north philly

This is the next in the Barkley L. Hendrick series based on his North Philly Niggah. I'm calling mine North Philly, acrylic on canvas, March 2010.

superman

Here is my finished painting based on Barkley L. Hendricks' Icon for My Man Superman. I'm calling it Superman, acrylic on canvas, March 2010. 

on the energy required to paint

Nobody ever told me that there will be times when I won't have the energy to paint. But it happens to me all of the time. I am trying to be more disciplined and paint even when I don't have an inspiration. I am trying to be more steady in my painting habits.

It just so happens that at the moment I have a tremendous amount of energy and inspiration. I want to paint. I need to paint. I have to paint! Seeing the Barkley L. Hendricks show was great. I love his use of color and his compositions. It is all together in each of his pieces. This one is one of my favorites, Icon for My Man Superman (Superman never saved any black people - Bobby Seale), 1969, oil, acrylic, and aluminum leaf on linen canvas, 59.5x48".

My plan is to take the composition and colors and create a new painting using my style of linear strokes with stripes of color. More photos to come.

finale

In the end I decided to do a rough copy of Joan Miro's Catalan Peasant in the Moonlight. The first photo is mine. The second photo is the original. The green at the top of mine did not photograph well - it is much more saturated and grass-greeny. I have mixed feelings about copying someone else's work. I guess it stems from my feeling that it lacks imagination. But maybe I just admired the simple composition and the use of color so much I had to imitate it.

I know the composition is not exactly the same. If I had wanted it to be the same I would have projected the original onto the canvas. But I didn't. I wanted to get the same feeling using my own gestures and not looking at the original when I did mine. I'm not completely happy with the end product. I think it looks clumsy and forced. But then again the original has a certain amount of carelessness about it. I don't know. I enjoyed doing this, though. Maybe I'll make a striper for this one.

phase two

I have continued working on the Green Jello painting and am now in phase 2. Working in a composition similar to Joan Miro's Catalan Peasant in the Moonlight, I am focusing on color and texture. I am just so inspired by Joan Miro's use of color and simple lines. The yellow is like a shooting star at the top and the blue and red at the bottom bring your eye around the composition and back to the large red section. Everything you see in the light green will eventually be black - gesso or paint of some sort. That should add an element of drama and define positive and negative spaces in the whole piece.

green jello

I had a dream where I was watching a street performer dive into and swim through a huge cube of green jello. So that has inspired me to paint in GREEN! This is the background for my new painting. I am taking photos along the way to document the building of the piece. More to come.

the blue stripe

So I’m working on my latest painting. Not getting anywhere helpful. First I painted the background with golds and browns like in Joan Miro’s self-portrait. Then I added paint in gesture-like strokes – reds, yellows and black. Then I covered it with gesso applied with a palette knife. Then I thought it should be darker overall so I added two glazes – one umber and the other ochre. Then I stepped back and looked at it and decided it was too brown.

So then I added a bright blue stripe. Now I hate it. What do I do next? Pitch it? Add more stripes? Gesso?

I should have taken Francesca’s suggestion to photograph it along the way. Now I’m stuck with a bright blue stripe I'm not sure what to do next. Maybe I should just move on to something else. I'm sure it will come to me eventually...