arms raised in a v

thanks burtschips. i checked out your leaves. i also love the colour of the leaves in the fall. there are areas here in nova scotia that are unbelievable in the fall - orange, yellow, green, and red forever.... you'd love it.
are your paintings on canvas? did you use a close up of leaves as reference, or would you describe them as more of an abstract from memory kind of work? the color is awesome! nice work! of course i liked the tiled idea too...
got any more? i'd like to check them out.

thanks lanners! are you a fellow haligonian? i noticed that you saw the fantastic halifax show...just curious.

i do use brushes on some pieces if it calls for some detail work, but not very often, i don't like using them... for the most part it's rags, sponges, foam, hands, that kind of stuff. whatever works. i've even used old scratched cd's that don't play anymore on a piece or two...to get a kind of weird swirling effect. weird, eh? i didn't use any brushes on "arms raised in a v" though.

i don't know what it is with the trees, but they almost always make their way into the paintings...there are ten dead ones at the bottom of "arms" to represent the album title, and the line "the dead lay in pools of maroon below"...i can't stop with the trees! jeremy is the big split one in the middle with the "v" shape. there is a tiny one in the crazy mary piece i'm doing...there is also one that i want to paint from a red hot chili peppers concert dvd "live at slane castle"...i went to the show - just outside of dublin, and i remember the tree...the dvd opens up with a shot of the tree and i can remember seeing the person working the camera behind it...it's just a very cool looking old tree. i'm going to do a segmented version of it someday.

good luck finding the right tree for your tat. sounds interesting. i'd be interested to hear what PJ lyrics, songs and / or meaning you plan to incorporate. the celtic tree of life is an interesting design, it's one of my faves...don't know if you're familiar with it. it's round, and has great symbolic significance in celtic culture.

do you have some stuff that i could take a look at? i'm always curious to see what others are doing with their art, if you're willing to share some of your work with us...and you're right - not enough of the talent in atlantic canada gets seen. not that i'm in that group (the talented ones i mean... lol), but there are a lot of talented artists around here. i think it's being next to the ocean and having so much access to nature that inspires people. hope all is well on this rainy night in hali. sorry for the lengthy post...

burtschips wrote:

Thanks Mookie, I didn't ask questions because I read the thread and got my answers.

My tiles are nearly real size on bits of wood about 3"x3" or slightly smaller. They were done at the time that I picked up the leaf and sat it behind a card frame cut to the size of the board. So the first one is the real leaf, with red veins. The second is a negative in colour with green veins. These were done carefully and took time. The last two were done in ten minutes a piece based on the colour and the composition of the leaf, abstracted, very liquid in form. I think they were acrylic but maybe gouache. It was a case of free instincts born from controlled study.

I've posted other stuff in other threads.... you should have a look at Tchaliz' open door in the poetry forum... his stuff is great!! I might tie it together later, posted some selfportraits in a thread on this forum too. I look forward to keeping up with your painting! Gotta get to nova scotia some time!!

i'm surpised to hear that they are on wood! there are far too few of us using wood as our medium of choice these days. it harkens back to earlier times in the world of art...even the mona lisa is on poplar!
the process you described sounds intriguing, and i can't imagine how you did the first part and made them look as fantastic as they do! time consuming, as you said, i'm sure. your description only adds to my interest in the pieces -a fantastic concept, in my opinion. really well done!
i'll have a look at the threads you mentioned and look for more, and if you ever do make it to this side of the atlantic, cape breton is where it's at...it's the most beautiful part of nova scotia...no offense to any mainland bluenosers!