Archive for the ‘Abstract Painting’ Category
February 22, 2012
Using the Bhutanese woodblock as my inspiration, I made a scroll about the Wind Horse.
I use a wood box-like form to hold the paper off the floor before I apply the hot wax. When I first started experimenting with wax I painted right on the floor. Not a good thing. The hot wax and paper adhered firmly to the floor! This scroll is about 60 inches long. The materials I used were watercolor, gold fluid acrylic, bleached beeswax 100% pure domestic imported from Germany, sumi ink, and pastels on mulberry paper. The ‘Precious horse’ and linear areas around it was done first, using hot wax. When the paper was dry I applied watercolor which filled up all the untouched paper – the wax stopped the pigment creating a batik. (click on image to see it larger)
Tags:Abstract Art, abstract painting, Bhutan, scroll, Travel, Wax, Wind Horse
Posted in Abstract Painting, Animals, Artists' books, Bhutan | Leave a Comment »
February 21, 2012
The Wind Horse, shown on the the imprint of a prayer flag is a luck-bringing symbol. This horse can bring good luck, life force, health, influence and merit. On his back is the Flaming Jewel, a spiritual warrior, capable of fulfilling all wishes. The spiritual warrior is carried past the many obstacles leading into the sacred world. The word for Wind Horse (Lungta) has come to mean luck.
I found the wood block in Thimpu, when I was snooping around the shops near the contemporary art school. Using printers ink, and stamps on mulberry paper I made up some small pieces. I started to make an limited edition of five Artist’s Books on mulberry paper. They are scrolls about 62″ high. Now there are only four. I tore up one last week while working on an idea. The torn pieces may be incorporated in the finished product. This print shown above may be added to one of the scrolls. It’s a work in progress. (As usual click on the image to see it bigger)
Tags:abstract painting, animals, Art, Artist Book, Bhutan, poem, Prayer flag, Shopping, Thimphu, Travel, Wind Horse, woodblock print
Posted in Abstract Painting, Artists' books, Bhutan, Paintings, Poems, Travel Drawings | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2012
I made the little box thinking it could be a container to hold stamps I picked up in Bhutan. The images remind me of Bhutanese folk tales. (click on the image to make it bigger)
The Bhutanese folktale called Four Friends is about an elephant, a monkey, a rabbit and a bird. They all learn to help each other by living together harmoniously. I should paint my impression of this folktale and send the finished product to Congress; a gift from an American. President Obama, The House of Representatives, the Senate, the Ameican people; It’s you I’m writing about.
Tags:american president, animals, Art, Artists' Book, Bhutan, Congress, elephant, Folktales, House of Representatives, Obama, Painting, the American people
Posted in Abstract Painting, Animals, Artists' books, Bhutan, California, Nevada, New York, Seattle | Leave a Comment »
February 15, 2012
I bought pint cans of oil based paint from City Paints. I made my stretcher bars, stretched my own raw canvas, even used rabbit skin glue. My brushes or hands were loaded with oil paint. The five or six foot canvas would be on the floor. I’d tear into it putting down how I felt. Phillip Guston was my hero. Elizabeth Murray and Jennifer Bartlett were my classmates. We painted and talked about Mark Rothko and Roy Lichtenstein while we listened to classical music and jazz. And then, we painted and we talked some more. When I was up in front of the graduate review board they asked me to talk about Andy Warhol and his Brillo soap pads. I think I was into Matisse and Joan Mitchell at the time,
That’s what I wanted to do today. I wanted that big canvas on the floor. I wanted to let it all out. Instead, I looked around, found some old scrolls I was working on about Bhutan. They weren’t precious anymore. I took them apart, reassembled them, tore them, just played around with them for awhile. What am I going to do? Just show up. Just go to the studio.
I don’t know where anything is in my studio. I got sick, the ceiling needed to be restored big time. Friends moved everything out of the way. The ceiling got done. I had the old broken linoleum floor tiles taken up while we were at it. During radiation I kept drawing, then transformed my studio into a gallery where I exhibited my 80 Drawings in 80 Days. Now that’s over. Still, I haven’t put everything back. I can’t find anything.
Something is brewing. I don’t know what. I think painting is trying to come back. The Yuban coffee can held my brushes in college. It still holds some of my brushes. The other day my daughter said, “In your will I want you to leave the Yuban coffee can to me. When I was a little girl I thought the picture on the can was you, mom.”
Tags:abstract artists, abstract expressionism, Art, Bhutan, California, Painting, pop art
Posted in Abstract Painting, Art and healing, Artists' books, Bhutan, California, drawings, jazz, Paintings | 10 Comments »
January 25, 2012
This is an Artists’ Book
An Artists’ Book is a work of art. It is not just a vehicle to contain a story and communicate non-visual ideas.
Different media are used in a unique way to create a book-like object.
These books are puzzles.
They are undefined.
The viewer and the artist make up their own story using clues from the book-like structure.
Text, image and structure are equally important in an Artists’ Book.
In The Bay Bridge my cover and spine is the steel box. The pages can be taken out of the box and looked at indvidually.
For a few years we lived in an apartment looking right out at the Oakland- San Francisco Bay Bridge. In a drawer near the window I kept a supply of the same size ’pages’ for my Artists’ Book. I’d record what was going on outside my window. What happens is you have the same size paper for each drawing and painting so you start to think of different ways to fill that piece of paper. The book is chuck full now. Included in the steel box are stories about connections I have had with the bridge.
Tags:Artist Book, drawings, graphite drawing, Oakland - San Francisco Bay Bridge, Painting, pen and ink, Steel, watercolor
Posted in Abstract Painting, Artists' books, California, drawings, Paintings | 8 Comments »
January 24, 2012
For many of my trips I have taken with me a Canson 8.5×11 sketch book. Made up of acid free paper with a durable black cover and binding, this sketchbook has about 200 pages of a good quality paper. My goal is always to try to fill up the book before I go home. After the trip I paint about the experience and then have an exhibit every few years.The Egypt paintings were shown at Robert Mondavi winery. The painting above is based upon a sketch I did of some birds that were drawn in 2450 BC. I found the images in the tomb of Teti.
For this body of work my paintings introduce large scale light boxes set within canvas structures. The light boxes highlight artwork inspired by sketches done during my trip to Egypt. Size: 54″ x 84″ wax and acrylic on canvas, sumi ink, watercolor on two layers of mulberry paper.
Posted in Abstract Painting, California, Egypt | 3 Comments »
January 23, 2012
Fragments, Fadings and Feelings
Mills College Art Museum
When I was in China the abstract beauty of calligraphy intrigued me. I bought some children’s textbooks on how to write Chinese script. For centuries the children have learned how to write by copying characters within boxes in order to understand their structure and proportions.
I started to copy the lessons. Soon my strokes freed themselves from the grid. The “correct” version of the letters was replaced by the “wrong” solution. Using sumi ink, wax and acrylic paint on xuan paper I put down marks. The shapes and colors mixed and spread into new compositions and brushstrokes. The biomorphic forms of nature took over.
As I painted I thought of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yangtze River. The Three Gorges Dam transformed the river into a deep reservoir flooding farmland, cities, villages and archaeological sites. People were relocated to new structures of mass produced design, buildings with slick, cold, white tile.
Today’s mass production and permanency of materials is replacing an intuitive expression of life. These paintings are made of materials that are vulnerable to the effects of weathering and our touch. The sun will fade some of the brilliant colors into muddy earth tones. Fragile paper will tear. But the way xuan paper transmits light, the way people carried out their everyday life on the Yangtze. These memories will stay in my heart.
Tags:abstract painting, acrylic paint, California, China, Mills College Museum, scoll, sumi ink, Three Gorges Dam, wax resist, xuan paper, Yangtze river
Posted in Abstract Painting, California, China, Paintings | 1 Comment »
January 20, 2012
When I started making Artists’ Books I thought people have been making books for years and anyway, I’m a painter. What can I do that would be different? I decided to make a big book. Each page is made up of two oil paintings on canvas, stretcher bars included. Metal prongs hold them together. What is Intuitive Collisions about? My father was a financier, an industrialist and I was an artist. Our minds couldn’t have been farther apart. We ended up taking early morning walks together. He would talk to me about building a bridge or how the stock market was doing. I would be looking at how the fog masked out the vineyard leaving only the trees to see. By the end of the walk, we’d be happy to have spent some time with each other. I think we understood each other a little bit better, too.
Intuitive Collisions 1999
Oil, transfers, acrylic on canvas, stretcher bars, wood joiners,
prong type glides, metal hinges
14″ x 29″ x 9″ 58 inches open book
Tags:Abstract Art, acrylic paint, Art, Artist Book, Artists' Book, California, oil paint, Painting, Paper, Shopping, Stretcher bar, Visual Arts
Posted in Abstract Painting, Artists' books, California, Paintings | 4 Comments »
