Love Letter to Paige

 

Mixed Media on toned paper, 2012

 

I made this mixed media piece for my cousin on her 30th birthday. I remember her best as a little girl, under 4 years old, dancing in her mother's kitchen to a song only she could hear, totally engrossed in her own magic. It's always how I've thought of her. 

Gilded Age

 

Peculiar as it was in that part of the world, Mrs. Carlisle accepted the elaborate system of trenches her children dug in her garden. "Human nature," she'd smile to herself.

 

Later,  she would remark inwardly how persistently blood sticks to everything as she attempted for hours to pick the loam from her hands.

Lilly-White Skin, Eyes Like Ashes

Ink on toned paper, colored in Photoshop

Nightmares of Ecstasy

Gouache and Ink on colored paper

What the Angel Saw

Mixed media on toned paper

Finished this. Don't have a scanner big enough to take in the whole painting, but you get the idea.

And Since I was So Uptight...

I sketched this to chill out.

Looks a lot like the other craggy faced, depressed men I've painted in the past. Seems I return to a certain, navel gazing theme. Who knows? Maybe this face will become something in the future. A character in a painted graphic novel, perhaps?

In any case, I sketched this with absolutely no pre-planning, no "idea" in mind. I just sat down with a blank piece of paper and my paint, and went at it. I find this is the best way to work. Starting from an "idea" seems to choke me up, especially if that idea is something along the lines of "paint like Wyeth. Go ahead. How come yours doesn't look like his?!".

Can't imagine why I choke. 

Stubbing My Toe on Wyeth

I was feeling uptight tonight.

Watched a video on Andrew Wyeth, who is my absolute favorite painter. Ever. Sweet leaping Jesus, if that man didn't paint in exactly the palette of my soul...

But the thing is, for some reason I get SUPER uptight when I watch/read/view the work of my idols. I go to my canvas and all I'm thinking about is them. Their work. How THEY did things. As inspiring as I find Wyeth, David Mack, Dave McKean and many others, something about my love for their work stands in my way.

Perhaps this is the lesson. Adore the work of others, let it work its magic on you. But fight it out of your heart and mind with everything you've got as soon as you pick up a brush. That canvas is yours.