October 8, 2020

I decided to try turning these latest designs into paintings, and experimenting with a favorite color combination: Daniel Smith Lunar Earth plus various vibrant shades of blue and green. I tried it twice. The first one, on black paper, is almost totally abstract. I was disappointed that the colors did not show up on the black paper, and I felt the rectangular shape at the top looked too much like a big monster face, so I tried it again, on regular white watercolor paper. I used pretty much the same colors, but removed the rectangular shape and replaced it with a moon. While this second attempt is still pretty abstracted, it's more of a recognizable surrealistic landscape. I think I'm finished with both of these, but would be interested in comments as to what more I might still be able to do with either one.

 

Added a few more variations on the Irish Ruin design. (Aug. 18, 2020)

Chris, I just realized you had requested we put updates at the top of our projects; so they are now in a rather goofy sequence--sorry about that!

The photo below shows four designs I created using the "cut and paste" method. The upper-left-hand one you have already seen; it is from yesterday. The other three are new. The lower-left-hand one I created using a bit of artistic license: I turned one of the shape pieces upside-down, so as to emphasize the zig-zag look that I liked in the other design.

The upper-right and lower-left are my favorite designs from this exercise, due to the balance of dark and light shapes, and the movement. The upper-right has a nice zig-zag stair-step look, while the lower-left one has almost a circular movement and a "rounder" or steadier feel.

 

These are based on the "pipe" image. (Aug. 16, 2020)

Here is a photo I took of an Irish ruin (color version):

I wasn't able to make a "six-up" version of this; my choices were four or eight. The eight photos were too small, so I did four, and then printed in black-and-white. It is interesting how the figure in blue stands out so strongly in the color image, but disappears in the black-and-white one!

And here are my designs based on this image:

Aug. 17: I've made a couple more of these, trying to combine the last two images. The first one I tried to duplicate by drawing, and managed to mix up the light and dark shapes in one area. The result is not too bad, but not what I had intended, so I used a pair of scissors and overlaid several versions (see second photo). I found this is a nice way to try out different designs (although you get graphite all over everything in the process!) I kind of like both of these, but wish the large white shape was not right in the middle!