Allow me to report on my progress, or lack of it, with the question and answer theme.

The idea has been to create a chain form, corresponding to a sequence of events; in this case questions and answers.

Scattered about my workplace are various takes on the letters “a” and “q”, done up in a number of fonts, sizes and materials. These have been strung together in attempts to find the right combination of variety, legibility and sparkle.

Early attempts emphasized strong interactions of color and form. They were entertaining, but the underlying call and response theme that I was after tended to get lost in the visual noise.

In this iteration I’m trying to standardize somewhat by choosing block letter forms and a monochrome finish. Last I counted there were three of each letter, which when tied together creates a tight mass.

Continue reading How Simple?

In response to Birgit I went back to the original post in an attempt to temper the blur.  Birgit has come to accept, perhaps embrace, the blurriness, while I have gone in the other direction. I tried the sharpening and blurring tools with unsatisfactory results and turned to the old standbys, poster and watercolor, in the artistic filters.

This is the image posterized. It’s alright but has lost the softness of the original.

This is watercolored and has the usual silk screened look. The view through the window has gone flat.

This is it now; time to declare the first post the winner - or perhaps the least loser.

You Gloaming commentators have done a splendid job as com-mentors.

The right combination of detail, color and air seems to be at issue. In this version I have blurred the contents of the window, lightened the blues and have shown more of the right wall hanging. The left hanging cannot be retrieved without going back to the raw image. If, however, it is missed, then I’ll go back. That would be O.K. as one of my new year’s resolutions was to persevere.

In response to Steve’s comment about the red spot and the common positive about the blueness and negative about the blurriness, I took up residence last evening by the window and wall and waited. A series of exposures was required as I had but a vague memory of the original lighting conditions. Fortunately, a few came close.

I took the opportunity to make the blue a bit more theatrical and to emphasize the red spot in the window (a bag full of straps). I also cleaned up a number of distractions.

Is it better?

A light was burning in my workshop this last evening and there was something so Cotswoldish about the whole affair that I grabbed my camera in a race with the dwindling light.

I set the dial on aperture priority to avoid a flash exposure and the result was a little smeared. I can’t make up my mind about it. On the one hand it creates a sense of remove, but on the other, it appears simply blurry. Maybe a foggy quality would be better. What do you think?

This is an exercise in filling the Art and Perception news hole, deja vu or a naked bid for attention, take your pick.

A technique in these architectural paintings - and something which has appeared in previous posts - is the use of underlying intaglios or raised portions. Such a pattern can act to hold a design that comes through whatever terrain of filler and paint is later applied.

I swim at Notre Dame College, a school whose modest campus is dominated by an imposing main building. This began as a shot, in white board mode, of a corner of that structure. This was then traced out on plywood with whatever appeared as black becoming a raised area. This was then followed by a period of back and forth with opaque colors and glazes. The structure ended up as both firm and dissolving.

Continue reading In and Out Taglio

Birgit’s post brings up some troublesome memories.

My three boys, in their earlier years, drew a lot. Much of it consisted of takes on what they saw in the media with some creative things here and there. In the late nineties I began to eye these drawings, curious about their potential as subject matter: what if I projected them on boards and applied paint..?..

I felt a need to ask permission of the boys. Theirs was a “whatever” attitude, most of the drawings beyond memory or caring. I tried to find examples that didn’t include Stars Wars episodes or Batman, and which had the aspect of a personal narrative. There were, among the hampers full of these things, a limited number that were fairly well composed.

How to paint the images? Most had few spatial cues, with elements positioned where space allowed. The boys were not colorists by nature, so I had little to go on in that regard. Should the cast of characters occupy some sort of floating world, or should they be grounded in some fashion? I labored through a dozen or more attempts in a quest to find common ground between the originals and my own ideas.

One of the few that emerged as a somewhat satisfactory composite was this depiction, by Bret, of two characters engaged in a public arm-wrestling match. I scored a masonite surface with a Dremel and rubbed in the color. The negative spaces were given a gold finish. The painting is about four feet long.

Continue reading Kids’ Art

Yes, in fact.

A two month toil refinishing the bathroom is coming to a close and its time for that finishing touch. This led us to a round of boutiques. One was Flower Child, an emporium known for its selection of leg lamps. It is a warren of clutter and I had to pull out the camera.

Continue reading June Asks

As I’ve said before, It’s a matter of doing things indoors while waiting out the season.

A few tentative results have come up in the interim. One is a bundle of gender symbols composed of walnut, mahogany and oak pieces that I’ve had around since I dressed as a younger man. The other is a serendipitous product made up of mason’s lath, a basic building material that I ran across at the hardware store.

These pieces are intertwined one circle through another to form a closed loop. Again, this is changeable as the mutual relations of the pieces depend upon which individual is picked up or hung on the wall. Makes me think of a story whose narrative, and the outcome of which, would depend upon a given word or paragraph being chosen in a programmed context. Continue reading Quick Update

Steve wears out skis in pursuit of his prey and I hardly leave the pavement. These are record shots, essentially, but they have a certain something.

The foreground twigs are a web cast upon the ice. Continue reading Meanwhile, Back At The Falls

Below is a sketch for a plain and simple red circular object that I plan to make when the weather improves. My ambition is that it will hang in a state of minimalist implacability.

Why do I plan to do this? It has been on my mind for awhile and represents my usual mixture of ambition and sloth. Also it is in some respects a response to recent discussions of “perfection” and “beauty”. I’m looking to make something that is ambiguous in reference to either term.

How so? A circle is the simplest of shapes and admits to no variation except the extend of its radius. As a geometrical figure with infinite degrees of symmetry it is perfect. As for beauty, the usual comparisons of more or less, better or worse that inform the word do not apply - there are no better circles. Moreover, one can make a circular object quite simply and with a high degree of uniformity thus bypassing most issues of facture.

The chosen color refers to conventions surrounding love and pain which both tend to employ a blood red. This started out as a pie chart with a dividing line, but a deepening realization of the inextricable commingling of both sensations in the human condition made the line superfluous. I find no comparative value in this choice as the red simply suits the subject.
So there it is: The Ratio Of Love And Pain. How would you propose to critique it?

Continue reading Positional, Appositional and Oppositional Propositions