New Small Study: Lookout

A small -5x7"-acrylic on paper study of a photo of my great-grandfather (with the binoculars)

Recent Inspiration

I know I haven't been posting a lot of painting lately - but I have been looking at a lot of painting lately. My tastes lately have been leaning more towards abstraction:

Eric Freeman

Keltie Ferris

Julia Rommel

Julia Rommel

Dana Frankfort
Jules De Balincourt
Judith Eisler

Judith Eisler

Erwin Gross

This and that

Last night: Excellent, intimate concert by one of my favorite bands - Lovers - in a small venue in Boulder.

Today: Hike to Silver Dollar Lake near(ish) Georgetown, Colorado. Beautiful day.

More Roman Wall Murals

After a nice comment by a student on the last post of Roman murals - I decided to post a few more of my photos from the Met.

New Press: NY ARTS

A feature on my work at NY Arts Magazine.

Advice from a Painter: Part 2 - Eric LoPresti

This is part 2 in a series of advice from working painters to young art students- today's guest is Eric LoPresti who just wrapped up a solo show at Like the Spice gallery in New York and has been a regular guest here at "minutiae". Eric writes,

“I like to mix colors on my palette, which enables me to be get precise with the color I want before painting it on the actual canvas. When attempting to match a specific color, it helps to hone in on that hue incrementally, by gradually adding one color to another. For example, say I'm trying to match a specific light-pink. I'll probably start with the red out of the tube, which is likely to be way too dark, then incrementally add in white until the values match. Here’s the tip: when mixing your next color, always keep a bit of the previous mixture around for comparison. In fact, as I get closer to my target color, I'll often split the mixture into two batches so I can 'undo' if I make a mistake. Here’s an image of me mixing various shades of pink to match a color on the digital printout at bottom – you can see me splitting up various stages of the pink mixture into parts so I have choices about how to get closed to the color I want. ”

“When developing a body of work, do a lot of research and see what other artists are relevant to your work. This is easy if you break it down: first you want to come up with a good set of descriptive words about your work, e.g. ‘etchings of contemporary buildings and decay’, or ‘paintings of post-apocalyptic western deserts’. Google image search that description, and start digging through the results for practicing artists. Be prepared to go through a lot of images -- good artwork isn’t easy to find. Leaving aside whether you like/dislike the works you are finding, ask yourself:

• Is this artist’s work similar to mine?
• How exactly is my work different (and would it look different to a disinterested 3rd party)?
• How can I make my work more specifically match my vision, so it doesn’t look like theirs?
• Is this artist someone I want to ‘keep tabs’ on as I go forward?”

thanks Eric!

More from Ouray

Another photo from our camping trip last weekend -this one was taken at the Ridgeway State Park campground.

The weekend

This is probably my favorite photo from our fun trip to Ouray this weekend - taken in Box Canyon falls.

Update

Possibly the best elk photo I've taken - from last weekend in Estes Park

My work in the "2011 National Contemporary Exhibition" at the Grand Junction Art Center


One of my favorite works in that show - "Telerama" 2010 - transfer print, paper collage, 16in. x 16in. by Lili Francuz

On the way back from Grand Junction the river through the canyon was raging

We also stopped at the Aspen Art Museum where I enjoyed a show of small, dense paintings by Cathy Wilkes - this one is Untitled, 2009. Courtesy of The Artist and Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin and the Aspen Art Museum.

Opening and Talk tonight in Grand Junction

The Art Center - 1803 N. 7th Street, Grand Junction, CO 81501

2011 National Contemporary Exhibition
May 13 – June 25, 2011

Opening June 3, 2011

7pm - 9pm

Juror Michael Chavez & Exhibiting Artist Nathan Abels to talk at 6pm

Michael Chavez is the Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Foothills Art Center in Golden, Colorado. He has a BFA in sculpture from the University of Wyoming and an MFA in printmaking from the University of Kansas. Over the past 16 years he has worked at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Spencer Museum of Art and the University of Wyoming Art Museum. In addition to curatorial duties, Chavez is active in the Colorado art community serving on public art committees and judging several exhibitions for Colorado’s cultural institutions.

Invited artists exhibiting are Nathan Abels, Theresa Haberkorn, Sharon Feder, Scott Lary,

Collin Parson, Denis Roussel, and Mai Wyn Schantz.

28 artists were selected for the exhibition from the pool of 134 artists submitting. The artists selected to exhibit in this years exhibit were Justine Benedict from Grand Junction, CO; Sara Bielski from Evansville, IN; Thomas Calenberg of Grand Junction, CO; Tirzah Camacho of Durango, CO; Everitt Clark of Alexandria, VA; Andrew DeCaen from Denton, TX; Cynthia Duff of Grand Junction, CO; Nicole Finger of Telluride, CO; Ernie L. Fournet of New Iberia, LA; Lili Francuz from Fort Collins, CO; Samuel Fee of Washington, PA; Danny Gillies from Colorado Spings, CO; Suzie Goodwin from Eliot, ME; Wewer Keohane of Carbondale, CO; Stephinie Kirk from West Chester, PA; Kelly Krusnoski of Grand Junction, CO; John Lintott of Grand Junction, CO; Jim Lively from Dallas, TX; Nancy Myers of Grand Junction, CO; Meredith Nemirov of Ridgway, CO; Lori Reed of Galesburg, IL; Elaine Ricklin of Denver, CO; Georgia Rowswell of Cheyenne, WY; Peggy Shaw from Mahomet, IL; Barry Sparkman of Phoenix, AZ; Emily Stokes of Ann Arbor, MI; Trinity Sullivan of Idaho Falls, ID; and Alessandra Sulpy of Cedar City, UT.

"Do It" Exhibition Video

RMCAD Do It exhibition from John Roberts on Vimeo.

My work is part of this complex exhibition - featured briefly in the video at the 5:04 minute mark.