here you see the second week's progression of a work finished in 2020.
it's the home page image I selected and parts of it serve as background imagery throughout the site.
the initial idea was spurred on by the cover of an old life magazine. The woman photographed from the back with her hands on her hips and the 70's floral dress spoke to me.
since most of my work is highly autobiographic and it was a time when porn was central to my thinking; so it was in my artwork.
i imagined a scenario with this woman pissed at Mick over his porn habit.
but then the hard trail and error work of my composition began-
how would i show in the limited static visual space the story-line of Mick and his girl?
i needed to consider many factors like- what Mick's reaction would be to her anger... (how would he stand for-instance?)
what would he be wearing?
i also had to consider her emotional state involving not just anger but also sorrow and maybe remorse.
the element of her sorrow was resolved when I devised a huge Lichtenstein-like painting of a girl yearning for pancakes.
next, i had to consider how she'd know he'd been looking at porn - and more importantly, how the viewer would know that she knew he cheated on her with pornography.
first, i placed a table set for two in the living room (which you can see in the image above).
then i devised a blow up doll (to represents Mick's porn addiction)
but i needed to hide the doll out of her sight but within the viewer of the painting's sight. it started out behind a behind a couch but I could not get the perspective angles right and made it a huge green chair.
see a picture of the chair in the image below.
there's always an unknown myriad of elements that go in to a good composition. if nay one is lacking- it will fail to tell the right story.
i'd discovered the love love painting in a book of old home design and it fit with the era and my theme perfectly so i placed it on the far left wall-
but the wall behind Mick was blank. thinking on this dilemma, i remembered- this couple was well off financially (after-all Mick was in the picture).... so I decided I wanted a Lichtenstein painting on the wall behind the couple.
you can see that at this stage in the painting I'd painted it in on the right side of the wall... but then had to consider copyright issues (as I always do). So I created my own Lictenstein-esque girl. here she is directly below. then please scroll down for more information on how I get ideas...
below is another example of getting my ideas and flushing them out....as I said- I often I begin by looking at images (like the one of the hippie bus that was sent to me by a fellow artist many years back). see image directly below- This hippie bus ended up in a couple pieces- the latest one being one with Janis Joplin that I am still working on (see the next picture as you scroll down please). The images either speak to me or they don't- when I land on one that has potential I combine it with other images and ideas them in unusual ways. The images and ideas get edited and changed a lot as I think through what I am feeling inspired to 'say' visually. Eventually a composition emerges which lines up with the initial inspiration. The initial motive for making a piece often involves an intense desire to express something about my life that I am working through. If the desire to 'get the idea out" is not strong enough- the piece of art never truly evolves and is 'stillborn' or simply not a very good piece of work. There is often this autobiographic element of my work - (with the rock and roll icons as my doppelgangers).
