Showing posts with label acrylic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acrylic. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Spaceships, dinosaurs and aurora borealis

Spaceships, Dinosaurs, and Aurora Borealis.  16"x24" ish.  Acrylic on canvas.  2005

The story behind this piece is as follows:
A coworker of mine (we were caterers) claimed that the three primary colors were not red, blue, and yellow, but were in fact magenta, cyan, and yellow.  I called b.s. (being an art major and all, I should know, right?).  According to his theory, the color known as "red" could be mixed with two other colors--this was contradictory to everything I had been taught in art classes.  I told him the only way I would be convinced would be to try it out for myself.  The agreement was that I would make him a painting using acrylic paints using only the colors magenta, cyan, and yellow (and white since white can't be mixed with primary colors of paint; interestingly, primary light colors will make white light).  I asked for a painting topic; he said, "I dunno.  Spaceships, dinosaurs, and the northern lights".

It was fun coming up with images that mixed two drastically different time periods: prehistoric and present.  I was particularly pleased with pangea at night as it would look with present day lights.

Of course, in the end I proved myself wrong concerning the primary colors.  I am now convinced that the true primary colors are not red, blue, and yellow, but are in fact cyan, magenta and yellow.
Mixing red and mixing blue was certainly strange at first... But I feel I became a better artist after this painting experience. 

Part of me wishes I still had this painting.  It's one that I feel very proud of.  I think I'll always wonder where it ended up...



triceratops detail

t-rex detail

right side detail

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Spirit of Max

Spirit of Max.  20" x 16" ish.  Acrylic on canvas.  2001-2003

Back in the days of film (wow that seems like a long time ago), on the rare occasion a roll of film would get used twice and result in double-exposed photos (and a feeling of surprise).  This happened to me at least once, and I felt very inspired by the photos that resulted.  I work from some of those photos to create this piece.  Max, my childhood dog, was a wonderful family member;  Just like the double-exposed photos, his spirit could be found all over our house and lives.