Monday, March 9, 2015

The Chair Man, Red Rock Crossing, & Sedona Wedding. New painting released next week!

I want to start off by thanking everyone who has been reading these blogs.  I really appreciate the positive notes and comments several of you have sent to me, in regards to my ramblings.

As a kid I wanted to grow up to be a writer, but as I got older, I quickly realized I didn't quite have the mastery of the english language it would require to make a go of it.  If I spent enough time writing, and rewriting a project, I could probably write the hell out of a "how to" book, but in regards to the kind of writing I dreamed of doing as a kid, fiction, I just lack the talent needed to weave together a good story.

Over the past week I've been going through stacks and stacks of boxes full of old papers, trying to find a paper I needed from 1994.  Just finally found it this evening.  While going through everything, I've found many short stories, poems, a couple of started and abandoned novels.....  I've wondered a couple of times over the years what life would be like now if I hadn't given up on writing.  After what I've read this past week, let me tell you with great certainty, I definitely did the right thing in focusing my energies on other ventures.

In reading through a great deal of it, it's all been crap.  I've had quite a few laughs from reading most of it, rolled my eyes and shook my head a lot at so much strangled, and overly descriptive prose, trying to add too much imagery to the scenes, my attempts to be overly clever....  it's all, for the most part, just awful.  The next time I need a good laugh, I'm going to unbox my first computer and go through all the writing saved on it, because if I remember correctly, I only printed out what I deemed "good".

This is the final blog in this weekly series covering my older works.  Next week on March 20th, the first day of Spring, I'll be releasing the first in the new series of paintings.  I'm hoping to be able to release a new painting every 2 to 4 weeks through the rest of the year.  It's shaping up to be a crazy year already, so I'm hoping I'm able to pull it off.  I'll be taking the first 4 paintings to the printer this week, then comes the fun part of matting all the prints, and making the jewelry with images of the paintings in them.  I'll keep writing blogs to go with the new paintings though, it's been kind of fun.


The featured paintings this week, are "The Chair Man" and "Sedona Wedding".  They are the final paintings from the 2012 Day of the Dead series.


“The Chair Man” was the 14th of the 16 paintings I painted in 2012.  This painting went through so many variations, and took the longest of all the pieces I painted in 2012 to complete.  I couldn't even begin to venture a guess at how many times I painted and repainted the chair alone, but I know there were way more than 20 different versions of it.  Taller, shorter, different designs from different eras, stained wood, silver wood, the gold wood you see now, different colors of upholstery.....  This one took so long because there was only one thing I had in mind when I started it, the suit.  The rest just came about with a LOT of painting.


A married couple we befriended in Montreal had a series of photos taken after their wedding in China years earlier.  In these photos, the bride and groom were photographed wearing different, elaborate costumes in each photo.  In several, the groom wore a rather awesome, silver sharkskin suit.  As soon as I saw the suit, I knew I was going to have to work it into a painting, as it was such an awesome piece of clothing.  Some times I wish I had more occasions to get all dressed up.  If I did, I would definitely get a suit like this.

Originally, there was to be a large mirror on the wall behind the couple, and reflected in the mirror was a painter, standing at his easel, painting their portrait.  It ended up being way too busy and cliched, so I painted it out and tried something simpler.  Next was a large fireplace, with a mantel, and little day of the dead statues displayed across it.  Again too busy, and a bit uninteresting.  I tried bookshelves, another window, an assortment of bric and brac hanging on the wall, including a swordfish....  and then I got the idea of painting little versions of my earlier paintings of this series, framed and hanging on the wall.  Her dress and hair both changed color many times, and the small dog in the front was added after I told myself the painting was "finished", and turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the painting.

I gave the first print of the painting to the couple who inspired the painting, and they loved it.  I try and give the first print of my paintings to the people who inspire them, as a thank you.  It has come as a surprise to several people that they inspired me, as sometimes I get inspired just going through their facebook pictures, like I did in this case, and not telling them about the painting until it's all done.  Some of those people I've surprised with a print, haven't known what to think of the paintings they've inspired, as not everyone understands the Dia de los Muertos holiday, and the artwork that goes with it.





On paintings #15 and #16, I did something a little different.  The main gallery that sells most of my artwork and jewelry, Sedona Green, still wanted to feature more Sedona themed artwork, so my final paintings featured Red Rock Crossing.  These two paintings were done a bit differently than the others.  Usually when I paint, I have a basic idea of what the painting is going to look like, what items will be in the foreground, the background, etc....  If something in the foreground is going to block something in the background, I wont bother painting that part of the background.  For this 15th painting, I painted an entire landscape:  "Red Rock Crossing", which would then become the background for another painting.


This is my favorite vantage of Cathedral Rock.  Every time someone comes to visit me here in Arizona, I always make sure to take them here and make them walk out on the rocks in the river to get their picture taken.  Often when I'm hiking down around "Red Rock Crossing", I find heart shaped rocks, so I had to paint one in this landscape.


Another thing that I often see while hiking down in this area, are weddings.  So many weddings have happened on the shore of the Oak Creek River, with Cathedral Rock in the background.  I've seen so many brides being helped out to the middle of the river after the ceremony.  Usually surrounded by several people, trying to keep her from falling off the wobbly rocks in the river while she walks in high heels, and doing their best to keep her dress dry.  When they manage all that, they're almost always guaranteed some great wedding pics.  When the people helping her fail, and she falls in, and gets wet, they get some great pictures too, that the bride usually laughs about LONG after the day they took them.


After finishing "Red Rock Crossing",  I set out to use the same landscape painting to then paint the wedding scene I've seen many times at this spot.  I painted the Day of the Dead figures separately and combined them with the landscape painting digitally.  I've lost count of how many couples have found the prints of "Sedona Wedding" at Sedona Green or Fandangos in Old Town Cottonwood, and have written to me.  Usually to tell me that this was the exact spot they got married, and they bought my painting to be a souvenir to remember that day.  There's been a large number of notes from other couples who saw this painting and decided to get married there because of my painting.



I just realized I dont have prints of "Red Rock Crossing" for sale in the webstore.  Of all my Sedona landscapes, it is my favorite, so it's surprising to me that I overlooked it.  I'll try and get those added in the next couple of weeks.


Prints of this week's featured paintings:  "The Chair Man" and "Sedona Wedding" are both available in 3 different sizes and are on sale through March 15th.  To be directed to the webstore <click here>. 


It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in the third week of March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March. 

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)