Two Action Painting Studies

Since there were no official courses beyond Painting II at Mississippi State, it was up to a student to contract a teacher to teach a “one-on-one” course. I did several of these. They excited me because they were more individualized and I usually did well with a final grade. First a course outline had to be proposed by the student and accepted by the professor. Invariably each art professor changed the course of the class after the first project. Instead of cramming in a bunch of new techniqueshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif I was interested in, the art professor pushed me to continue with images begun in the first piece.

These two studies were created in a contract course that involved abstract painting. The art professor often worked surreally developing imagery from abstract shapes from “happy accidents.” He also enjoyed creating collages. The two pieces below were made prior to Swirl in Paint.

A Different Path

The three paintings below began as grid paintings. I then splattered them with thin acrylic. To finish, I went back and painted out some areas. The pieces leave me a bit ambivalent, but I did take these down a different artistic path.

Sunshine

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 16"

Black & White

20 summers ago I was playing with techniques I learned during 85/86 at Mississippi State. I decided I needed to try painting in black and white before returning to color.

Herd

acrylic on canvas, 9" x 12"

Bloody Mess

I painted this painting 20 years ago. The assignment for this piece was to create an abstract painting on ungessoed canvas. I glazed colors over one another as I developed this piece. As I worked across the piece I implied faces in the details. My instructor had me include a figure. Some people have asked if the figure was male or female. I decided to leave that ambiguous.

This piece is not typical for me. Since it's Halloween, I figured I'll start this blog with this one. What I learned during this process influenced my later works.


acrylic on ungessoed canvas, 26" x 42"