Giant Catch-Up

So I've totally dropped the ball on this project and I have neither the ability nor the inclination to recall exactly what I've done on which day (things truly have been crazy of late).

I can remember the approximate order, though, so bear with me - this will be rather a lot of scrolling.


24"x30" oil and latex on Masonite panel - in progress

I've updated this piece a little bit - the brighter, more orangey areas are more solid (I have yet to get to the darker red bits), and I worked the green latex back over the surface to break up some of the red areas. Not sure where I want to go with this one, so I've been fussing with the surface. (Originally from here)


16"x20" oil on canvas - in progress

Started this piece, very similar to many others. The red is pure cadmium scarlet and really quite vibrant in person. This evening I went back and made the red solid and consistent. I was thinking of using a light greenish blue in the white areas, but I don't want this to be standard two-tone.


5"x7" oil on canvas board

I did this little study to play around with paint which was more mineral spirits than anything else. Cadmium lemon & cadmium scarlet. I wanted to approximate some of the forms and feeling of my water-based work.


9"x12" oil on canvas board - in progress

At the same time as above study, though this one is not as complete. I think this method has potential though I worried about the instability as a paint layer. I'll probably work this one up more.

I really like red and turquoise / teal in contrast.


16"x20" oil on canvas - in progress

This was my little Impressionist moment. I've been checking out a lot of Arthur Dove lately and I got fed up with everything else I'd been doing, so I just indulged myself in some pleasant greens and illustrative natural forms. I like the way the blue line functions in this, and I will probably work on it when I miss painting flowers and the like. It put me in a spectacular mood, which gave me the courage to tackle the silk project that I set up for myself.


22"x72" ink on silk, with 2 detail views

I spent quite a lot of time working on this piece, as it was a brand-new method for me. In addition to playing around with it aesthetically, it was quite a challenge to get the right studio set-up to keep from spilling ink all over the floor or have the silk stick to the table and such. I really enjoyed this process but I have mixed feelings about the (possibly) completed piece. I want to think about it and work with this technique more.


9"x12" ink on paper - in butcher's tray

Done without thinking while I was working on the first silk piece. I left it in the tray and it adhered to the bottom - tore it when I was pulling it up. So careless.


silk paints and ink on silk - in progress

Even though this is a studio blog, I just couldn't bring myself to photograph what this actually looks like right now. I spent a really long time screwing around with watered-down magenta silk-paint and dried pieces of yellow, making subtle washes which I later obliterated with sumi ink. The silk is larger (maybe 36"x72"?) and I had previously tinted it a greenish yellow color. With the gray of the ink washes and the sickly psychedelic tones from the silk paints, this is one sorry state of affairs at the moment. Of course this means I am resolved to pull it together, somehow some way.


24"x24" oil on canvas - in progress

We had a guest lecturer in my thesis class today, and she gave critiques. Mine was more than a little negative, and she particularly took issue with this painting, which she dismissed as "merely a doodle." I wasn't terribly pleased with it myself, so I decided to map out solid forms and use the circles and curves as guidelines for new forms. I'll have a long way to go before this gets interesting.


24"x24" oil on canvas

I started outlining a new painting, trying to vary the type and energy of my lines. There are suggestions of heartbeat rhythms and diagrams of the shape a bird's wings make, but nothing too interesting. This painting stayed in this state literally only an hour or so.


24"x24", oil on canvas - in progress, 2 detail views

I took a good look around my studio and started feeling adventurous. Two of my professors had seriously railed against this painting, and I was stuck with it, so I slathered some juicy carmine crimson over it, followed by large swathes of blue. Because it was flat on my work table, it was a lot more effective to drip and spatter mineral spirits and thinned paint over the surface.

I really got into the shapes which were emerging and went in with some white to begin blocking out forms and ideas. The detail views remind me of bacteria, and I had this whole micro/macro sensation of both an interior immune system war and a cosmic space war.

This is the way I started paintings before grad school, and I think it has a lot more potential. I felt unblocked finally, and I'm excited with all the potential I see in this.


24"x24" oil on canvas - in progress

This is the same canvas just above the blue and purpley one, with the red lines. Emboldened by my mineral spirit fueled liberation, I went at this one with cadmium yellow and a lot of thinner. Again I think more interesting things are starting to happen than was originally going on with the red lines, so I'm also looking forward to carving this one out.

Whew. That was a long post. This gives me major incentive to stay more on top of this project! I'll start again tomorrow at day 39.

Day Thirty-Eight

9"x12", acrylic & pen on paper / detail view

I started this piece with the ballpoint pens I most like to write with, and I really enjoyed using the stripes to create these weird Dr Seuss kinds of forms.

The pink I added later, and I'm not sure it's appropriate. I'd initially thought to use paint instead of marker because I wanted a more even surface, but I found the acrylic was drying too quickly and becoming clumpy, accumulating layers and surface effects that I hadn't intended for. Then again, there is a nice contrast between the slickness of the pink areas and the cool, smooth black and white forms.


9"x12", acrylic & pen on paper / detail view

This second piece I feel is much less successful than the first. I had a large quantity of pink paint leftover (after sweating every drop, sure I would have to remix on the first piece). I inversed the process on this one, first applying pink forms and then going back in with pen to create stripes.

The stripes function weirdly here, flattening the background with pattern without really elucidating the pink structures or giving any sense of growth or dimension.

Something I'd been thinking about when I started this was the backgrounds of scientific and mathematic diagrams in black and white textbooks, the way that pattern would be used to set off areas, sometimes achieving kind of crazy unintentionally psychedelic effects. This might be something worth pursuing, even though it's a very literal, kind of tongue-in-cheek aspect of my interest in math and science.

Day Thirty-Seven

9"x12", marker on paper / detail view

In this piece I was thinking about the individual stitches in knitting, imagining many different colored rows forming a sort of dizzying fabric. I tried to relate the scale of the "stitches" to the size of the marker tips, though I still found a lot of variation within the strokes.

A few drops of water fell on this piece, creating blurs or sort of visual snags. Though I'm not wild about them, they do create an interesting effect that breaks up some of the austere monotony.

I do really enjoy working with marker on smooth Bristol paper, particularly the way it flows with just the right amount of absorption and no bleeding. I'd like to find a way to make paint handle with the same kind of comfort I find in drawing materials.

Day Thirty-Six

9.5"x12.5", watercolor on paper

After so much watercolor-style work on flimsy paper, I decided it was time to buy some real watercolor paper and try using actual watercolors. Given my current obsession with bright pink, I suppose it was natural that I went for "fluorescent rose."

I was really enjoying working with the watercolor, especially its mutability and the way I could build layers of transparent color. I enjoyed the texture of the paper, the way it took the paint... basically everything about it.

I think this is not necessarily a finished piece, but even if I don't elaborate on it, I will definitely work more with watercolors.

Another Note

Yes, I am a horrible recalcitrant blogger.

I am still keeping up with this project, but I've been obviously more focused on making art than photographing it and posting it.

On one hand, I'm inclined to think "Well no big deal, so long as I'm painting," but a secondary aspect of this site is to maintain a record of the development of these pieces in a series (hence, "serial art"), which becomes murky and indistinct when abandoned for weeks at a time.

For example, today I can look at the pieces in my studio and know which came before another and trace influences and accretions of meaning... but in several weeks or a year, it will probably be impossible to recall.

Maybe it's not important to keep such a rigorous catalog, but since I am in the midst of trying to develop a thesis, I want to have this kind of grasp for the time being.

Point being, I will photograph what I've been up to and back-post as accurately as possible, as well as redouble my efforts at staying on top of the day-to-day.

Thanks for your continued interest!

Day Thirty-Five

9"x12", oil pastel on paper - in progress

This evening I went to see the Kiki Smith show before it closed at the Whitney. In a somewhat related discussion, I asked my boyfriend why he thought so many grad students make a dramatic declaration that they are no longer painters and instead focus on installation or so-called conceptual art (I'll maybe get into that another time). He countered by asking "Well what are you doing there that's so important?" while I was working on this sketch. My only answer was the truth: "I was thinking about watermelons and Lee Krasner."

We continued talking, and it occurred to me that often when I begin paintings, it's just with this idea of something I'd like to see. I look at the paper, think "I wonder what that might look like?" and then make it. Does this make me a very dumb artist, or maybe not an artist at all? Am I just making designs? Would I be better off designing fabrics? I can't really say.

I do know that I love painting though.

I was smoothing the edges of this piece with mineral spirits - the upper edge and pink areas show the chunky, granier appearance the oil pastels had before this treatment. I eventually had to stop as the fumes were bothering my boyfriend (a hazard of working at home), but I liked some of the effects I was getting, so I'll probably bring it back to my studio to finish or elaborate upon.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Thirty-Four

9"x12", marker on paper

Sometimes you just have to play with a lot of colors.

I found an old art kit that I'd had as a child with all these gorgeous markers in it - and astonishingly, they still worked really well. I got into that childlike set of mind and just went with it, picking and applying colors capriciously.

I worked on this piece upside-down from how it is now, but when I was hanging it to photograph, I realized how much more I liked it this way. I noticed that this happens often with my abstract pieces - when my professor takes them off a table or from a stack to look at them, she tends to always look at them upside-down from how I made them... and they usually look better. Something to think about.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Thirty-Three

9"x12", oil on canvas board - in progress

I had more of the green I mixed up yesterday - actually quite a bit more - and I kept thinking about stripes. I imagined creating a landscape out of stripes which modulate with other colors in a spectrum (specifically pinks, oranges, and yellows in this piece).

Once again I drew it out with pen, which I think gave me a clearer sense of things. I'm kind of attracted to just the green on white - it feels crisp like awning stripes - though I still think I'm going to play with colors in the background... perhaps more muted than I'd originally envisioned.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Thirty-Two

12"x12", oil on canvas board - in progress

Because my other paintings were still too wet to work into, I started a small piece. I usually don't sketch out what I'm doing beforehand because I don't like when pencil, charcoal or similar mix into the paint - it hadn't occurred to me until today to sketch it out with ballpoint pen (which dries quickly and doesn't interfere) - I was much more comfortable drawing this way.

These shapes remind me of eyes or olives at the moment, but I'm planning for them to be a bit more complex. The centers are actually a deep purple-blue (I'm nuts over that color lately). They will then have a ring of cream or off-white (probably titanium buff), the green which is there, then a very light dove gray (most likely Payne's gray mixed with a lot of white). Once that's together, I'll have to see how it looks and reevaluate.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Thirty-One

I spent my studio time cleaning, reorganizing, and getting ready for preview at my school. I went in expecting that I wouldn't pass, but I still wanted to make some kind of effort to present myself well.

Looking around, I was more than a little disappointed with myself, so I am looking forward to reading more, writing more, and thinking more about what I'm doing. Above all, though, I can't keep letting days pass me by without getting serious painting in.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Thirty

24"x24", oil on canvas - in progress

This came directly from one of my sketches yesterday. I want to keep the rings related to blue in some way, and at the moment my palette is a sea of blues. I'm looking for more complex colors, less optical arrangements, and a more emotional approach to geometric abstraction.

Somehow these shapes remind me of oysters. I was also really attracted to the deep indigo centers with just plain lines around them where I sketched out the rings - I should remember that it's okay (and probably preferable) for my paintings to resemble my drawings sometimes.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Twenty-Nine

approx. 5"x4" & 5"x7", ink on paper - from sketchbook

I started reading some really great books on Arthur Dove and one particularly amazing one (Arthur Dove: Nature as Symbol) went into all the math and geometry of his paintings which dealt with nature. I started mulling over these ideas and sketching things out, though I became so consumed with reading (and other obligations) that I didn't get to paint anything.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Twenty-Eight

24"x24", oil on canvas

This painting started with the grapey purple-blue color, and I looked around the studio at the canvases I'd prepared in various bright colors, finally decided this phthalo green one would be a good contrast.

I'm not thrilled with the all-over feeling, as it begins to feel like wallpaper or fabric. I was thinking about going back in and repainting the green a more opaque color, but in fact one of the few things I'm pleased with is the way the lighter green at the bottom modulates the purple in different ways. I can kind of see painting it in a subtle spectrum so that it undulates a little more in the background.

(This was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Twenty-Seven

16"x20", oil on canvas

I photographed this really badly, but it's a very optical bright pink and turquoise. I feel unresolved about this, as the two-color limitation I've set up for myself doesn't seem to encourage very interesting developments.

(This was back-posted on 2/10/07).

Day Twenty-Six

(not pictured)

Today I worked on the green and red piece from day 22, but neglected to photograph my progress.

Basically I began introducing the green into larger areas of the red, breaking some of it up and giving a more fragmented feel to the red lines.

(This entry was back-posted on 2/10/07).