July 2011 Production Summary

Here's July. The plan is to have a monthly update/gallery post like this one that shows all the hilights of the month. Maybe I'll have a dog show every so often of those that don't make the cut. Anyway, I'm also going to document some of the technical stuff too like applying water and paint as well as the mechanics. There's going to be a post soon about using raw canvas; photos will be in them.

But for now, here's the "art." PS: The island pix aren't finished.

First up is a photo of the "face" in development on "Face-Melting Mind-Blowing Bluesrock Guitar Onstage."


















Next is the title after finishing "Face-Melting Mind-Blowing Bluesrock Guitar Onstage."























Here's some detail of the face after finishing "Face-Melting Mind-Blowing Bluesrock Guitar Onstage." Can you spot the homage to "Slash," the burning cig butt?

























"Icy Blue Heart" is the name and oddly, I didn't realize I'd been listening to John Hiatt's song of the same name about an hour or two earlier until just now. I'm using a shake-the-canvas technique I watched Deshawn play with. I'm gonna use more of that.
























OK, if I name the paintings then you HAVE to see what I'm trying to paint, huh? This one is "Mercedes 3," as I'm using the name "Mercedes" as the female in all my paintings, at least until I find another such muse. Kidding. I hope I can learn to draw a small bit better.

























"The Devil Wears Ray-ban," can you see it now?
























This is part of a series of islands/charter paintings I'm working on. The theme is a closeup of the flag of record for various boats and locations where I sailed, showing highlights of the island locales. In the case of this one, the locale is the large ocean to the stern of the boat as we run before a squall. But, it's Guadleoupe, French West Indies.






















Using the WDP to paint landscapes is hard and I need a lot of practice. This is the southeast side of St. John, USVI, just past Cruz Bay heading across to Norman Island from the Caribbean side of the chain.

























This one is a bit trickier, it's "Tahiti01." An experiment with raw canvas, stretching, as well as WDP, this is just a roll-up, unmounted draft during development.

PS: Need to add that acrylics react to WDP

differently than oils, again depending on pigments. The consistency of the medium matters too if I may borrow from McLuhan; thicker acrylic mixes do not blend well with water or oil, for that matter.

Using water alone as a dilutent for the acrylics doesn't produce desireable or predictable results in all cases. I had great fortune with a batch of watered-down near-liquid acrylic turquoise, but can't get anywhere near the same diffusion effect out of a heavy red. Go figure.

Poor Man's Stretch and the Paint Report

Let's bang those out in reverse order.

I do like Rustoleum as the liquid oil medium. However, not all pigments react the same with the oil and the water. The blues tend to float a bit, then disperse the water while the heavy greens tend to sink and displace much more than they float and disperse (90 percent sink, the rest floats).

Masking tapes, small lines of clear glue such as Elmer's, even careful application of water on a level canvas can all control the spread of the paint. One need not create deep wells, outlines and molds into which to pour the liquids. However, it is demanding when it comes to creating a specific image, from island to detail on a flag on a boat, for example. Harder than "regular" drawing.

More or less:

1 gal each R. Gloss White, Gloss Black, Sail Blue oils
qts each of green, safety blue, purple, gray, silver, aluminum, red oils
qts each of yellow, navy, white, green, black, red acrylics
small cans of yellow, brown, and sand oils
various tube acrylic and oils
pumice gel
1 gal gesso

150 mounted 1" canvases, varying sizes (16x20 up)
80 yards of 52-inch rolled, once gessoed Frederick's canvas

I set up the workspace with several folding tables, creating a U-shaped flat area of about 52 square feet, roughly uniform height. There is also room on another table area elsewhere for additional storage and drying. All tools and working paints are easily managed on the U, as are up to three 30x40 inch canvases (and some change left over for a small piece or two) in various stages of production.

I keep the paint in tattoo ink bottles of different sizes, 2-oz to 16-oz, some with nozzles that can vary the flow. While I do dip in the larger paint containers with ladles up to four ounces in content and apply that directly to canvas, too, I find the nozzled bottles to be a great way to control flow and keep paint handy in closed containers.

The raw canvas MUST be gessoed, at least twice more. And stretched. Otherwise it wrinkles with moisture in the air, and when I apply a cup or five of water to it and the oil paints it turns into the hairless surface of an ice-cold scrotum almost, with wrinkles. I jest, but you get the point.

I opted for a 1/4" 48x48 piece of plywood with four rugged clamps -- much like the clamps on a battery charger but without the jagged teeth -- so I can at least fight the wrinkles. It's not a clear win with the stretch like a full mounting would offer, but it's OK for what I want to do now.

And that is burn the bulk canvas with hands-on training.

I chose the one-inch mounts for compromise reasons. One, with Aaron Brothers biannual one-cent sale I could get two for the price of one. While the two-inch mounts look more cool and professional when hanging alone on a wall, the one-inchers don't look bad and more to the point can be framed, I think, easier and more affordably.

While not every painting needs a frame, a lot of people want the frame as much as the painting. So, I paint to look good either way. It really doesn't matter to me, the frame argument, at least not now.

Quick word or two

Still without decent camera, so no new work can I show. Here's a revisit to the very first water diffusion process (WDP) piece I did:



I'm working on a series of ocean views based on charter sailing. One is almost complete. I'm quite proud of them, will put them up when I've got camera.

Rustoleum is a great paint for oceans, by the way, especially their "Sail Blue." Gotta buy a gallon of that stuff. I can tell I under-stocked the studio by about 200 percent or more. Uh oh.

Picasso Lowbrow: An experiment, a quest

My name is Martin Burch. While not an artist per se, my education and professional career encompassed several aspects of different artstic endeavors, from visual -- photography, graphic design -- to writing and public speaking: Both are arts, if also skills.

Through a twist of fate I'll save for another post -- and I don't believe in uppercase "F" fate -- I'm now embarked on a new journey, both creative and professional. I'm going to try my hand at painting, specifically. Canvases, not houses.

I started painting in earnest in 1989, getting far enough along over the next decade or so such that I had produced several hundred pieces of work of quality from sadly laughable to decent in a wide-ranging selection of sizes and media. One of my favorite pieces still is a 4x6 feet acrylic on plywood. Thing weighs a freaking TON. I was an OK amateur. Here's one of my primitives, what I call "t-shirt" art since I was inspired by t-shirt designs on Caribbean sailing trips:



In addition to the t-shirt art, I dabbled in what, modernism? Abstract? I really need to take an art class. I saw on "Inegnious Minds," a new cable tv show about savants, this episode featurning a fellow who is a wondrous modern artist. Anyway, in overcoming the limitations of his savantism yet retaining its qualities he used a word I'd never heard. He was describing a person such as himself who never had any art classes or training and produced work solely for themselves, never intending to show or sell it. That was me early on with painting. Wish I'd heard that word better and remembered it. They say memory is the second thing to go, I can't remember what's first, but I seem to try and think about it when filling my Cialis prescription. Here's a sample of early abstract:



I showed work here and there but nothing came of it. A period of dormancy hit. After 2004 I didn't touch paint or pen until 2011.

But the muse returned to me, along with an opportunity to try and move beyond where I was. This blog is going to chart that journey.

First, the title. My thoughts are that most fine art is overpriced. Good for me. However, fine art is a mighty broad label to apply, and what some consider art some do not. However, I think there is a happy medium for the cheapskate (I jest) who thinks the painting of a sailboat on the bay is art while an out-of-focus twisting French clocktower is insanity, and the artiste who labors with his craft and obsession.

I recently visited the Cambria coast in California, reknown for its wines (featured in the film "Sideways," I'd worship Sandra Oh in a HEARTBEAT) San Luis Obispo and the university and high-tech industries such as they are, and art. Lots of art. Lots and lots of lots of art. And artists.

Looking in the more upscale and I assume successful galleries, as well as in some of the more mundane and routine locales for retail art, such as garden shops, I noticed what was "for sale" was primarily landscapes or representation of landscape items (such as ceramic cacti).

Oddly, these multi-thousand dollar works are the same things the cheapskates like -- landscapes. So, I wondered, what if...

Let's merge some of the tricks of the fine arts trade and techniques with the type of scenics and landscapes the lower-scale market expects. The thought is to go for high-quality, rewarding and personally satisfying production yet make it in sufficient quantities (uniqueness will matter) and appropriate sizes so that even modest budgets can afford "real art."

So, Picasso Lowbrow is the name I give the cheapskates to whom I will try and dedicate this new career.

Learning the completely new style of painting I'm presently attempting, a style inspired by my friend Buzz Siler, is something I will also document on this blog. I'll use the word "tech" in the post header when it's about the water diffusion process (WDP) as I call it. Think watercolors using oils. It's hard to tame, difficult to control, messy, and a whole lot of fun. As you can see in my profile photo, a sample of the new process, it's nothing like what I used to create.

Business and art, with of course my opinions and heart-on-my-sleeve approach to posting. Learning fine art and bringing it to people who will be surprised to find they appreciate it. Piscasso Lowbrow.