It's been around three weeks...

Ok, it's been around three weeks since the last time I updated this blog. Around the beginning of March, I started eleven paintings, mostly small, a couple medium sized. For the group show at Mahan Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, they wanted me to have around 5-7 pieces, so I'm going into it with the intention of having 7 finished around the beginning of May. If they want to take all 7, awesome. If we won't have enough room, then at least I'll be edit down from seven paintings I really like. So that's that. Because I'm working on more than one painting at once, it sometimes seems like I'm moving a hell of a lot slower than I really am. This really isn't the case. It's just that, from day to day, I might be working on different things. Also, this last week was spent working on drawing up some films to shoot to screen tomorrow morning so I can screen onto the paintings I'm working on.

Onto the work:


20"x30"


22"x30"
It might be a little harder to read this, but because I end up soaking areas of the painting, and collage heavily in areas, the paper that I'm working on could end up warping a lot. But I want to maintain the deckled edge that Arches worked so hard on, and if I were to stretch the paper with staples or gummed tape, it would mess with the integrity of those edges. So what I've come up with is to soak the paper, squeegee it onto a sheet of MDF or thick acrylic plastic, and then when it's still wet, clamp wood strips around the edges. When the paper dries, it still stretches, and it keeps the deckles looking awesome. Long explanation for something that, when you see it framed, speaks for itself.


16"x24"


32"x48"
This is just the background of the painting that will be taking up the majority of my April. Something you can see in a lot of these shots is tracing paper hanging off the top. The sketches that I work from are on these sheets, and obviously if I tried photograph this painting with the sketch on tracing paper over the top, it wouldn't read right.


16"x24"

I don't have photos of the other newer paintings, mostly because they're harder too shoot, or haven't changed much over the month. I'm going to try to update more in the next few weeks.

Also, I'm now a featured artist on Gawker Artists. Check it out:
Gawker Artists

The New American Paintings that I'm in, no. 85, just came in the mail this afternoon. Stoked!


The cover (artist is Devin Troy Strother)

They used one of my images in the "Contents" page.

First two pages of my spread, perfect...

And the second two pages. They put the wrong painting in, which is kind of a boo-urns, but what can you do?

Other artists in this issue:

Ron Adkins
Libby Black
Sean Brimer
Christopher Buening
Ryan Callis
Sally Cleveland
Timothy Cross
Matthew Dennison
Rebecca Ebeling
Andrew Foster
Jen Garrido
Erik Geschke
Daniel Healey
Christopher Martin Hoff
Barbara Kerwin
Joe Macca
Melissa Manfull
Deborah Martin
Kim McKenna
Lester Monzon
Christine Morla
Robert Moya
Whitney E. Nye
Chrstine Ondrus
Laura Paulini
Heather Peterson
Antonio Adriano Puleo
Ursula Schneider
Adam Sorensen
Kirsten Stolle
Bradley Streeper
Devin Troy Strother
Marci Washington
Nancy White
Blade Wynne
Eric Yahnker
Andre Yi
Robert Yoder
Michael Louis Young

Four new paintings I'm working on.

This show is opening Sunday, March 7. 5-9

Aside from this, I've started 11 paintings. There may, or may not, be an event in Southern California in April. If things pan out, I'll make the announcement here this week. Also working on some things for a group exhibition at Mahan Gallery in Columbus, Ohio in June. I believe the opening will be June 5th and I'm planning on flying out there for that.

Because things have been so busy, I haven't seen a lot of shows this week like I usually would, but I did check out the Park Life opening last Friday. Very much worth checking out. In a few days I plan to have some new images finished up and some progress shots. Until then...