Urban Jungle

Acrylic collage on canvas, 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, painted some time ago but with resent events reminding us, it's still a jungle out there.

Xenogenesis

Trying to understand raising children that commit violent acts, far more prevalent than it should be.  I painted non caring stone faces around the edge representing a complacent society.  This canvas is four and a half feet wide and six feet tall.  There's a progression from youth to adult center stage.

Worlds Apart

I was in my studio working on the beginnings of a painting when I got a call from my brother in friendship, Ernie.  He proceeded to tell me his nephew had just committed suicide.  I was at a lost for words for how to comfort my friend.  When the conversation ended I just stared at the floor for about two hours.  The canvas I had started was laying there and I began to tear shapes of paper and place them around the boarder making tracings as I went.  Three days after, this painting became "Worlds Apart", my search for answers for what it must be like living in two worlds and not fitting in either one.  This canvas is five feet wide and seven feet tall.

Eye Witness 9/11

I was working in a high rise at 6 am the morning of 9/11 on a service door just off the main lobby.  I heard a commotion and went to check it out.  Someone said a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  We didn't realize it was an attack and so things quieted down and I went back to work thinking I would catch the news later.  Well it wasn't long and all hell broke loose when the second plane hit, an obvious attack so we were all glued to a small TV.
In my studio, at the time, I was working on a big canvas with shapes I was going to collage.  Every day I would just go and stare at that canvas not able to think of anything but 9/11.  Two weeks after the attack I attacked that canvas with a one inch brush and at the end of the day I had transformed it into my "9/11", five feet wide and seven feet tall.  I titled it "Eye Witness" because we all became eye witness through our TV sets every day for weeks after.  The painting hung in down town Tempe for the six months after the attack.  It hung there N.F.S. (not for sale). 

"Busting Out"

Acrylic on canvas - 30 inches by 40 inches - non-objective abstract - relationship of shapes and color

Brake Out

This is a 16 inch X 20 inch acrylic painting on canvas.  This was fun playing with shape, color, and a balancing composition, taking some of my latest drawing efforts to the canvas.

Splash

This is a 20 inch X 16 inch canvas with a cheesecloth overlay to create the moody boarder.  First you paint the boarder and then do the overlay using clear gesso.  Use some paint washes to blend the cheesecloth to the painted surface.  Another piece of pre-painted canvas is then covered with wet white gesso and applied to the center of the canvas by putting a hard surface underneath and rolling out the gesso till you get a small roll on the edge giving you a gesso boarder.  If you have a slightly unsuccessful canvas then you can cut out the best part and do this with much success.  The surface is mat except the ball (lower and some what right) which is highly glossed so the light in the room picks it up.  You don't really see it till the light hits it.  This was a very fun experiment and one of my daughter's favorites.

Ninja Warrior

16 inch X 20 inch pencil on pre-treated canvas.   Playing with bordering and creating the effect of busting out; the added boarder of the larger canvas surface seems to make it more powerful.

Swizzle Stick Ensemble

I think I will do more of this, I really like the look of faded color.  I found that color choices were difficult.  I'm pleased with the result but a more limited pallet could have worked just as well.  Always comments are sought after and appreciated.  These are a series of non-objective abstract drawings using mechanical devises and found objects; the bottom of a coke can or the plastic piece that comes from a new stick of under arm deodorant, or coasters, etc, etc.  This one has a swizzle stick.  Done at a coffee shop the swizzle stick was used to stir my creamer.     

Get to know the blogger

I'm an abstract painter who started out as an impressionist.  My instructor (Ken Ingals) kept telling me I would be abstract and I thought he was crazy.  1976 is when I started painting and two years later I attended Glendale Community College where I met Evelyn Myners.  She had me painting with what I thought was a broom and taught me to express.  I love that lady for setting me free and causing me to think out of the box.  In 1990 I met Pete Nicastro who was very abstract in his approches with all kinds of applications so I apprenticed with him for about 6 years.  That period of time was more about science than art work.  We were constantly pushing the envelope to see what new application we could come up with.  Pete will always have a great influence on the way I approach my work.

"Machine"

This is 8 inch X 10 inch on museum mount.  I use mechanical devises and found objects as templates.  I will also use cut outs of hand drawn profiles, like in this work, if I want the repetition.  Have you ever felt like part of a machine and your not sure who's machine?  Second guessing your direction in the scheme of things?

Raz-Ma-Taz

Pencil and acrylic on two ply museum mount 8 inch X 10 inch.  Life is full of change and mostly it's what we make it with a few surprises along the way. 

Talked to my friend Ken Ashcroft and he will be my first interview this year.  He's a welder with a unique flare for functional art so be watching for interview and pictures.

Last Samurai

Pencil on two ply museum mount 8 inch by 10 inch.  A warrior in the heat of battle.

Happy New Years

Pensil on two ply museum mount 8 inch X 10 inch.  Growing, reaching, and expanding!

I've been looking forward to this new year with great expectations.  My muse is calling and I'm going to paint my brushes flat!  I'm also going to use up all the drawing supplies I've collected over the past thirty years or more.  Trust me, I have drawing supplies and using them up will be no easy task!