THE BASEMENT


This is where I keep behind the art scenes stuff ... feel free to look around but I am not sure what you will find. I dump stuff here in no particular order and with no goal in mind. It's not meant to be pretty. It's a basement after all !

The "Basement", a quick pastel on 9X12 inch water color paper. I think it will be inspiration for a larger painting I will do for Halloween in 2015. 


Below Black Gesso. 

Black gesso, sticky somewhat smelly stuff that really can make a mess. I have not had much luck using gesso as a surface for pastel. By itself it just not gritty for me and adding marble dust don't seem to help much and whenever I add sand its just too darn rough for general purpose use. If anyone has any ideas let me know. 

Above, Black Gesso mixed with sand and marble dust. I used it to sculpture the surface of Caution ( l ). The rough surface will grind up soft pastels but it does give a highly sculptured surface.  Useful in this regard. I plan to use it in future paintings. 

Hamilton Beach blender I use it to mix up sand, marble dust and black gesso. Quite a mess cleaning out the blender afterward. Clean your blender as soon as possible don't let it sit around while you paint, you will never get the blender clean. This blender was about $15.00. Note the Art Spectrum pastels in the background. Super soft some of my favorite pastels. 


Boooo !! Closeup of a scary monster I did on 9X12 paper. Based on temple gaurd from Buddhist temple in Japan. I think temple gaurds are placed at the entrances of temples to scare away those not quite ready to journey inward. Monster faces are fun to draw for beginners because even if you don't get it quite right it still looks cool.

Big black light I bought for working with Silicon Universe. Painting with UV paint is an idea I have been playing with it seems a lot of fun. Currently, it's on the back burner. Maybe, I will try some soon. 


Nice new set of Rembrant soft pastels. I love the colors but these pastels have a waxy feel to them that bugs me. The outer surface is especially waxy and while these pastels do stick better to sur

"The Lady of the House" Universe. A triangular Universe with a purplish cast to it. 


This was the sketch I did for the Sapporo beer contest entry. I used Archers cold press water color paper but primed with Art Spectrum's Ultra Blue primer. It makes a hard and gritty surface but not rough. It can take lots of layers of soft pastel. The ultra blue was excellent for sketching on with white pastel pencil. 

I am always fascinated how three dimensions can be drawn on a two dimensional surface. If our brains can be convinced we are seeing depth on a flat surface by simply drawing lines to a common vanishing point, one has to wonder what other illusions we encounter, that we are not aware of, as we move day to day through our complex world. The world as it appears is not as it really is and so our actions should be held suspect especially when they lead us to compromise human compassion.