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 is the first of three ink drawings I made.

ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Stop/Go

"Stop/Go" was inspired by the movie "The Mexican" from 2001. Brad Pitt's character is
at a stop light which becomes a pivotal moment for him. It captured my indecision
at the time.

In this piece I wanted to play with variations of the complementary colors "red" and "green". This piece reflects my fascination with Victor Vasareley artwork. However, in rendering the drawing I wanted to keep it more expressive and soft edged.

colored pencil on paper, 15.25" x 24"

Three Years Later

It would be three more years before I'd come back to dots in my artwork. And even then, I failed to get a picture of the piece before it sold. It was a long narrow horizontal color pencil drawing. The background was a transition of color behind scattered dots. I barely had a chance to exhibit the piece before it suddenly sold at a show.

Green Dreaming

This is one three paintings from 1995; however I never completed the other two. They remain only partially done. For some reason those paintings never really clicked.

I worked on this one during a Fine Arts day at a girl's Catholic school. Every year the school invites artists to demonstrate or have hands on materials for the girls to try. The girls visit each artist table. I had several pieces I painted on that day.

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 16"

Australian Christmas

In 1994 I was invited to be in a Christmas themed art show at our World Trade Center, at the foot of Canal Street - across from Harrah's. This small exhibit was on one side of the front lobby. The other side had the traditional large Christmas tree, train and traintrack that encircled the tree.

Since the show was at our World Trade Center, we were asked to select a country and look up information on how that country celebrated Christmas. For this show I chose Australia. First of all it is summer down there at Christmas. The beach is a popular place to be. There is "Caroling by Candlelight" on the beach. So, I focused on the candlelight tradition. Painting in an Aboriginal style, I used dots to capture the effect of lights - candles and stars. An aunt, who is often critical of my work, told me she was buying it. It now hangs in her kitchen.

Besides the sale, I had a lot of positive feedback from artists and non-artists when it hung in the show. In spite of all that, I did not pursue making more dot paintings. There were other methods I wanted to try first.

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 16"

Ivy in the Sun

Here's a painting I created on my own after taking a class with local artist Glen Weber. I used color tricks I learned in his class. This is the only record I have of it. I painted this to be auctioned during the annual WYES Art Auction, our local PBS Station's fundraiser.

acrylic on canvas, 18" x 36"

Sand Dune

Up until now I've shown you Louisiana themed landscapes from the painting class. Here is a generic sand dune scene I painted. I included a sailboat in the background. Again, the instructor had me play visual games with the colors I used. This one was done a smaller canvas board.

oil on canvas board, 16" x 20"

Swamp

For some reason I didn't get too far with this painting. Perhaps I ran late that day. Anyway, my painting strokes are more dot-like. After the class, I didn't know how I wanted to finish it. Thus I left it as is.

oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

Oak Tree

Another painting I painted in the class was a scene with an oak tree. Glen Weber showed us how to contrast blues and oranges and create light and shadow. I learned a lot about color juxtaposition while rendering this painting.

oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

Marsh

During the summer of 1994, I took oil painting classes from local artist Glen Weber. I was drawn to his work because of his Impressionist method of painting. In his classes, I learned how to work with color to create light and shadow. He demonstrated tricks for making parts of a painting come forward and go backward. By the end of the summer I had a better feel for color than I did previously.

One of the first paintings he had us make was of a marsh. He instructed us to use a "letter B" as a basis for a composition. We skewed it to show perspective.

oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

Nine Masks in Blue

And finally here is third painting I made of sequined masks. I then went back to painting my loose abstract water paintings. But it wouldn't be long before I made one more stab at an Aboriginal styled painting.

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Eight Masks in Blue

Here is the second piece completed at the time, "Eight Masks in Blue." I figured I should keep my colors simple since I was still learning how to handle the dots. Again, I intended the dots to look like sequins.

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

The Aboriginal Influence

Twenty-four years ago, last May, I graduated from Mississippi State with a BFA in Graphic Design and other emphases in Photography and Painting – meaning I had twelve plus hours in both areas. The jobs I had after graduating were in pre-press. As for my fine art, I did a lot of experimenting with the techniques I had learned in school. Many of them were rooted in “happy accidents.” Generating unexpected imagery was more exciting to me than planning one out and then simply executing it. My blogs mind places and slingin paint cover the majority of the artwork I created between 1984 and 2000. The dot art was not a high priority. It has something that I’ve come back to at different times.

By 1993 I did some substitute teaching at my old school. My former high school art teacher had me substitute for him. Another art teacher had swapped with him in order to teach high school. She had become interested in the art created by Aboriginals and she had her students painting with enamel paint pens on canvas. Also, she was working on her own painting using the same method. It was at this point I had a chance to view a book of Aboriginal Art.

Suddenly I was excited about trying the method myself. Around this time I became interested in art that had a primitive expressive edge. In attempting dot painting, I was determined to do something that was more connected to New Orleans, since it is where was born and have lived all my life – except when I was in Starkville, MS for collge. It happened that an art association was having a Mardi-Gras-themed art show. So that became my opportunity to try out the dots. My dots became sequins. Below I have posted one of three I painted. It is called "Five Masks in Blue."

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Post-Impressionism

This was a project from my Painting I class at Mississippi State. All the projects for the course were painted in oils. I painted this one in the spring of 1984. We were instructed to use dots of pure color and place complementary colors adjacent to each other. We were using the Seurat Post-Impressionistic approach.

I had enjoyed playing with Impressionism in high school art classes. When this project came along I was thrilled.

I used an old photo of my grandfather and his cousin picnicking on the levee for my composition. I had to imagine color for this shot. At the time I did not have color levee photos to aid me.

The painting project that immediately followed this one consisted of collaged imagery. We were asked to be more personal in subject matter and to choose how we would render the piece. I mention the project because I had painterly water like Monet. You can see the painting "Cat Slide Water" on my blog, mind places.

oil on canvas, 28" x 36"