In addition to finishing "Orbit Boy" yesterday, last night I did some experimentation with this piece. It's a bit of a departure from my typical composition style. The piece is certainly not finished. It needs better balance, and it's difficult to see the smallest dark green circle (at the 11:30 position), so I may have to change the color a little bit; but I am happy with the progress thus far.
Finished another piece last night. It includes a vintage Christmas light, so it's a "shadow box" piece. It's difficult to photograph the box with the glass, so I took a photo out of the box. It's 8" x 10", and the title is "Orbit Boy Always had a Good Idea for Another Planet".
Inspired partly by a piece I had done years ago (2012), which was entitled, "The Question"; and partly inspired by some elements I had "laying around", which had the appropriate patina -- I present the first finished piece of 2026, entitled "Another Question"...
I have great anticipatory excitement for a two-person exhibit I will be part of in November at The Other Side (Utica, NY), involving David "RC" Oster and yours truly. David is a phenomenal artist who specializes in highly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of barns and buildings and trains and roller-coasters. His work is exquisite. For our exhibit, he plans to show some of his "fantasy" city-scapes. Interestingly, he uses drawings of real buildings, from real cities, but combines them into his own created city. For example, he might take a sky-scraper from New York, and add another building from Chicago, and one from Philadelphia, to create a fantasy city (with the inclusion of a roller-coaster or a set of train tracks and trains). It's really amazing! For our two-person exhibit, I thought that I might make a "collaborative" piece, by which I would integrate my collage elements into a print of one of his fantasy city-scapes. Here are the prints I obtained from David on which I will experiment with placement of collage elements. I'm excited to explore the possibilities!
Here are some photos of the most recent work of my friend and fellow artist, Tom Nettle. I absolutely LOVE the piece. It's entitled, "Seldom is Herd a Discouraging Word".
Just in case folks are wondering where I'm at with the "problem child" piece I've been writing about (which I kind of doubt); here's a possible small remedy idea for it...
Well... here's another incrementally small installment of what's going on with this work-in-progress. I realize that this may be a less-than-exciting post; but it is an interesting twist and a reflection of my creative process. I added another transfer to this composition. I had thought that it "needed" something more than what I had already put down -- maybe for balance. I was tempted to simply leave it the way it was, and consider it finished. But instead, I "messed" with it (I wish I hadn't). I don't think it helped with "balance". In fact, I think it had the opposite effect, in a way. The transfer also left a bit of a ghost outline, which detracts from the transfer effect. I'm not sure now, what I will do to "remedy" the situation. I certainly am not satisfied with it the way it is. I have some ideas -- so "stay tuned". This isn't exactly the way I wanted to kick off the new year... but I am still excited and hopeful for what I think will be a great year of creating art (and music).
