Photo Credit: Don and Elaine

It’s been days since our last yahoo at the Gorilla House, but quite honestly, I’ve been hard-pressed to find any visual archives of my last work.  This is the first week that I didn’t take my own photographs, although I did photograph a couple of pieces by other artists.

Photo Credit: Belinda Fireman Thanks, Belinda! You have provided me with the single archive of the evening! Whoot!

Thanks to Don for the purchase of my painting at auction.

The themes of this weeks battle were 1. blue line, 2. let us not think of clothes and 3. nacho cheese.  Working with orange, red orange and yellow-orange was new for me.  I realize now that I don’t use this palette very often. Without the suggested concept of nacho cheese, I wouldn’t have taken that on and so my decision was to focus on colour exclusively, with an intention to eventually incorporate a quote from the Gospel of Matthew 6: 28 at the end.  “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”

I continued to use my former ‘trucker’ journals as a basis for the collage, this time, cutting them into tree elements.  I enjoyed using the horizontal format this week and found that I immediately entered into the piece as landscape.  I felt very relaxed while painting on Wednesday and had fun chatting with some new folk, as well as artist-friend, Belinda.   Had I more time, I would have continued adding collage, pulling layers of acrylic washes over the piece and resolving the central foreground.  As it was, the piece was impacted by the two hour deadline.  It was a fun experiment regardless.

I met Bronwyn Schuster and look forward to following her work, loaded with humour and excellent technique. For 365 days, Bronwyn made entries about her drawings/projects and stuff and I’ve really enjoyed exploring this portfolio.  It speaks so much of an artist’s journey and where her mind takes her.  Take a look here. Her self portrait series blows me away and is inspiring me to try a similar series as a way of developing technique.  Some of her work causes me to feel nostalgic about oil paint.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such juicy surfaces and rich colour mixing.  Below, her piece completed in the two hour battle.

To follow, another artist’s work…will post their name as soon as I verify.  These two pieces, along with my own, demonstrate the curious notion of working from three concepts and discovering the potential for interpretation.

Be obscure clearly. E.B. White