Black Madonna

I wanted to post new pictures of the mermaid carving, not because she's changed any but because she looks different in so many different lights. She has landed now on a cupboard in the living room of a massive hand-built Tuscan-style house full of art I'm now living in (with an attendant collection of artists, hippies and critters). Mantel space is at a premium, or rather it's restricted to the caprice of Zito the Younger, my landlord. Zito the Elder built the place by hand and it's full of his art and artifacts, but also of other artifacts which Z2 collects. The black madonna is probably a relic of the Elder Zito. I didn't want to particularly include her, but there she was and the mermaid looked good and off I went to take the pictures for this ensemble:

And, as usual, I found that some judicious cropping could produce a provocation where none had been intended:

The tobacco barn

These tobacco barns are ubiquitous in Connecticut's Farmington Valley. I had well and truly ruined this by adding in color everywhere, until this morning when I added the yellow. Before that the effect of coloring it in had been to completely deaden the image. If I were an honest blogger I'd have captured the in-between icky stage, but my camera was in the car.

Still not sure whether this is done. The paint is so thick in spots it won't be dry for weeks anyway.

Oils

Well, it's on to the unconquered medium. Or, to quote the lovely lady at the framing shop, Ms. Ars Gratia Artis, "tourists buy oils". So I'm playing with oil.



This is my first oil. It sat a while awaiting a face for the yoga girl, which it just got this morning. She's probably done now. She looks better in person than she does photographed here. I'll reserve the right to substitute a better photo later.

The tobacco barn below is rather the opposite. It looks better here than in real life. I had just blocked out what should be the major color fields, intending to finish it with more and realistic detail. I like it as just a graphic splash as it is here. It doesn't work in real life, though, because empty canvas doesn't look the same as, say, empty watercolor paper. It just looks unpainted. I'm not sure where this one is going.

Mega-arborial In-situ Sculpture

That's what my people, basically New Hampshire Swamp Yankees, call what highfalutin' folks refer to as chainsaw carving. This is an unfinished porpoise, but it remained unfinished long enough that the wood developed a patina and I didn't want to get it two-tone by making fresh cuts and I rationalized that it was a little intentionally rough and abstract and also it's at a house that's no longer mine.

Time for more mermaids

This is a plain charcoal drawing. The lighting effects are just from photographing it in natural light. You can never have too many mermaids, and this is one of which I happen to have a photo handy.

Blue Period

I forget what stage this was in when this photo was taken. I think it's pretty close to done. The final was pleasing enough that my ex-wife, who likes precious little about me these days, framed it and hung it in her living room.

I painted this in an art class I was taking with the soccer mom from down the street. She said, "even your vases look like women!"

Espresso (in the morning with you)

There is an inside joke painted into this one, together probably with a little kharma. You can only get the joke if you're Italian or have had an Italian lover. When I painted this last winter I had not seen mine in a few years. She has resurfaced, having moved back to Italy, and has bought the painting.

Drawings

That would be these. These are drawings. I drew them.

Having been remiss...

Well, I've been a pretty slack blogger, I know. One of my excuses is that I really liked having that B&W post "Mon Metier" at the top of the window every time I looked here, so maybe I'll come up with another art nude for some later post and still end up liking the first sight.

Here are some random mostly watercolors. The pencil drawing at the top left is from Andrew Wyeth's "Overflow", one of the Helga series. I use his stuff as a prototype fairly often. When I get around to it, I'll post two different takes I did of Siri from A.W.'s "The Virgin". One's in pencil and one in pen and they were done about a year apart. To me, they show more how I or my mood had changed than anything technical. The thing about Wyeth, though, is that he's so daunting. I have reached the point where I can read Hemingway and still somehow trust myself to write. Looking at Wyeth makes me re-examine any fantasies I have of ever being an artist.

Commercial art

The first thing I ever created with crass commerce in mind. Sold at auction to support a saltwater flyfishing website.

What is not art?

About the blog title...

I have a thing for Mermaids. Always have. These days I sometimes carve mermaids out of wood.