Get out of my head!

Sometimes an idea gets in my head and it will consume me until I unleash it. Until I feed it. Until I soothe the savage beast.

It’s me, of course.

I’ve got lots of ideas. I just don’t write them down. Today, I wrote them down. They’ve left me alone for a while so I think they’re basking in that sweet glow of satisfaction. But the test will be actually painting them. Yes, actually painting them, no matter how awful they come out, and posting the results right here. Shame, world. World, shame. Now that you’re introduced, here’s some prelims to set your peepers to:

This is Not a Stop Sign

Concept: oblique angle photo taken of a stop sign on a really sunny day at noon, with only blue sky showing. Sign is sun bleached and sort of washed out. The sky is vivid noon-day blue. The text and title of the piece is “This is Not a Stop Sign.” Because it isn’t. It’s a painting of a stop sign.

The writing will be white with some dark blue (maybe ivory black) shadowing, selectively, to highlight the letters against the background, as needed.

You Mustn't Say It

“You Mustn’t Say It” is one of those “why the hell did you take a picture of THAT?” pictures I took a while ago. Found it the other day and thought the vibrant colors on this Fisher Price toy would make a great painting against a white, possibly slightly faded background. Why do I take pictures like this? I could tell you, but I mustn’t say it.

I Thought It Was Me

I was watching some of David Lynch’s early works, most notably Alphabet when I was struck with this image in my head. The drawing doesn’t do it justice, but I had to get it down before the inspiration left. So here it is. There will be a broken outline of a skull in white on a solid red background, with me from a photo of me that I’m thinking of, where my arm is around my wife. Only my arm won’t be around my wife and my face will be half black and half white, on a vertical center.

Frustration

“Frustration” is a piece I’ve been laboring over in my mind for a few days now. An experiment in Cyan/Magenta/Yellow and a little graphic design bit. I want this to be the largest canvas I have (probably a 24″ x 30″ canvas board). I might even go out to JoAnn Fabrics and use a 50% off coupon this weekend so I can paint this on a stretched canvas. I’m excited about this one.

The background will be a vivid red, mixed from Cobalt Blue (Cyan) and Rose Madder (Magenta). The stripes will be white. The stripes will have a left-side drop shadow done in pure magenta pigment. I’m considering coloring in the interstitial shapes but, as I went over the painting in my head (I’ve already painted it in my head, you see), I decided that might distract and detract. I’m waffling and it’s oil paint, so I have room to experiment and scrape accordingly.

The lower right-hand blocks will be a play on a corporate logo, abstracted sufficiently. It will also invoke the test pattern you see printed on most commercially printed items (like potato chip bags).

These Are Days
I haven’t abandoned “These Are Days,” I’m just letting it dry a bit more. I don’t want the dark blue/purple mixing with the orange too much or I’ll get a lot of mud. I also want to be able to lay on the lights really thickly, and I’ve found that if the underpainting is a little too wet that I end up wasting a lot of paint. Not a problem on the smaller, 5″ x 7″ paintings, but an issue as I work on larger canvases.

Taking a couple days off
I’m trying to keep up the painting as much as possible (or at least the preliminary work for paintings), and I’m shooting for 3 days/week minimum, preferably 4, no more than 5. I have other commitments and I have other things I’m doing (like documentaries and movies that inspire me – like the David Lynch short films, and books that inspire – I’m reading Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, which is pretty good).