Old Cabin - Point of View

old cabin - original (full) view

I finished my 'old cabin' painting and then started playing around with different views - closer views of the image - to see if the impact changed. Here are a few of those...

A. old cabin - close up crop

For this view the total frame is filled with the cabin. Very little interest around it.

B. old cabin - crop is right / top

In this view the cabin is horizontally oriented toward the right of the frame and vertically a bit biased toward the top. There is more motion indicated in the swooping ground work which flows from right to left and there is a color splash on the left in the sky creating additional interest.

C. old cabin - crop left/bottom

This is the opposite crop to the preceding view. I think there is still motion and interest but the view feels very different to me.

What do you think? A, B, or C, or stick to the full original?

Stained Glass - Chameleon

This was a lot of fun to make. Mostly because I kept thinking about one of my all-time favorites Gustav Klimt. This began with a sketch of AmazingTori. Once I had the sketch, I colored in warm skin tones along the arm and the face. Then I began to color the canvas in fairly regular shapes. Once the canvas was completely colored, and brightly so, I might add, I then ran the layer through a Topaz filter which stylized all of the color borders with slightly curvy markings.

Point Bonita

Twain had it right when he said, the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. Point Bonita, a sharp rocky peninsula extending into the Pacific Ocean from the Marin Headlands overlooking San Francisco, is cold and foreboding. Sea lions lounge on the rocks below and the waves crash against the black craggy stones jutting upwards. Hundreds of sea birds float dotting the frothy white caps of the dark water. An imperative for life exists above the water as colorful succulents grow out of sheer rock furthering the surreal scene.

To be there, trekking out to the last working lighthouse in California, I was struck by a sense of solitude, and somewhat ironically, calm, and truly sublime peace.

abandoned (truly)

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Dreaming Parade

This is one called Parade from the Dreaming series. I started this work about a year ago, so I think it is my longest running ongoing work - and I'm still not sure it's done.

It began as a photo, which was turned into a sketch, which was then charcoal outlined, then watercolored. So a hybrid of photo and PS filters, to handpainting using the Wacom.

The idea is the parade of thoughts that goes through the mind of a teen. The ideas for thoughts came from 'eavesdropping' as kids were talking - so going on the theory that they have limited filters for their thoughts. As such I edited out a lot, preferring to focus on the funny and random, intermingled with the sometimes insecure, anxious, or angry.

One Perfect Moment

A Sunday, started out cloudy and without promise, but turned to blue, bright and warm. Swimming in the pool, the water appropriately cooler than the air, and then stop, float, looking up toward the blue cloud-spotted sky. Now lean back, ears, eyes, fully covered by the cool water. Breathe slowly, slowly, then listen. The water sounds, and heartbeat. The warmth of the sun filtered by the water over eyes. Every thought drifted away, or merged into one. Hard to remember any boundaries. But found one perfect moment of calm, contentment, understanding, and bliss.

Then "cannonball"!

(dahlia painting, 2010)

Remember me

This is the before photo, before I take a cut at restoring this photo. It is my grandmother as a young girl and it evokes strong emotion in me. A bit of me feels lost in it. I knew my grandmother so well - or so I thought - but this photo seems to be of someone I didn't know at all. It's a strange sensation to know someone for a period of time, to be close, and then to realize that there was so much more that you didn't know - and not in a bad way - just in a left wanting more way. So I'm going to take my time and restore the photo and then I'll tell you more about an amazing person.