Archive for the 'abstract' Category

May 15 2017

Kusama

I finally, just barely, got to see the Yayoi Kusama “Infinity Mirrors” exhibit at the Hirshhorn before it closed. There was a lot of standing in lines involved, but nevertheless it was an awesome and inspiring exhibit. And I used that time standing in line to draw this little comic in honor of her art and the experience of nonduality she describes as inspiring much of it.

Kusama p1

Kusama p2

Kusama p3

Kusama p4

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Sep 17 2012

Painting Workshop on Little Cranberry Island, Maine

Alison and I just returned from a lovely 4-day weekend in Maine, where I attended a great little painting workshop with Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan. Henry is a landscape painter whose work I find absolutely stunning and inspiring. Ashley is inspiring to me both as a children’s book author/illustrator, a painter, and a radiant beacon of joy in the world. The workshop is organized and hosted by the Islesford Dock Gallery and Restaurant (Cynthia and Dan Lief are the wonderful proprietors). The gallery has excellent art, as I had seen on many previous visits to Islesford. The restaurant, as I discovered over the weekend, has really spectacular food — by any standard! We were fed so well I’d have to say the meals threatened to upstage the painting.

I will post a few of my paintings above the cut, and the rest below — along with a bunch of thoughts about painting that are bouncing around in my head.

Friday was a very foggy morning on the beach. Henry gave a great little demo and talk about seeing everything as solid, even the air, and treating it that way, rather than having a background with a subject in front of it. My first attempt at this was clumsy. I was using gouache, which is my favorite medium for landscape. It’s hard to cover a large surface with gouache though, and that caused some problems every time I tried to work larger than about 5×7″.

My second attempt used too complex a subject, and while I like this piece, it feels more like a drawing than a painting, and more like my habitual approach than what I was going for.

After that I did some pieces that caught parts of what I was after.

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Mar 24 2010

Old Sketch of the Day #10 – Abstract composition

Published by under abstract,sketchbook

I went through a stage where I did a bunch of compositions like this, inspired primarily by Richard Diebenkorn. I really enjoyed the exercise, although I’ve never felt as personally connected to abstract work as to representation.

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Feb 12 2010

Abstract shapes

Published by under abstract,sketchbook

Sometimes I do things like this:

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