Speed Trap

Speed Trap

oil on linen 30x30cm

love this little painting.  It's in Long Island, heading for the Hamptons 

the mail truck

Mail Truck

60x60cm

oil on canvas

I did a version of this, a small sketch about a year ago that went on auction. This one will be at the Saint Sulpice if my art dealer doesn't grab it first.  

Car Wash

Car Wash

30x30cm

oil on canvas

This too is for the new gallery

Happy Valentines Day

Help me decide the title of this painting

I've thought of three titles.

Tell me which one you like best and if you have another idea leave a comment.

Cruising 

is the title voted, thanks for participating

100x120 cm oil on canvas

This will be either in my show in May or in the salon in June.

I working with a different technique than normal, less alla prima. Last week my studio neighbor asked me when I was going to stop painting by numbers. I didn't flare up, offended, but I did try to justify myself.  

He said I could do better.  So I thought about it. 

He graduated from the Beaux Arts de Paris and is teaching.  I may not like his work and think he's a failure of an artist because he's a teacher. This is a rotten unfair opinion, life is different for everyone, he's younger than I, has a few kids.  I can't consider him a failure because he is teaching painting but I do.  

I thought about what he said and I like him because he says what he thinks straight in your face. 

I decided to try to paint differently and here is the result.

Thanks Phillip, you've helped me free my brush.  

You're a teacher who see people's qualities.  I appreciate your opinion.  Now get your ass in the studio and paint.

2nd painting 2013

No title yet

100X120cm oil on canvas

I hope to finish this on Friday.  No idea what title to put on it, any suggestions?

This is what it looked like Friday last

And here it was Thursday a week ago.

I love my underpaintings.  I wasn't planning so much contrast in the final version so may tone up the shadows.  What I do like is that you really step into the painting.  I know it will bring depth into the room of the person who buys it.  Like a window.

first painting of 2013

50x70cm

oil on canvas

I can't think of a title.  What should I call this?  It is not yet complete but monday will be.  

This year I'm gonna burn those brushes.  They'll be on fire from the painting that I'll do.  I've got three shows this spring and something else I'll know about in two weeks.  On top of that I'm artistic director of the end of the school party for the kindergarten where my kid goes.  All of this in June, eeks!

Last year the theme was the sea but this year it is:  Dans les Prés (in the fields) Here's an illustration for the party, got any ideas of what else is hiding in or under the fields?  Let me know PLEASE  I have to do several of these.   Sometimes fields can seem so boring but we don't think about what is hiding underneath.  My idea is to show the kids what is under the fields and hiding in them.

I have no idea what size this is, close to 100cm wide.  

It's watercolor and a sharpie pen.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

Haribo Reglisse

oil on canvas

20x20cm

Carambar

Carambar caramel

oil on canvas

10x10cm

80$

Free shipping, sent on un-stretched canvas

The last painting for 2012

Uptown Traffic

60x120cm

oil on canvas

This is the last painting I'll complete for 2012.  The paint went on easily as this is on one of those fantastic canvases stretched on one of those super lightweight bars that I order from Zecchi in Florence.  Pieraccini is who makes them but won't sell direct.

Nonetheless the price is better than buying local art supplies and the quality, no comparison.

 To think that the canvas stretchers here in Paris are dinosaurs.  Can't beat the Italian design.

Anything I post after this for the rest of the year was painted before.

chocolate eclair

Chocolate Eclair

10x10cm

oil on canvas

80 us$

The words say:

 c'est claire c'est net c'est chocolat. 

This painting is on canvas with no stretcher bars, it can be matted and framed.

Haribo L'Ourson d'Or today 121212

L'Ourson d'Or

oil on canvas

15x15 cm

So today was supposed to be the end of the word or is that supposed to happen on the 21st.

Gotham Street

Gotham Street

101x80cm

oil on linen

Of course this is a joke.  Do you read Batman?

Here is the next one, it's bigger...

I like the way it started, love the drips.   Will ever loosen up and let these "mistakes" show.  

Will I finish this one before the end of the world?  Isn't that supposed to be 21-12-2012

What a mess my palette...

155 macaron framboise

Macaron Framboise

oil on canvas 15x15cm

This macaron  is filled with Chantilly cream and surrounded by raspberries.

Cheese

Cheese

12x12cm oil on canvas

on the table cloth is written cheese in several languages.  This is a Brebis and though I bought it for the Thanksgiving dinner we attended I ended up eating most of it and had to buy more.  It was absolutely delicious, smelled heavenly and reminded me of Tuscany.

And this is the next big painting of NY that I am working on...

I like the graffiti or street art, as they call it here, on the walls of the buildings on the left.  Street Art is big in Paris, so are graphic novels.  The taggers climb high on the rooftops to spray their dropies, I wonder if they do it upside down.  It's kind of like foxes shitting in the woods, they choose the highest rocks so that their scent will be more olfactible.

Russ on Muffetard

Russ on Mouffetard

oil on linen canvas

60x60 cm

This is all about  l'heure bleu, that is the blue, hour when the citylights and the sky are both light before night. Here in Paris, during the summer, it lasts for hours.  That day Russ was there.

And here is a photo of the kids paintings from the open studio day.

Great light I have, love this place, the kids did too.

Crossing 7th

Crossing 7th

Oil and spray paint on canvas

100x150cm

I could probably work on this painting for another two weeks but for now it is finished.  I have to move on to something fresh.  

Since August 5th I've finished two large paintings.  

In my mind this one works as a whole but the individual pieces are ugly.  Not rough like the first draft of a manuscript but plain ugly.  Its a characteristic of my painting, there is a rawness to it.  So they say.

I do like the guy in the red shirt on the left. He's the focal point.  Can you guess why?

ça pète

7th Ave - unfinished

100x150cm

oil and spray paint on canvas

When someone asks me how I know a painting is finished, usually I say I don't know why, but I do know.  It is when something in the painting moves, flickers.  People think I'm kidding when I say this but then write it off because artists are all nuts.  We have the freedom to talk and walk with anyone unilaterally because we are unclassifiable. I love it.

When I was building portraits with clay -modeling not sculpting that's technically carving, I knew when I had captured the person because the eyes on the sculpture would blink. Usually after an hour or so.

Last week, during the rentré -when kids go back to school in France, I almost cut the above painting in half but instead I plodded on.  It's a pain in the arse.  Just do it, sit in that chair and paint, or stand there and paint.  I imagine it is like a writer trotting through the first draft of a long work of fiction.  Just sit down and do it, keep your butt in the chair. 

The result, in this case, is that this painting hops, not just a flicker but skipps.

Ça pète.

Here are some details

I love the abstraction of the blocking-in part.

This shows the mixture of spray paint coupled with alla prima oil technique.

Ça pète!

drawn but not done

Times Square scene,

100x150cm

oil on canvas

So this is how I start.  I project one of my photos and draw in what I think looks good to me then block in some colors.  This is a large painting that I'll finish when I get back from 5 weeks at the beach in the Mediterranean.  Eat your heart out!  

See you in August.

rue Vavin

Rue Vavin

oil on canvas 50x100cm

Some paintings paint themselves, this one did.  It feels good to paint Paris again especially this time of year when the light in the sky is blue until after 10pm, the Blue hour.

Here is a photo of the painting a few days ago, note that I start with the brightest colors.

Canal Street and the big news

Canal Street

70x100 cm oil on canvas

Here is the painting that I'm working.  Only details are left, gotta put some depth into space around the figures on the left but the idea is there.  It's been hard to concentrate after the last months preparations for what you see below...

Life is fantastic!  What  a party!