Aflow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Aburst

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Agrow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Aglow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Abloom

This is my second watercolor on watercolor canvas painting.

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Afire

In the spring of 2005, I purchased some 12" x 12" watercolor canvases. The canvases were covered with a special gesso for watercolor use. So this was a new experience for me. I normally had painted watercolor on paper. The biggest difference with watercolor canvas was the ability to easily pull up the paint. The trade-off was that if I accidentally wet an area the paint would come up too. Anyway, this is one of six pieces I made with watercolor on watercolor canvas.

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Watercolor Grid

Purple was another color in the Uniball set, besides orange. This was a painting study on a letter size piece of paper, 8.5" x 11". Blue and pink were the two remaining colors in the set. I ended up using all four colors eventually, but that came later in my process.

watercolor on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Change

This is a recent piece I painted for a small group show at the Louisiana State Archives. The show's title was "Products of Higher Education." Tomorrow I have to go to Baton Rouge to pick up the art.

For this show I aimed at a masculine look for my pieces. In doing so I worked with some colors I don't use as often - which creating these works a challenge.


watercolor on paper, 11.75" x 14.625"

Watercolor Paintings on Watercolor Canvas

These are my first watercolor paintings done on watercolor canvas. The gesso is created especially for watercolor. It is very easy to pull up paint from this type of canvas. The downside is that if the wrong area gets wet, the painting is vulnerable. To protect the painting spray-fix is used.

“Afire” and “Abloom” were created in the spring of 2004. The rest I made in the summer of 2005. “Afire” and “Aflow” are my two favorites of the six. Anyway, I exhibited all six paintings in a show at the Baton Rouge Archives building. The show was called “Abstrectly speaking.

Although not completely made of dots, I still enjoyed painting these pieces

Aflow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Aburst

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Agrow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Aglow

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Abloom

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

Afire

watercolor on canvas, 12" x 12"

How My Current Art Began

In the fall of 2001 I was a talent visual art teacher responsible for a caseload of elementary talent art students at four schools. I was filling in for a talent art teacher who was on sabbatical. When I tried to explain the art term “value” to my students all I saw were blank confused looks.

So I came up with a grid of triangles. I handed each of them a grid to draw patterns in each triangle – lines and dots. Before having them start, I held up a sample grid I had drawn. When they finished drawing patterns, I held up each page so they could view the results from a distance.

And what does this have to do with my dot art? Well, this is where my current art began. I created this patterned grid. After that I played with color in a similar grid. These were rough ideas leading up to my dot paintings. Below are the first three stages of this process.

Except for a few spots on the ink page, there are no dots on the other pages. Well, the dots were not involved yet. I was having difficulty completing four acrylic grid paintings. The dots came about later. Along the way I had changed my mind several times.


ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"


colored pencil on paper, 5.5" x 8.5"


ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"

My Other Art

The dot artwork didn’t really come together until 2002. So, what did I do before that? Well, twenty years ago I graduated from Mississippi State with a BFA in Graphic Design. I had other emphases in painting and photography. The art professors who instructed me pushed traditional academy art; however, many of them shared their experimental methods with us as well. Prior to going to college I had become jaded about my art.

In high school, a drama instructor told me I painted like Henri Magritte and gave me a book on him, as a gift. I painted several murals for stage sets. In college, I worked more abstractly. The art professors weren’t always sure how to guide me. Their own experimentations were usually for backgrounds. So, since I graduated, I’ve worked somewhere between totally non-objective and surreal. My college experiences made me more excited about making art than I had been since middle school.

Remember when you see impressive fireworks and exclaim “ooh” and “ahh?” Well, that’s how I felt about my art when I graduated from college. Suddenly I had numerous ideas and techniques I needed to try. At any rate I’m still trying methods and media.

workshop adventures


Here are the blogs that cover my other art:

mind places

slingin paint

graphite only

dance energy


Then there are these works that have come about in the course of developing my “dot art.” Teaching art had an effect on my process and my experimentation. Prior to Hurricane Katrina I got into a more random mindset. The anal teaching environment helped push me there.

got grid

c’est collage

art at random

random wood

My dot art has been my focus since Hurricane Katrina and the flood. It is selling more consistently than my other work. But I do hope to take some detours again. Often the galleries have picked on me for pursuing so many artistic directions. Well, I suffer from visual boredom very easily. Surfing the Internet has only multiplied the number of ideas buzzing around in my head. OK, I need to finish some art. Stay tuned . . .