Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Blue?

Digital Painting

'Not Your Clown' series collage-y piece.  It's that time of year when I am scanning polaroids from summer, and sidetracking from the tedious process with some digital paintings, doodles, and other more exciting (than scanning) things.

Locusts

There is so much going on and nothing happening at all.  I'm in the midst of Polaroid and film negative scanning and took a much needed off ramp in order to redirect, focusing some creative energy into playing around with this digital painting from my "I am not your clown" series.  Here is the result, in case anyone still reads here.

Selfie Collage

I'm not much of a blogger, I think this has been established, but I'll try to post randomly like I do from time to time.  Here's a crop of a self portrait collage I've made using multiple photos, paint, and doodles.

Forgot I Had a Blog!

Oops.
Hope all have gotten through the winter time well, and are finally seeing signs of Spring.  I'm sure it will be fleeting, and we'll jump right into full-fledged Summer before you know it, even though we've had two snowstorms within the last month.  ;)
Here are some of a recent series called "I Am Not Your Clown".  They are digital paintings.

Happy New Year, and all that Jazz!

This is a digital painting I did to commemorate the passing of another year, with a reminder to continue to look forward to the future, and to forget about all the crap that happened in the past.  :)

Merry Christmas!

To all who celebrate!  And happy holidays to others whose observations are different than mine.  May it be a happy time of year for everyone.

I'm on Instagram!

OK, I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm the rare person who's never been on it (because it was a cellphone app and I'm still old school; I don't have one.)  But now it works on the iPad, which I do have --it doesn't work as well from what I understand, and apparently a lot of the features are not there, like filters, and probably other things I don't know about.  I don't mind, though.  So if anyone is interested, take a visit or a peek, and if you're up to it,  join in!

Some Little Paintings

Acrylics on cold pressed water color paper....

Detail of Vamp

A recent digital painting.  You can see the whole thing on my Facebook page.

Two Hands Up!

I had my cast removed and although I really am still only one handed for the most part, I have turned a corner.  Also, it's the time of year for twins to get together and have fun twin time.  At least it is for myself and my sister.  Soon she'll be here and we'll be down in the street having a great time.

Since It's Still Summer Outside

Here are some recent scans from the beach.  Seemed summer started late and still lingers on, so likewise, I'm not letting go yet.

One Handed

I've recently had an injury to my non-dominant hand and wrist which has made completing daily tasks quite difficult.  I am able, though, to paint and draw, and have been doing that quite a bit as I heal.  This is a new series called 'Beach Club', perhaps due to time spent at the family beach house last month, and the fact that I'm still clinging to summer.  It seems so short each year.

Latest in the Redhead Series

I'm finding that it helps to start out in greyscale and then paint over in color.  I have 22 saved iterations of this face, here are step 1, 3, and 22.

Evolution of a face

While making my digital paintings, I will either start painting over a rough scanned sketch, or start from scratch.  If I can't get the face right, I'll turn it upside down, or put it in a monochromatic scale to reduce the distractions that my brain wants to see (which are not there).  It doesn't always work, but when it does, I'm happy.  You can see one such evolution here.  There were, of course, many steps in between each thumbnail I've shown.

Once I get the face finalized, I play with adding background detail/texture, and/or color.

Green and Gold

Certainly not colors I'm seeing outside today with the blizzard (ahem, if you can call it that.  We got far less than the 27" called for) yesterday.  These are two variations which ended up looking similar in color palette after playing around with the color versions I am working on right now; additions to the Royals Series.

More Details!!

Another from the same 'Royals' series.  The hustle and bustle of the season is slowing down personal art time, but here's some of the latest ....

Details, Please!

Part of me likes the nondescript, generalized rendition of the 'details' in my paintings: the 'placeholder' brushstrokes used to indicate hair, or accessories, or clothing which I start out with and paint over with more and more accuracy as I go on.  Another part of me feels impelled to continually add more realism each time I sit back down to paint more.

The need to show this increased detail may come from somewhat of a lack of confidence on my part, as well as a need to see if I can render certain parts more realistically so that I will not be judged as someone less skilled than I might otherwise be assessed.  I'm generally less comfortable showing my 'looser' work without explanation - - that it's somehow intentional, and that while I am capable of painting more realistically, ["better" ?] I just happen to prefer this particular work the way I have it ["unskilled" ?].  I hope that will go away in time, both the lack of confidence, and the fear of simplicity.

Above are details of a recent painting (which I showed in a sepia version in the last post).  I'm not done with the jewelry, I have much more to do.  See the sepia version for a general sense of how it looked before.

Recent Works in Sepia

 From my Stepchildren Series

 From a new series, The Royals (WIP)

Recent Polaroid scan from this past summer.

First Pinhole Polaroid of the Season

10 second exposure on a lovely summer day by the Hudson River in a little park between Soho and Tribeca in NYC.

Taken with this camera: The Arunas Cigar Box Pinhole with Polaroid back....