Rough 2020

Still no word on the cause of death of our son. I have been quite unmotivated to paint.  And due to the virus, my art group hasn't met for the entire year.  We did a Zoom meeting to conduct our annual business meeting.  It was nice to at least see some of my friends.  We normally have a Christmas party - at a local restaurant - the first week of December.  Obviously that won't happen this year - maybe another Zoom meeting.  And normally we exchange miniature paintings.  That won't happen either.  BUT we did decide to make them and show them at the Zoom meeting.  I pulled myself out of my funk to at least paint this watercolor.  The phrase is not original to me, so I won't be selling the image. 

It has been a while...

Sadly, we lost our only adult son in late July - quite suddenly - and with still no reason determined.  I have been totally wrapped up in taking care of his business:  two trips to clean out his apartment, sell his car, deal with his financial stuff.  Needless to say, no painting and very little else.  

I do want to finish up the story about the Global Art Project from earlier this year.  You will remember my contribution: 

And here is the contribution from my art partner in Romania:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It may be a while before I update again.  I do have a painting started - and the idea for another - when I feel up to it.

"Flower of Life" mandala

Seems like I've been working on this forever.
FINALLY finished - 14" dia. - "Flower of Life"
Defined:
> a series of overlapping circles that can build infinitely outward, forming a flower-like grid
> all geometric forms can be found within it; is used as a blueprint for more complex sacred geometry shapes like Metatron’s Cube and Merkaba
> symbolizes creation and reminds us of the unity of everything: we’re all built from the same blueprint

Something different

I have a husband who likes to take long walks - visits a nearby gravel yard - and comes home with pockets full of rocks. I have boxes full of rocks.  I decided to DO something with them, as a break from painting.  I promised some of my art friends that I would post some pics. 
The left side has an incense burner and the right side has a small flashlight inside to show the transparent "window".  The base is 10 x 12" plasterboard; otherwise: rocks and superglue. Kinda like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. 

UGH!

"Junk Drawer"
I hope to never do a painting this complicated ever again!  It gave me problems all the way through.  To do the text, I used markers and found out that some of them were not permanent; so they bled when I wanted to paint around them - lots of re-doing parts of the canvass.  BUT - I'm done.
The original idea was a drawer of things I have let go of from the past (at least to some degree).  (example:  light bulb = ideas that have gone by the wayside)
And yes, that is a real handle at the bottom of the canvass.  It IS a drawer, after all.

Global Art acrylic version

After finishing the Global Art painting (watercolor) in the previous post, I decided I'd like to try it in acrylic.  I consulted the GAP founder - turns out the copyright I give to the organization does not prevent me from using the art myself or making other versions.  So here is the acrylic version - which now has a title:  "Children are the Future"
If you compare the two versions, you can see how different they feel - as far as technique.  I pretty much gave up on making the acrylic version look exactly like the watercolor.  Still, I am reasonably pleased.

Global Art Project for peace 2020

I've mentioned the Global Art Project before.  I am a bit ahead of the game for getting my contribution finished this year.  I haven't even been assigned a partner or given this a title.  But here it is: 

There are only two colors used - a skin tone I mixed myself (mostly burnt sienna) and Daniel Smith kyanite (blue/gray).  The kyanite is really special because it is an earth pigment that has a very fine sparkle from being a natural pigment.  I haven't worked in watercolor for a while, but revisited it for this application.  I have an idea to re-do this in acrylic if time permits.

First work for 2020

I've tried another new thing.  I'm not going to great detail about the inspiration - just a brief overview.  There is a branch of physics called "Cymatics" - the study of how sound vibration effects the physical world.  One experiment involves exposing water to different vibrations (Hz) and photographing the results with a high speed camera.  If you do a Google image search you will find many gorgeous images at different Hz levels. 
My painting is based on water at 528Hz.  The actual image is:

 I painted it as a mandala.
"H2O@528Hz Mandala"

This is mostly iridescent pigment, so again, very difficult to photograph.  As you can see here - the same image, but the one on the left is in darker light and the one on the right is in bright light.