Autumn Oak Tree Inspiration

You can view my video about the oak tree that inspired the painting Autumn Oak on the Midpeninsula Community Media Center YouTube page. Starting in October I will be the new host for the local TV artist interview show, TALK ART. The broadcast is taped at the Midpeninsula Media Center studio in Palo Alto, CA.

http://www.youtube.com/mczoomin

Autumn Oak, Thought Processes in Abstract Art

People often ask, “What are you thinking when you paint?” A valid question from an analytical point of view, but very difficult to answer from an intuitive perspective. I don’t plan each stroke ahead of time, but I spend a lot of time looking for ways to balance a painting and finding new color combinations. When I actually load my paintbrush and commit it to the canvas, another type of awareness takes over. I call it desire: I want this color and I want to move the brush in this direction. Sometimes my brush or charcoal piece wiggles out of my control and creates a shape that I was not intending at all, but when smoothed out, looks great. I am focused on the small microcosm of the shape when I paint, considering the rest of the piece only in relation to color harmonies and balance, not image construction. If an idea for an image does take over, as in Autumn Oak, I do direct the color choices to conform to the main idea, but each individual shape still commands its own attention. In that way I create a tree trunk that can transform into a rabbit’s head with a shift of attention. The rabbit I see is large and mostly brown with a green tipped muzzle, green inner ear and copper ringed eye. It’s neck starts centered at the bottom, looking right. I see many other forest animals in this painting.

Fertility, completed

The piece “Fertility” was completed in early January 2010. The images are abstract in a cubist influenced way. Strangely interrupted, overlapping partial features curve across the 3 foot by 4 foot canvas. The colors are restricted to those related to the rainbow, the sun shining out from between the rainstorms. There is plenty of blue water to nourish the growth.

I see what I see based on my own visual influences, but you are free to make your own interpretations. Swaying flowers explode from every corner with the promise of fruit. The white-faced deer with the flaming yellow antler sweeping to the left charges forward, head down ready to engage the viewer for conquest of the herd. The strange upside down pear shape has turned into his bent knee, while the other leg is outstretched down the center. The red, orange, yellow, green cockatiel head in the center top right peers down with one dark yellow eye looking for food. The red circle in the lower left could be the nose of an otter, with the red-orange oval creating one eye. To the far left, a white face with bulging yellow cheek and green eye blows a new wind across the canvas. The yellow yolk representing fertility and new beginnings rests there in the belly of the ancient clay goddess’s shape.

The purpose of this blog is to show that I really do not have an overarching plan for the paintings I do. There are no pencil sketches or stencils that I use. What actually occurs in the formation of the paintings I create is a mystery that I am intent on solving in this lifetime of artistic endeavor, and I hope to gain support and help interpreting the images from viewers on an international scale.