On a computer screen, the detailed cells of color in Chris Crites’ paintings look digital-perfect. In person, I’m compelled to creep closer, closer, until my breath fogs up the glass. It’s then that I can see the thousands of tiny brush strokes neatly aligned within each penciled form. He says it’s OCD. I say it’s skill and patience.
Crites’ first exposure to mug shot photographs was in the post office of his childhood hometown. There he was captivated by posted “Wanted” fliers featuring possible malcontents of the day. As his interest in history developed he became reacquainted with mug shots in the book “Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook” published in 1996 by Feral House. It was from this collection of photos from the 1930’s and 1940’s that he painted his first four mug shots in acrylic on paper bag in 1999. These paintings established his ongoing color experiment of five or less colors on brown paper bag. Seriously focusing on the subject matter of arrest photographs since 2002, Crites has developed and refined his brightly colored, limited palette style. Visiting the Washington State Archives he collects mug shot photos on his own.
Ruthie: Your recent mug shots have a new polka-dot peek-a-boo overlap image. I’m curious how you plan the circle overlaps with the images, and why you added this dimension.
Chris: The overlapping “connections” pieces I sized in photoshop so that they would work together and then layered them. Cutting various holes in the top photo allowed me to see where the faces made interesting intersections and connections that worked together. The idea behind that was how even though we are individuals, our actions and lives effect the lives of others.
“Within this work is my ongoing experimentation with color. I enjoy taking difficult subjects and examining them in paint, looking at things in a different way as well as seeing how different color combinations affect what we are looking at.”
– Chris Crites
If you’d like to hang out with Crites visit the League this Friday for Art Walk 6-9pm, where he’ll be our special guest star. Join us! We’ll have art, and we’ll have beer.
If you’d like to paint with Crites click here to register for his weekend workshop.
[image_with_animation image_url=”8601″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Qi Baishi (1864–1957) was one of the most beloved contemporary Chinese watercolor painters. His original name is Huang but he went by Baishi (“white stone”) as a pseudonym. Some of Qi’s major influences include the Ming dynasty artist Xu Wei (徐渭) and the early Qing dynasty painter Zhu Da (朱耷). His favorite …
Hey Artists! For some reason the Mailchimps didn’t pick this up at 7:00am as scheduled. This happens sometimes. In the future, if you are looking for the challenge and don’t see it in your inbox by 7:05am, check V. Notes on ourwebsite. Memory Challenge For this memory exercise you will need 2 pieces of paper, …
In recent V. Notes, I have shared some of Carlos San Millan’s favorite painters. So far I’ve posted Kim Frohsin, Mitchell Johnson, Yann Kebbi, Марина Цветаева (Marina Tsvetyeva), and Sangram Majumdar. Today I’m posting Bato Dugarzhapov. Bato is a Russian painter born in 1966. I had his work saved for a V. Note someday. Looks …
Search the internet for perspective, and Western perspective is pretty much all you’ll see. Billions of lessons illustrating the importance of one point, two point, and three point perspective. Lessons state that this is something every artist needs to learn in order to correctly render the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. It …
Chris Crites
On a computer screen, the detailed cells of color in Chris Crites’ paintings look digital-perfect. In person, I’m compelled to creep closer, closer, until my breath fogs up the glass. It’s then that I can see the thousands of tiny brush strokes neatly aligned within each penciled form. He says it’s OCD. I say it’s skill and patience.
Crites’ first exposure to mug shot photographs was in the post office of his childhood hometown. There he was captivated by posted “Wanted” fliers featuring possible malcontents of the day. As his interest in history developed he became reacquainted with mug shots in the book “Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook” published in 1996 by Feral House. It was from this collection of photos from the 1930’s and 1940’s that he painted his first four mug shots in acrylic on paper bag in 1999. These paintings established his ongoing color experiment of five or less colors on brown paper bag. Seriously focusing on the subject matter of arrest photographs since 2002, Crites has developed and refined his brightly colored, limited palette style. Visiting the Washington State Archives he collects mug shot photos on his own.
Ruthie: Your recent mug shots have a new polka-dot peek-a-boo overlap image. I’m curious how you plan the circle overlaps with the images, and why you added this dimension.
Chris: The overlapping “connections” pieces I sized in photoshop so that they would work together and then layered them. Cutting various holes in the top photo allowed me to see where the faces made interesting intersections and connections that worked together. The idea behind that was how even though we are individuals, our actions and lives effect the lives of others.
– Chris Crites
If you’d like to hang out with Crites visit the League this Friday for Art Walk 6-9pm, where he’ll be our special guest star. Join us! We’ll have art, and we’ll have beer.
If you’d like to paint with Crites click here to register for his weekend workshop.
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[image_with_animation image_url=”8601″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Qi Baishi (1864–1957) was one of the most beloved contemporary Chinese watercolor painters. His original name is Huang but he went by Baishi (“white stone”) as a pseudonym. Some of Qi’s major influences include the Ming dynasty artist Xu Wei (徐渭) and the early Qing dynasty painter Zhu Da (朱耷). His favorite …
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Hey Artists! For some reason the Mailchimps didn’t pick this up at 7:00am as scheduled. This happens sometimes. In the future, if you are looking for the challenge and don’t see it in your inbox by 7:05am, check V. Notes on ourwebsite. Memory Challenge For this memory exercise you will need 2 pieces of paper, …
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In recent V. Notes, I have shared some of Carlos San Millan’s favorite painters. So far I’ve posted Kim Frohsin, Mitchell Johnson, Yann Kebbi, Марина Цветаева (Marina Tsvetyeva), and Sangram Majumdar. Today I’m posting Bato Dugarzhapov. Bato is a Russian painter born in 1966. I had his work saved for a V. Note someday. Looks …
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Search the internet for perspective, and Western perspective is pretty much all you’ll see. Billions of lessons illustrating the importance of one point, two point, and three point perspective. Lessons state that this is something every artist needs to learn in order to correctly render the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. It …