Muddy Angels

acrylic on acrylic textured surface with gold leaf on canvas, 24″ x 24″

I’ve always believed in the angels that walk among us, as us. The ones that get their feet dirty with the messes of everyday living and that occasionally sparkle with divine light shining through the cracks!

In my own struggle to capture these earthly/heavenly creatures of multi-dimensions onto a two dimensional surface,  I started by borrowing from one who succeeded in this – Michelangelo. Through all my struggles with intention, technique and media, not to mention feelings of inadequacy, I finally stopped and saw a rather startling depiction of a story unfolding in my own life just now. In the interests of allowing space for you, the viewer, to react with your own personal interpretation, I must leave it at that.

Technique-wise I employed my favorite Golden acrylics, light molding paste for textural build up and Micaceous Iron Oxide and other copper and gold mixed with other pigments to create that other-worldly patina.

Over the years angels have been coming to roost on my canvases. You can see more of them  and here and here.

 

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Curiosity

acrylics, pouring medium, gold leaf, acrylic skins on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

Brilliance of galaxies in dark recesses of molten rock.  I climb through chambers, led by a curiosity that cannot be extinguished by darkness, that sees new possibilities forming in the infinite patterns of nature. The dizzying onslaught vanquishes boredom.  I stand for a moment in a luminous space.

No doubt this is why I prefer making wild unpremeditated art – to stand in the center of a maelstrom and see what happens.  A combination of various experiments here, knitted together.  The only collaged piece is the eliptical shape on the right that slightly resembles a spider’s web.  It was one of my unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the “Sigueiros accidental painting technique” which I found online. You pour a heavier paint over a lighter and it sinks into the lighter paint creating amazing patterns.  Only my patterns never looked like the video.  If you can make it work, let me know.  The results, though, were pretty cool.

I start a new Monday Afternoon Muse Group where we do all kinds of mixed media fun like this each week.  I still have a couple openings, if you’re interested and are “local” to Sebastopol, CA where we meet in my studio.  More information on my website.

Adsum

“Adsum”, acrylic, collage, gold leaf on canvas, 22 X 28″

Adsum.  Latin for I am here. Here on the planet.  Here in my imagination.  Here in this painting and in all my art.  A scary and wondrous thought.  What artist is not to be found in their artwork?

And I hope you will “read” this painting as I am here, as in, you are here. Find yourself in it, and if you wish to share the experience, please do. We are all here with you.

Lunar Diary

“Lunar Diary”, mixed media on canvas, 24 X 24″

What would the moon write in her diary? Surely it would be thrilling, maybe even hair raising.  Sometimes when I go out after dark to collect the eggs left by the chickens that day and lock things up, the air is so charged with star and moon light and the breath of nocturnal animals that  I can’t help wondering if I’m missing the most exciting part of the day by retreating back into the house. Some night I must just have a seat out there under the apple tree and watch and listen and smell the evening’s poetry as it unfolds.

This painting is a new one from the Maelstrom series where I’m playing with circular movement and a multitude of mixed media techniques from crinkled masa collage to image transfer to gold leaf.