New Worky Work

To tell you the truth, I've been very frustrated with the work I've been doing here. I think starting off on the wrong foot by working on canvas kind of set things in motion, not to mention that my brain has been snoozing for the past month or so. I just gotta get back into the right state of mind, which is happening a little more every day.

I finished this pretty ugly painting today, entitled "The Happy American Family," which is the first color image I've done in my series relating to the disintegration of the American family (if you don't know what I'm talking about click HERE to read my artist's statement). I didn't use color in the most effective way with this, in fact I was kind of lazy, and I think my drawings are stronger when they're just the line work on white paper. Here it be:



I would definitely like to do some large paintings on the subject, but lately painting hasn't been working out, however, I think I may have had a breakthrough today with this little fella:



It's a different method from what I'm used to as far as painting goes, but actually is similar to how I did my old oil pastels, which were on black paper. So with this painting I laid down a black ground and painted on top of that, allowing me to bring some line into my paintings. Line is something that I've felt my paintings have been lacking and I've been trying to find the best and most enjoyable way to introduce it, and I think this may be it. I like the feel and I am eager to do more landscapes, townscapes, figures, etc. in this way.

One more thing, I have a new idea. It stems from a running gag between the people I've met out here that Liz and I can paint anything we want except for naked people God forbid. I'm not exactly sure how serious they are, and I wasn't planning on doing any naked people anyway, but today I got the idea that it might be fulfilling to pursue this avenue of nudity. Actually, it involves porn. That is all I'll say for now.