Twisted Textiles

Here’s another painting that I did awhile back. It was purely for fun, and it still has a certain playful quality that makes me smile. At the time, I was experimenting with brighter, non-representative colors, and a slightly less photo-realistic style. The paint is acrylic, and the canvas is hand-stretched (par Moi).
So…why tape dispensers as a subject?

I had one lying on my desk, and I happened to notice that the lamplight was casting a really interesting shadow through the clear plastic. I could actually see the differences where the plastic was more dense, and it gave a swirling pattern to the shadow that it cast. I did a complicated pencil drawing of the shadow (I wish I knew where it was now!) and a few days later I gathered some more tape dispensers to set up as a still-life. I had intended on doing a very detailed painting which showed the characteristics of the plastic that I had been so intrigued by…but when it came down to applying the paint to the canvas, I just wasn’t in the mood to concentrate on such a small details. Perhaps if the canvas had been teeny-tiny (or if I would have been in a more serious mood!) then the painting would have turned out differently. But I had so much fun just washing in the colors, and splashing on the highlights.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll get around to painting a version based on the original concept. I’m still very fascinated by the shadows cast by different materials.

It’s about that time of year, isn’t it? Time to dust off the ol’ fishin’ gear?

Although I am still working on my quilt, I’ve taken a break from it to push some paint around. These two fishing lures are a few from my collection—well, I don’t actively collect them, they just sort of came to me and I’ve kept them around. They’ve been stashed away in a Tupperware container for years now, so I decided to bring ‘em back out again.

I probably have about Twenty or so of these lures, and every time I pop open the container to take a peek, these two are always my favorite. The copper one…well, it’s copper so I gotta love it. It does not have a manufacture mark and looks to be hand-made, but I can’t be sure…and the other green and gold wooden lure has such a great finish on it. The wooden one is manufactured, with words printed across the bottom, and the paint is chipping away. The part that is readable looks to me like it says “Lazy Ike,” so that’s what I’ve titled the painting.

This oil painting (on a hand-stretched canvas) is 12 inches by 12 inches square. I’ve also made a handful of similar canvases about this size to keep around, just in case I get suddenly inspired again. This painting is for sale at the Damselfly Studio and Gallery in Midway, Ky.

Phew–time really flies! I’ve been especially busy since the weather has turned a bit springy here in Kentucky.

Several weeks ago, I went with a friend to a horse farm down the road, and we painted for a few hours before the weather got too bad. I also took some photos, which I’ve been using to create a few more small works.

Here’s a collection of acrylic sketches done on handmade paper. Although I can’t take credit for making the paper myself, I sure do like how some of these turned out. I had forgotten how difficult it is to draw/paint animals from life! The caretaker at the farm was nice enough to feed the horses near the fence where we could sit and observe, but man were they feisty! (At one point we received a little mud-shower as they quite literally kicked up their heels.) I started out with these sketches as practice, to get in the groove of drawing their figures.

The work at left is oil pastel on paper, which I did from a photo taken that day. I really dig the bright green, and this little foal was just as cute as can be! I will probably frame this up and take it over to the Damselfly this weekend (where I also will be teaching a few painting/sewing classes in the months to come)…

This next one is chalk pastels on canvas. It was done “on site” so I didn’t use any photos for it. I’m not sure that I feel satisfied with it yet, but I also don’t want to spoil the loose, free feeling of it by adding too much more detail. I like the contrast of the black and white, with just the little bit of odd orange and green color. Maybe I’ll stick a frame on it and let it sit for awhile–Whaddya think?

I’ll eventually do a much more detailed oil painting of one of the foals. I managed to get a few interesting photos during the 15 minutes of actual sunlight that we had when we arrived, so those will definitely be useful. Three cheers for modern technology!

Since this painting is no longer in my possession, I figured I’d take a few moments to talk about it. Oh, and add it to my Gallery, of course. I painted this over 5 years ago (my! how the years go by) and swore that I would paint another version similar to this one. I never have.

This was probably the first “serious” acrylic painting I ever did, mainly because I love the slow-drying quality of oil paints, and therefore did not own any decent acrylics. I didn’t think acrylics could behave like oils, and so I didn’t use them. That is, until I discovered that there are additives one can mix with acrylics to make them dry more slowly. That fact is a big “duh” to me now, but years ago I was very proud of my discovery! You would have thought that I invented the stuff…

For many years, this painting didn’t have an official title. I’ll admit, I am notoriously un-motivated in this way, never really giving my artworks appropriate titles unless I’m faced with an exhibit or something official. A huge amount of great and important artworks have stupid titles, and I find it difficult to come up with one that doesn’t sound so contrived. Alas, I generally just avoid titles, tiptoeing around it until I’m forced to label the artwork for practical purposes. That being said, I eventually decided on sort of a “pet” name for my shoe painting. On a whim, I named it Strappy–kind of like you’d name a fish Goldie, or a dog Shaggy, or a beetle Staggy.

This shoe was from an actual pair that I owned and loved, though I wore them only twice. Then, while the pair was being stored in my closet, somebody’s bathroom in the next-door apartment flooded, and the floor of MY closet bore the brunt of the water’s fury. Sadly, the left shoe became soggy and useless, and ended up in the garbage. For some reason, I held on to the other shoe for a few days, and it was then that I decided to paint it as a still-life.

I’ve commented before on the architectural quality that shoes have, and Strappy really emphasizes this. I really love the coldness of the colors…it comes across like a formal, steel skyscraper. I can almost see the tiny, ant-sized business men and women scurrying in and out of it with their briefcases. I really enjoyed painting the way the shadow fell onto the cloth, with it’s gradual blurring and the “crispness” right near the toe.

All this reminiscing is making me want to raid my closet for shoes to paint. Maybe it won’t be too much longer ’til I have another version after all!

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