NEW ART PROJECTS GOIN ON?

Something is haywire. I have tried for 3 days to post a reply, but haven't had any success until now. They keep telling me to "log in." Anyway...Farmerman you are a brave soul to be out there in your truck. My hands won't work in cold weather. JL, glad to hear you're painting up a storm. I haven't had much time. I'll be in San Francisco over the holiday. I hope I can get into the exhibit at the Moma. I don't know if they allow picture taking there. I've never tried. Farmerman, your airbrushing technique is very interesting. I hope everything goes well with your new project. I, too, cannot figure out how to post paintings on A2K, but will work on it in the new year. Thank you Asherman for spurring us on. In case I can't get in again to post before the holidays, I hope all of you have a wonderful, caring celebration.

that would be a great idea, sort of a mass tutorial. I only learn to do things when I have a screaming need for the service. once i get comfortable with the time something takes, then maybe Id do it frequently. I am so ADD its not funny.

So, JL working on 6 at a time. Its true that certain places we choose to work draw out a style that we associate with that place. Is it the light? or the atmosphere. I remember reading about Pollock and how he worked in the hay mow of his barn and his original style that we associate with him began there as he attacked his cigarettes.

John Costigan, one of my past teachers had a beat up conference table that he used only for doing etchings. It was a really big POS, but it was where he could do his scratching and acid baths and asphalt coating. He always said, if youre gonna do etching , always carry around a great big dining room table. i just quit etchings

Hope this thread isn't for fine artists only...
Just finished a shopping bag design and starting a new magazine design project, HOPEFULLY after Christmas (starting a brochure design after Christmas as well) but FedEx just delivered a disc this morning from my production partner in Chicago which makes me think that someone is mistakenly assuming that I will be working this week. HA!

eoe-we have all kinds here, computer graphics to encaustic . All it takes is an idea and a means.
I hope to hear from those who are having projects in the mill or just in incubation .
im gonna be on the boards over the holidays cause we are staying around till just after the New Year and then we are going to the Keys and New Orleans for a small vacation. This is a dead time for my business, most exploration work is being held till February and all we have are reports and more reports.

Oh I SO want to paint...

One of the paintings I had the most fun with was a triptych. I figured out something complicated with the area, and had three panels that were exactly the same area, but the center one was square while the two on either side were sort of upside-down "L"s, making for one big rectangle. So all three were flush at the botttom, but the side pieces arched over the center and met at the top.

I conceived it while driving from Madison to Minneapolis in the summer, through a storm and out the other side. I love when the setting sun is illuminating things against a blue-gray turgid stormy background. So I wanted to get that, but am not much of a landscape painter, so I found a picture of a squinty-eyed, wrinkled farmer and put him in the center with that light on his face and the turmoil in the background, then daytime field on his right, nighttime field on his left.

Worked pretty well.

Doing lots of craft-type things now, nice, but...

watch what ye sayin bout us wrinkly squinty eyed farmers.

I love tryptichs and any other odd numbered display. i like youre idea of incorporating the different shapes of the canvases into an overall rectangle. You can make the wall work with the panels that way.
theres a Canadian artist named Forrestal who bends ad shrinks his canvases into all sortsa of curved surfaces. Then he paints hyper realistic scenes so the thrid dimension is assisted by the canvas stretching

Coooool...

Love your stuff btw Vivien. Thanks for posting it.

Re: truth

During November and December, my students made old fashioned wood ornaments. They spent hours painting and sanding to get the "rustic" look. We also made woooden sleighs for centerpieces at our Christmas luncheon. I've never been very good at the craft thing, but this time around it was very calming. I still hate the glue gun. Soz, what a great idea for an exhibit. I set up my second bedroom for my studio, but so far it remains a storage are. I like to paint in the kitchen right by the sink. It would be cool to design your own studio. In January, when things calm down, I'm going to paint in the art room where I work. The space is good and I can slop around as much as I want. I want to try the Forrestal technique. I'm also working on woven canvas idea.

Sort of like Helen Frankenthalers organic look about her unprimed canvases. many times it works great. She would pull some strings out of her canvases to give negative space . but sometimes , as Im fond of saying, the work can look like a sandwich wrapper .
forrestal , on the other hand, takes a ground and applies ikt to his canvases so that many times they appear like a section of old airplane wing, the old wright brothers wings which were fiber coated and bent to shape. Something cool can come of that. Were too into "flat' painting surfaces.
of course Piccabia and that other drunk , duchamp, also played around with bent surfaces and shaped canvases, so theres nothing really new out there.
I was thinking of doing a painting on a wing tip like canvas. i got into the woodworking of the frame and then found out Id have to piece the fabric so it wouldnt look all bunched up. Its still sitting out in my studio on a wall with a photo of lindbergh and another of Goering looking at each other, smiling. Then I ran out of ideas what to do next.

Farmer: I'ce never experimented with 3D canvasses but i do work a lot on unprimed canvas, pouring the paint and getting watercolour-like effects before i go into more opaque touches. It extends your visual vocabularly enormously. I also like to work on non-standard measurements and proportions.

I like the idea of the Lindbergh one - I hope you can sort it. How big is it planned to be?

to all , my best holiday wishes. Its 8:30 am and Im the only creature that is stirring. Everybody else just blew themselves out in a last minute frnzy. I wish christmas could go back to a simple celebration as in the colonial days. ( not as far back as the Mass bay colony when celebrating Christmas was a felony) just something in betweeen.

so have you done any more painting?

anything to post????

ive been taking an extended Holiday holiday, which was abruptly terminated by a research request by a client. This week Ive been up at very weird hours working in the lab and Ive been sleeping in afternoons . The experiments are done and now Ive turned all the data over to my data diddlers. I hope to be rested and be able to start back on my tryptich idea this weekend.

how bout you? I guess its been cold for plein air.

yes MUCH too cold! I have to be a bit careful now because I've got early arthritis in my fingers and cold weather makes them hurt.

I've done a couple of small pieces that's all. I've had the family over Christmas and have been busy getting some stuff organised for an exhibtion with a couple of friends at a local gallery. I don't really expect to sell at this time of the year though - people are still broke from Christmas and it's cold and the gallery is out of town.

I look forward to seeing the tryptych

truth
Vivien, my wife and I have OSTEO arthritis of our fingers, but we have completely eliminated all discomfort (even in cold wet weather) by taking a combination of MSM (500 mg), Glucosamine HCI (500 mg) and Chontroitin Sulfate (400 mg). I do not know if this will help with rheumatoid arthritis.

yeh and you live in Arizona , no? thats not fair. ive been feeling the twinges of something in my arm. i broke it 2 times summer of 2002. What is MSM?

truth
Farmer, it is Methyl-Sulfonyi-Methane. Don't ask me what that is, chemically. But it's function is like that of Clucosamine, Chondroitin and Collagen, to maintain the "juiciness" of joints.
Neither helps me with my right shoulder that must soon undergo surgery for a completely torn rotator cuff tendon, probably the result of overuse in playing the violin for 54 years. I know a professional artist who has the same problem and is undergoing surgery for overuse of her right arm, drawing and painting. Ugh! No blessing is unmixed.
You think you may have arthritis because of the breaks? That's possible.

Speaking of problems, my hands are more creaky than they should be and ache frequently. They crack like it does when you crack your knuckles when I just move them around. It's understandable being that I'm a painter, worked as a cake decorator, and took a metalworking class (involving lots of hammering) all at the same time. Sometimes my hand would get swollen and not work anymore, and I'd have to soak it in ice water. I also write, and type often, so the poor dears work all day long. The only thing I heard to help was not to stop using them, and to stretch them often and sqeeze tennis balls. Oy vey I can't imagine when I start sculpting how loudly they will complain.

truth
Portal Star, and you are relatively young--I assume this because you are a student. But wait til you're an old-timer, say over sixty. Then courage and long-suffering patience become the prime virtues. I eat extremely well, exercise, get plenty of rest, and meditate--and I have favorable genes. But I could end up with an extra twenty years (because of my positive risk factors) wishing I were dead. Who knows? The main thing is the painting or paintings I'm working on now.