I've hit a bit of a roadblock when it comes to collage so I decided to try something completely different. I signed up for an online class "Grit and Grace, The Heart of Co-Creative Painting" with Katie Kendrick. The first assignment, shown here, was a mark making exploration. I tried a new product, Liquitex Clear Gesso to build up layers, and its already one of my favorites. I think it will be great to prep vintage books for mixed media as well. 

My primary medium is collage and mixed media. Creating this piece  was a very interesting journey territory because I only used drawing tools and paint. 

This is probably the last Friday I'm going to celebrate "Drink & Dunk". Its a traditional activity that takes place at/in the bay, at night, accompanied by a good friend, live music and some alcohol. Bathing suits are optional because there is no one else in the water. Safety first! Its only about 3 feet of water and we always get a ride home. 
The amount of alcohol depends on the temperature of the water and the air. At the beginning or the end of the season (late May to late September), or on rainy nights, a shot to tequila is sometimes required. Most Fridays its just optional.
One of my very favorite things in life is swimming at night in the bay. Its a truly transcendent experience where I feel like am part of the water and the sky, in a place I grew up on and have a strong connection to. Someday soon I will take the last dunk of 2015 and I will look forward to the first dunk of 2016 nearly every day. 

When I decided to create a collage a day on September 1st I was not expecting that I would be making a big leap into painting and mixed media. My collage work has been imaged based so its been a surprise detour to work abstractly. 
My comfort zone in terms of a color palette is neutral/green/blue. That's why I decided to choose red for the theme. To my surprise this piece practically created itself! It was so much fun to create all the different red textures with magazine images, acrylic paint, fabric and oil pastels. Although I'm not especially knowledgeable about the Chakra centers I definitely felt energized during the process and have fallen love with red. . 

Its been literally decades since I've worked on a painting. It wasn't just those negative art school critiques that made me put it aside ... it was the fact that I agreed with them. I just wasn't a very good painter. I experimented quite a bit with painting last week and I think I found a secret weapon: paper! 
Because I'm in my comfort zone as a collage artist, I decided to bring collage into my paintings to add some structure and familiarity. I'm definitely been having more fun painting than I did in art school, and I think that is a big part of it too.