Cartoon for Homage to Frida:

Homage to Frida: Cartoon detail

I have been working on varied pieces over the past week:

• The cartoon for the Homage to Frida: Stained glass
• An underpainting for a painting, Mi Frida
• An underpainting for an Homage to Krasner

The cartoon for the Homage to Frida, I really thought I had taken photographs of a few days ago. Must of dreamed it! I have been finessing over the drawing for a few days, especially over the eyes. When I first completed, or thought I completed the cartoon, the portrait I felt conveyed her looking too much like an indian. While I liked the native quality of her in the photograph taken by Imogen Cunningham, which it was referenced from, I felt her too distant from a likeness of her.

I referenced a few photographs of her as an older adult, for the eye quality.

I am looking forward to getting started on this assemblage and will create fused murrini/ millefiori elements in the background.

You can also visit the stages of my oil paintings if you look to the righthand column here at my blog, or follow the links from the titles above. Deb Verhoff, in a discussion with her at the last residency, asked me why I was documenting the stages of my work, particularly my paintings. I think that as a process within this program, and doing such sustained work, that it is important to document what I have been doing. These pieces just begun will probably not see their conclusion until the end of the semester.

I especially feel this will be important this semester, as my mentor is further away. So seeing all of this work in reality will be a challenge, due to the nature of the material and the works in progress.

The Homage to Krasner underpainting was influenced a little by some recent videos I have watched on Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and Joan Mitchell. Having a consistency of insomnia during my nights, watching art videos on Youtube, provides a good use of my time.

My first mentor asked me a year ago about my underpainting, and propelled me to think about doing something that was more individualistic to my own painting, than something more referenced to Rothko. That question, as all good questions do, has stuck with me. I believe at heart, I am an abstract expressionist as a painter, so this is a vehicle for me and my new underpainting. I looked at paintings of Lee Krasner before beginning the underpainting, wanting to catch an essence of her in these first steps of this homage to her.

In addition to the starts of the pieces discussed above, this week I have been researching 3 different public art opportunities, that I may develop a proposal for or apply to. Ben Sloat, my new advisor, has indicated he would like me to work architecturally. Since most architectural work is commissioned, I have put that out of my vision for the duration of this program. However Ben has directly encouraged me to pursue it, so I am making steps in that direction.