Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 4

The last week of the Experimental Drawing Techniques class was spent creating Exquisite Corpse drawings. For those not familiar, Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative drawing/painting technique where you continuously create a piece of art based on what was created previously. This technique was originally practiced in the 1920's by the Surrealists, who combined mind-altering substances with intuitive and improvised art making.

For this particular exercise, we folded pieces of paper into quarters and then each person created a "panel" and passed it on to the next person. The next person didn't know what you made but was able to play off of some colors, shapes, or lines that bled onto their panel.Then they created something in response to what you created, and passed it on...and so on...

Here are some example panels I created:







And here's a finished piece of one Exquisite Corpse drawing I started:




Finally, here are all the Exquisite Corpse drawings from the class:



Overall, a very good class that I got a lot out of. It brought on some new creative ideas but also loosened me up and helped me develop ideas and create in different ways. Particularly, I had fun experimenting with ink and drawing objects from different perspectives while giving them unusual textures.

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 3

This week's class helped me break free more than expected but also helped me focus. We were assigned to bring in an object - something mundane that might evoke an emotion or personal meaning.

I chose to bring in a rubber door stop from my studio:



We sketched the objects during various warm-up exercises:






Then added textures, rubbings, masking and more media that created some interesting abstractions:







The Storyteller

I created "The Storyteller" last month for my wife's birthday. It was a secret project I worked on and surprised her with it when she came home from a business trip.

She's a writer and reads her stories around town at various live literary events. She also a former actress and improv performer. So, I wanted to capture her creative spirit with this painting.

The Storyteller, acrylic on canvas, 30x40, 2012, not for sale

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 1

Last week, I started an experimental drawing techniques class. A lot of the theories and techniques are based on Surrealism. It was a fun first class -- learning some new techniques and playing around with different materials. Below are the results of the first class.

Acrylic ink, watercolor, and conté crayon art sticks on Bristol paper. The last one is on Yupo paper - a smooth, translucent vellum material.





I'll be posting more images from each class for the next few weeks...



exploring - random city images

I've been making it a point to go to different neighborhoods every week to walk around and take photos. Recently I've gravitated toward West Town, East Village, and Wicker Park. Before that it was Fulton Market/West Loop that inspired my new city abstracts series.

This neighborhood exploring has inspired some new abstracts and mixed media pieces and all around experimentation for my art. I fought the changes in my art a little but have decided to let these experiments just take me for a ride. I even signed up for an experimental drawing class to continue developing new ideas.

Anyway, here are some of the photos from my jaunts around town...













Static Abstractions - works in progress

This has been a month of abstract experiments and trying out new ideas for paintings. For the last few weeks I've been working and re-working the below paintings. I've been using different techniques such as masking, screen printing, drawing with paint markers and conte crayons to build up the many layers.

You can see through to previous layers much like what you might see on an old building with peeling paint and old signage or paste-ups. Still more to go on all of these (or maybe they'll morph into something else). There's a lot going on in these (and on my mind lately) so I'm calling them Static Abstractions.