In the Studio - Small Gouache Figurine Paintings

Hey guys, I've been busy as a bee with teaching and painting.  I'm working on framing a few pieces to send off to University of South Dakota for the 'Politicizing Aesthetics' exhibition and also working on a few last pieces for my solo exhibit at Counterspace Gallery in Las Vegas next month.

I'm trying to get at least six of these little guys done before I ship off the work in the next few days.

The center circle is about 6" wide and they are Gouache on 8x10" BFK Rives paper.

This one is in progress.

Here are all of the finished ones, and I've got a few more in the works.

Cloud and Mountain - Finished Oil Painting

Just finished this piece about a week ago, and finally got it photographed:

'Cloud and Mountain'

11x14" - Oil on Panel

Right after it dried it was shipped off to LA for "Where My Cones At?" - an exhibition featuring small scale black & white pieces by some great artists who I'm really honored to be showing alongside.  The show was organized by Ryan Travis Christian and is located at POVevolving.  The opening is this Saturday so if you are in LA, make sure to check it out!

Here's a link to the event page on Facebook:  Where My Cones At?

Artificial Landscapes - Cloud and Sea

Sea & Cloud - 12x12" - Oil on Panel

This is an idea I've been playing with in my head for a while - I'm glad it has finally found its way out.  I've really been loving still life paintings lately.  I'm trying to capture a lot of ideas using only a few objects.  I'm still wrapping my mind around what direction I want to take these, but in the meantime I'm going to just keep working.  

Lately, this has been my mantra:

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.” 

-Chuck Close

In the Studio - A New Painting and Some Lovely Stretcher Bars

I've been busy lately in my studio getting work together for my next shows! (more on those later)

I finished this piece a few days ago:

Crossroad - 12x12" - Oil on Canvas

I like the direction this series is heading - some are slightly serious, some are funny, but they all are really taking on their own personalities.  I've been having so much fun making them - it is nice to be on a bit of a roll.

I've been pretty good about keeping records of my paintings too - I have been keeping up my painting journal with information on color mixtures and colors used for each of my paintings (along with general information about the piece).

I've also been hanging out with the cats a lot.  The school year has started which means I'm teaching from home (I teach online) and Nate is gone all day.  I miss having him around all day!

Lastly, I finally got around to testing out my router!  I made these canvas stretcher bars the other day.  I made 4 sets of 4, and I'm going to be sanding and gluing them together today.  I can't wait to get them assembled and primed.  I'm thinking of also doing a quick video tutorial on how to build and assemble these.