December 07, 2010

So totally in progress that it's almost indecent I show them

Work on paper. The flower garland reminds me of a dress I wore to my dad's funeral, and every other funeral I attended in the 80's. 
Just started this one. No clue as to where it's going. None. It was too cold to use my Montana spray paint outside, so I used it inside. No odor. Just need to be cautious about the particle fallout.

Here's the same painting about an hour later. I remembered I was going to make a cheap motel painting. At first I meant a painting like you would find in a cheap motel, but then I started thinking about cheap motels. Notice the fishing lake and the motel parking lot amidst the trees. I'm thinking X-files.  


This reminds me of the cover art for "Grand Illusion," by Styx, 1977. I'll probably end up titling it, "Grand Illusion." The stripes, cones, and criss-crossy things are a little unusual for me, but the other wall in the den studio is a bookcase and one of the book spines looked like this, relatively speaking. I'm having trouble remembering what this painting looked like last week or the week before. Oh wait. it's coming to me... nope...oh yes, I remember now. It's much better now than it was last week. A bunch of yellow paint really took one for the team on this one.
The spines.
It's cold here. I give you winter, with pine trees, pine cones and something else. This has the look of a painting that will not even remember what it looked like 5 days from now. I'm getting really good at this guessing game.

The winter den studio. I swear, one day I will once again have a big-ass studio with white walls bathed in clean clear natural sunlight. 

3 comments:

Nomi Lubin said...

X-Files, cheap motel -- yay!

Yeah, I didn't want to burst your bubble, but I think it's time: You may not be capable of making paintings like you would find in a cheap motel.

We all have our limits; it's OK.

And yes to this: "I swear, one day I will once again have a big-ass studio with white walls bathed in clean clear natural sunlight."

But, clearly, you do not need it to make good paintings. Yeah? Mark Bittman can brag about what he can make in his 10 sq foot kitchen or whatever it is? You can paint in a closet.

(I painted in a closet my last year of school. It was one of the few private studios, and it was coveted. [Tiny crammed school in an old ramshackle bunch of small connected apt. buildings.] It was called the Large Closet Studio. Yes, there was a Small Closet Studio. I was glad to get the large. It had a window. Well, so did the small, actually, but it was really really small. Mine was just really small.)

Carla said...

It'd be interesting to hang a patterned fabric over the shelves. Have different ones, and revolve them out. Each one hangs for a couple weeks or so. You don't consciously try to mimic it at all.

M.A.H. said...

I'm banking on the wood paneled den to wield some influence on the cheap motel painting, plus there's a "painting" up in the attic that's a dead ringer. I'll have to bring it down, but every time I think about using it, I can't get past Wayne White.

The fabric idea segues nicely with the current studio MO, though I do worry about releasing my obsessive tendencies with P&D.

It's over.

Nov 7, 2020. Tears of joy and relief. It's been unreal and I'm ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. The desert has been tough.