Purple Blend

Do you ever read the Sunday comics in full color? Did you realize you’re looking at pieces of the Sunday comics right now?

This collage is made up of pieces of the Sunday comics collected between September 2004 and March 2007. The only thing that they have in common are the colors. Speedball acrylic gloss is used to glue them down on Reeves BFK paper. I recently took a break from my dot artwork to complete this piece.


collage, 10.5" x 19"

So what made me create this work?

Well back in the summer of 1998 I took a trip to Chicago and saw the work of Ray Yoshida. He taught at the School of Art at the Institute of Chicago. I enjoyed the show so much I bought a catalog.

It wasn't until seven years later in March of 2005 that I got around to doing a piece in the spirit of the work I saw in Chicago. Cutting out the pieces from the Sunday funnies was very time consuming. I wanted my students to see how the context of the comics could be changed in a collage. It was a good way to show them how to use found materials.

We See

The materials for this collage were handed to me at a lecture on Hannah Hoch in Boston. It was one of many seminars I attended at a national art teachers convention in March 2005. The speaker asked 25 of us to make a collage out of the materials she put in a cellophane bag. She referred to it as a "Dada bag." When I returned home, I worked on this piece as an example for my talent art students. I wanted them to see how unusual materials could be used to make a collage.


collage, 17.5" x 24"

Reef Madness

This piece started with a demonstration I did for the Jefferson Art Guild. I poured paint as a start. After that I had to let the paint dry. It wasn't until days after that I went back into it.


acrylic on canvas, 24" x 30"

Pink Sensation

This one started as a demo for the West Bank Art Guild back in 1995. Mostly I used a stencil and sprayed acrylic with a toothbrush.


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Glow Worm

This painting started with a tennis ball rolling an orange acrylic path that proclaimed a glow worm. The texture came about from imprinting pine straw. The Metairie Art Guild was fascinated by the tricks I showed.


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Blame It on the Comet

This piece was painted around the time of the Hale-Bop Comet passed us in the 90s . . . members of a cult killed themselves in the belief that they would catch a ride on a spaceship traveling with the comet . . . The smear became the comet occurred at the demo I did for the West Bank Art Guild. It was a "happy accident."


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Algae in Bloom

At the demonstration where I began this piece, another artist pleaded with me to stop. She liked it the way it was at that stage. "Well, I'm not finished," I told her.


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Cosmic Windshield

Again, this painting began a demonstration for the West Bank Art Guild. I used string dripped in acrylic paint. Also, I scraped som paint around. It was an expressive mess. All I could think about was how it looked like a messy windshield. But that bright yellow-green seemed more "not-of-this-world" - hence my title "Cosmic Windshield."


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Splash of Pink

This one contains a lot of the experimental watermedia techniques I use, but I never felt like it worked out quite the way I had hoped. I just sort of had to say to myself "It is time to stop."


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

What the Hey?!?

This one resulted from scraping acrylic paint with a credit card. The technique takes advantage of the rough canvas texture. The art guild I demonstrated this one to enjoyed seeing me work.


acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Are Those Dinosaur Eggs?

A local Catholic school had a special day when artists demonstrated at tables at the school. This is one of several I worked on as the girls came by to look. I had seen "Jurassic Park" around the time I worked on this piece - hence the dinosaur eggs. I played with stencils and sprayed acrylic with a toothbrush.


acrylic on canvas, 12" x 16"

Trinity

During a spring break from college, I went with a group to a mission in Mexico . . . one of the churches we visited used shamrocks symbolically in stained glass to represent the "Holy Trinity" This piece began as a demo for a group of students at a Catholic high school . . .


graphite on paper, 18.25" x 24.5"

Just Right

Some years back I was asked to demonstrate non-brush watercolor techniques to some kids who attended an art camp program. This is one of two pieces that were begun with a demonstration. I then worked back into them to finish.


watercolor on paper, 19" x 25.5"

Ink

My students did not understand the term "value" in art. I showed them these grids and had them look at the pieces at a distance. This was to let them see how to make grays by using lines and dots.







ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"