New year, new art.

So far, 2012 has been okay. On New Year's Day we hiked up Thumb Butte, and didn't fall on our assets, despite the trail still being covered in ice after a month of sun and no snow. The following day G woke up with a cold, and we've been sharing it back and forth ever since. I'm fully in the chest-cough gremlin stage, while G has advanced to professional throat-clearing. True to the nature of colds I expect this to continue on similar lines at least until early February.

Last year was a wretched one for work income, so this year both of us need to bite the bullet and drum up more work of the paying kind. (That was the intention last year, but dad's decline and unexpectedly quick passing threw the waxworks into a tizzy.)

But mostly, I want to keep making more of my own work, for my own enjoyment. (If anybody wants to buy something I've done, that's a bonus.)

So far in the new year I've not managed much more than sketching and working on existing pieces. I did take a painting workshop in late December, and will continue to do so as time and funds permit.

Here's what I've been working on the past few weeks.

20 x 20" acrylic on canvas. A combo of painted and dripped color over a red-salmon background. I love how this one turned out.

20 x 20", acrylic on canvas, with sand. The lines were drawn with paint, with fine, wind-ground sand from far northern Arizona shaken over the still-wet paint. After drying, the surface was painted black, and when that too was dry, a damp sponge with white paint was dragged lightly over the surface. Makes me think of an aboriginal micro-chip.

24 x 24" acrylic on canvas. Pure color applied to a thick layer of white paint while everything was sill wet. An interesting technique; not calling this one done, though. 

The next two are also works-in-progress.

Each started out as wet-on-white, but they were first efforts and disappointing. I wanted to try more paint-drawing/sand pieces, so these were appropriated. The top canvas incorporates decomposed granite from my backyard; the lower canvas is one I started in workshop and has fine, wind blown sand in the crossed lines and squiggles; the dots and mini-squiggles are just paint. So there will be two different surface textures. 

Both paintings will get a coat of flat paint, and then I'll let the color fall where it will. In the salient words of 'Crash' Davis, "Don't think, Meat -- you'll only hurt the ball club."