Fast Portraits

Taking a break from large (for me) paintings. I want to master or a least get better at constructing and completing more complicated paintings-but every once in a while it works to begin and finish a small paintings.

Restating a Painting

The goal with this painting as I went along was to find a way to knit the painting together with a architecturally structure and to give more body to figures in the foreground. I’ve muted the colors by laying on a dull green wash, which gets rubbed out or painted into. What is not visible now is that I painted in 5 lines that run from the low left to high right of the painting with each area painted with a slightly different of yellow paint. Right now they are just guides.

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Fixed On Red

I am having fun following my steps. I seem to be OK with changing the look of a painting in mid stream. As I’ve progressed the painting starts to get a little too formal. The last paintings seems to have lost some tension. My job is to see if I can reveive it.

Runways

My first working experience was in the New York Fashion Industry, 7th Ave as it was called. I don’t think we thought of it as an industry.

I got to meet people like Richard Blauner, (who gave me two ties from A. Sulka) Jerry Silverman, Herbert Sondheim and others. I was one of the first to see the original dresses and coats as they came back from the Paris Fashion Shows. In other words – I was in shipping. But none the less, I still admired the beauty of what I was seeing.

This painting is a layout of a series of paintings having to do with fashion for a show this winter.

Of Interest to this Artist.

A) Quick wash
B) Add a little color
C) Define shapes
D) Just a bid more detail
E) Some lights and darks.War by B. Martin (c) 2008

War is not a unique thing. There is always a war going and there are always faces that show universal despair.

This is not a poliical statement but war is just dumb.

At the Tryst Gallery in Chandler, AZ this week.

Serendipity was in play this past week. I received a call to hang some of my work in a hurry. A Gallery, the Tryst at Inspirado was holding a reception for the Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce.

Got the call on Thursday and delivered on Friday. Lots of people, some inquiries and you never know.

Finding Comfort

Being uncomfortable is most often thought of a way to have a breakthrough on what ever kind of creativity process you are working on. After struggling for the last month or so, I am not so sure that being uncomfortable is everyone salvation.

People I Know: In Paint and Words

I have been working on my first book of paintings I’ve called “People I know” It been a fun project so far and I still need two or three more small paintings to fill out the pages. These two paintings are in progress and because I had a specific use for them, I’ve been working more deliberately then I normally would in resolving them. Sometimes it is a good idea to wait and see what the painting is calling for.