Three New Paintings

Hello again,

I've been busy working on several paintings simultaneously. Here are three that I finally photographed yesterday.

Mental Menagerie, 2009. Acrylic ink and paint on 16" x 20" canvas.

I had bought several acrylic inks manufactured by Liquitex before beginning this painting. When I used to work with India ink years ago, I often liked to create continuous line drawings, some of which resembled a single strand of spaghetti folded and contorted to create an image. The lines in this piece are not continuous, obviously, but I think it has the same spirit and a balance between positive and negative space (or figure and ground).

Initially, this work was only black ink on white-primed canvas, but then I decided to add color accents. As you can see, those accents took on a life of their own, and as a result, the final image is much more colorful than I ever intended. I should also point out that the large face on the left was the only area that I penciled first; the majority of the ink lines were improvised.

Old Bug-Eye, 2009. Acrylic ink and paint on 12" x 16" canvas.


This painting didn't begin as a face; it was an abstract work featuring gold ink. Then I added the loops on the left (at first they were much neater, but I wanted to build them up). It was then that the face developed and I finished the work by adding watered-down blue and purple paint to add more definition to the face.

Serenity...Now, 2009. Water-soluble oil on 16" x 20" canvas.

Like many of my other paintings, this was improvised as I painted. I started with the background which looked like decorative paper to me. It seemed peaceful, yet in motion, so I thought that the next step might be to add a still, ominous element. Somehow the idea for a robot with blood dripping from its hand popped into my head. When I see this figure now, it reminds me a little of the Prawns in District 9, but I assure you that this was not my intention.
For those of you who missed it, the title is a reference to Seinfeld.

Ciao!