Illustration Friday: Round -

"A Round Scolding"
digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather

"... from the bulrushes, he was outspoken ..."
- Unknown

Outgoing mail -

"The Brown Envelope"
digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather
- click image to view full size -

"... letters are expectation packaged in an envelope ..."
- Shana Alexander

Illustration Friday: Ferocious -

"Ferocious"
digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper by Mick Mather

"... fair peace becomes men,
ferocious anger belongs to beasts ..."
- Ovid

Susu's challenge -

"Birth of A Painting II: The King"
tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather
- click image to view full size -

One of the Finnish Sisters, my good friend SusuPetal, has thrown down the gauntlet so to speak, with a documentation of one of her fabulous mixed-media paintings. Over at her blog she says, "I challenge you to document your process of making something you like." Okay, here's mine.

Went to the fortune teller -

"Eye of Spades"
digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper by Mick Mather
- click image to view full size -

"... I didn't know what to tell her,
I had a dizzy feeling in my head ..."
- Allen Toussaint (Naomi Neville)

Toot, toot, toot -

"Susu's Little Toy Trumpet"
tempera-on-paper by Mick Mather

"... he seems determined to make a trumpet
sound like a tin whistle ..."
- Aneurin Bevan

Will annoy for food -

"Seagull"
tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather
- click image to view full size -

"... one meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever ..."
- Konrad Lorenz

Thursday Challenge: Art -

"Art"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather
- click image to view full size -

"... the only time I feel alive
is when I'm painting ..."
- Vincent Van Gogh

Further back -

"Peanut Butter Cup"

tempera-on-paper by Mick Mather

One of my own personal favorites from a series of small paintings I did more than a few years ago. I've sold a few of the others that were painted around the same time as this one. Anyway, one more oldie before the "Buried Treasure" post tomorrow.

Taking back the landscape -

"Rejection of Perspective"
digital collage by Mick Mather

One of the difficulties artists have when attempting to represent the real world is an understanding of perspective, regardless of the ism one may be working in. Particularly, the landscape artists of the Romantic Age well understood that using perspective was necessary even as they also understood that it was an imperfect method for the draftsman. I suppose the dichotomy of vision, as we observe the world, and the tools we must use to represent it, will always be at odds. Even so, make more time for walking and looking is the message here.

Stretching the limits?

"Disappearing Into A Gridded Landscape"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Today's post is tied to some of the research I've been doing for months and, more specifically, this past week at the blog, Walking Art. The land art movement, with roots all the way back to the 1960's, is exploding as social issues such as sustainability, recycling, the environment, rural and urban planning begin to settle out from the radical activist fringe. Grass-roots organizing on the local level is slowly replacing the hippy dippy junk-science-based paradigm with better informed models, experiments and projects that place all of these important issues back within the realm of good stewardship, where they belong. The better news here is that individual ideas of art, public art and land use interpretation is shattering the elitist viewpoint and returning art to the masses. At the same time, the individual is empowered to redefine certain forms of conceptual art for himself by simply taking a walk. With digital cameras, video and other emerging technologies new methods of creating and documenting en plein air art are added to traditional forms of painting, drawing or sculpture. There's much more to say but, not having the room in this forum, I'll do what I can to reveal those areas where I'm in concert with some of the new directions and movements that I'm beginning to see.

Another manipulated painting -

"Jacks"
digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather

I have to rush off this morning and have no idea how long I'll be away today. So, for the background on these new paintings and subsequent manipulations, have a look here. I do have another version of this that is just fabulous (if I say so myself) and may post it soon with a link to the original painting once I have a few minutes to put it up.

Just piddling -

"Airplane"

digitally manipulated tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather

I was snooping around over at Candy Pegram's blog last week and really liked one of the things she said in her profile: "I favor images with hefty strokes and bold outlines, new yet familiar, evocative of a powerful collective pop culture memory of childhood toys, cartoons and characters". I especially connected with the pop culture memory of childhood toys and decided it was high time to sling some paint! I believe I'll do a number of this sort of thing where I begin with a down and dirty tempera-on-paper painting of those early memories. As most of you well know by now, nothing seems to elude a sound thrashing at The Secret Visual Laboratory and this piece is no different. You can see the original painting here if you like ... thanks to Candy for the inspiration.

Thursday Challenge: Emotion -

"They Loved Jazz and Champagne"
photograph of a tempera-on-paper painting by Mick Mather

Emotion is this week's theme at Thursday Challenge. What you see here is a poor photographic documentation of this tempera-on-paper painting when it was last in an exhibition. The good news is that the piece was sold and now has a home with the way fabulous Kiki Lowe. In the end, my hope is that the even better news is that she had this re-matted and re-framed - if not, I'm afraid that the Urban Art Rangers may have a serious intervention to undertake!

Look both ways before crossing the street -

"Walk, Don't Walk"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Not a lot to say since I'm half way to the couch for the New York Football Giants game and a nap. As it happens, I'm still working with one foot in the past and the other foot in the future. It's also a short week at the office since our Thanksgiving Holiday is this coming Thursday. Since no good deed goes unpunished, I'm likely going to have get most of the end of the week's posting accomplished before Wednesday as well as attempt to get some prep work done for those paintings I keep threatening to do. Ta!

A NEW Series: Reinventing the Wheel -

"Reinventing the Wheel III"
$50 unframed - LUCAS GALLERY
digital painting by Mick Mather

At those points in time where I feel beaten down, bereft of inspiration and certain that I can't go one step more, I go in another direction. This new series of digital paintings are further being planned to go full scale as actual paintings - created with brushes and paint. You can see the 1st in this series here and just the other day another appeared from practically nowhere. I'll show it sometime soon when I need to post and run...wait for it.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Lab -

"Reinventing the Wheel I"
$50 Unframed - LUCAS GALLERY
digital collage by Mick Mather

As I mentioned last week, I went on a binge of development work for another Totem Project proposal. While I was comfortably ensconced at the Secret Visual Laboratory with the mouse in one hand and a glass of Courvoissier, straight up, in the other, another series of works popped out. The piece you see here is destined to become a large painting...4' X 8' as I currently see it. I know, I know, I've talked about turning images into paintings before and the likelihood of it actually happening anytime soon is still as suspect as my good intentions. I thought you might like to see it and it stands alone as a digital print anyway - remember, most of my work can be purchased for $50 through Lucas Gallery Online.

The Fourth Annual Horizon Awards -

"Sunset"
watercolor by Mick Mather

It's been quite a week at the office, not that I'm going to spend very much time on the subject, other than to introduce tonight's post. This watercolor was a donation by me to the Silent Auction portion of The Fourth Annual Horizon Awards. It's a tiny little thing, almost actual size as you see it I believe, with a value of $50. I think the winning bid was half that, but that's why auctions can be so much fun. Anyway, this is a holiday weekend for me so it's going to be another hit 'n run posting initiative for the next few days.