In Progress

I've been working on finishing two paintings of Waterbury, one that I'm working on at home when time permits (which is far too rarely), and one that I'm working on almost every Friday in the window at Goldsmith's downtown.

First up, here's the one I'm working on at home. A view of downtown looking towards Grand Street from St. Mary's Hospital, at rush hour during the Autumn.

Eliminating Art

State Sen. Paul Doyle, 9th District, has introduced a proposed bill to eliminate the state requirement that the State Bond Commission allocate one percent of every state building project cost for the purchase of art.

There will be a public hearing on March 7, 2011. Please contact your state legislators about this.

Winter Blues

I haven't been posting much to this blog lately, mostly because I'm using my Facebook page for updates. I'll try using this blog for longer things, ruminations about art.

I've been thinking for a while about doing a winter painting. I've always been impressed by paintings of snow. Some favorites are William Glackens' Central Park paintings, John Twachtman's Connecticut Shore-Winter and  Winter Harmony, Ernest Lawson's Snow Scene, Robert Nisbet's Connecticut Winter Landscape, and Hobart Nichols' Winter Landscape with Stream.

One of the amazing things about snow is the color. You think it's white, but when you really look at it, there's a lot of blue. It's subtle, but it's there. You can see the blue more obviously in ice, like in this photo I took in Thomaston:

iPhone Cases

With my art on them!

 Here is a selection of what is available for 3G, 3GS, and 4 (clicking on the photos will take you to the cafepress.com store--be sure to explore it for other designs!):

Gift Giving

When you're doing your holiday shopping this year, consider purchasing real art. It's a unique gift and you help support a starving artist. My available paintings are at Goldsmith's on Bank Street in Waterbury and can be previewed on my website (all prices are negotiable, just make me an offer!).

If you aren't ready to invest in real art, you can also purchase notecards, mugs, prints, etc. from my cafepress.com store.

Drawing a Dream

I don't paint dreams. I don't paint things from my imagination. I don't paint from memory. I paint what I see. Sometimes I feel trapped by my literalness. I'm always in awe of people who create art derived solely from their imaginations. I've wished that I could do that. Artwell in Torrington sent out invitations to submit art to their Dreams and Nightmares exhibit. I wanted to submit something, but I have nothing that qualifies. I decided this needed to change. I've spent the past week or two with this thought in the back of my mind, that I want to start doing more creative art. Last night, while watching The Lovely Bones, I was finally in the right frame of mind and had a vision of creating a large painting, early Renaissance style, of a dream I had the night after my cat Ferdinand died many years ago. Since there's no point having a great idea if you don't start making it real right away, I did a series of sketches for the painting. There is a narrative that goes with the images, but for right now I'm posting just the sketches, in sequence. Next I have to figure out how they will all fit onto a single canvas.

Going High Tech

Yesterday I tried drawing on my computer. Not actually, you know, taking a pen and changing the look of the computer, but using software to create a drawing. Unfortunately, the only art software I have is Photoshop, and the only drawing tool I have is a mouse, so it was extremely difficult to get the lines to do what I wanted. I gave up trying to do anything complex after the first line. All I could manage was a stick figure.

In case you can't tell, that's me trying to use my mouse to draw in Photoshop.

I'm going to start researching computer drawing pens and software. There's an entire industry of people who create art using only computer equipment. I ought to be able to find something to use!