Grit, concrete, rainy days inspire new vision

Black iron, copper, gray, titanium white and sand

12×16 Abstract 1267

Rainy days make the city feel more like concrete: gray sky, gray buildings, gray sidewalk. The graffiti painted over haphazardly with an off white. Lines beneath are ghost writing – visible in spite of the cover. Layers of patches and paint leave a gritty surface.

Etching stars into a gritty surface

The 12×16 Abstract 1267 has layers of black and silver with black lava, black and iridescent pearl underneath the top surface of unbleached titanium, gray and black. The shapes of stars were cut into the thick wet top coat to resemble the effect of cutting wet concrete or peeling paint.

Infinite love

Working with black iron metallic paint underneath gray and titanium white, the coarse, wet metallic bleeds through. I used a rust activator to bring the rust to edges. I used a copper metallic paint through the top part of the work and a blue patina aging solution brings out a bit of blue. This painting was inspired by the colors this past

14×18 Infinite Love

week on some cloudy days. The cliffs of Santa Monica appear to rust in the rain and water takes on a sandy gray color to blend with the beach. The sky boils with charcoal, gray, and small holes where I can see a hidden blue sky of a sunny summer day. This part of the year is full of weather transitions, turning winter to spring with brief reminders of how summer feels.

Valentine’s day

The painting also expresses a concept of unconditional love. I hope you have a good Valentine’s Day. Although the day is a contrived event designed to benefit businesses selling flowers and candy, I hope it can also be a time where people express love. On a dark and stormy day, the deep interior can still be warm.

New travel plans: New Zealand and Australia

This time of year is the best time to take a trip. I am hoping to find some summer weather or maybe an early autumn. I am heading to Auckland, New Zealand March 22nd to spend a few days seeing the area. This will be my first visit to New Zealand. I will fly from New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. This will also be my first visit to Australia. I picked Sydney because I have heard there is a big art community in Sydney. My visit to Portugal inspired my new work. I hope New Zealand and Australia will also be a source of inspiration. If you have any suggestions for what to see, let me know

Thanks for stopping by…

I appreciate your feedback and have been inspired by blogs kept by everyone who has stopped by. Travel pictures and experiences shared by you inspired me to choose New Zealand and Australia for my next trip.

Copyright

All work is copyrighted by me and is for sale. If you are interested in purchasing work, you can contact me at trishfalin@gmail.com. I am still researching how to sell work online. If you have a suggestion of a site or method that is working for you, let me know.

Other works inspired by Portugal… these are cell phone photos. I didn’t get a chance to photograph these five before they were went to their new home.

20×16 Abstracts hanging in their new home

20×16 Abstracts in their new home

Bare trees under a winter sky

12×30

Under a gray winter sky

The days feel much colder now as January is half way through. After visiting Portugal, it feels even colder here in Santa Monica. The sky seemed to become an endless gray cover and I found myself reaching for black, white and every shade between the two. My own version of 50 Shades of Gray… This painting is a black and white version of the last post which was filled with rich and warn hues of brown and gold. I also used some mediums to make the surface appear rough and worn like an old tree weathering a winter.

Drifting from bright color to the gray day

This painting took some time to develop, and then a while to dry. I have continued to experiment with black and white with a small amount of color and will post some of those works soon. While in Portugal, I went to a museum dedicated to a woman who was an abstract artist. Maria Helena Vieira da Silva grew up in Lisbon and was greatly influenced by the structures around her. If you are interested, you can read about here in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Helena_Vieira_da_Silva. I was impressed by the museum and the people who were there working the day I came were very gracious. The museum is near the aqueduct. I have been inspired by her work and inspired by a country that dedicates a museum to a woman who was an abstract artist – a rarity.

Less is more – the impact of sparse color

I am intrigued with the impact of very little color in a work. I have been experimenting with a more structured look like da Silva. It is strange to do something so completely different than my colorful work.

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, and read about your experiences. The best part of WordPress is that I can interact with people from around the world. I am currently trying to decide where to go next, so I will be reading about your trips. My next trip is the end of March and beginning of April… I’m hoping to explore a country I haven’t seen yet.

Copyright

All work is copyrighted by me and is for sale. If you are interested in purchasing work, you can contact me at trishfalin@gmail.com. I will be working on a way to sell on the web site during the next month and plan to put something up in February.

Transit of Venus inspries a passion for purple paint

10×30

10×30

12×30

Planetary Push

Last week, as Venus made its way across the sun, I found myself picking up purple, red, orange, and pink. My work took on a different tone with this choice. The first piece – Water 30, which is an 10×30 very vertical canvas had a coat of red on it. (Click on the image for a better view.) I took black, mixed it with a glossy medium and water to coat the red in a thin layer of black. I began working on the painting with a wet canvas. The lower half took on a darker shade with Prussian Blue, Black and Violet (and a few others) and the top half took on a fiery orange and pink look with yellow oxide, pink, raw umber, and light yellow. The black bleeds through the painting and this is most apparent on the top half. This painting was tough to photograph because of such a great contrast. There are colors streaked through the black that have disappeared slightly. Black and other dark colors are very difficult to photograph.

The second painting, Water 31, also 10×30, I started with a purple coat on the canvas. I used water to keep the lower half wetter than the top half. The effect on the blue and black was to create the look of water that is more still. Sometimes the water can be flat out here, which tends to create swirls of color.

The third painting in this series, Water 32, a 12×30 canvas, was a little lighter overall than the first two. I started with a dry aqua green canvas and painted a thin layer of pink over it. After that, I added almost every color I had in the studio, including: Dioxazine purple, deep violet,  quinacridone  magenta, alizarin crimson hue permanent, primary red, cadmium red deep hue, primary magenta, cadmium orange and cadmium red light hue, mineral orange and organic orange, raw sienna, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, red oxide, yellow oxide, organic yellow, flash gold sheer, naphthol crimson, cadmium deep red, wedgewood, bright aqua green, bright yellow green, cobalt blue, prussian blue, manganese blue, hooker’s green, permanent deep green, permanent green light, light blue permanent, phthalocyanine blue, cerulean blue, light blue violet, titanium white, iridescent medium, glass beads, gloss medium varnish, copper, gold, silver, green-gold semi opaque metallic paint, black lava texture gel, ivory black, and carbon black. The use of so many colors is an attempt to have each stroke hold a rainbow of color. I changed my approach to texture with the third one using thicker but thinner layers.

All work is available for sale. Copyright is retained by Trish Falin. Images are available for use under the Fair Use guidelines. Please credit Trish Falin at www.trishfalin.com. Inquiries about commercial use or purchase can be directed to trishfalin@gmail.com. I appreciate feedback from everyone. Thank you for stopping by!