Some Pretty Paintings; a collection of flowers and figures in paintings and prints
I buy myself flowers because they make me happy. They are colorful and fragrant, and have no purpose other than my enjoyment. As temporal sculptures, flowers mark time by dropping petals, and are to be enjoyed without procrastination. No matter how busy I am, the time to appreciate a flower is gently now.
As flowers shift my attention towards the now, so do people. Collaborating with models is a creative joy. For this series we used blankets and kimono patterned with flowers. We set up in diffused morning light, and the models moved slowly as I captured images in my camera. Photographs allow me to take more time with my paintings, and layer images to carve one moment’s form with another. The figure is now an abstract of overlapping sensual shapes, now with an element of time. As each pose shifts, and we take advantage of the light, day to day, moment to moment, no person is exactly the same.
Drypoints were printed in collaboration with Nikki Barber, printmaking instructor at the Seattle Artist League. I scribed the plates and Barber printed them. Each image sparked a discussion of line, tone, and texture, and each print is a hand worked original. Since each print is hand inked with so much personalization to the wiping of the ink, no drypoint print is exactly the same. Each print is slightly different, and with each print the burrs that cause the velvet areas compress, and for this reason the marks that differentiate drypoints from etchings also mark the end of an edition. Once the burrs are compressed, the print is finished. Drypoints are known for producing editions of only about 10 and then they’re gone.
Some Pretty Paintings; a collection of flowers and figures in paintings and prints
Show opens January 5, 2019
Show up through January 27th
Artist Talk Saturday, January 5th (3:30-4:30pm)
Opening Reception to follow (5-7pm)
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. NOMOTHETIC adj. relating to the study or …
Sundays are observational drawing day in our 30 day creative challenge. We’re almost done with the month! Seeing things from various points of view is a great way to feed yourself ideas, challenge what you think you know, and surprise yourself with something new. Think of the Indian story about the six blind monks who …
PAINTING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS We put a lot of pressure on artists (on ourselves) to be original. We think we should be able to turn that blank canvas into something no one has seen before, something totally authentic, illuminating and wondrous. Truth is, people aren’t very good at being original. Inventing totally new things from scratch …
Today’s post is from special guest star Anne Walker. Anne majored in Fine Arts with a focus in painting at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT in 1989. She started taking classes at the League a couple of years ago. I met her in Fran’s Giant Figures workshop in February 2020 (shortly before our classes went online). …
Some Pretty Paintings: Figure “Z” and Artist’s Statement
Some Pretty Paintings; a collection of flowers and figures in paintings and prints
I buy myself flowers because they make me happy. They are colorful and fragrant, and have no purpose other than my enjoyment. As temporal sculptures, flowers mark time by dropping petals, and are to be enjoyed without procrastination. No matter how busy I am, the time to appreciate a flower is gently now.
As flowers shift my attention towards the now, so do people. Collaborating with models is a creative joy. For this series we used blankets and kimono patterned with flowers. We set up in diffused morning light, and the models moved slowly as I captured images in my camera. Photographs allow me to take more time with my paintings, and layer images to carve one moment’s form with another. The figure is now an abstract of overlapping sensual shapes, now with an element of time. As each pose shifts, and we take advantage of the light, day to day, moment to moment, no person is exactly the same.
Drypoints were printed in collaboration with Nikki Barber, printmaking instructor at the Seattle Artist League. I scribed the plates and Barber printed them. Each image sparked a discussion of line, tone, and texture, and each print is a hand worked original. Since each print is hand inked with so much personalization to the wiping of the ink, no drypoint print is exactly the same. Each print is slightly different, and with each print the burrs that cause the velvet areas compress, and for this reason the marks that differentiate drypoints from etchings also mark the end of an edition. Once the burrs are compressed, the print is finished. Drypoints are known for producing editions of only about 10 and then they’re gone.
Some Pretty Paintings; a collection of flowers and figures in paintings and prints
Show opens January 5, 2019
Show up through January 27th
Artist Talk Saturday, January 5th (3:30-4:30pm)
Opening Reception to follow (5-7pm)
Smith & Vallee Gallery
5742 Gilkey Ave, Edison
(360) 766-6230
Open Daily 11-5
www.smithandvalleegallery.com
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Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. NOMOTHETIC adj. relating to the study or …
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Sundays are observational drawing day in our 30 day creative challenge. We’re almost done with the month! Seeing things from various points of view is a great way to feed yourself ideas, challenge what you think you know, and surprise yourself with something new. Think of the Indian story about the six blind monks who …
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PAINTING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS We put a lot of pressure on artists (on ourselves) to be original. We think we should be able to turn that blank canvas into something no one has seen before, something totally authentic, illuminating and wondrous. Truth is, people aren’t very good at being original. Inventing totally new things from scratch …
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Today’s post is from special guest star Anne Walker. Anne majored in Fine Arts with a focus in painting at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT in 1989. She started taking classes at the League a couple of years ago. I met her in Fran’s Giant Figures workshop in February 2020 (shortly before our classes went online). …