N
Nufocus
Arty, one of your best! No doubt.
musket
Well-known member
- Messages
- 1,031
I'm happy to hear that--the piece was in part inspired by Egyptian funerary statuettes of Horus, who is portrayed as a falcon (my piece is a sort of generalized accipiter, a true hawk similar to a goshawk, but with larger eyes than the real thing).
Great work, everybody!
I agree about the drum landscape, Arty. Always loved that one.
OliveOyl
Well-known member
- Messages
- 265
Yes, it's cool seeing everyone's work, of course. Hearts all around!!! (<And is that lazy...or what?) And also not to rant against Nu's OP rant, but I don't mind hearing the WHY'S of whatever it is any of you do. Your process is interesting. Your choices make me think about my own. Connections are good. Inspiration abounds. Just throwing that in before I (uncomfortably) unload...
So, if you’re going to be a “people painter,” then what’s better to paint than a fleshy Sumo? This is my third time using them as a subject, and was inspired by a little porcelain figurine in my local museum. I love THEM and that’s why I like this one. Although the size made it annoyingly cumbersome, for some reason I think of it a mere trifle...as love often is. (Wrestle, 90x30)
I guess this one is okay because it “came out” easily. It was inspired by a fashion shoot in W Magazine and by a Botticelli hairdo transfixion on some now forgotten painting. Not sure why I HAD TO add beetles except I know I needed discomfort to break the serenity. And I think that beetle at the heart is one of the grossest things I’ve ever painted. (Hairum, 40x40)
So, if you’re going to be a “people painter,” then what’s better to paint than a fleshy Sumo? This is my third time using them as a subject, and was inspired by a little porcelain figurine in my local museum. I love THEM and that’s why I like this one. Although the size made it annoyingly cumbersome, for some reason I think of it a mere trifle...as love often is. (Wrestle, 90x30)
I guess this one is okay because it “came out” easily. It was inspired by a fashion shoot in W Magazine and by a Botticelli hairdo transfixion on some now forgotten painting. Not sure why I HAD TO add beetles except I know I needed discomfort to break the serenity. And I think that beetle at the heart is one of the grossest things I’ve ever painted. (Hairum, 40x40)
Artyczar
Moderator
- Messages
- 12,440
Olive, I LOVE your Hairum piece. It is so detailed and amazing. I love the sumos too, but there's so much I love about those beetles and why you placed them there--the uncomfortable factor connects me to it. I love that in art in general, movies, and all visual work. I think it's the tension and the way it makes more impact, or something. It's hard for me to be eloquent about it in words but I think that's simply it.
On that note, why do I like the pieces I posted? I forgot about that in the OP. I like they way they turned out so close to what I'd imagined. The one with the drum set, which is my real setup by the way, I'd always imagined setting them up in the middle of Joshua Tree park. It also goes with some of the other pieces in the series of putting unexpected items in a natural landscape--of course I like to make the landscapes screwy on purpose. I do start with real photographs though. I draw a kind of skeleton of the scene on the canvas and when I get to painting, that's when the fun part starts. I go to town and make it "all wrong." Something surreal, like a dream. I don't want it to make sense anymore and want it to have a great sense of play and color. That series takes a long time.
That little "Burt" on top of my high hat stand went with me all over the country and Canada. It was a stuffed crochet Burt head that a "fan" threw up on the stage and I kept it with me as a good luck charm. I had to include that in the painting too. Fun. My set up was a small, custom-made Pork Pie set hand made by the founder of the company before they became a big manufacturer of drums. He made them in his garage for me. They are all nicely stained in different colors where you can see the wood grain through the green, blue and orange. But I couldn't capture that in the cartoony painting. I suppose I could have, but I didn't because I wanted it to look kind of like a paint by numbers.
Anyway.
The one with the trailer turned out how I wanted it too, pretty much. I would have liked to use even more bolt fabric in it and make it even more absurd and busy, but it was good enough and got my point across. I do love absurdity though. It's part of ME.
Sno, when you say my work is recognizable, that is something I long to hear. I guess I don't hear it enough, or get lost and lose objectivity about that fact (is it a fact? I often wonder to myself). I get really caught up in that and overthink my work as a whole to the point where I'll often freeze up and won't know what to work on next. That has a lot to do with the stupid business of art though because galleries like consistency and one trick ponies. I actually want to look like a one trick pony, but I don't know if I do because I like to play in so many genres: crazy landscapes, abstracts, strange pictorials. I like doing illustrative watercolors too. Sometimes I like rendering things in detail, and most of the time I love to be raw and natural in my drawing. I have some kind of multiple personality disorder.
This is getting long, and who's going to read it? I wouldn't.
Lately, I'm over it though. I'm just making work and don't care what it is. I'm working on the bags again. I prepped a new canvas for that painting for The Bat the Cake, the Cat and the Snake. And I'm fixing to do another mixed media abstract on a wood panel too. All over the road, I tell ya!
On that note, why do I like the pieces I posted? I forgot about that in the OP. I like they way they turned out so close to what I'd imagined. The one with the drum set, which is my real setup by the way, I'd always imagined setting them up in the middle of Joshua Tree park. It also goes with some of the other pieces in the series of putting unexpected items in a natural landscape--of course I like to make the landscapes screwy on purpose. I do start with real photographs though. I draw a kind of skeleton of the scene on the canvas and when I get to painting, that's when the fun part starts. I go to town and make it "all wrong." Something surreal, like a dream. I don't want it to make sense anymore and want it to have a great sense of play and color. That series takes a long time.
That little "Burt" on top of my high hat stand went with me all over the country and Canada. It was a stuffed crochet Burt head that a "fan" threw up on the stage and I kept it with me as a good luck charm. I had to include that in the painting too. Fun. My set up was a small, custom-made Pork Pie set hand made by the founder of the company before they became a big manufacturer of drums. He made them in his garage for me. They are all nicely stained in different colors where you can see the wood grain through the green, blue and orange. But I couldn't capture that in the cartoony painting. I suppose I could have, but I didn't because I wanted it to look kind of like a paint by numbers.
Anyway.
The one with the trailer turned out how I wanted it too, pretty much. I would have liked to use even more bolt fabric in it and make it even more absurd and busy, but it was good enough and got my point across. I do love absurdity though. It's part of ME.
Sno, when you say my work is recognizable, that is something I long to hear. I guess I don't hear it enough, or get lost and lose objectivity about that fact (is it a fact? I often wonder to myself). I get really caught up in that and overthink my work as a whole to the point where I'll often freeze up and won't know what to work on next. That has a lot to do with the stupid business of art though because galleries like consistency and one trick ponies. I actually want to look like a one trick pony, but I don't know if I do because I like to play in so many genres: crazy landscapes, abstracts, strange pictorials. I like doing illustrative watercolors too. Sometimes I like rendering things in detail, and most of the time I love to be raw and natural in my drawing. I have some kind of multiple personality disorder.
This is getting long, and who's going to read it? I wouldn't.
Lately, I'm over it though. I'm just making work and don't care what it is. I'm working on the bags again. I prepped a new canvas for that painting for The Bat the Cake, the Cat and the Snake. And I'm fixing to do another mixed media abstract on a wood panel too. All over the road, I tell ya!
And yes, your work is very recognizable. OliveOyl,
they are both wonderful works,
I couldn't choose between the two (sumo wrestlers strike me with grace and colors, you make them look so light, graceful), nice to admire both works. , the cockroaches make the work seem even more vivid and dramatic, and the figure was already splendid.
-on Artyczar's comment I think actually it is nice to read the impressions of an artist on his works (it is something that long ago I thought it would be nice to admire a few pieces at times, here sometimes it happens so it is beautiful) and also on works by other artists.
they are both wonderful works,
I couldn't choose between the two (sumo wrestlers strike me with grace and colors, you make them look so light, graceful), nice to admire both works. , the cockroaches make the work seem even more vivid and dramatic, and the figure was already splendid.
-on Artyczar's comment I think actually it is nice to read the impressions of an artist on his works (it is something that long ago I thought it would be nice to admire a few pieces at times, here sometimes it happens so it is beautiful) and also on works by other artists.
Dave Woody
Well-known member
- Messages
- 2,201
Wow .. a collection of some superb pieces here.
N
Nufocus
16Ga, yup, wonderful piece!
N
Nufocus
Olive, your attention to and the execution of details is superb!!
