dot art

Third Place Not Under Glass, Again!

2013-04-27T17:57:00.000-05:00

Friday morning I entered art into an art show competition sponsored by the Metairie Art Guild. It was held at the Clearview Mall in Metairie. Participants designated three pieces to be part of the judging. Anyway, my acrylic painting, "Once," was awarded third place in the Not Under Glass Category. The judge was Tanya Dischler. This is the second time I've won third place for this painting.

I Has Canvases!

2013-04-23T18:22:00.000-05:00

Today I traveled to the Bywater area to pick up my canvases from New Orleans Art Supply on Royal Street. These canvases are future dot paintings. The small boxes contain threes of 5" x 5" gallery wrap canvases. The box on the right contains three 20" x 20" canvases. I have plenty of work ahead of me.

et

2013-04-19T23:51:00.000-05:00

For several years I've enjoyed viewing time lapse videos on a YouTube Channel called RinpaEshidan. The artists continuously paint over parts of collaborative murals and installations. Below is one of my favorite videos from the channel. The murals are simply painted in only black and white.

The 5" x 5" format limited my painting detail, but I painted anyway. I stuck with simple shapes and representations of a fish and underwater plant life. In the end I decided to leave the background areas solid without dots.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

es

2013-04-15T23:34:00.000-05:00

A few years ago there was a local restaurant called Semolina's Bistro Italia on Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans. My family enjoyed dining there for several special occasions. Each of us enjoyed specific dishes. Being the artist, of the group, I also appreciated the decor of the place.

Anyway, I felt that I needed to make a dot painting based on my visits to the restaurant. I started with a black background. Then I added metallic paint dots to the background using four different colors mimicking the arrangement of artworks I saw. Below is
the result.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

Third Place Not Under Glass

2013-03-09T21:30:00.000-06:00

This morning I entered art into an art show competition sponsored by the Jefferson Art Guild. It was held at the Clearview Mall in Metairie. Participants designated three pieces to be part of the judging. Anyway, my acrylic painting, "Once," was awarded third place in the Not Under Glass Category. The judge was Carol Scott.

Numeros

2013-02-18T00:39:00.000-06:00

Another slideshow has been in my head for a while. Well, I finally got around to making it. The dot paintings in this slide show are from my "Numeros Series." From the beginning I was inspired by a Mexican vibe. The video below is what resulted from my vision.

1 min 47 sec

Circle Madness

2013-02-06T21:45:00.000-06:00

ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Spots on Rocks

2012-12-30T22:20:00.000-06:00

graphite on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Tangled Coins

2012-12-08T21:55:00.000-06:00

graphite on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Poydras Home Art Show

2012-11-10T00:20:00.000-06:00

The Poydras Home Art Show was Saturday and Sunday, November 3rd and 4th, 2012. I completed the last three paintings for that show. The three paintings were hung together in the front hall. The three canvases hanging together made me think of a face.

Dieciocho

2012-11-06T00:36:00.000-06:00

On my third canvas, in this bunch, I added random dots in the center. Then I went back to the dot pattern I used in my earlier two paintings to finish. The brillance of color makes this my favorite one.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Diecisiete

2012-11-02T00:33:00.000-05:00

Below is my second dot painting from this grouping. Again I painted dots in concentric circles. I varied my colors a lot more in this one.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Dieciséis

2012-10-29T23:30:00.000-05:00

Tonight I finished my latest painting from the "Numeros" series. Each time I paint with dots, I learn more about the interaction of colors. Anyway, when I finished, I was excited about the illusion depth in my image.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Seventh Year!

2012-10-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

Seven years ago I created this blog about my dot art. In that time I have discussed the evolution of my paintings, my process for creating each new piece and my influences along the way. This blog has become part of my process as I write about these works and as I respond to comments and questions.

Although Hurricane Katrina was seven years ago, I’ve been reminded of the dangers of such storms several times since then. Four years ago, Hurricane Gustav precipitated my forced evacuation. One year ago Tropical Storm Lee hovered over the area for too long. Then this past August, Hurricane Isaac made an indecisive and dragged out path through this area.

Hurricane Issac was very frustrating because forecasters couldn’t predict accurately
its landfall nor its strength. After the storm, it was a while before homes and businesses had power restored. Fortunately, I never lost power. I only had to replace some ceramic roof tiles.

Too bad I wasn’t inspired to paint while cooped up inside during the Isaac drama. My efforts would have been a waste of paint. Not until the end of September did I start in on the paintings for the annual art show at Poydras Home. Each year I have submitted three new works for the show.

Stacks of small canvases await coats of paint and dots as I write this. Seven years have passed and I’m still creating more of these. People still want them. Last spring marked the tenth year I’ve been painting this way and last summer marked the shift to painting smaller canvases. Anyway, I need to paint . . .

Phase II, Third of Three

2012-10-09T01:00:00.000-05:00

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Phase II, Second of Three

2012-10-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Phase II, First of Three

2012-09-15T03:04:00.000-05:00

Phase II marks a second coat of acrylic paint. Here is the first of three. Phase III will involve "the dots." Stay tuned for more.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Phase I, Third of Three

2012-09-11T15:48:00.000-05:00

And finally this is the third painting of three. I decided to use cool colors on it. So far I'm not sure of the color of the dots.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Phase I, Second of Three

2012-09-07T15:47:00.000-05:00

This is the second painting of these three. I used warmer colors in it. At this point, I'm not sure what color the dots will be.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Phase I, First of Three

2012-09-03T15:38:00.000-05:00

So now I have begun work on the next three paintings in the "Numeros Series." I've painted the first coat and sealed it with gloss acrylic. It may change with the next coat. The dots are applied last.

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Hurricane Isaac

2012-08-30T22:00:00.000-05:00

Hurricane Isaac hit the new Orleans area on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The storm wasn't officially recognized as a "hurricane" until the 10 p.m. report. Official reports are given at 10 a.m. & p.m. and 4 a.m. & p.m. The storm took forever to become organized. It also took forever to pass through this area. Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana around the same time in 2008.

Evacuation, for Isaac, was voluntary in my immediate area. Lower lying areas had mandatory evacuations. Since Isaac was not expected to be as strong a storm as some previous ones, I decided to stay put. But I knew from past experiences that a tropical storm could still mean high winds and/or flooding.

When Isaac's winds had finally died down enough, I looked outside to see if I had any roof damage. One of my ceramic roof ridge tiles had fallen on my driveway and shattered. Some of the other tiles were simply displaced. So, this storm fell somewhere between Katrina (most) and Gustav (least). Other people in the region had much more damage.

This storm had me too agitated to paint. However I did render some sketches that I will post on my blog art at random. Look for them in the near future.

Dot Density

2012-07-12T20:20:00.002-05:00

Previously I made a graphite drawing in which I varied the darkness of my dots. I called it Shades of Gray. For this sketch I used a Sharpie Fine Point to create dots of different sizes. I varied the distance between the dots.

dotartdude

2012-06-11T00:22:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago I created eight dot paintings. To celebrate the anniversary I created a video slideshow. Here are the paintings in their order of evolution. Enjoy!

56 sec

er

2012-06-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

The same "Art for Art's Sake" night I also saw works by Mark Bradford. The large pieces looked like overhead images of cities. Some of them had collage elements in them. So, I decided I wanted to go on my own visual tangent.

First I settled on some colors for a palette beginning with red, white and black for my background areas. Then I repeated the colors, adding yellow, in the form of dots as I created shapes. Along the way I ended up with something more digital looking. Well, anyway, that's how my process went.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

eq

2012-06-03T23:42:00.000-05:00

A few paintings back, I mentioned attending "Art for Art's Sake." That same night, I saw the work of Gretchen Weller Howard. Well, the painting below is what resulted from seeing her work. Of course I went off on my own tangent.

Yes, my dot painting turned out bright and cheerful. Figuring out what I wanted to do over the pastel colored background took a couple of months. Anyway, I finished it. Enjoy.

acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"