Folk Art Mary

Feed Us Now Dogs - DONE!

The Feed Us Now Dogs piece is DONE and gold leafed. It really worked best for me to paint the three dogs in the center so that they were mostly white.  That way you look at them right away and you aren't distracted by the dogs in the outer frame. But enough talk, time to feed those dogs now - or else I'll be in trouble!

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Teeth a Gleaming

These dogs have teethy grins, like many of my guard dogs. Their coats have gone through a color change - one slightly orange, one slightly blue, one slightly yellow. This works better for me. You can still see that the dog on the right cuts through the frame, but it's not the first thing that catches your eye. You've got to leave some room for mystery.

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Different Colors in Dogs

This version is a little bit better. The dog to the right is still the same color as the inner frame, a kind of visual joke that I'm doing all I can to leave. The white dog to the left grabs your eye and leads you into the piece. The center dog and the dog on the right - they're out of balance with the dog on the left.

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Adding Dark Outlining

I've added dark outlining and color on the frame. But something still is not working. The colors are too pasty, and nothing grabs your eye as the first place to look.

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Coming to Life

Moving right along, this piece has got some real life. I'm still playing with the dogs being the same yellow color as the inner frame. I had very few directions from the person ordering this piece, other than that 1) the dogs should be different colors and 2) some of the dogs should have pointy ears, others floppy ears. As you see the floppy eared dogs are in the majority.

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Adding the floor

Ah, this feels better adding color to the floor. Now the dogs are anchored...

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Feed Us Now Dogs - First Paint Layer

The dog piece sits on my easle after the first coat of tan paint. Behind it you can see the distracting jumble of my workbench. From here on out I'll crop pictures of this work in progress in order to eliminate background details.

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Mostly Carved

Here's the Feed Us Now Dogs commissioned piece mostly carved. This wood carving was made in the winter of 2011. Like almost all of the pictures I show in this blog, by the time I write about it the piece is long ago finished. As you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of work to keep my pictures organized!

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Feed Us Now Dogs - Drawn onto the Wood

Here is the sketch of Feed Us Now Dogs drawn onto the wood, ready to start carving. This is a simple and bold picture, pleasing to my eye. I like how the four dogs, one at each corner, bracket the main scene, the three hungry dogs in the center of the piece.

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Feed Us Now Dogs Commission - Sketch

Last winterI had someone come to me who asked would I do a Feed Us Now picture of her dogs, similar to the Feed Us Now picture I had made of cats. Yes, I said, I'm willing to come up with a sketch, and that's how a new folk art commission was born.

"Feed Me Now" or "Feed Us Now" is a series I've been doing for a few years. Usually it consists of cats with empty food bowls with the words "Feed Me Now". I started doing this series with the tanking of the economy. For the past few years there have been a lot of people anxious about keeping those paychecks coming in and keeping getting fed - myself included. This was the best way I had to express a seious topic in a joking format.

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Handmade House in the Woods - DONE!

The Handmade House in the Woods commissioned picture is DONE! I'm very happy with how it turned out. Here you see the house in its wooded setting, family pets, one parent birding, another gardening, and a daughter lounging on the deck of the house.

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Handmade House in the Woods - YES!

The blues really work. I've just been working on making the colors softer, painting and repainting until the picture says "yes" to me.

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Handmade House in the Woods Keeps Getting Better

It keeps getting better. Now I'm not so nervous, I know this picture will work in the end. Adding yellows to the trees and darks behind them really helps.

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Handmade House in the Woods, A Little Further Along

Time to stop being nervous and just plunge into painting the house. Adding some reds, whites, and darks moves this carved wooden picture a little bit farther along, but still it remains a bit rough around the edges.

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Handmade House in the Woods, Trees and Greens

I didn't say it in my earlier post, but I felt a bit anxious after looking at the piece with it's first coat of paint. The trees did not stand out the way I hoped they would.

Here the greens have been added, not just in the trees but in the grass and gardens around the house. I'm feeling more confidence. The house is still untackled, I'm still working out in my head how to paint the house. Now I've moved from feeling nervous about how the trees will turn out to feeling nervous about how the house will work out.

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Handmade House in the Woods, First Coat of Paint

The Handmade House in the Woods picture has a first coat of paint on everything other than the outer frame and the house.

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Hand Made House in the Woods Commission, Trees Complete

This is the last picture I took of this commissioned work before beginning to paint. In it the house and the bottom part of the carving are still incomplete. I love how the white pine trees (behind the house) turned out. They're all wavy and uneven the way white pine trees are. Ironically this picture is carved on white pine boards, my preferred carving wood.

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Handmade House in the Woods, Commission Half Carved

This is a picture of the commissioned work half carved. Here I've worked from the to down, doing the more deeply carved wooden areas first, leaving the house with all its details until the end.

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Mermaid Rides Waves, #7 - Done!

Mermaid Rides Waves- #7 - DONE! Freestanding or hung on the wall, she could be yours. She makes it look easy to hang onto that wave.

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Mermaid Rides Waves, #7, Carving Stage

This artwork is called Mermaid Rides Wave, #7. This is a picture of her still in the carving stages!

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Four Children - Done!

After massaging the colors still more, adding copper to the moon and gold leaf to the frame - DONE!

This ended up being a very successful mothers day gift. One day as I was carving at the Ithaca Farmers' Market, the woman of these four children came up to me and said how happy she was with the family portrait, tears in her eyes. She was totally and pleasantly surprised by the gift. Gratifying to me.

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Four Children - Almost Done

The piece is crisped up and almost done now that I've added dark outlines and whites.

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Four Children - Working the Blues and Yellows

This looks better with more yellow in the stars and another layer of yellows in other areas.

I made the frame dark. When a frame is a light color (as it was in the earlier version), it tends to show a lot of dings as time goes on. A darker color is easier to repaint and match.

I painted the fish blue. When I look at this piece my eye moves from looking from the sky, down the waterfall, over to the fish and then back up to the sky. The blue is helping me do that.

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Four Children, Balancing out Blues with Yellows

I've added dark outlines and more yellow (in the moon, the inner frame, and the children's clothes) but it still doesn't balance out the brilliance of the blue.

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Four Children, The Shock of Adding Blue

It's about time to add blue, since the sky and the water are a large part of this piece. Adding blue brings a new color to the mix.

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Four Children, Experimenting with Different Colors

In the beginning of a painting, I try different colors as I'm figuring out what will work. Sometimes I'll take a color in one direction and then go back the other way. It's all according to feel.

Below I've put in more reds and greens. Reds in the rock that surround the waterfall. Greens in the trees, the lines in the rock and below the bottom frame of the carving.

 

After looking at it for a while, I decide I've gone too far so I take some of the reds out of the rock and tone down the greens.

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Four Children, First Two Layers of Paint

Writing this blog has forced me to be able to talk about how I paint my art. And having to talk about it,  has effected HOW I paint. Before the blog I didn't always paint a base layer, but now I do. This carving was first painted with the base color green/yellow that's in the frame. For the second coat I painted the interior picture with a little blue and red added to the green/yellow first layer.

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Four Children, Carving Complete

Jumping ahead from the sketch, here's a picture of the finished carving.

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Four Children, Second and Final Sketch

We decided to make this family portrait less square, more of a verticle piece of art. This is the final and approved sketch. The kids are more stretched out but still filled with the joy of life. We added more of a water theme, since Ithaca has lots of waterfalls. The parents are represented by the fish in the lower left and right. The story behind the fish is a longer one, too long for me to tell here.

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Four Children and Their Parents, Commissioned Piece

While I'm on the subject of commissions, I thought I'd talk about several other commissions that I've done in the past year and a half.

I was approached in December 2009 to do commissioned family portrait. A husband wanted to buy it as a surprise present for his wife. We aimed for a completion date of Mothers' Day 2010. He wanted me to carve and paint a picture that featured their four children, with the parents there in a quiet role. Each of the children was represented by a shirt that featured a particular interest of each child - a chili pepper, a beer bottle, a drama face mask, and a parrot.

After much dialogue back and forth as to what might work for him and me (it has to work for both of us), here is the preliminary sketch that I made:

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Colorado Train Trip - Done!

Now the Colorarado Train Trip picture is done. There's a feeling of balance between left and right and you can really feel that train moving along. The family in the train (who I've made this picture for) stand out well. I'm happy with this one.

 
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Colorado Train Trip - Left Side is Getting Better

Here I've moved further into painting the trees smoke and people on the left. I relieved to see the left and right of this picture start to come into balance.

 

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Colorado Train Trip - Moving Beyond the Reds

This early version is one step beyond red. I'm continuing to work from the right to the left, probably because thinking about how to paint that smokestack is still on my mind.

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Colorado Train Trip - Starting to Paint

For some reason this train picture called for a red first coat of paint.

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Colorado Train Trip - Entirely Carved

Photographed a bit later, here's the Colorado train picture entirely carved. I worked to make the smoke and the trees merge. For a long time I've wanted to be able to carve the weather and things misty - rain and fog have been entirely beyond my grasp. But the smoke stack of the train is a good start on figuring out how I can do this. I'm always trying to learn...

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Colorado Train Trip - Half Carved

The train commission is now traced onto the wood and half carved. It's sitting on a work table outside of my studio in dappled sunlight. I worked to make strong lines in this piece - the clouds falling behind distant horizon is one of these. I'm working from upper right to lower left. Carving the train and the details of the clouds from the steam smokestack made me nervous so I saved it until last. You may be curious to see videos of this train going around Windy Point that I used to "get into the mood" of making this artwork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrP5G8_KzhE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0-HXqx9pmQ

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Palms Bar Commission, DONE!

Ok, the Palms Bar Commission is finished. In this final version I've added the gold leaf to the frame. I also went back to more of a blue tan/orange theme. The bottle, the exterior of the Palms, the faces - all have a crispness. The story is clear. It looks good on first glance. Done!

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Palms Bar Commission, Close to DONE!

Adding more dark outlines and the maroon frame color really helps me see the picture and whether it works. I've also added more tans, oranges, whites and shading. I felt the floor was too blue so I made it more brown. This painted wood carving commission of the Palms Bar in Ithaca, New York is close to done!

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Palms Bar Commission, Toning the Colors Down

Left to my own devices I keep painting a piece so it gets darker and darker. So this thing of painting the first coat of paint a light and warm color (new in the past two years) helps me to keep the overall colors in the folk art piece brighter. I've started putting in the darks, usually paynes gray mixed with another color to warm it up. Here the floor is painted in a checkerboard pattern, with the details of the Palms exterior (upper right of the piece), the mirror, and people beginning to stand out.

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Palms Bar Commission, Yellows and Reds

These yellows and reds are pretty wild, but it's a promising start. There are many more layers of paint still to do!

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Palms Bar Commission, Carving Complete

Here's a picture of the Palms Bar commission entirely carved, not yet painted.

Here's a picture of it with the first base coat of paint.

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Palms Bar Anniversary Commission, Early in the Carving

Here's the folk art commission early in the carving stages. I took the photo from the side to try to show some of the carved detail. You can still see the sketch lines where the wood has not yet been carved.

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Palms Bar Commission, Sketches

I ended up making two sketches. The first was a horizontal format...

The second was a verticle format...

The second sketch was the one chosen. It was simpler in detail, pared down, but as a result it really featured the important elements we most wanted to capture.

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Commissioned Folk Art Picture of the Royal Palms Bar

About this time of year last year, I was approached by a wife to do a surprise (for the husband) commission to celebrate the couples' twenty year anniversary. They originally met at the Royal Palms Bar in Ithaca. The story that the wife wanted me to commemorate was the story of their first meeting. It went something like this... They met at the Palms. He was with a friend and she was with a friend. He kept looking at her in the mirror over the bar, thinking she was looking at him.  She looked at the mirror too while she kept on talking to her friend. The rest is history....

Here's a photo of the interior of the Palms, showing the bar with the mirror.

 

Here's a picture of the exterior of the Palms.

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Dancers Commission - In Its New Home

Here she is, in her new home.

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Dancers Commission - DONE!

Here's the Dancers commission complete. The painting looks warm and crisp. When I look at this picture I know I've got it finished. The gold leafed inner frame finishes it off nicely.

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Dancers Commission- Adding Jelly Bean Colors

I continue to feel my way into what colors will work in this artwork. The colors of tutus of the three daughters (in the center) are deliberate. One daughter likes pink, another red, another yellow - I call these jelly bean colors because they make the three girls in the center stand out which is what I want to do. The dancers that frame them and the audience are all in more muted colors because I want them to fade a little bit into the background. At the bottom I've begun to put a little yellow into the inner frame of the piece where the gold leaf will eventually go, just to get a feeling as to whether all the colors will work together.

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Dancers Commission - Heavy Handed Blacks

Here I've added in the blacks (actually it's Paynes Gray) and worked on a frame color for this Dancers artwork commissioned piece. I'm trying to narrow in on what looks good, starting the tweaking process that goes from here on to the finishing of the piece. Try one color, see if it works. If it works keep it. If it doesn't work change it to another color. Continuously adjusting.

 
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Dancing Daughters Commission - Forgot to Carve the Tutu

It wasn't until after I'd put the first few coats of paint on this folk art commissioned piece that I noticed I hadn't carved the folds on the tutu of one of the dancing companions. So I fixed this, see below.

After fixing this detail, I again went back to painting, adding more browns and darks to the floor, walls and ceiling light. The people are starting to get flesh tones. I've also begun to add white to the pillars, the ceiling and the ceiling light. You can see the piece is starting to take shape.

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Dancers Commission - Carved But Still Unpainted

Here is a picture of the piece carved, several months after the sketch was approved and I was given to go ahead to do the piece. It's pretty much the same as the sketch, except I added windows. I like the flow of this piece, the girls in the center, the dancers on the side and the audience together making the shape of a triangle which points at the light.

 

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