New Small Works

Both small paintings are untitled, acrylic on paper - 5x7" - finished this week.

New Small Study: Lookout

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

New Study

small 5x7" study - acrylic on paper

Yudith Levin

Yudith Levin, Afghan from the front, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 170x150 cm

Yudith Levin, yellow, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 200x180 cm

Yudith Levin, Holding Something, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 150x200 cm

New Work

Untitled (rocket), Acrylic on Panel, 20x16", 2011

Two new small works on paper

I painted both of these yesterday:

(Untitled), Acrylic on Paper, 5x7"

(Untitled), Acrylic on Paper, 5x7"

Two by Todd Herbert

Todd Herbert, Snowman With Lights #7, 2009
Acrylic on canvas over panel
60 x 48 inches

Snowman with Lights, 2009
Acrylic on canvas over panel

55 x 60 inches

Two new small works

"Shroud", Acrylic on Canvas on Panel, 14x11"

"Drift", Acrylic on Canvas on Panel, 12x12"

Two new paintings for a show at Working With Artists gallery - put together by Katie Taft.

Small Rodin Study

A small acrylic ink study of a Rodin sculpture that I painted this afternoon. I'm going to be doing a lot more small watercolor and ink works in the near future.

New Work: "Passage"

"Passage", Acrylic on Panel, 24x48"

I've been working on that face since Thanksgiving. Finished it this morning and I'm glad it is done. It will be in the upcoming show at Rule Gallery.

New Work; Clifford Griffin

Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin", Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009

Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin" (detail view), Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009

I just finished this painting - in fact, I still have some residual white paint on my finger tips. You're looking at what is probably my first painting with a figure in it since grad school. It's not that I'm against figurative work, but I haven't been inspired to paint figures in some time.

Recently I was asked by local artist Katie Taft to participate in the tentatively titled "Biographic" show at Abecedarian gallery (running from September 18th to October 24th). As the title indicates, the show is related to stories about people. It will be accompanied by a written component (in the works). Some artists are going to approach it as an interview, others as more of a tribute (like mine). I'm actually way ahead of the due date - a rare thing for me.

I've been really interested in Clifford Griffin's story lately so I thought I'd roll with that momentum and do this painting of him. I made a couple of trips up to his memorial a couple of weeks ago - which is located above Silver Plume - the hike was written about on this blog here. I've also done a lot of research about Clifford Griffin at the Denver Public Library Western History department. There aren't many images of Clifford but I did find a couple of really artistic compositions of him sitting on some outcroppings above Silver Plume and for this painting I combined those with my own photos of the site he is buried at:

Photo of the Griffin Memorial by Nathan Abels

I'll have more info closer to the time of the exhibition.

Full Circle: Jeffrey T. Baker and Olafur Arnalds

Jeffery T. Baker, Clinging, Slipping, 2009
acrylic, leafing, toner, graphite, and wax on panel
7.5" x 7.5"

One of my blog "followers" - Jeffery T. Baker recently completed this beautiful small work while listening to the recommended Olafur Arnalds album from my "Music For Your Studio" post a few weeks ago. I love to think of all the random things that fell into place for that to happen - some time ago Olafur Arnalds asked to be my friend on myspace, some time passed and then I checked in on his "found songs" project and proceded to post the music on my "Music For Your Studio" weekly feature, then Mr. Baker downloaded the songs and made a perfect visual accompaniment to it. Wonderful.

Success

You're looking at my deer painting (“Dénouement”) laying on my dining room table. I just finished putting on a acrylic varnish with UV protection and it worked exactly as it is supposed to. I've had some bad experiences with varnish in the past and it's not unheard of for me to not varnish a work at all, but I think I'm opening a new chapter in my painting career. I've been using a conservators wax polish for the last year or so, and I liked that effect, but I'm glad this worked too and it is removeable. I used Golden Acrylics MSA Satin Varnish with UVLS. Even the name sounds difficult - but thanks to Goldens numerous online resources and tutorials (videos too), it was a success. Hooray!

New Painting: "Lost to Sight"

"Lost to Sight", Acrylic Ink on Paper, 22x30", 2009

From the Archive: Ink on Panel Series

I did a series of paintings in 2006 that were done with spray paint, acrylic and a lithographic printmaking process on panels. I made the backgrounds, then hand-burnished images onto the panels from pronto plates. I mixed the ink specific for each panel, and often combined several images on one panel, so each was unique. I enjoyed the textures and atmospheric effects on these panels. It's funny - when I look back at older works sometimes it is like hearing something new in an old song.

Painting a Rich Black Color According to Me

I am aware that not everyone reading this may be a painter, so I thought it may be interesting for some of the non-painters to see how I get a rich black color for my night time paintings. I'm still working out a formula, and it varies slightly each time. That said, for this corn field painting I used a mixture of Golden Van Dyke Brown, Liquitex Transparent Raw Umber, Golden Raw Umber (These three colors are all real dark, rich browns), with Payne's Gray (a near-black Blue hue). This gave me a semi-transparent dark, warm black. While the paint is still wet (not much time for acrylics - on a thin coat it is five minutes tops), I could wipe out some of the highlights. This mixture of paint leaves a nice gold-brown/black stain when it is wiped out. After this is dry, as stated below, I will be putting a transparent glaze of Payne's Gray with a little Raw Umber over the entire surface - again wiping out the highlights. If all goes well, that should do it for this particular painting.

In some of my past night-time paintings I would also alternate glazes of dark Blue/Greens (Payne's Gray and Hooker's Green mixtures) with glazes of rich reds (I prefer the Windsor and Newton brand red pigments). As you can see I go through a lot of Payne's Gray and Raw Umber. I also don't have exclusive brand preference - I think the Raw Umber in Golden Paints is darker than its Liquitex equivalent, but I often buy both because sometimes I prefer a more neutral tone. I would say in general though, I use more Golden and Utrecht paints than other brands.

Golden - Van Dyke Brown

Golden - Payne's Gray
Golden - Raw UmberLiquitex (PDF)- Transparent Raw Umber
Utrecht - Hooker's Green

Windsor & Newton - Cadmium Red Deep
Windsor & Newton - Alizarin Crimson

Two New Small Studies

"Speed of Stopping", Acrylic on Paper, 11x15"

"Awash", Acrylic on Paper, 11x15"

Painting Progress Continued

Since Thursday, I've been trying to recover this painting. After it took such a nose-dive I was beginning to regret showing my progress on this blog - but some of you may still be interested in the ups and downs that many of my paintings go through before I'm satisfied. And sometimes my paintings get a lot worse before they get better. I overdid this painting so much Thursday that gave up and sanded it down a lot on that night, destroying much of what I worked on all day Thursday (sorry for such bad photos):

Then began the process of building it back up:
Then the smoke started to appear too solid

Then too bubbly
closer - but background was getting way too dark
Until finally I'm back to some smoke that appears wispy and subtle again:

Now I have to go back into the structure on the right side of the image, put in the barricades and sand-bags and then glaze some transparent white oil paint over the smoke to soften everything up. That's the plan anyway...

New Painting!

Nathan Abels, "Potential", acrylic on panel, 36"x60"



(detail)

Here is my latest large format painting finished 30 minutes ago. All images copyright Nathan Abels, 2007.