Sunday, January 29, 2012

"El Corazon"


"El Corazon" is the title of the annual show held at the Bath House Cultural Center around this time of year.
"Steam" is my contribution this time around. It's acrylic on paper, image size of about 8 by 6 inches.

This piece is similar in subject to another painting, "Days of Dreaming". The sort of "Steam Punk" imagery, with the apparently old, beaten up piece of hammered together machinery as the focal point (in this case a heart), is repeated here. A friend, on seeing "Days of Dreaming", expressed some intrigue with the subject matter and said he hoped it was a new direction. "Days" is a part of a series, but the other work in it doesn't really focus on that kind of imagery, and he hadn't seen any of those. So when I decided to contribute to "El Corazon" this year I revisited that direction.

The show opens Saturday February 4 at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas and continues through March 3.

Monday, January 2, 2012

A Magpie This Fall

"A Magpie This Fall", acrylic on canvas, 40 by 30 inches.

Some of the posts in 2011 were a bit down, noting the passing of too many people. Necessary but hardly much fun. So, as an antidote, I'm starting this new year with something lively.

Few creatures are as lively as magpies. They squabble and fly around, find a spot and very noisily make it their own. They're also very graphically beautiful, all black and white. When painting one, and when being painted by a colorist like me, it's necessary to shoot some more color into the scene. Fall colors, especially those of New Mexico, are a good way to accomplish this.
I've done several pictures with Taos Mountain in them. I'll pull them all together into one post sometime soon.