Quick 2 Paintings

Here are a couple paintings I did for my brother inspired by my trip to Alaska. They are done on two not-great mat-board type product from Pier I Imports or something of that sort. I just gessoed and applied some medium to the appropriate parts to make them paintable. I kept them as simple and as graphic as possible, to maintain the effect I was seeking to achieve. I have at least a screenprint or two that I would like to create based on these images. As with a lot of ideas, though, we'll see what happens. But they turned out well, pretty much what I was hoping for, just some simple original art to be displayed in my brother's house, playing with the frame and art idea: what is art, the frame, and their relationship. Completed August 2010.

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Recent Work

Here is my most recent painting (besides the ones I'm almost finished with now). But this one was completed almost a month ago, maybe three weeks ago. It's for some friends who are getting married a while from now, I thought the date was sooner but was mistaken, so I get to hold onto it for a while. But the canvas came from Goodwill, the original picture is the last picture on the post, it's a pretty nice impressionist landscape, with some really nice textures. But it was a cheap canvas and reused, so I had to do something on it. I gessoed (a word I just made up, thanks) the whole thing, trying to keep some of the texture, and adding a little as necessary, and penciled everything in. I then painted over some of it with acrylic, and took some pictures because I liked the way it looked. I may use those pictures for some sort of design later, but that will happen as necessary. My goal was fairly clear from the inception of this piece of what it ought to look like upon completion. So I finished the acrylic section, used some latex wall paint for the foreground areas, and did oils over most of it. So much of what is seen is oil, but there is ample acrylic and latex paint evident throughout. The effect that I really wanted could only have been attained through oil paints, especially concerning the sky, and the buildings were far too unperfect when I first did them with just acrylic. So before I did them with oils, I measured and marked them out, making them fit my vision much better.
I am extremely pleased with the end result, the textures I've included with this are particularly pleasing, especially the first brown one of the foreground, there's a spectacular underpainted stroke and texture in the lower right area which is just wonderful, even better when actually seen.
These pictures definitely don't do the piece justice, as is the case with much artwork, but the real piece is slightly darker and more detailed than shown here.
I hope it's good. Even more so that the couple like it.

Hawaii II
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
24" x 36"

Detail I

Detail II

Prior painting on this canvas
Artist unknown