassembling them – before working back in. What you see is just the very start of this. I wonder what will happen to these next?
Soon, soon, soon – I will be over turtles. Been thinking it is just about time to dust off the printing press and see about starting the next round of Norway pictures. The one above is from my series depicting Nikolai Astrup’s mountain.
Oh man, always so much to do!
I find myself hip deep in turtles? Yep, really – and I truly don’t know why! It all started when I needed another little break from my Norway paintings, and a bug I was painting (below) went terribly rogue – – – can you see the turtle in there?
Since then, I’ve been wading through these silly critters. You know what? They ARE kinda fun to do! Hey, do you want to see a whole lot more of ’em? YOU CAN, RIGHT HERE!
NOW FINISHED – two more views of the Norwegian mountain I’ve painted many times. I did these at the same time, so I had two scary moments when a few big, ragged and very rapid black brushstrokes either defined the dark mountain’s silhouette or completely ruined the pictures. That was A LOT of effort put at risk! Both came out fine though, don’t you think?
I wanted to do 50 pictures of this mountain – AND NOW I HAVE! Will move on soon – but perhaps I’ll finish a couple more that deserve it!
GET A GOOOOOOD LOOK – – – CLICK EACH PICTURE!
Here are some detail views:
And I’m still painting landscapes – although they’ve changed since my super-realistic picture making days! Now I’m trying for emotion and a gut reaction. I want my paintings to seem as if they capture everything in an instant – and I’m not talking about just what you would see!
THIS ONE IS AT LAST DONE AND SCANNED! Now you can really get a good look at the detail in it. This is, of course, Norway again – and the FIFTIETH of my paintings of Nikolai Astrup’s mountain (see the series HERE).
PLEASE CLICK ON THE TOP IMAGE TO SEE IT BETTER!