Years ago while eating at a restaurant in Tucson, my wife commented on a painting hanging on the wall. She obviously liked it, and asked me to check the placard next to it, see if it had a price. It did, around $600 if I remember correctly. I expressed my dismay at the price, not that she would want to buy it, but that someone would part with that much money for seemingly random brush strokes.
This isn't the painting, but it doesn't seem possible the following painting would ever sell.
We discussed the apparent randomness, how hard it would be to duplicate, and whether it was something I could do. We agreed to share the cost of materials and I would try it. This is a first attempt.
It was, of course, more difficult than I imagined it would be, and the result above was very unappealing.
Next step was to scratch everything and consign everything to the trash heap, or try something new. I don't remember what made me decide to do so, but I bought some different colors, read up on a few things, bought some different brushes and more canvases, and tried a few different things, probably with the same result.
The picture above, if it can be called that, sat in the bedroom where I'd set it up, for close to a year, reminding me every day of the failure. Then my wife showed me a picture she wanted me to try, a two dimensional flower pot. Much simpler, it seemed pretty straightforward.
Next step was to scratch everything and consign everything to the trash heap, or try something new. I don't remember what made me decide to do so, but I bought some different colors, read up on a few things, bought some different brushes and more canvases, and tried a few different things, probably with the same result.
The picture above, if it can be called that, sat in the bedroom where I'd set it up, for close to a year, reminding me every day of the failure. Then my wife showed me a picture she wanted me to try, a two dimensional flower pot. Much simpler, it seemed pretty straightforward.
She was very pleased with the result, so it hangs in the bedroom.
Discovered Wetcanvas.com, Jerry's Artorama, watched some YouTube videos about painting, and moved everything into another room to provide more space. Continued trying more things.
Some friends came over and expressed interest in the pictures above, so I gave some of it away. My brother in Michigan also wanted some things, so I sent them to him. It cleared away some of the things that were building up.
This is what my painting area looked like after a while.
There wasn't a specific moment I made a decision to pursue improvement, and I can't say there's been much improvement, but I've been learning and practicing. I would see things in galleries, on the Internet, on television, and get ideas to try. Some might say inspiration was taking hold, but I hesitate to go that far.
At one point I tried something larger with a yellow background.
My wife saw this and declared it finished, so it hangs in the bedroom.
I kept painting over that original first attempt, and a buddy of mine that was interested in how things were going saw what had become of that.
It had become a sounding board for various brush and palette knife techniques. It's a relatively large canvas, about 30x40 on a 3/4 inch frame. He really liked this, so I gave it to him and he has it hanging on a wall at home.
This all started with acrylic paints. They are inexpensive and easily dealt with using water for thinning and cleaning, and there's little odor. I didn't use oil because I thought the odor would be too much, and clean-up was more troublesome. When I realized this was not the case, I tried some. They handle differently, take a while to dry, and blending is interesting.
Sometime within the last year or so expansion was necessary. Either that, or the alternative was scrap the whole experiment and give the surplus supplies away. I'd come across a video showing implementation of a cheap wall mounted easel.
It was time to provide more space to continue.
It was about this time I came across a video that looked very interesting, and seemed relatively easy.
I tried it.
It was fairly simple and very striking. One thing about acrylic and oil, one can paint oil over acrylic, as many canvases are primed using an acrylic based gesso. But it doesn't work if acrylic is painted over oil. (This I haven't verified myself, and probably won't) The painting above is done on a black canvas made using thinned black acrylic paint. I tried another.
I tried to make it more interesting by adding color to the foilage, then somehow came up with the idea of adding texture. The texture is achieved using various acrylic based pastes, pigmented in this case using black paint.
Showed this to some friends, and some offered to buy one. I also tried a blue one, it is popular as well.
I have sold five or six of these, just to recoup the price of the canvas. Completed a few larger pieces as gifts.
I spend a lot of time looking at websites like Etsy, and once while browsing me and my wife were contemplating a bare wall next to some new curtains she had just put up. It took just a few hours to come up with something simple.
Lately I've pumped out some similar abstract stuff.
Some of it is hanging on our walls, some just sitting stacked in the "studio". I have contemplated ending the experiment, as mentioned above, and giving away the supplies, but it hasn't happened yet. Time will tell.
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