Portrait w/charcoal, watercolor and graphite

Graphite and watercolor

This looks to me like something done in the 1940's by someone else.  Ever had that experience?  Not too original I guess but I do like the colors.  It was done so long ago that I almost feel I could be objective about it!

Work in progress

20" x 36"

Watercolor on foam board.  About to revisit and I'll post the work going forward.

Water media

20" x  36"

Watercolor and gouache on foam board.

Making pictures

18" x 24"/pastel and charcoal on heavy Bee paper

Clearly there was thought put into this but as I look at it the calculations disappear from my memory.  I think that's a good sign that something ethereal, transient yet strong was involved in the process of assembly.  How lucky for me!  At least that's how I look at it.  Making pictures likely has something to do with trying to hold on to time or maybe more precisely to a moment....which is time, I know but when I think of "time" it is usually in chunks so I'm trying to differentiate, be precise.  Photographs can hold the future off or hold the past too I suppose but I don't often put a camera in my hand when picture making. Maybe it is something about it's precision...even if the image is manipulated and looks distorted, out of focus, untrue to reality or abstracted in some way.  The required calculations are made on a level of consciousness that as a mark maker I don't have to be involved with. Or so I'm thinking.  Maybe photographers have totally uncalibrated results, too? 
I wonder if the exercise of comparing hand rendered art to photographic art is worthwhile?  Certainly, I think, the immediacy of a gesture with charcoal, pencil or pastel in hand and the resulting mark(s) is different than the capture/impression of pixels...it seems almost that the difference is like a vacuum cleaner to a broom.  The camera sucks in all the available stuff; the broom is guided as it collects.  Interesting comment from someone who knows nothing about photography, huh?
I like trying to figure stuff out but maybe like some, try working at it with less than an adequate amount of information! 
I do know from looking at this piece that I got myself perfectly.  If the lens were pointed directly at me it couldn't have captured a better representation.

Charcoal portrait with Red

Soft pastel and charcoal/18" x 24"

Drawing with charcoal and pastel

Pastel and charcoal on paper

This piece is about 18" x 24" and was done recently.  She's seated on an invisible chair and surrounded by an aura or field of extra energetic random squiggles which seem to keep her from falling.  More really soon.

A feeling too rare; incentives

18" x 24"
charcoal/pastel/bee paper

These two images have, both of them, enlivened my picture making practice and I hope set me firmly on a path more consistent with my seemingly waxing and waning desire to make expressive pieces in the tradition of the modernist, expressionist painters I so admire.  The portrait/figure above was a short exercise recently undertaken and one I am entirely pleased with.  The photo I've posted isn't too bad, save for the visible clip; can't say that about the oil.  Sorry!

Oil on canvas
18" x 18"

The landscape is a representation of a beautiful view on property where we lived  for about ten years in Duxbury, Massachusetts beginning in about 1996.  I recently found a photo I'd taken sometime ago and was inspired to use the scene as the foundation for the piece.  I've started several others with reference to that property and some from recent photos of the area where I now live.

Charcoal/pastel figure

18" x 24"

Mixed media/sketch

18" x 24"
Charcoal and water color
on paper

I've been cruising around gallery websites and reading about marketing strategy for would-be professional picture makers.  Don't know if I should feel discouraged or not; there's a certain "finish" lacking in a large portion of what I do and nothing seems to go in a straight line.....I guess that's what I see on the gallery sites: a polish or finish to the work displayed and lots of the same technique.  Anyway, I like doing what I'm doing and I learn from the work and I think I grow in the process of it all.

Sketchbook/ink figure

Did this in 2011 sometime; just scanned it the other day.

Report: Page Seven (Is this all you've done all summer?!)

Untitled
Watercolor/charcoal/gouache on paper
18" x 24"

Haven't been here for a few days.  Away at the beach gathering shell subjects and swimming, reading and doing some occasional sketchbook drawings.  The picture above was done maybe in June I think.  On a side note I've become (this will be of no interest to anyone I imagine-so the self assessment which follows must be proof positive of its accuracy) a Morrissey fan to the exclusion of just about all other music I listen to while working.  Who does that other than an obsessive, groupie sort of personality which I fear, at my "advanced age", I have become!!  Wish I had discovered him and The Smith's twenty-plus years ago!
On the subject of painting, particularly the piece above, I'm reminded to suggest to myself again and again:  "thing slowly, paint fast".

More Klimt Inspired

Don't think I've shown this before.  Photographed in August 2009 so I think that's when I did it.  Watercolor and gouache on cardboard.

Blue Figure

Watercolor, charcoal and gouache on cardboard
2010

Stretched out

Charcoal on heavy Bee Paper
18" x 24"

Three recent figure pictures

Watercolor on paper
5"x6"

Watercolor and ink on board
4"x4.5"

Watercolor and gouache
on foam board
4.5"x 7"

Memory in ink

This drawing is so difficult to view that I may decide to remove the post.  I did it today over coffee while sitting in a little lunch spot/cafe. I thought about trying how to adapt my work in oil to this loose, expressive drawing style or technique.  Maybe mix the paint with some medium to dilute it enough that I can easily make similar marks with a brush?  Maybe a little bit of color, too?  We'll have to see what unfolds.