I'm in a group show, opening this weekend!

Hello Everyone!
It's time for the annual Compound Gallery Artists group show!

I have one of my newer paintings in the show, and there will be 4-5 more in my studio for viewing and purchasing if you dare! Come for the opening, Saturday, June 11th, 6-9pm at 1167 65th st., Oakland, CA 9460 
 Can't wait to see you there!
Norakiera

success!

 This painting  ended up being a few inches shy of 3x4 feet after I stretched it.

This one is about half the size of the one above...sorry I didn't make any standard measurements. I get caught up in the process of painting and forget about practical things like documenting the progress or writing down the sizes. 

I'm excited because this is the closest I've come to replicating the look of my business cards in a large scale. I ended up using a lot of gesso and absorbent ground, but these paintings are on canvas, not watercolor paper which means I can blow up the scale even larger- I could go 7' by 12' if I remember my canvas roll sizes correctly. How cool is that??

 I added gold acrylic paint to my usual paint ingredients, so there a subtle luminosity that happens

The usual tools

 The first few layers

 A few progress shots before I got too covered in paint to safely use my camera

I painted my island two different shades of gold. I'm thinking that they will peak through the tape layers I'll be adding to the frame.

 I cut 72 business cards

 ...but I ran out of drafting tape.

 I purchased a different brand of 300lb water color paper, and I found out that even with the drafting tape the paper layers were separating and tearing after taking the tape off. I wasn't expecting that, so I need to revamp my game plan.

Card batch # 3, paintings and experiments

 The first stage of some experimental tape paintings

One of the things I really love about art is how it isn't really serious until you say it is. I could spend the rest of my life working some random job to pay living expenses as long as I could spend time experimenting with ideas and materials. Studios are laboratories of messes, egos and wonderful mistakes, a safe place to spend time nursing a piece of work to life. And since art is subjective ( like everything else in the world I suppose) you can just let it exist until you decide that yes, this is something you want to show people, this merits attention, criticism and maybe even praise.

Whether I'm ready for it or not, the Compound Gallery Group show is quickly approaching. I have until July 5th to fine tune my work for selection. Since you dear reader are putting in the effort of actually looking at my blog I'll give you a sneak peek, but first card batch # 3!

Super stiff 400lb Arches watercolor paper

It took me a couple of hours to cut and at least 2 exacto blades, but no finger injuries were sustained!

A 3'x4' board served as a base for taping my future paintings and cards. This was an all day affair.

Mmm rectangles

Drying paint

A close-up

Dried paintings, but not quite finished

Close-up of one of the larger pieces (12x15 inches) before I decided it worked better in the other direction.

A few of the finished pieces, arranged in pairs or triptychs

Except for this loner, he works well by himself.

I started to oil paint again. I haven't worked in oils since October of last year, ever since I became enamored with making my own water-based paints. I've had a painting that I started back in October as an experiment. It started as a wood panel prepped with pigmented rabbit skin glue as a size, but then I got into painting with the size, and gluing size paintings onto the panel, and before I knew it I had piece that didn't know where it wanted to go. It has been hanging around, the awkward guest, the well intentioned but never finished project. On a whim I decided to oil paint on top of the paper cutouts and such. I'll show a progression of the painting in a future post, once I've found a photo of the beginning ugly duckling stage.

Here's a clue to the color scheme...

Stage 2 of experimental tape paintings.

Sometime needs to happen, but I'm not quite sure yet. 

More tape layers perhaps?

Stay tuned to find out!

If you live or will be visiting the Bay Area soon come check out the group show!

I promise that it'll be a good time, plus since it's an open studios event you can legitimately peek into the spaces where all the art magic happens...