D Art's Open Salon Blog

The Journey to 52 - A Painter Becomes an Artist

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:04:59 -0400

What Did I expect?

I knew that I was at the beginning of a very creative period in my life. I started to paint again after more than ten years of virtually nothing. I was going to tackle a new medium (Acrylic Paint) but more importantly, I was going to tackle what being an “artist” meant to me. I was going to express myself almost entirely through the paint, brush, and canvas. I thought, at the very least, someone might be interested in another artist’s journey.

I was already 20 paintings into it before I posted the first one. The first painting posted was the first painting I did and the last was the last. Everything in-between was jumbled up and displayed in no special order. The 70-plus works that weren’t posted were not inferior in any way to the ones that were. I simply posted whatever painting I felt like posting that week and for the most part, I tried to mix them up.

Detail from Prison Window - painting number 1

I needed some feedback. I was confident I would get some here. I promised to read every comment and consider it but, in the end, I did not let them affect me too much. My family is supportive but, let’s face it, after a hundred paintings, what’s left to say? I knew that eventually, the same would be true for OS. No matter how many different styles I tried, there is only so many comments that you can offer. I decided to keep the writing and responding to the bare minimum hopefully indicating that I would like to have you react to the piece as a work of art. I appreciated all the comments about John Lennon, for instance, but I only really paid attention to comments that were specifically about the painting itself.

So, it was like: Here it is. What do you think?

Do you wonder what it might be like to offer written submissions on a mostly-artist website? I’m not sure what sort of comments I expected but a simple “I like it” was always welcome. I did notice that the amount or quality of the comments never depended on the amount of work that was put into the piece. Maybe one of the more disappointing aspects of this endeavor was when one of my favorite paintings or one that I really put a lot of effort into (sometimes close to 40 hours) would be greeted with maybe a half-dozen comments. This was, almost predictably, balanced out with more comments about some very minor efforts, in my estimation.

I was hoping for more comments from the other OS artists and I appreciate so much the generosity of the comments I did receive from those artists that did take the time to do so. I always included a close-up detail because you could not possibly know what that painting looked like up close when a 48 inch canvas is shrunken to 5 inches. I know that seeing a painting up close is one of my favorite aspects of going to see them in museums or galleries.

Marcus Rothko - detail from One In a Long Line Of... - painting number 52

There were offers to purchase some of these works of art. But I was not about to put prices on these paintings just yet. I think it is better for me to create my own website where they can be displayed properly and the prices displayed alongside. To me they are worth a million dollars each but I recognize that is not the neighborhood they belong in. I think I will be realistic about that. It’s thrilling to me to sell one of my paintings – just the thought of it hanging somewhere and being enjoyed by people I don’t even know – absolutely thrilling. But it always makes me sad when they go.

Was it a Success?

In my mind it was. I am a different painter now. I love acrylics and I feel bold enough to claim that I am just now entering my best period. I burn inside to create something of visual beauty that will blow the back of your head off, massage your heart and dazzle your eyes as so many of the great works of art have done to me. I feel it coming.

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D Art 2012

Help save lives - donate your organs. Please.

Soon I will work on my own website where my paintings will be offered for sale. Please watch for that announcement.

Rest in Peace, buddy.

The Final Painting - Number 52

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:04:52 -0400

One In A Long Line Of...
48" x 36" Acrylic on Stretched Canvas

Detail of above.

Detail

52 Paintings in 52 Weeks

The urge to paint had been getting stronger and stronger. Everyone who knew me knew I was an artist. Most had seen the abundance of paintings, drawings, caricatures, and designs that I had at my house. Some of them have my work hanging on their walls. But I doubt if many of them knew that almost all of that work was accomplished in two years, over ten years ago. It had been that long since I picked up a brush. Here I was in the art supply aisle of my local Michael’s Craft Store. I picked up a starter set of acrylic paints - $19.95 plus tax. I never painted with acrylic paint before. And I’m still not quite sure what made me buy them that day when I had dozens of tubes of oil paint from long ago sitting in a drawer in my studio/office and I was far more familiar with oil painting.

For weeks prior to that day, I looked out my work office window at a dilapidated old factory building and thought it might make a nice painting. My office window has a sort-of chicken wire covering it on the outside and it made me think that it might be interesting to divide a canvas into small squares and paint in each square separately – somewhat like Chuck Close does so that, even though each square was its only little painting, the viewer sees it as a building when seen in its entirety.

That’s how it started. I struggled at first. To put it simply, even with all the improvements to acrylic paint over the years, it was not oil paint and would never be confused with oil paint. I have a very clear memory of wanting to switch back to my old reliable, especially when things didn’t go right, but I stuck it out. I was rewarded with a painting that really looked like nothing I had ever done before and I decided to stick with acrylics.

Nothing I’d Ever Done Before

During the years I wasn’t painting, people would always ask me when I was going to get back to it. I wondered myself. One thing that I always remember saying was, “I don’t want to paint like I used to paint.” Unfortunately, even I wasn’t sure what that meant. I was confident about how I didn’t want to paint but I never really worked out how I actually would paint. The idea of what I wanted to do next started to come into focus.

The first step was to completely divorce myself from what people’s reactions would be to my paintings. To be more specific – I would become more involved with the process and less with the outcome. Over this last year, I felt the pull of doing things the way I was more comfortable doing. Time and again I had to remind myself to stick with it and I wrote down three rules that I would try to follow in each and every painting:

Explore

Be Bold

Have Fun

During this time, I studied most of the greatest painters who ever lived through books and videos. I’ve visited museums and galleries and was inspired by literally everything I came in contact with. As I learned about an artist’s techniques, I would try them out myself. As I look over my completed paintings, I can see quite clearly, their influence on each one.

I thought it might be fun to post these paintings on OS as I went through my journey. I must say, I have been productive. During this year, I have completed over 125 paintings. I started out with smaller canvases and made my way up to much larger canvases. That first set of acrylics made it through three paintings. Since then, I have spent thousands of dollars on paint, canvas, and equipment. Over the last year, I have posted 52 of these works in no particular order. I have been constantly surprised at the reactions I have gotten. Some of my favorite works, paintings I am so proud of received some of the lowest ratings and comments. Some paintings that I consider trifling were lauded. It really opened my eyes.

There are more than 70 paintings that were not posted. Some of those are favorites that I may end up posting here on a much more irregular basis. My intention is to write more about this 52-paintings-in-52-weeks exercise. I have explored it in paint and now I must explore it in words.

Through it all, I think I was true to my rules, I explored, I was bold, and I had a whole bunch of fun. I hope you did too. Thank you for dropping by and making comments. I appreciated every one of them and I am sorry I didn’t interact very much but I wanted the paintings to do the talking for me.

By the way, I haven't stopped!

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D Art 2012

Help save lives - donate your organs. Please.

Soon I will work on my own website where my paintings will be offered for sale. Please watch for that announcement.

My Hero - A Portrait of My Father

Fri, 6 Apr 2012 16:04:31 -0400

Daddy
16" x 20" Acrylic on Canvas Board

He is the most important person in my life and as I get to the end of my quest to paint and post a painting every week for one year, the final paintings became more and more important. Since I love to paint portraits of my heroes, then who better to save towards the end but my greatest hero - my father.

Detail of above.

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D Art 2012

Help save lives - donate your organs. Please.

ONLY 1 more painting!!!

That will make one full year of A-PAINTING-A-WEEK.

GYPSY PUNK - A Portrait of Eugene Hutz

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:03:25 -0400

Hutz
24" x 36" Acrylic on Stretched Canvas

Detail of above.

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D Art 2012

Help save lives - donate your organs. Please.

ONLY 2 more paintings will make 52!!! -

One full year of A-PAINTING-A-WEEK.

CATHEDRAL - A Painting

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:03:42 -0400

Cathedral
18" x 24" Acrylic on Stretched Canvas

Detail of above.

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D Art 2012

Help save lives - donate your organs. Please.

ONLY 3 more paintings will make 52!!! -

One full year of A-PAINTING-A-WEEK.