Sometimes You Have to Ride...part 1

A new painting I'm working on, maybe called: Sometimes you have to ride.

It's from a dream I had.

I've been wanting to work smaller, but the painting ended up being 4 feet long.

Ayako's Flamenco Painting

Ayako is a young woman in JoDe's Flamenco class at the Y. She recently had to return to Japan and I made her this little painting to remember us by....

Moment of Truth

The final version of Moment of Truth. It's at the BWAC Spring 2011 Pier Show. And it's part of a fun 'group' display which includes works by my sister Andrea Fagin and my brother in law, Warren Alexander.
The Bull and the figures were inspired by my trip to Soria last year.

Wide Open Show at BWAC

I was selected to be in the juried show at BWAC which opens on March 12, 2011 and runs every weekend till March 27th.
It's a big honor and I'm submitting two other pieces to the show.
http://www.bwac.org/future_exhibition.html

Bull Inspired by Sorian Trip

After a hiatus, this is my new painting: Sorian Bull. Maybe I'll get a better name for it. But it was inspired by my trip to Soria with a great tour called Spanish Footsteps: http://www.spanishfootsteps.com/

I saw imagery like this at the Numancia Museum in Soria. It's from a Celt-Iberian Design. I added design elements and color. The funny thing was that I spent hours at this museum, sketching the designs. I ran out of steam near the end, where these bull images were. I thought to myself: I'll find them in a book or I'll Google them. But really: there was very little to see online and no books that I could find with the images. Guess I'll just have to go back to Soria.

Portrait of Uncle Miley

Finished this small portrait yesterday. It's oil, 9"X12".

Weighing Souls: work in progress

Just adding the final details to Weighing souls. Heard about Uncle Miley this morning. So I added him on the lower right, hiding behind the column.

Too many Angels

After almost a whole year, I finally finished Too Many Angels. Having taken so long and kind of lost my way with it, I changed the color schemes several times. I finally settled on this palette.
I would have liked to have called it Poking Angels, in honor of my new interest in Facebook (I still don't know what poking is) but I'm sticking to my first choice for title.
A sad song by the same name, sung by Jackson Browne:
Too Many Angels

Under Siege: Part 2

I've added some figures into the building, some creatures and started the background color, a mixture of Azo deep and cadmium medium yellow. I may stay with that color, or change it later.
I chose a whole color palette, using the color aide papers. But that doesn't mean I'll stick with them. And I'm still toying with the figures, adding subtracting, refining.

Under Siege-Part one

Ok, after months of procrastination, I've finally started a new painting. The working title is Under Siege. It's 36X48 inches. I KNOW the economy stinks and I should be working small but I needed something to inspire me and get me going. I've been putting off painting for quite a while. I'll have to check in with Dr. Freud on that.
I start out picking the size of my canvas, then I look at lots of pictures and start making small drawings in proportion. When I have one I like, I transfer it, in a not-very-scientific way, to the canvas. It doesn't need to be a perfect transfer cause I've found that what looks good small sometimes doesn't look as good big. Plus, maybe having something to do with my brain, no matter how many grids I draw, I can never get my left and right side to match.
So here's the beginning of inking in the basic drawing. As I transferred it, I did change it. And what makes the whole thing so labor intensive is that I feel the need to outline everything in black. Then I 'erase' parts with white paint. Later, after I add color, I'll have to reapply the black lines. But that's just how it has to be for me.
Also, the story is now unfolding for me. I'm seeing who the protagonists are in this world. So I'll be adding those also. Once I add color, the story may change yet again.
Stay tuned.

Todo

This is a smallish painting which I did to enter in a show. It didn't get in. But I still enjoyed doing it. It's totally decorative.

Scorpion Beast

A new painting done on unstretched canvas. I did bitch a lot about painting this way but really it wasn't much different. EXCEPT, and this is a big except, I do hope my corners are 90 degrees. The photo was a little off but it might have been the angle I was holding the camera.
Anyway, the scorpion beast is complete and it was a lot of my usual back and forth painting it: first one color , then another. This combo is very satisfying and...energized.
You are probably thinking it doesn't look much like a scorpion. But it's based, as I've mentioned a hundred times before, on Spanish illuminations and they seemed to favor the "Horse as Scorpion" look. As for the messy hair....that's in the bible! You can look it up for yourself.

Il Melone: the Italian Connection

Amazing story to tell you all: about a month ago, a guy named Gianni Cagnoni, from Rovigo, Italy, contacted me. He and his lovely wife, Donatella, run a gallery there, Il Melone
http://www.galleriailmelone.com/
He is interested in my work, not sure how it will be received. So he wants some work on commission. No problema!!! Except, due to shipping costs, he asks that I send the work, unstretched. So here, Feeding the Beast, is my first work that COULD be sent unstretched...even though I actually painted it by stretching it first. It's a smallish piece, 10 inches by 20 inches.
The key to all this is my borders. I made the border so that if he stretches on a slightly bigger stretcher, then the red will show. Otherwise, I was aiming just for the goldish colored border. What is loss...is my side borders. Oh well, Can't have everything. There will always be Rovigo!
Wait, wait, I didn't tell you about Tony, who has a blog right here on blogspot, all about Brooklyn. OK, that will have to wait to next time.

Hola Noelia

I just received an email from a young woman from Galicia. Thank God she can write in English because my Gallego is pretty bad. No, I admit, my gallego is at the level of a 6 month old baby. And my Castilian is about the level of a 6 YEAR old child. But forgive me, I've only been studying Spanish for 20 years!
I have finished...and sold...the painting called Fishing. Here it is. It's a small painting, 6 inches by 18 inches. So my theory that painting small did pan out.
Noelia, pan out means that it was a good idea, that it worked.

Fishing..the beginning

YES,YES, I know, I'm a very bad blogger. But I've actually been doing work for money and getting ready for the BWAC summer show at the same time.
This is a little piece I've started. I'm going to try smaller pieces, due to the economy being in the pits.

Freefall- retouched

Thanks to a comment by Mai-Liis, I decided to redo this painting. I wanted stronger color. Perhaps it was the heat wave we are having in NYC, but I picked hot colors for this newer version of Freefall

FreeFall-finished

Wow, I cannot believe I haven't written since April. BAD BAD ME. But a lot has been going on, getting ready for the BWAC Pier show. Two sisters leaving for the Camino, Feeling sorry for myself (that takes up a lot of time).
Here is FreeFall. I hope the color is not too off; it was a spur of the moment photo.
I find that if I work TOO slowly on a piece, I lose momentum. Had to push myself to the finish line and for awhile I was really un-nerved by the colors. But now, I like them...I REALLY like them.
If you want to interpret it as related to the real estate problems going on right now, be my guest.

FreeFall-middle phase

It took a lot of repainting to get FreeFall where I liked it...or at least could stand it. Part of the evolution of this piece was my going to see an exhibit of Takashi Murakami at the Brooklyn museum
OK, I gather it's not to everyone's taste...NO, they hate it. But I loved it and the whole Superflat world. It inspired me to think more about my coloring and this is the resulting current permutation of FreeFall.
Thanks Warren for providing the title.

Seven Heads

This is a small piece that I made for the BWAC Pier show auction:
http://www.bwac.org/
It's the Spring Ahead show, on the Redhook Pier.

Harpy Complete

Harpy is all done. Here she is.
And I gessoed over the elaborate border painting I was going to do. I wasn't enjoying it at all and didn't like the images I had added. So I started over and now I'm having fun. Working title: Subprime......something or other.