Thursday, January 31, 2008

Snow


This isn't a painting, but a picture of the snow at my house. I just thought it looked interesting.

Airport


This plane was one of my favorite toys as a kid.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Sunday Driver


This one features the Fisher Price garage. There is an orange ball lamp in the background that my parents had around the house when I was very young.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

August Carnival


Around the end of 2005 or beginning of 2006 I bought a bunch of vintage Fisher Price toys on eBay. I have many memories of playing with these toys in my early childhood. My mom had long since thrown my old toys away, so it had been years since I had seen them. It was amazing to receive these toys in the mail an examine them closely. Each little detail or feature of the toys that I examined brought back a flood of distant impressions and memories....it was really cool! The next few paintings I will post are from this "Fisher Price" series. They were a lot of fun to make. This painting is entitled "August Carnival". It is approximatley 48"x50".

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Hooray for Toast!


I think toast is way underrated. This one is from 2005

Friday, January 25, 2008

Come and See


I found a really cool "Dick and Jane" compilation book at a Wal Mart grocery store, of all places. I made 3 or 4 paintings that centered around the artwork in these books. "Come and See" is 47"x48" and was painted in 2004.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

I Saw Inside the Tower


This one was painted in 2004. In these toy paintings, I often used things like plastic sharks, mouse traps, "barrel of monkeys" monkeys and Chinese food containers. Some of the objects have special meaning to me, I like other things for their visual qualities. Sometimes the interaction and inclusion of certain objects is purposeful and sometimes an interesting connection is unintentional.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Castaway


"Castaway" (46"x47") was painted in 2004. I used to keep all of my toys separated into bins according to color. The mouse on the top of the Chinese food carton is from the game Mouse Trap.


Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Red Shark


Same size painting. The scale of the toys grows larger. I started to use glazes on this one. The edges were "softened" by scraping the surface with a scrap of wood or hitting it with an old shirt. I like the feel of it. I observed a great professor of mine, David Dornan, doing things like this to create interesting surfaces.

This one is from 2003.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Mecca


The cereal bowl is an important icon of my childhood. I ate a lot of cereal. This painting "Mecca" was made in 2002. 48"x42" oil on canvas.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Prenatal


I titled this painting "Prenatal" because the characters in the lower right of the painting seemed to be on the verge of entering a new world. Some paintings seem to almost name themselves, but others, like this one, are more difficult to title. I think titles are tricky. The title can often prevent the viewer from finding their own interpretation of the work. This piece was painted in 2001.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Patterns


Here is a painting I made in 2000. I began to explore different color arrangements and patterns with toys. This piece is called "Bullseye". I think it was about 38"x42".

Friday, January 18, 2008

Intro


To begin my blog, I thought I would post a painting I completed in 1999. It is the first painting I made that I considered a sort of "post student work"piece. I plan to start posting paintings that I am currently workin on, but for now I am going to post a few things from the past. This painting is called "Lost at See". Oil on canvas.....about 35"x40".