ej

Several times I have attended free screenings of films, before they open, at Clearview Mall in Metairie, LA. Prior to standing in line, I have dined at Seranno's which is known for it's Latin cuisine. Not only have enjoyed eating various menu items, I have also enjoyed viewing murals and decorative art.

For a while now I've pondered how to capture my experience at the restaurant with dots. I ended up with a radial design mimicking some images I saw inside. The biggest hurdle was simplifying my design. The result is an explosion of bright colors!

ei

In October and November of 2007, I did hands on workshops with some artists that are members of ARTinA, a local artist organization. The artists had a lot of fun painting with dots. Each of them went on individual painting tangents.

So, I decided I wanted to represent the experience with a dot painting. David Wargo's painting inspired my design. The curvy lines of the painting gave me inspiration. The colors used by the other artists influenced my palette. As I progressed I remembered I meant to include yellow. Well, that meant an odd ending on the right side of my canvas. I thought it mades the piece more interesting.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

eh

The first Saturday night of the month is usually known as The ArtWalk in New Orleans. Art galleries have coordinated opening receptions. October's first Saturday is called "Art for Art's Sake." It is the "kick-off" for the season. In 2007 I went gallery hopping on Julia Street. While I was walking along Julia Street, I noticed a "chalk-drawn" mandala on the street. I had to take a photo.

When I made my list of items for possible paintings, I placed the mandala on my list. After many edits to my list I decided to go ahead and make a painting inspired by the chalk drawing. I worked with the pastel chalk colors involved, and attempted to capture the spirit of the drawing.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

eg

For a year I set my small dot paintings aside. I did some preparatory work for some future ones, but mostly I spent time away from them. Well, now I’m ready to resume this group of paintings I call “e” Series Action. The last one I posted was ef.

Over four years ago my sister’s silver poodle, Frannie, had a litter of puppies. One was a black male. The other two were females, one black and one apricot. I chronicled the development of the puppies with videos I uploaded to YouTube. In fact one video became very popular. It remains popular still.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

On a sad note, Frannie passed away in June of 2011. She consumed a parasite that poked holes in her lungs. She had trouble breathing on her own. The four squares of my painting depict Frannie and her three pups. Frannie is gray. Ginger Rose is burnt orange. Sweet Pea and Dugy are the both black.

Poydras Home Art Show

The Poydras Home Art Show was Saturday and Sunday, November 5th and 6th, 2011. I completed the last three paintings for that show. The three paintings were hung together near a window. They sure looked good with the light on them.

Quince

Around Halloween I finished this last painting of the three. It is also the last painting I completed in this series. I use the same warm palette in this one too. This coming fall I will create three new ones. I've been thinking about the next variation.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Catorce

For this second painting of these three, I made the background colors even warmer. Again I kept a radial design in applying the dots on top. As I stippled the dots around the piece, I created an incremental transition from one end of the color wheel to the other.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Trece

Here is the first of the three dot paintings I finished last October for the Poydras Home Art Show. For these paintings, I didn't lose the background triangles as I had in the previous paintings in this series. I repeated a radial design which rotates from the center. My palette was warmer this time.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Doce

The last of this trio, of dot paintings, had a lot more blue and green dots in it. I was exhausted by the time I finished it. Fortunately I finished all three paintings days before the actual deadline for a group show.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Once

As I finished one, I started in on another one. I kept the same colors, but I varied the scope of the spectrum. The dots took a lot of time to apply. Along the way I mixed quite a bit of paint. This one had a lot more red in it.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Diez

When I painted the next three is the "Numeros" Series,  I again changed up my design. This time I was inspired by one my “5 x 5” paintings that I painted 2010. Below is the first one of this trio.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Here is the painting, "te," that inspired the three paintings. I used it as a launching point and then followed my intuition from there. As in my previous “Numeros” paintings, I used a pastel palette.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

Nueve

Finally here is the third painting in this grouping. I started out with aqua and then added colors I used on the other two paintings. At some point I’ll work on the other six I have
in progress.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Ocho

This one began with a red background. I used many of the same colors that I used on the first one in this trio. While one painting dried I worked on another one. There is nothing worse than smearing the dots.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Siete

For months I have been stewing about how to complete my next three paintings from my series "Numeros." The canvases for these paintings were all 20” x 20”. Although I had a certain process for the previous ones, I didn’t want to repeat what I had done before. During the summer I thought about using some colors I had seen in the Japanese animé cartoon, “Ponyo.” Beyond that, I had to think about what I could do to make these next three pieces different.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

For each canvas I used a specific background colors inspired by “Ponyo.” I then created meandering lines similar to ones I used in previous paintings in this series. While I was rotating my canvases, an idea hit me. Why not have the lines run horizontally rather than run vertically? I looked at my meandering lines and thought of all the line graphs that have been used to talk about the economic news over the last year. Anyway, this is the first of the three new paintings.