February 19, 2011 Still Life

Still Life #60 40" sq. gouache on w/c paper

This piece is the second still life I have done as a 40" square. The first one I kept the grid at 2", but really didn't like the outcome. This piece, the grid is 4" and I like it much better. In painting there are so many elements to deal with; size, form, shape, texture, value, color, intensity.

Feburary 4, 2011 Still Life

Still Life #53 24"x24" gouache on oriental paper

In this still life the colors are orange and turquoise blue. The gradation is from bright to dull, or intensity.


I am thinking about art as the visual language and silence or "still life." The desire of the artist is communication, but it is a different communication, one without words or sounds. Ideas are expressed visually and the viewer is allowed to have their own thoughts based on what is before him. Sometimes the viewer forgets the painting is expressing ideas in the form of elements and principles of design. Emotions are expressed through color.

January 23, 2012 Still Life #45

Still Life #45 24 1/2"x24 1/2" gouache on oriental paper

This still life is painted on oriental paper created by Mr Hosino, master paper maker of Japan. His paper is so beautiful and he guarantees the paper for one thousand years. One thing I like about using gouache on oriental paper, is that it seems to become one with the paper, instead of just remaining on the surface. My plan was to create the graduation as before, but "necessity is the mother of invention." I have been out of white paint, sooooooo, I drew my colors, a medium green and a medium bright red. I graduated the green with a mixture of light grey yellow-green and the red with a light orange. The color seems to create mood.

January 23, 2012 Still Life #44

Still Life #44 22"x22" gouache

I am no longer choosing my favorite colors to work with, instead I am blindly choosing colors from the color box, (a box filled with color chips.) And then I am working with the color to change the hue. I chose pink and a blue for Still Life #44. I changed the pink into orange, and the blue into a blue-violet.

In the pieces before I was allowing a value change through gradation, (a slow change>0

That is one thing an artist strives for, "something happening."

January 22, 2011 Still Life #41

Still Life #41 22"x22" gouache on w/c paper

Joseph Albers reminds us, "...as long as we hear merely single tones, we do not hear music. Hearing music depends on the recognition of the in-between of the tones, of their placing and of their spacing

Equally, a factual identification of colors within a given painting has nothing to do with a sensitive seeing nor with an understanding of the color action within the painting."

Only yellow is always warm, and only blue green is always cool, everything else is seen in relationship to other colors.

We cannot say, a blue we see in a painting is cool, it depends on what other colors are in the painting, when it is compared to the other colors, is the blue actually cool or warm?