Pears & Baggie

Pears & Baggie 8x8 by Dennis Crayon Oil on Panel

 

Among the things I enjoy most about painting a still life is the challenge of creating the illusion of texture and depth. I’m starting to paint a series of objects in plastic bags. Painting plastic can be similar to painting lace and glass because you need to define both the object and the transparency.

Pears & Baggie was painted with a number of layers of glaze (transparent oil paint with medium). I usually start with opaque paints but this time I really want to work with the translucency that glazes offer. I will be combining contemporary and traditional objects in this series.

I just have to watch to make sure the plastic doesn’t look out a place or contrived. Baggies are of course one of the vessels we use in the 21st century and that idea amuses me for some reason.

Spring Robin by Dennis Crayon

Spring Robin 8x8 by Dennis Crayon Oil on Panel

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I saw a robin in a tree the other day. It reminded me of my grandmother who tried her best to make sure she saw her first robin each spring in a tree. She believed that it would bring good luck if the first robin she saw was in a tree. I later decided to make it a Trompe l’oeil painting of a torn photo.

Trompe l’oeil - A French term literally meaning "trick the eye." Sometimes called illusionism, it's a style of painting which gives the appearance of three-dimensional, or photographic realism. It flourished from the Renaissance onward.

Please let me know if you like the Tromp l'oeil effect I really enjoyed doing it and have just started a second painting of grapes in a glass only this painting will all be in color

Belated New Year Resolution

I am resolved to improve my blog and to blog more often and to use the other social media outlets that are at my finger tips. I am taking the blog Triage Class as a way of starting the transformation. Thanks Cynthia Morris and Alyson Stanfield for empowering me through your class. Right now I am acting like a seven year old who is finding every reason to avoid doing his homework hopefully with your help I can be broken of this habit.

Pears & Baggie
Auction will begin April 24th

The main reason I have started my blog is because I have begun the process of paint 52 small (8 x8 – 8 x10) paintings that I'm going to post on my blog and website with the hope of selling them directly to patrons through auction. My plan is to do 3 paintings a month and put them up for auction. It is important to me that the quality remains high and that I don’t just knock these off quickly to keep to a schedule. I would like to blog about the process and stick to the experiment to see where it leads to and how long it will take me to produce 52 small works.

My blog will be a record of this goal and a way to connect to both patrons and fellow artists. In the long term I hope to be able to support myself through my sales and this blog / art project is the concrete beginning of this goal.

I also think that gallery representation will come as I get my work seen more online and that prospective galleries see that I am an active promoter of my art.

So far I have really enjoyed auctioning off my work there is gratification in the process of finding out how much my work will sell for and the felling that I am making progress in getting my name and work out to a larger audience. I also enjoy the excitement of selling my work and seeing what price I can get for my work n auction and even in the 4 months that I have been doing this the price and my discipline has grown.

I subscribe to 5 different artist blogs whose work I respect and  I really enjoy seeing their latest work. I hope someday that other artist and collectors will feel the same about my work.

Robin work in progress auction will begin April 25th