4th and Spring

I happened to be walking around downtown LA the other night and happened upon this gallery. I'm not sure the name of it, but there always seems to be an interesting showing there, but this one was quite spectacular. Especially when combined with the blue twinkling lights flooding the sky above this whole block. If you've never been to 4th Street between Spring and Main during the holidays, you really should make a point of going there.

upclose and personal with the greats

Just this week, Google and the Prado Museum in Spain made it possible to look at 14 of the museum's most popular works at a resolution that's 1,400 times greater then a regular ol' digital photo. This is quite remarkable. Never before have you been able to get soooo close to such great works of art. To be able to see every brush stroke and detail.
I recommend you check it out for yourself at Google earth. If you've never done google earth, you do have to go through a download process. And I have to admit, on my measly computer viewing was very slow.
I found this news out via an article in the FT entitled "Galleries, who needs them?" Which the author, Christopher Caldwell has an interesting point to make. Galleries were initially created to bring art to the masses. While yes, they do still do that - they also have a strongly elitist stench about them. Of course, standing in front of a masterpeice in person can never be replaced...but being able to get as close as you can now with these 14 works via Google Earth is pretty impressive.

Google Earth can be found here
FT article can be found here

roots#1

As noted months ago, I was working on some "new techniques". That was in this painting, slated to be completed by my best friends 30th birthday. I just finished it this week - not only because I've been a slacker, but also because I just didn't want to lay the color brown down on this canvas! This piece is symbolic for Kim and I, as over the past number of years we've talked about growing deep roots before a large tree. Do you know that Aspen trees have interconnecting root systems? There could be hundreds of trees spreading out over miles and they're all connected. Pretty cool. Anyhow(the biologist in me peeps its head out)...



The new technique I was playing with was stenciling out parts of the painting. On this painting, I painted the entire background including the green of the roots. Next I stenciled off what would become the roots, using tape directly on the canvas. This is where I stopped. The green of the ground with the dawn colors of the sky was just to pretty to cover up! But...the roots are no good unless they're under ground. So that's what I finally did this week. Also used in this painting is some "interference" paint. It's more then just metallic - it actually changes appearance depending on what colors are by it and what light is on it. The close up shows the dots surrounding the sprout painted with the interference acrylic (by Golden).



I've used interference paint a little before, but seem to be liking it as of late. Liking that and this bird...I can't stop drawing/painting it. I'm working on a piece with numerous birds in it right now and did this first single bird as a study - I really love it all by itself. Interference paint is also used on it, as can be seen by the added flash in the second picture from the left - I love that it looks very different in the morning and at night.