NYC In The Time of Covid

 The sun was shining so brightly, but with such dark shadows.

NYC Metro Card Pigeon No. 18

2" x 3.5" oil on Metro Card

Available here.

Process shots here.

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NYC Metro Card Pigeon No. 17

 
Do you think they wonder where we’ve all gone?

NYC Metro Card Pigeon No 17
2” x 3.5” oil on Metro Card  SOLD

More Metro Card paintings available here.

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Inspired Inspiration

         

These two MetroCard paintings served as inspiration for two commissioned pieces -- same subject, but on larger 8"x10" cradled wood panels. Success!

First steps of the pigeon...

Decided to make it a bit larger on the 8"x10" panel.

Gleam in his eye.

Coffee cup  - it's our pleasure to serve you!

Finals.

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Put a bird on it

Pigeon No. 15
2.5" x 3" oil on #metrocard

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Birding

I've been returning to the Metro Card canvases of late, with a dozen or more in progress. These little pigeons were the first to dry….

First up:

 Subway Card Pigeon No. 9
2" x 3.25" oil on Metro Card



And next:

Subway Card Pigeon No. 10
2" x 3.25" oil on Metro Card

More to come…….

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Put A Bird On It Redux

Nothing could be more iconic than a New York City pigeon. Yeah, I know you've got pigeons in other cities,  but there is just something about sharing the sidewalks and streets of NYC with hordes of these "flying rats," that makes them feel uniquely New York. And truly intrepid Nw Yorkers they are.

 NYC Subway Card Pigeon No. 7
2.5" x 3" oil on metro card

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Single Fare Opening

The Single Fare 3 exhibit opened at RH Gallery in Tribeca last night -- it was jam packed with artists, collectors and art lovers. I grabbed this photo from the Single Fare 3 FB page:

People were spilling out onto the street in the cool drizzle of the evening.

There were over 2500 works submitted  - here are a few of my favorites - the roiling seascapes by Annie Wildey:

Found my own set of paintings on the western wall -- not so happy to see they posted my Empire State Building on its side. WTF? Same with the coffee cup. For god's sake............

Many artists submitted a unified series -- like these nude figures by Ingrid Cappozolli Flynn: 

Or this series of portions of a face -- just beautiful, by Alyssa Monks:

And these were really lovely, by Elizabeth Glaessner  -- they look like watercolors but I don't know how she prepped to cards to receive watercolor -- hmm, maybe gouache...........

The entire collection can also be seen online - and available for purchase -here.

Update: Two of my paintings were included in the slideshow accompanying this article,  on Transportation Nation.org..

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Pitch By My Doorstep

Yes, three little birds..........

These little creatures are among the ten paintings I've submitted to the upcoming art exhibit, Single Fare 3 at the RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street in Manhattan. All works are painted upon, or created with, NYC Metro Cards -- yeah, right up my alley.

The exhibit opens on Wednesday, February 13, 6pm-9pm and runs through February 22, 2013.

Come on down!

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Bird Flew - Part One

 John Chewitt in progress

 One might think, with all of my New York City-centric subject matter of late, that my bird paintings have flown the coop. In a sense they did - at least temporarily.  Since returning from Jamaica this summer, I invested much of my time coming up with new Metro Card paintings  and also beginning a new series of paintings of subway riders on wood blocks.

Now that I've made great progress in both of those series, and with sketches and plans in place for more, I've turned back to the tropical aviary and my bird project commission.

Next up -- John Chewitt. Yes, that's a bird. Something that took me a long time to figure out.

I'm afraid the John Chewitt, also know as the black-whiskered vireo, is not a particularly flamboyant bird. No flashy splashes of color like the Parrot, no sinewy silhouette like the Doctor Bird. Not particularly inspiring to a painter.

I don't want to offend any birders out there so I won't go so far as to say the John Chewitt is a boring-looking bird but, well, it will be a challenge. So let's get started:

charcoal sketch on canvas -- 24" x 36"

I think I made this sketch before I left for Jamaica or may have made it while on the rock. I just can't recall. Either way, the canvas had been removed from the stretcher in order to transport it to and from Jamaica so I had to re-attach it to begin painting. It was a bit buckled here and there, not fitting exactly as it had originally done. It appeared to have have shrunk slightly, particularly on the vertical and I just couldn't get it to smoothly stretch across the frame. So,  after I staple-gunned it to the stretcher, I used a spray bottle to mist water across the back of the canvas -- this would help it shrink up tightly again to the frame.


Ok, first steps -- the usual hot mess stage:

Ugh. That's always the stage that gets me slightly concerned that I'll never turn this mix up of pigment into anything resembling a bird. 

But I soldiered on.

Ok, so far so good. Things are starting to take shape.

But the neck is looking a little lumpy/jowly  to me:

So I worked on the head and neck a little more as well as spending more time with the foliage in the background. The intense blues along the bird's belly and branch don't appear quite so saturated as they do in this photo, but I guess I'd better tone them down a bit:

Which brings us back to the first image in this post:

Sweet bird, eh?

Ok, going to let this dry for a while, and then I'll return to it. Still have a long way to go.............

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Florence

 Nightingale, of course.

 I've been laboring over this little creature for several weeks and still need to change it up a bit.

Let's take it from the top: first, the clusmy sketch on the 36"x24" canvas.

Then the obligatory hot mess.

Then a little less of a mess. I rather like it at this point but am thinking my client may want more detail and clarity. Hmmmmm. Except for the fact that some of the charcoal grid is shining through, does this (below) look too unfinished to you?

So I added some more interesting patches of color and textures to the background.

Then I left it alone for a while, not sure what to do next.

When I returned I plowed through my color palette and tackled the detail of all those small wing feathers.

I started really veering into the blues for the bird body -- not sure If I like it. I may need to head back to the grays.

Close up - 

Ok, that's all for now. Sometimes I can see what's right and what's wrong only after taking a photo -- why that would be, I don't know. Maybe a more technical "eye" on the subject is more objective.

Think I will be making our little Florence Nightingale much more of a cool-gray character rather than such an intense cobalt or cerulean blue. 

More to come!

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Bird Orchestra

Just realized I never shared this photo of my Jamaican birds all together -- at least so far. I have 8 more to paint and have made significant progress on the next one up -- Nightingale. Will share it shortly...

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Cling-A-Cling CLING!

It never occurred to me that Cling-Cling, as with so many of the other oddball names assigned to the cottages and rooms of the Whistling Bird, was, well, a bird.

Turns out that the Cling-Cling (or Kling-Kling) is also known as the Jamaican Antillean Grackle. According to my sources,  these sable-colored, glossy birds "love handouts and scraps of food ... and are quite adept at stealing food so as not to share with other birds." They also have a fondness for the nuts of the Royal Palm tree (as shown in this detail from my painting.)

But I get ahead of myself.  Let's go back to the beginning.

My Cling-Cling began as a frumpish little tart, rather than the regal and imposing figure he eventually became. Here's how he started out:

Like I said, frumpish tart.

I didn't much like his attitude.

When I stretched this canvas back onto the stretchers here in Jamaica, I gave him the once-over and decided he needed a new pose. I tried to rub away the charcoal with my paint thinner so I could re-draw the bird. I didn't make much headway in erasing that first pose. It just wouldn't go away.

So I just took up a paintbrush and, using a couple of entirely different photo references I found online, I  began to block out a different form for my Cling-Cling. I used a deep prussian blue, and then blocked in the background in oranges and yellows, completely obliterating the aforementioned frumpish tart.

He's looking a bit raven-ish here, no? A bit spooky, a bit Edgar Allen Poe-ish. I found out much later that there is also a superstition about the Cling-Cling down here in Jamaica - oh nevermind, just go look it up yourself. 

Gooosebumps.

Anyway - I was happy with that silhouette but needed to tamp down that bright orange. Too garish. And so, I layered on some paint, looking for a more golden yellow color.

Or maybe a more buttery yellow? I decided I was going to add that nut/seed in his beak, which would be a brilliant orange color, so I really wanted it to pop off the background. That idea made me really tone down the oranges in the background, even though I did like them as shown above. The yellows became lemony, with hints of green.

After adding the Royal Palm nut in his beak, I decided to softly add a bit of palm leaves into the background. He looks a bit less menacing now, too.

Except for those claws -- they look pretty vicious!

Look for Cling-Cling to be hanging in his eponymous cottage at Whistling Bird, Negril, Jamaica.

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