Sunset Drawings

Here are a couple of drawings I did several years ago while trying to organize the painting which appears in the previous posting.  I especially like the charcoal.  Also, I've got several ink and colored pencil drawings I did prior to beginning the picture which I'd like to share later in the week.

For me, this is exciting!

From time to time I enter art competitions.  I submit images of my work for review by a juror or group with the understanding that s/he/they will check them out and decide if what I've done ought to be included in the art show they have planned.  In the past I've announced my intention to enter competitions on these pages and have, more often than not, failed to catch the favorable eyes of the juror(s) on those occasions. 
Well, I've revised my strategy.  I decided after a few too many disappointments that I'd keep my applications to myself.  So maybe it worked!  On January 20th I received an email from the director of the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, Massachusetts that one of my submissions to the "Love" themed exhibit, set to open on February 14, 2014, was accepted!
Adding to my excitement and feeling of success was the fact that the juror, Eric Aho, is someone whose work I appreciate very much.  Having an accomplished professional selecting my work to include is flattering.
A copy of the piece is below.  I titled it "Sunset in New Mexico with Alcohol".  It's oil on canvas.

I did many preliminary drawings before actually heading off in the direction resulting in the above and I think I'll post them here over the next several days.  Fun for me to look back and see where this came from.
I got the idea for the piece from reading a short story by Raymond Carver entitled "What we talk about when we talk about love".  What the characters spoke about on a late afternoon in New Mexico included everything from infidelity, divorce, abuse of one sort or another, excesses and the commitments of love and marriage.  I thought the story engaging and took the liberty of creating a portrait of a moment I created, partly from the prose, but in large measure from of my imagination.

South Shore Art Center
www.ssac.org
119 Ripley Road
Cohasset, MA 02025
781-383-2787

"Love" is on exhibit in the Bancroft Gallery from February 14, 2014 until March 23, 2014.
There is an opening reception from 6-8p.m. on February 14, 2014

Pictures w/no words;A.;picking up the pace

I often stay clear of posting here for lack of anything much to say about the work I up-load. As I'm sitting here writing............! With visual art, maybe just posting it is enough, though. I don't need to explain it, the viewer can see for themselves, interpret it, devine its source or suppose its inspiration, calculate whatever needs to be calculated and feel what they feel.

However, all that said, I'm picking up my picture making pace and plan to purchase supplies to allow four (4) 2'x3' or 3'x4' new oil pieces per month for the next six months. I think its ambitious but I want to do it and maybe I'll report on the progress from time to time.

Work from summer 2009 and earlier

Ink.

Ink.

Ink.

Charcoal on paper.

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on paper.

Watercolor and gouache on board.

Watercolor and gouache on board.

Watercolor and goauche on board.

Watercolor and goauche on board.

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on paper.

On October 12, 2008 I posted several sketches representing an idea I had for a painting based, in part, upon a short story by Raymond Carver entitiled "What we talk about when we talk about love". The image above, with two couples, is the almost completed piece that I was attached to with my brushes for most of the month of July. When not concentrating on that image I managed to find the time and energy to work on the other pieces posted here.

Recent charcoal drawings/figures

Charcoal drawings may be an end in themselves or preliminary to a work in another media. Actually, I like to hold on to all of my charcoal pictures and have so many hanging in a closet, poorly stored in the basement and in huge improvised cardboard "portfolio" folders that I think an inventory should be started sometime soon. Maybe toss some out? That will be difficult, I think.

The image of the group sitting at a table is a progression of the Carver-based painting I hope to execute, or at least begin soon. Something about it confuses me; the table legs are too short or the table top should be lower or the chair legs are too short.....maybe all three of the above.

Anyway, it's "What we talk about when we talk about love." If I knew how to send this posting to his first wife I'd do it; I think she might appreciate how someone attempts to interpret her late ex-husband's word-pictures.

The reclined figure (pastel/watercolor) is quite large (30" x 40") and is as yet a work in progress which I am hopeful may be finished in time to exhibit at an upcoming figure show at Artspace in Greenfield.

The other drawings are from the life group I belong to and draw with every couple of weeks. For the most part they were done in fifteen to thirty minutes on white acid free drawing paper.