What are you working on?

I would never refer to you in such terms, joe. You are correct: they are cacti. Now to convince sno. That shouldn't be difficult 🙄

Thanks Arty, I was thinking cacti, JT, but it wouldn't work without the ambiguity.
 
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I'm trying some acrylic texture stuff. Followed a YT video. I did this over a horrible old painting, parts of which come through. Put some gesso down to make texture then let dry and went over it again and rubbed out etc. I could just keep going in this way forever. The key is deciding when to stop. Not sure if I'm done with this yet. So much can be done with acrylics this way. Fun stuff and I have a lot to discover about these acrylic texture techniques. I like this if only because it covers the horrible old painting.

Cheap Hotel Art 1. 16x20 inches

hotel art.jpg
 
Thanks guys. Glad you're still talking to me after my knee-jerk ill-considered opinionated outbursts about portraits and still lifes. :) I apologize if I hurt any feelings.

Sno, I used Liquitex Basics gesso for the texture underneath and then Liquitex Basics acrylics. The painting I covered was an old water soluble oil painting. I know you're not supposed to use acrylics over oil but it was so old and dry I thought it should be fine. It's an experimental piece anyway. I sanded the surface first also.

In the video I followed it looked like her gesso had a firmer body. She's German so I didn't get much verbal info. My two years of German in high school didn't quite cut it.

Using acrylics this way is pretty cool. I want to do more along these lines. I've never done this kind of texturing thing before and I like the look of these textured abstract landscapey things. Her name is Gerda Lipski. I think these things could sell and they're pretty easy to make if I decide to go commercial. Someone has to make bland hotel art. :)
 
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I think it looks cool John, but it's true you can't put acrylic over anything with oils in it. It will probably crackle, which may not be bad. It might wind up looking cool--you never know. Once it does that, maybe you can seal it up so the crackle parts won't fall off. I've done it before, but had to wait a couple of months before the full crackle made it's complete effect.

You didn't hurt my feelings about your views on portraits and still lifes, but I really like some--not all of course. I think it highly depends on the style. One of my favorite artists, who I've mentioned before (Lisa Sanditz) recently did some stillifes and they are really fricken cool.

really-dead-peonies.jpg
 
I am working on a bunch of paperwork to donate five pieces to the Cedars Sinai Hospital's art collection. It has to go through an art council committee, as they are pretty picky about the work they accept and they want a whole package of paperwork to go with it. Then their council meets every quarter to decide. They might not take any, but if they do, it would be so nice to get my work in a place that's more important than a museum (to me anyway). I have five pieces in the new UC San Francisco's Precision Cancer Center, which they actually purchased, but I would've actually donated them if necessary. They had a big budget for art, so I figured, sure! Why not? In this case, It's a donation and it would be nice to be in one of their facilities.

Other than that, I'm about to work on a few tiny watercolors. I got a 36-color watercolor pan set I really want to try out and see if I like them. I've never tried pans and I'm going to see if they're for me.

I've been in a bad mood (not really into making art at the moment) because I recently quit smoking again, and am back on my diet too. I lost 40 pounds and now I just gained two back, and I know it's because I recently quit the smokes, so I need to get on top of things. The whole thing sucks. No food, no smokes. I even have to cut down on my coffee. Poor me. Waaa.
 
Arty, sounds like you have your hands full! Paperwork isn't fun for me either. Best wishes for the review.
 
That's impresssive Arty. Good luck.

36 colors? Wow. It's nice having that convenience. It should be fun.

Good luck with the quitting smoking. And quitting caffeine is rough also. I felt terrible when I tried once. Headaches etc.



Today I started another painting but then looked at all the unfinished ones I have, and the crappy ones that I finally realize are crappy, and the OK ones not framed etc. I'm wondering what to do with all this crap. They are cluttering up the office/studio. So I chucked one, hung the other in the basement and realized how crappy it is so I'll use the back of it. It's on paper. Then my fish painting in the living room started laughing at me. It's cute but not really living room stuff so it joined the other crap in the office. So I shifted stuff around which was sort of progress but not really.
 
John, each piece is practice for the ones that soar. Don't be disheartened. With your new knowledge, perhaps you can see a way to improve some of them.
I recently did that with several of my old ones: two from the 80's were kind of okay, but had boring foregrounds. I (practiced) enlarged some trees, added boulders, worked on the water, and added a few ducks. A second, also a landscape with a sad foreground, got tall wildflowers which helped immensely. I think both were greatly improved.
Good luck, have fun.
 
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