Rusty's and Snacktime

When I finished "Rusty's Jazz Bar" today, I cannot believe that I worked on it on and off for 7 years!! The original figure was done in 2002 when this native American posed lying down to fit my horizontal canvas. It was a barren naked figure to be a good painting. But, I liked the pose to discard it as a failed painting. I left it in the garage not knowing what to do with it. Then, last year, I looked at it and got some images from internet and started to compose a more complex picture. I worked on it, but did not like the color and some compositional element. Last week, I was working on the "snack time". I thought these two are similar in genre. So, I took it out and continue working on it. Well here are the results of "best effort".

Old family album

Found these pictures in my file. Aside from the last one, I took them when we got the family's first camera in 1957. Most of them are very small 1.5inch. Printing was very expensive then. The price grew exponentially with size.
I was cool, trying to make "art pictures". You can see the staging of a pretentious angle of myself reading. I like the pictures of my mother. They show her making soy sauce in our yard, and arranging flowers. I like very much the school master's awkwardness in the last picture of my mother's elementary school graduation. It will be fun to make a painting out of this. I need to rearrange the pattern of the shirts girls were wearing to make a good composition. I may change the body language of some school girls to expand the feeling of awkwardness. Hmm... Will be a challenging task. My mother is at the left corner of the last row.

Snack Time - A Study using Computer Graphics

I did a drawing last week of a man in a hat standing and hunching over a pedestal. I thought the pose is interesting and can be a basis for a painting.
I tried a few compositions using Artrage in my computer. Struggled quite a bit as usual. Finally settled down to these. Still don't know which version I like better. I learned a few things. For this kind of painting, the detail modeling is not as important as the gesture. The design element takes over. I just wish when I paint on canvas, I can be a little painterly as Edward Hopper. I will respond to what's on the canvas.

Boom Town on the Lake

The booming construction in our city is incredible. At one time, I counted 14 cranes near downtown Bellevue. I started this one way back. But, somehow I have not been able to come up with a good composition. I kept playing with it. I use my leftover oil paint on my palette to play with color and to build up the texture using palette knife. I also put enamel paint on it. It tends to drip which can be used judicially.

This is the final product. Construction and destruction are two sides of the same coin.

Enamel Paint - Lady in Black

Got some medium gloss enamel paint from Benjamin Moor including a blue. I painted this one still based on the drawing I made. I clothed her in black and added necklace. The brush strokes and colors are more confident and clear. I scratched some marks to reveal the underpaint. They are only visible if you enlarge the image by hitting it. I am happier with this one than the previous one.

Enamel Paint

Continue experimenting with enamel paint I got from Home Depot. I got only 3 colors: red, yellow, black, plus white. The limited palette is good for experimenting. The reason I do this is that I have a very large "experienced" (meaning used) canvas that I picked up from a discarded pile at Gage Academy of Art. I thought about doing something with it. Commercial paint came to my mind. Discarded canvas + cheap commercial paint appeal to me philosophically. So, I bought a few small cans of enamel paint to experiment on my own "experienced" canvases.
I continue to paint "Rothko painting" using an used canvas with built up texture on it. Trying to get to Rothko's religious experience. I also painted a woman's portrait based on a studio drawing I did.
Enamel paint dries fast. I have to paint like acrylic paint, fast and using layering. The draw back of the paint is the gloss. Only the white color is flat. So, I have not much control of the reflection when I don't want them. I may try to find other oil-based paint to see whether I can gain some control of this.

Tribute to Mark Rothko

In order to achieve a deeper understanding of what Mark Rothko wanted to achieve, I made this painting. It is done on a small (18x22) canvas using commercial enamel paint. I learned a lot from doing it. For example, I initially left more space around edges. Found that it does not feel the force Rothko had in his paintings. I feel more satisfied with the composition after I reduce the edges. I painted darker fringe in the lower part of the painting around yellow and reddish parts. That made the lower part more "resolved". But I decided to leave the upper part somewhat "unresolved". I think it creates more tension with this contrast in "resolveness". I found the enamel paint is quite good for layering. I will try a few more paintings with this type of paint and see what happens.