What Me Worry?

2010 New Year's Resolution:  Have more fun, worry less.  Good advice from MAD Magazine's Alfred E. Newman.

This is the 3rd in a series of vases filled with scanned objects - in this case a few of my oil paint brushes. 

Red Vase with Marbles

This is the second in a series of vases filled with scanned objects.  The red glass vase was given to me on my 60th birthday.  It is now filled with scanned glass marbles I've had since the 1950s.

The Art of Recycling

Having spent the day listening to the rain and scanning stones I picked up in Paros, Greece and Willamette, Oregon I wanted to put the rocks to good use.  So, I've taken a vase painted by J.L. Autrey and combined it with some scanned carrot artwork, my rocks and a scan of one of my brooches.  Voila! A beautiful still life I call "Vase with Scanned Objects." 

Anza Borrego

Playing around with old B&W negatives from 1973

ChristmasTree2010.mov

Alphabet Ants and the Taylor Twins

Toy Story

New 8x10 oil on canvas still life painting.  I've had the truck for years but recently added a menagerie of bird toys bought at Susan's Store Room.

Pink Candy

I painted this abstract before my most recent physical.  Because of my love for hard candy, I shouldn't be surprised that my cholesterol levels are back up in dangerous territory (243 mg/dl) and my glucose levels (99 mg/dl) are too high as well.  I guess I'll have to get my sugar fix in future looking at candy art rather than eating it.

Alien Invasion

Another abstract done in Chester Arnold's painting class at Indian Valley College.  If you want to spend some time reading otherworldly theories just Google "alien invasion 2012."

Savoring Turkey: Two Viewpoints

From one who likes to eat turkey: Yummy!!'
From one who likes to hang around with fowl: "Hey, wait a minute.  What happened to my friend?"

A photo composite for Illustration Friday's word Savour

Three Stone Flowers - A Progression

While camping at Longbow in Oregon this past summer, Charlotte Laughlin and I had fun making stone flowers.  I used a photograph of this one in my recent Mendocino workshop with Amy Melious.  Taking my original photo I converted it to B&W and printed it on Epson Fine Art paper.  It was then sealed with an acrylic polymer sealer (in this case Glamour II giclee veneer in matte) and, once that had dried, painted with some acrylic paints.  I think I might prefer the original photo to my end result.  Which do you prefer?

Mendocino Ocean in Rusty Fish Frame

Finally figured out how to use masks in Photoshop CS5!

Mendocino Sky

Just playing around in Photoshop after the weekend workshop taught by Amy Melious in Mendocino.  Don't believe what you see.  The pelicans are from Florida.  The orange ball is a computerized 3D original.

Self Portrait with Bird Lungs

I don't smoke anymore but I feel like I do since I have bronchitis - hopefully a mild case.  My hurting lungs prompted me to create this digital self portrait using a recent oil painting of a bird in a green lung shape.  It's also raining today so I used another painting that has a blue cloud and red raindrops.  A fun way to spend a rainy, coughing day.

Alien Skin Lizard Treatment and Lung Bird Original Abstracts

Connecting The Dots

My latest oil painting is another abstract.  My friend Janet Ashford recently gave me some advice on how to take better photographs - which is to focus on any one of 4 intersecting points based on a grid composed of 2 vertical and 2 horizontal lines that break up the image into 9 equal squares.  So, my abstract painting is one of connecting these 4 intersecting points.  Meanwhile, I discovered some new software I want to buy from the creative folks at Alien Skin.  It's called Exposure 3.  But since all I'm doing is playing with art and not making much money at it I'm trying to control myself.  Instead of buying more software, I thought I'd see what my Alien Skin Eye Candy software could do with my new abstract painting and created a marbleized version and a version using lizard skin (both above).  I could play all day!!

Circles With Bugs

It's raining tears.  The alarms are going off.  Bugs, (and unseen here) birds and bees are dying.  Hence my abstract attempt to depict global warming & other human induced earthly disasters.

Carrots in Art

 I recently finished a new 5x7 oil painting of two carrots so thought I'd compare it to some other carrot paintings I've done over the years including the image on top (to the left) which I did for a series called "Farmer Autrey Counts to Ten" and a pen & ink drawing of my rabbit sculpture named Sherman - seen here holding a carrot.

After noticing how many interesting wasp nest collections there are on the internet (see "Politics and Wasps" posting below), I googled to see what other interesting carrot art is out there and found the two images below at this interesting carrot museum web site.  The Rene Magritte picture, in particular, is quite fine and reminds me of how much I enjoy his art.  Amazon has some good books on him including this one:  Magritte

Politics and Wasps

Thanks to one of the U.S. Government's tax incentives this year I'm replacing the single pane windows in my house with double pane.  This will be the first winter in Northern California I'm actually at home during the day (ie not in a warm office) so I needed to do something to retain heat better.  Pulling out old windows that have been in place since the 1940s has been interesting.  I've found well established carpenter ant colonies and this paper wasp nest (my left foot indicates the nest size).  This nest is the biggest one I've ever seen but when I googled to find out exactly what it was, I found even bigger wasp nests - many in the hands of collector Terry Prouty.  His big wasp nest collection can be seen at the very interesting BugGuide.net website.

Glenn Beck on Monkeys

Just discovered something new on my Windows 7 ThinkPad - which is an image collage feature.  When I read the latest proof Glenn Beck never studied biology on HuffPost I figured out I could combine the Mono Lisa picture I drew a few years ago on the Saatchi website with some garden photos and a downloaded picture of Beck to create a new collage.  Maybe if Beck wants to see a half man half monkey he should simply look in the mirror.

Hamburgers and Star Wars

In 1976, while they were shooting Star Wars in Tunisia, I had very little to do at work in California, so I set up my easel and painted some wax food from American Graffiti that was in George Lucas's office.  Thus was born my appreciation of the great American hamburger in art (see oil painting below + postcard from the Tunisia location from George and Marcia).  After Star Wars opened in 1977 work got a lot busier and I stopped painting for many years.   Now that my entertainment industry years are behind me, in 2010 I've repainted the all- American hamburger.

Paros Weeds

Two weeds loom tall high up on the island of Paros looking down at the view of Anti Paros.

I did a Paros Weeds sketch June 2010 then this oil painting which has gone through various forms from just the two weeds with a plain background, to two weeds against a pen & ink background to this final view with some of the background painted in.

Alphabets for Christmas Anyone?

My latest alphabet is called the "Scribble Alphabet."  See if you can figure out the image for each letter (hint P = pigs).  Alphabet posters make great gifts for young children (and others) who need to learn their a,b,c's!

More alphabets are on my website at Redcrowartworks.  Any image found there can be purchased directly from me.  I'll print, sign and mail a museum quality poster OR a cheaper version can be purchased from my account at artistrising.

Additional alphabet product is available at Zazzle

Sister Susan

Another portrait in the style of Alice Neel, this time using her portrait of Andy Warhol as reference (view the New York Times linked slide show to see the image referenced).

My biggest critic says of this 12x16 oil painting "That doesn't look like your sister.  I think you should give up on portraiture."

I agree Susan is better looking than this painting (as can be seen from the photo below) and she was never in this hotel room in Paris (I was, in 2003) but I kind of like this painting!

Running Boy With Dog - Anatomy of a Painting

This new 12"x16" oil painting has a unique history.

I first scanned a painting done by my mother in the 1960s or 1970s of a beach in Santa Barbara (see below), then digitally added the following:
1.  A cut-out of a boat also painted by J.L. Autrey
(see further below)
2.  A cut-out of Newfe the dog running (a rare event) photographed in Portland this year (see below)
3.  A cut-out of one of the neighbor Smith kids I played with in the 1950s (see polaroid photo below taken in our El Sueno yard  in Santa Barbara). 

I put all the pieces together and printed out a digital composite to use as reference.  But when I tried to paint my digital composite, I hated it so I painted over most of the background and then added some houses and smoking stacks from a painting by Hungarian artist Tivadar Csontvary Kosztka of Castellammare Di Stabia

Without the computer, it would surely have been harder to combine paintings and photographs of Santa Barbara, Portland and Hungary to come up with a new painting in the old medium of oil on canvas.

Amber

As an assignment in Chester Arnold's painting class at the College of Marin, I chose to paint a portrait in the style of Alice Neel.  The original image (see below) was a B&W photo of Amber taken in 1984 before a ballet recital put on by Virginia Stapleton's ballet school.  The photo was taken by the very wonderful Art Kaye who sadly passed away this year.

Poppies in Ceramic Pots

The final version of this painting is now live with some other new oils at Redcrow Artworks.  I repainted this background three times! 

Missing You

I painted this picture titled "Fred and Myrtle" in Greece in June of this year.  I must have known subliminally that Amber, Matt and the twins were going to move away and Lucy (Myrtle) and Sam (Fred) would soon be pining for them.  I guess Myrtle is just going to have to fly north to visit.

Longbow Soda Anyone?

I did it!  I managed to replace my old video card with a new one by myself (with some help from the incomparable Paul Matwiy) and now, finally, my new CS5 Photoshop software works.  So, the first thing I learned how to do was make 3D soda cans out of photos taken at Longbow.  What to do with them?  Well, who loves food more than anything else but the infamous, fabulous Newfe.  So, here he is pointing for a hamburger with 4 cans of Longbow soda pop at his heel.  Perhaps not a great image, but testament that my new HD3650 ATI Radeon AGP 8x video card works.

Longbow Camp

New pen & ink & watercolor done at Longbow Forest Camp in Willamette Valley, Oregon on a recent camping trip.  It was hot the first few days so swimming in the freezing water was wonderful.  It got cold after that but stayed beautiful. 

Detail from Tree House on Lake Painting

Sometimes I like my under paintings as much, if not more, than my finished paintings so when Illustration Friday announced this week's topic "Atmosphere" I thought I'd submit a detail from a new 36" x 36" oil painting in process that seems to fit the theme. 

Finch on Exhibit at Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael

My 10" x 10" oil on canvas "Finch" painting will be in Falkirk's 2010 Bi-Annual Juried Exhibition from 9/10/10 through 11/13/10.  Opening reception is Friday, September 10th from 5:30 to 7:30PM.  More on the show can be found here:

California Blue Jay Map Art

I've become very fond of the blue jays in my backyard.  The other day I set up my camera and took a series of photos of them at the bird feeder.  When I heard about a new contest at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts on "The Map as Art," I used one of my bird photos as a pattern and digitally repainted it with the bay area section of the map of California.  I wanted to try some map art since buying the book by Katharine Harmon on contemporary artists who explore cartography.  One of my favorite pieces in the book is a map collage titled "Swimming" by Brazilian artist Joao Machado.

Bubble Invasion

Trying a new approach with this 12"x24" ink and acrylic painting on canvas.  The inspiration?  - Jogging on the beach in La Jolla one day years ago I was once completely surrounded by a (pack/herd/swarm) of monarch butterflies migrating north from Mexico.  These two folks at the beach are about to have a similar experience - only this time with giant bubbles. 

All American Dad

After I completed an ink sketch of 90 year old E.A. Autrey, his great grandsons (the twins were also visiting) woke up from their nap so I could never finish my picture.  I added in pastel garden foliage and some acrylic American flag stripes later.

I hope I'll be out in the garden still painting when I'm 90 years old!

Blue Window, Paros Garden

Decision vs Indecision

Once Kathleen Price and I moved to an apartment in Aliki and no longer had a clear view down to the ocean my paintings got a little more introspective - but they still have the islands that can be seen from Paros, Greece in the background.  The question at hand was whether to follow the rolling star ball to new adventures or stay static and do nothing.  Fortunately the rolling star ball won the day!

Aliki Harbor

The center of the little fishing village of Aliki (on the island of Paros, Greece) is the harbor where numerous fishing boats ride the water near outdoor restaurants and a sandy playground for children.  Apparently Tom Hanks and friends make the occasional appearance, when he comes over to the bigger island from his vacation house on Anti Paros, but I did not see him while I was there.