My Art Story - The Birth of the Dots

Okay - to understand this post you have to read the two previous ones. At least. Hopefully you have read every single post I have ever written and are hanging on every word! But I digress....
As you have read, my art theory had evolved over a few months. I had gone through the phase of mixing colors on my palette and simply applying them to the canvas...to experimenting with keeping the colors separate but layered and juxtaposed in such a way as to force the color mixing to occur in the viewer's eyes not on the canvas.
It worked in a rough way but I wanted more. I wanted the effect to be more rigidly controlled. I wanted the canvas to vibrate as the colors co-mingled but didn't mix.
I had been using a crosshatch stroke which I synthesized down to it's very essence - the dot.
I started by painting the canvas with one layer of color. Then covering the entire canvas with one color of dots in a grid pattern - not randomly. Again I will use "orange" as my example. To achieve the color "orange" in this "dot" method, I would first paint a layer of red then cover the entire canvas with a layer of small yellow dots in a grid pattern. The effect was exactly what I was looking for - the two colors mingled to create orange! And not just orange but a vibrating field of orange. Vibrating and alive and moving! And yet both colors remained separate too.Here is a first try: This is called "Wallpaper" because that was what I was trying to make it look like. It even has a fly on it.The background color was pink, then I added a layer of red dots, then yellow....Then painted the flower "design" in different blues and finally I added the fly and his shadow! Ultimately what I was doing was taking the color down to it's component parts. I don't know if you can see the effect here but in person they are very cool!

This next picture is a nude done in dots. The background color is yellow and each succeeding layer of dots was meant to coax the shape out of the background. Like sculpting with color. It's rough looking but it's all done by hand - and that started to be a problem!This was turning out to be a time consuming art form! I needed to work... and eat and sleep! Sometimes each piece seemed to take forever, depending on it's size. So I figured I could automate it somewhat by learning screenprinting. This next example - also a nude - was done as a screenprint. What this screenprint technique loses from the immediate, frantic look when it is hand done, it gains in being able to create many prints from one design. However, I still needed to make each screen of dots by hand! But in this example below, I had discovered that you can buy pages of machine-made dots, I think made by Letraset. So I used them to make the screens. And while the perfection that resulted has it's own beauty, there was charm in the pieces using handmade dots. And so that was my exploration of dots. This all happened from 1977 through about 1988 or so. Life moved on and I had to get jobs, pay the bills, get out and meet people, etc. But I was happy with my discovery. I hadn't been influenced by anyone or any other art philosophy, even though they may be out there. Thanks for reading this!!

My Art Story 2 - Color Theory Develops

Welcome to the latest installment of my art history and theory! Back in February I wrote that I had dropped out of college in 1977 and spent a year painting outdoors in my native Western New York.
I worked in oil paints and used only the three primary colors and white.Here is an example of a "typical" painting. As I painted, though, I struggled to get the colors to look like the scene.
Now, that is what all artists do, right?
We try to capture the scene: paint the sky blue and the grass green.
Well I started to see that the sky isn't "blue" and the grass isn't "green".
I found that I couldn't mix the colors together well enough on my palette to capture what I was seeing.
I was no longer content to mix paints on my palette and apply them to the canvas.
I realized that the colors I was seeing were swirling...there was no one color happening in that sky, there were many.
And the trees and grass weren't one color either.
The colors I was painting up to then were too "fixed" and
had no movement or life to them.
So I decided to experiment one day and just swirl the colors around as best I could -
not on my palette but on the actual canvas.
Here is the outcome. It isn't "pretty" but it was a breakthrough for me.
The colors I was seeing were moving and were mixing together in my eyes and mind. I realized in that moment how the viewer must bring him/herself to the thing being viewed.If you notice in this close-up, each color is separate and yet in relation to every other color around it. The colors blend together as you look at them - and this is especially true the farther back you get from the painting.
At the same time I was uncovering my own art within me, I was entranced by Vincent Van Gogh's work. My color theories were evolving and I was finding that within each color lies it's opposite.
We are all aware of the experiment where you stare at a blue dot for a while and then when you look at a white wall, you will see an orange dot - blue's opposite color.
As I painted this scene shown here, I was staring into the bright morning sun coming up over a hill.
I took that position on purpose to force myself to see - experience - a full range of colors from darkest shadows to brightest sunshine, and to barely be able to see at all!! I was no Van Gogh but I was on to something!
Here is Van Gogh's "The Sower". Notice how he creates the hot feel of that morning sun by painting it using not only the typical oranges and yellows we associate with "sun" but with the opposite colors: blues and purples. He captured the full range of the color "experience" of a bright sunrise.
To be continued...