The finished painting. I entered another painting into a show recently, and had to write an artist’s statement. I googled ‘famous artist’s statements’, to see some examples of some good ones, which helped a lot. It’s hard for me to write something coherent in only 100 words. I wrote another one, for another painting, just to see what it would sound like, and I think I’m o.k. with it. This is the statement for this painting.
‘orchestra with blast tuba’, painting on canvas. The verse that goes with this painting is:
The tuba blew a sour note
of hot volcanic air,
the sound and fury bellowed out,
and knocked me off my chair.
I wanted to represent the sound of music visually, and saw an image of a lettuce, or bok choy on the internet, and combined it with another image of a tuba/machine/thing I found. I did the collage in the computer, then transferred it to the canvas. I altered the colours to make it brighter. It’s about making the invisible, visible.
97 words, mission accomplished. Does it add any understanding to the experience? I hope so.
‘The choir has blast tubas
curling the air with tight vortices.
I can’t tear myself away from the slow-motion crash.
The beginning of the next painting, ‘orchestra’. From a collage of a head of lettuce, and a musical instrument I found online.
It’s hard to see the pencil drawing of the lettuce coming out of the trumpet thing.
The lettuce image. Or maybe it’s a bok choy.
The whole collage. It was too tall for the canvas, so I cropped it, and flipped the lower part.
I added some typewriter keys to the left-hand side. I just drew them onto the canvas with a pencil. I had an inspiration photo, but I just winged it. I like the music/smoke/air coming out of the two small pipes. I painted over the sepia areas on the right and simplified it.
A closer look at the typewriter keys.
My Remington typewriter. The Smith-Corona beside it. They both still work.
The typewriter keys inspiration photo. It’s a sculpture by an artist who makes things out of old typewriters. His name is Jeremy Mayer.
I painted the background black. Now all I have to do is finish the lettuce/bok choy music coming out of the tuba machine. Then I can do the second layer of paint.
I’ve almost finished the lettuce/bok choy/music blast thing. It was late, so I went to bed. I’ll work on it today.
Working on the lettuce/music part of the painting. I like it so far, but the bottom half is going to need a lot more contrast.
I’ve repainted the bottom a few times now. I think it’s o.k. now. Not sure. It might need a bit more light grey.
Still trying to paint the furnace ducting thing at the bottom of the painting. Maybe it’s better now? We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
A closer look at the bottom of the painting. I do like it better now, but maybe it still needs something. It’s weird how the simplest things can go wrong. The rest of it was easy.
Waiiiit, waiiiit…maybe this is it.
‘Wrinkles’, at the bottom of the bend in the tube. I think I like it. It only took 10 layers. Now I need to do the other bends.
Yes sir. That’s what I’m talking about.
A close-up of the bottom. Finally. Why did this take so long?
A couple of layer later. I still have to do another layer on the black background. I added the letter ‘J’ to the right-hand side of the painting, for my initial, just for fun. I sign the sides and the back of my work.