Fogged in during the last days of winter

Days of fog …

30×40

Santa Monica has been soaked in fog for so many days I’ve lost count. I have been continuing to work on some abstracts that were influenced by my trip to Portugal. I am posting a couple here that are hanging in an office now. The larger piece took some weeks to complete. I layered paint on it to resemble the way paint is layered on walls in Los Angeles. I often see squares painted over concrete to cover graffiti. The layers start to peel after time, weathered by sun and the moist film left after fog settles in for a night.

Sun bleached tiles

The second painting, the smaller of the two, is a bit creamier, like sun bleached tile near the beach. I’m not sure exactly where I have seen this, but it may have actually been inland Mexico in Cuernavaca. I remember someone saying that Cuernavaca is a city of walls.

Walls

To me, walls represented the separateness that plagues communities. Walls keep neighbors from knowing each other, although Robert Frost wrote that “Good fences make good neighbors” in the poem Mending Wall. However, it isn’t Frost’s words, the saying is a 17th century proverb. Frost though ruminates on walls: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out / And to whom I was like to give offense.” I wrote a poem after the visit to Cuernavaca, reflecting on the walled in residents of the city and how it feels to be walled in. It was published in an online at http://www.moriapoetry.com/falin.html …

Walls as art

This work is an attempt to turn the walls I see every day into an inspiration. If you drive around Los Angeles, walls take on various meanings depending on the materials used to create the wall, how its aged and weathered, and what people have added to it.

Walling in or walling out

I had the fortunate experience to live in a neighborhood without fences for a few years. I can remember walking to school through yards. I knew all my neighbors – good or bad – they knew me, too. There was a sense of freedom when I lived without fences and could run through the neighborhood to the park, school or a friend’s house. In spite of the feeling of separateness that a wall can invoke, there are some interesting and even beautiful walls. The second painting makes me think of a beach side wall, creamy colored, but sun bleached – maybe close to a hot tub.

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Spring finally did show up

The first day of spring passed and I am flying into autumn with a trip to New Zealand and Australia. I am looking forward to seeing new places, new art, and meeting new people. Look for some new stuff when I return.

Thank you

As always, my work is for sale and you can contact me at trishfalin@gmail.com if you are interested. All work is copyrighted, and can be used under the Fair Use guidelines (not for profit). If you share this web page, let me know. Thank you for stopping by …

A Study in Color at The Art Center in Carpinteria

48 x 24 inches

A Study in Color

This painting, which will be part of The Art Center’s new show opening November 17th, seems to have every color I could find layered throughout. Photographing it was especially challenging, to capture the impact of a two foot by four foot piece and view it on a screen is not even close to seeing it in person. If you have a chance to see The Art Center’s show “A Study in Color,” then you will understand. The Art Center is located at 855 Linden Ave., Carpinteria, California. The opening reception will be November 17th from 2 to 4 pm … The show runs until January 6th.

Start of a New Trend

In many ways, this painting was the first of a new trend for me. The coloring is different, as well as the texture. Blending so many colors over such a large space takes time and patience. I was lost in the creation of this one for some time. Then, it took two weeks to dry. I actually completed this piece in August but hadn’t posted it yet. I have several pieces yet to post.

Bright Spot in November

The show is a bright spot for me this November. My mom passed away last month after battling cancer for more than a year. She loved art and had a special affinity for texturized acrylic works. She inspired my switch from watercolor to acrylic when she purchased a piece from an artist in El Paso, Texas. She gave me the painting and I still find it very inspiring.

Thanks for stopping by …

I appreciate everyone’s feedback … it is inspiring to hear from others and also to visit your blogs to see and read about your experiences. The best part of having a WordPress site is that you can interact with people. It’s the main reason I decided to use it to display my art. Your notes on my last post helped ease the stress and emotional ups and downs. Unfortunately, cancer strikes many and its damage is devastating to watch and painful to experience. I have a large family and very little experience with death. I don’t really know how to process it other than to paint.

Copyright

All work is copyrighted by me and is for sale. Please ask permission before using images posted here of my work. If you are interested in purchasing work, you can contact me at trishfalin@gmail.com.

Small view of coastal color

Small view

The beach in Santa Monica is layers of land, water, brown cliffs, and the green of trees and grass. On these beautiful fall afternoons, late afternoon, when the sun is starting to set, the colors blend in my mind. This abstract, inspired by the beauty around me, is only 8 inches by 8 inches.

I wanted to create a small work that I could take with me when I went to see my Mom who is fighting cancer. (She lives out of state.) She has a particularly aggressive cancer that started with a tumor behind her eye. She is blind in that eye and now has another tumor in the root of her tooth. It is difficult to see my Mom this way but also it was good to see her. I have been lucky enough to have my Mom in my life for many years. My Mom loves acrylic paintings with texture, so I created this one for her because it is small enough for her to hold to touch and look at closely. My time is short with my Mom and it felt good to share something with her. She is not able to travel to see my studio so this is the best I can do.

Art reflects life changes

I have been settling in my new place in Santa Monica and painting where I live while I search for a new studio space. The change in work space has inspired different approaches to my work. I also have been trying different brands of paint, which has also changed the outcome. If you paint with acrylic, then you understand the nature of working with it. Some brands produce a thicker paint that lends itself to the type of work I like to do. These works were done with the Blick brand of paint. It tends to be more liquid than what I have used in the past. I have been mixing it with different mediums such as glass beads, pumice, iridescent, crackle paste, and a few others to thicken it up. The work to the right is only 5 x 7 inches. It can be challenging to work on a small canvas…this one just happened. Often painting is almost an out of body experience – I am lost in the creation. I spent days afterword waiting for this one to dry. About a week later, when it finally dried, I still wasn’t sure what I thought of it, but it has a combination of some of my favorite colors of blue. It feels like late evening, last light of the day, the blue period before dark and the sky blackening behind stars.

Thanks for stopping by …

I appreciate everyone’s feedback … it is inspiring to hear from others and also to visit your blogs to see your travel pictures, artisitic photographs, design, art, and read about your experiences. I think the best part of having a WordPress site is that you can interact with people from around the world. I haven’t been able to travel outside the country for a bit and so I love seeing and reading about your trips. I will be going in December/January somewhere… I’m hoping to explore a country I haven’t see yet.

Copyright

All work is copyrighted by me and is for sale. Please ask permission before using images posted here of my work. If you are interested in purchasing work, you can contact me at trishfalin@gmail.com.

Summer dreams

Late August

On a hot evening, I grabbed my tools and lined up the paint and mediums and ended up with this work. I used some of the same mediums I have in other works, such as glass beads, but I included one I haven’t used in any of my works: snow flakes. It is like using a thick pudding that looks like snow flakes. You can see the white flakes in the darker colors toward the bottom of the picture. This is a small painting, only 11×14. I find myself packing more into small spaces lately.

Sunny Day

I’ve been working on smaller canvas lately (16×20), concentrating on the color and texture of these beautiful sunny days. This piece, Water 8, is still wet … I took this picture right after I finished it. It takes almost a week for it to dry completely. During the week, more of the black behind all this color will show through. The colors blend a little and some become more pronounced. Often a color that I have hidden underneath appears more brightly. I will post the finished work soon, along with other new works. Thank you for stopping by to take a look.