The Front

This is The Front. A triptych. It started as a live painting at the N8 Glass Music and Art Studio's live art party. Took me almost an additional month to finish it out after the party. I'm including some shots of the individual pieces and some detail shots. The three pieces probably stretch about 6 ft from left to right.

 

Here is an extra shot before I added the black background to give you a sense of how it was made. 

 

And here are some detail shots

 

Newest work on Paper

This newest work on paper is titled Pauciloquent

6" X 12"
Rag paper acrylic painting

HIGHBALL HALLOWEEN MURAL

This is the mural we painted at Highball Halloween over two days. Came out pretty cool. Check out the progress video below:

Mural is for sale. It is 16' x 8'.  Please inquire.

Monsta Mash

I made this piece for the Nth Gallery's annual Halloween exhibit. It is acrylic on paper. I think we'll be doing a bunch more of these paintings on paper. Small and economic.

Back on the abstract track

Haven't made many paintings lately. I've been busy painting a haunted house and preparing to do a live mural at the Highball Halloween in Columbus Ohio.

But I did just finish this painting. "Remembering Magic Eye at the Mall" is the title. It was kinda nice to do a little abstract painting again since I've been doing the skulls series. I often found myself letting my eyes cross to see where it needed more of what color. It reminded me of looking at MagicEye posters when I was a kid.

"Remembering Magic Eye at the Mall"
Acrylic on canvas
16in X 16in

Cobble's Knot

This is my Cobble's Knot. The Cobble's Knot is from a novel entitled Maniac Magee.  


"Maniac Magee is a novel written by American author Jerry Spinelli and published in 1990. Exploring themes of racism and homelessness, it follows the story of an orphaned boy looking for a home in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Two Mills. He becomes a local legend for feats of athleticism and fearlessness, and his ignorance of sharp racial boundaries in the town."

"His final effort to gain acceptance is by untying the famous Cobble’s Knot (a huge, grimy ball of string with a year's supply of pizza waiting for its vanquisher.) After finishing the task he is praised by everyone as confetti is thrown into the air."

I often feel there is a Cobble's Knot in my head. So it was good to get it out on canvas.

First Seven

I wanted to share the beginnings of one of these skulls with ya'll. Included is a video of the first "lines" of the image, as well as a triptych of the first 7 layers. Before sure to click for the zoomed in view.

FINISHED MONSTER

Here I have you some in progress pictures as well as the final state of the painting. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to starting the next one.
I started out by muting out all the edges and laying it some darker values. I started with burnt umber and then a layer of prussian blue over that. It creates a wonderful black. The next step was getting the surface some color or another. So lighter blues and darker greens figured out their place and the obvious contrast to that was the orange and yellows. I've noticed the something about the way i have been doing compositions. darker tones separated from warmer light tones by dancing line of highlights. Usually the flow of highlights stretches and falls across the composition in what i find to be a natural pattern.

Clamp monster becomes Primer Monster.

The clamp monster, after much intensive sanding, became the primer monster. I can't wait to start painting on this guy.

studio re arranging and such.

In this picture we have two paintings in various stages of not done. I spend a lot of time staring at this scenario. Part of painting is a lot of waiting for crap to dry.

My studio has got a serious leaking problem. So I rearranged and removed some stuff. It is better for my work flow. I love my windows. They make really nice light.

Straying from the concept.

This painting I did over the past two days. I am very pleased with the warmth and lightness of it. Also it appears to have a frame. It does not. I painted it to look that way. It strays quite a bit from my current concepts but sometimes it's good to just paint and not worry about what it means in the big picture of your body of work. a good painting is all i'm shooting for most the time anyway.

Sense. This Picture makes none.

These new drawings are so much fun. The subject matter being completely random, it allows for endless opportunities. They are classic "WTF"s. furthermore, coughing. I am completely open for suggestions of pop references and random images. Think of it as a string of nouns that are completely unrelated. each identifiable as its own. I will combine them all in a drawing if and as I see fit.

hoping to hear from you

jonathan

new drawings

john goodman, robots, hd, plants, fish, waves, pepper, christmas tree, field goal, birds, feather, and lots of chicken scratch all across two drawings. This random drawing is a lot of fun.

one new painting.

Dry Brushing In Atmospheric Perspective

One new painting.

Three New Paintings

One Inch Angular Brush Stroke In Indian Yellow

Splatter Study in Sap Green on Thick Primer for Texture

Splatter Study In Burnt Sienna

Very modern, Very formal, very exciting. These new works have been a great journey back to the basics. There will be A LOT more of these. Hope you enjoy them. I really find myself connecting with the "subject matter." If anything these are a way of better understanding the elements I have worked so comfortably over the years.

We are deconstructing paint. Where are you?

Some recent works

The Horizon was Derelict with Hubris, acrylic on wood.

Taken By Verbs, acrylic on wood.

Hurry Up and Wait.

Be Sure to Make a Funny Face when you Face it.

Brand new painting. No title yet.

Bullets Don't Take Bribes.

as i said.

Here are two of the newest paintings I've been working on.

For short, I dubbed them Blobs.

Soon, I will have new pictures of new works I have newly created. There is a new direction in these. They are a sort of realistic rendering of imaginary abstract forms. These forms seem cloudy. They also seem to grow into or form atmospherically upon the composition. For short, I have dubbed them "blobs".

Due to recent disputes and occurrences around the gallery, I have been pushing my color palette and application techniques with acrylic paint to whatever limits I am possible. Oil painters are dead set. Way back when folks. Acrylic paints can perform just as well as oils, as long as you know how to use them. And the best part, they do it faster, giving you the opportunity to keep working and producing more and more work, gaining more and more practice, becoming better and better. I ain't got a day to wait for that shit to dry.

In other news, to keep you busy until these new photos arrive, I am providing a link to Flying Rooster.net. A friend, James Fay, is one of the photographers there. He has quite the eye. we are working on a t-shirt design for the company. It's looking nice.

Con't

June 5th 2009. The Drums are Like the Lettuce: the Non-
Portrait Show.








From the artist statement:

This body of work addresses various techniques in paint application, color combination, and scale of displayed work to cohesively depict a very public and very intimate mode.

In other words, my paintings were small to draw the viewer in rather than make then step back.