Rhythm - 14" x 11" - Acrylic, watercolor pencil and gesso on Masonite - $300

This is an exercise from the Expressive Drawing book by Steven Aimone dealing with rhythm. It was easy to do. What do you think?

Now I need to do like 30 paintings in the next 3 weeks. Weeks leading up to Christmas. Yea, right. Like I am going to have time to do this.

But I have to. I wrote a press release and sent it to a friend at the Sun newspaper. He said they would look into doing a story of me. Cool. Don’t know when it will happen, but isn’t that what every artist wants? Coverage?

Now, however, I must get the 100 paintings done or die trying. How would that look? “Here is an artist challenging himself to paint 100 paintings in 100 days. That is interesting, so we are doing a story on him. Oh wait. He wimped out and didn’t paint 100 paintings after all.” Nope. That can’t happen.

I have about a dozen panels left. I have some canvas and can do works on paper too. Over the next few weeks I am going to need to get pretty creative. This has been a great experience for me. It has pushed me harder than I expected, but it has been fun and enlightening.

I really hope to make some exciting stuff over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Expressive Drawing 2.3 "Leaves" - Graphite, colored pencil and gesso on paper - $300

There was a variation for this one. We were supposed to start writing and doodling and let the words dictate the lines and drawings, and so on. I started writing and it didn’t suggest ANYTHING. Nothing at all.

I decided to change tactics and started just drawing my long looping landscape lines. I continued that and filled in areas and ended up again – with nothing. I sat down on the floor of the studio and couldn’t figure out what to do.

Then I looked at the negative space between the areas I had filled in. I thought, “Hey, this space looks like a leaf. Oh. This one too. I can fill in two here…” And so on.

So I filled in the spaces with leaves. I really liked how it all turned out.

Expressive Drawing 2.2 "In My Garden" - Graphite, colored pencil and gesso on paper - $300

This one grew naturally into a painting about plants, growing, roots, seeds, leaves. It was fun to work on. At least it wasn’t about castles!

Expressive Drawing 2.1 "Above and Below" - Graphite and gesso on paper - $300

PAINTINGS COMPLETED TODAY: 3
PAINTINGS COMPLETED TO DATE: 64

I am really trying to get the hang of this cover up technique. I see art that uses it and I really like the idea that there is a hint of something that was lost and covered up in a painting. “What can it be?” “Why was it covered?” These are some of the questions that are asked when things are covered up as you paint.

It adds depth – not just physical depth, but an emotional depth to a piece.

I can talk about it, but it is difficult to cover something up that I have put into the painting. It isn’t like you cover up a mistake. It is something good, but it is just less essential to the art you are working on right now.

The following three paintings are designed to help me learn how to cover things up. I think I was successively more successful.

Expressive Drawing 1.4 - 14" x 11" - House Paint on Paper - $300

This one was fun. The variation was to take my brush and tape it tot he end of a long stick. I used my boys’ practice sword. It was fun painting with a long sword. The marks came out very calligraphic and lyrical. This was a fun exercise that I would like to try again with the eliminate and cover up technique.

Expressive Drawing 1.3 - 14" x 11" - House Paint on Paper - $300

Third variation: Start with eyes closed. I started with my eyes closed and created the blue lines. I continued a little longer with the blue paint, but it wasn’t dark enough, so I switched to the black paint.

Expressive Drawing 1.2 - 14" x 11" - House Paint on Paper - $300

This is another automatic drawing, similar to what I did in the previous post. The idea is to “just do what comes natuarally.”

The variation for this one is to create the drawing with your non-dominant hand, which in my case, is my left hand.

Expressive Drawing 1.1 - 14" x 11" - House Paint on Paper - $300

PAINTINGS COMPLETED TODAY: 4
PAINTINGS COMPLETED TO DATE: 61

I am actually in my studio, blogging from my laptop. It is down here so I can listen to pandora, but I thought, “why don’t I blog while I am actually thinking about art, instead of trying to remember it after the fact…

So, here I am. I am going back to the “Expressive Drawing” book and I am going to go through the exercises. I think I need to loosen up a little bit. Maybe this will help. I have done 6 paintings lately, and I am not really happy with them.

I found a fantastic artist in Redlands who does abstract art. I really  like her stuff. wE have started a dialog, but won’t be able to get together until after the first of the year. She is really busy with art festivals and such.

You can see her art at: http://aidaschneider.com/

I will let you know how my expressive drawing goes.;-)

I Will go and Do - 20" x 16" - Acrylic and graphite on Masonite - $550

I really like Aida Schneider’s abstract artwork.

You can see her art at: http://aidaschneider.com/

Her works are 98% totally abstract, but you can tell there is some type of narrative underneath it all. I tried that and created a very busy composition. Did I mention it is Very Busy?

It is OK, but I need to learn to cover up and hide and then expose an element here and there. Instead, what I did with this one was draw out the whole thing and and then fill it in like a coloring book. Not very elusive or mysterious at all. I am going to count it because I need 100 paintings, but I am going to have to work on the idea of taking a theme or story and letting it unfold the longer the viewer looks at it. I need to not give it to them in one huge chunk – all at once.