And the show is on!

Here is a little update on "Recent Paintings on Burlap II". The show is hanging since today in the morning and it looks really nice in the cafe. I was a bit worried at first because the cafe has yellowish walls and I was not sure how the subtle earth tones would work on that. But once the pieces were hanging I noticed it works perfectly, so I'm happy. Below are a couple of photos as proof and as an appetizer - I hope it will make you go there and see for yourself.

As a reminder: We do have a "meet the artist reception" this coming Tuesday, from 5:30 - 7pm at the cafe. We'll have coffee and little treats, so if the art won't make you show up, maybe the food will - he he he. If you plan to come, please let me know by email or just comment here, just so I get a better idea how many people we can expect (roughly).

I hope you'll make it. Till Tuesday! More info in the previous blog post...

Recent Paintings on Burlap 2

Finally the dates for the new show are cast in stone. The show will go up on September 29 (in the morning) and will run till October 26th.

Location: Cafe Pomegranate, 221 E. San Fernando St., San Jose, CA 95112 [cafe web site] [map]
Cafe Hours: Mon - Thu 7:30am - 7pm, Fri 7:30am - 5:30 pm
Meet the artist: Tue October 3rd from 5:30 - 7pm
Ask at the cafe for free parking for cafe patrons (4th Street garage)

The show will contain some of the same pieces on burlap I showed at the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company in June (hand-made oils on burlap) [link to blog entry] but it will also show new works where I went into a slightly different direction: where the earlier pieces contained only earth tones, the new pieces use intense, bright colors, with many blues. These pieces explore the strong contrast between the warm tone of the natural fabric support and the intense colors I put on these supports.

Instead of just using burlap, I cut open coffee bags (donated by the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company), stretched them on standard stretcher bars, and then painted on those. One of my goals was to incorporate much of the unmodified coffee bag into the designs, especially where the bag shows interesting markings and labeling to start with.

Interestingly, many of the bags are actually a much coarser fabric than burlap. I believe these bags are made out of Sisal, although I could not confirm that yet. In any case, their weave is much coarser and the fabric is also lighter in color. On several of the pieces I used collage of paper on the fabric to locally control the coarse texture. I hope you'll agree that the overall effect is quite interesting.

These pieces got me started thinking along quite different lines of work than I had before. For instance, I'm considering incorporating back-lighting into future work to make use of the wide-open weave and to incorporate the lighting emerging from the piece into the overall work. But that's just one of several ideas I'd like to explore over the next few months :)

Just a few postcards...

Just because I have not posted many updates lately, doesn't mean I was entirely idle. Actually I was working on a number of new pieces over the past 2 months, but some of them are done in a relatively time consuming technique, using a large number of glazes. The results are very interesting (dare I say pretty?) but it just takes a while if you work in oils (each layer has to dry properly before you do the next and if you don't work on them every week, well, time adds up). I'll post an update on those some time soon.

I also painted several pieces in acrylic (for a change) on very coarse fabric. Some of these are on burlap, others on even coarser material. I am using coffee bags as support and I don't always know what material they really are. I have a hunch that some of these bags are made out of sisal. At least three of these pieces will be in my upcoming show at Cafe Pomegranate and I will post an update on them in the blog as well.

As I mentioned before, I occasionally do small prints as exercises... They are post-card sized and I actually have sent some of them as greetings to friends. I intend to continue doing that whenever the fancy strikes me. Typically I make just a few copies of each (like 5-10 or so) and they are often done in different colors. They are fun. :) Let me know what you think of that idea, and your feedback will hopefully encourage me to make more of them...

This one shows a view in Santa Cruz on West Cliff Drive (I love that part of Santa Cruz!). Of course the view is actually the other way round, I was just too lazy to mirror the design before cutting it into the plate...