Almost finished

It's nearly finished in this photograph - actually it's completely done but I won't post the final image until it's professionally photographed.  But, until then here it is in a close to finished state.  The challenge left at this point was to figure out what would be on the pages of the book...  Stay tuned a picture of the completed painting will be posted in a couple weeks or so.

Painting this incredibly abundant bunch of bananas brought up a word most of us don't know or ever use - fecund.  It's a very descriptive word and one which I hope will inspire some new paintings...

fe·cund

   [fee-kuhnd, -kuhnd, fek-uhnd, -uhnd]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit,vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful: fecund parents; fecund farmland.

2.

very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund       years of the Italian Renaissance.

It Looks Like Progress But...

...sometimes it's an amazingly tedious process of adding something, taking it away, adding it again, and so on, etc.  This is particularly true of the background space, specifically the sky.  I've been working on this section alone for a few days, continuously tweaking the color and light until I feel it's right.  Then, I'll start to approach the objects in the foreground which will in turn cause me to have to make changes to the sky!  It's an endless back and forth - once that dance feels complete then I know the painting is done.

Slowly taking shape --

Bananas!! (actually plantains).  I'm basing the bunch of plantains on a photograph I took when I lived in New Orleans in the mid 1990's.  While driving down the street one day I saw that someone had cut off this enormous bunch of green plantains and placed it on the sidewalk to be picked up with the trash.  I found it beautiful and extremely exotic so I took it back to my studio, hung it from the ceiling and photographed it.  I did a couple paintings using this image back then and am happy to be revisiting it now, about 15 years later.

A New Painting Begins...

Some combination of these elements will soon come together in a new painting.  I'll keep you posted...

St. Regis, Monarch Beach, CA

Last week Mark & I took a vacation to Laguna Beach, CA.  It was a great trip;  perfect weather, time on the beach, sleeping late - all the fun vacation stuff.  Because we were so close by we decided to drive a few miles down the coast to the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort.  About 10 years ago the hotel commissioned me to do two large paintings for the lobby, one is behind the reception desk - it about 3-1/2' high x 14' wide.  The other is directly across the lobby and is behind the concierge desk.  I was able to finally see them in place - 10 years later!  They look FABULOUS!!  Unfortunately only one shot came out OK - here's the painting behind the reception desk -

Art Hamptons, International Fine Art Fair

My work will be on exhibit at this year's Art Hamptons, an international fine art fair July 8-10, 2011.  My gallery in Sag Harbor, NY - Richard J. Demato Fine Art will be exhibiting at the fair.  In addition, he will be exhibiting my work at his gallery in Sag Harbor so it looks like it will be hard to miss seeing my paintings this week in the Hamptons!    Here's a link to Art Hamptons: Art Hamptons.

To see what I'll be showing at both the art fair and at Richard J. Demato go to his website:  Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery.  

Disaster paintings

Last week I was sort of whining in an email to an old friend who is also a VERY good painter about the ongoing smoke from the various fires around us as well as feeling a bit "stuck" as to what to paint next.  Her simple reply was: "paint the smoke".  Good advice and so I did.  After "The Wildfire" was finished I thought about the seemingly endless reports of floods and tornados this spring and early summer so decided to paint those as well. I chose to paint these in a small format - 11"x14" ovals.  I like the kind of vintage look they offer and I also painted them in a monochromatic sepia tone.  I don't want to simply document these events - that's for the documentary photographers.  Rather, I wanted to make these very difficult occurrences appear beautiful and dreamlike for a just a moment.

By the way, please visit my good friend Ricki Klages' website and enjoy her paintings: http://rickiklages.com/home.html.

The Wildfire, The Flood and The Tornado