RMW Ramblings

AJ's Album A Little Homemade Book Last weekend was great-grandson AJ's first birthday.     I made him a little book with baby-proof Tyvek pages with comic book  style caricature sketches of four generations of our family.  Done with black Sharpie markers and colored digitally.   For AJ's big sister Alaina's first birthday in 2017 I made a book,  Bugs   & Such , a subject of several earlier postings.  

  Alaina Nouveau This painting of our great-granddaughter was a Christmas gift to her mother.  I made use of metallic and iridescent paints which do not show well in the photograph.

Fenestral Portraits In My Library In My Thoughts In My Library , my self-portrait on the left, shows me in front of the window of one of our library doors. The colors in the Queen Anne stained glass border are true to the actual window.  For  In My Thoughts , my portrait of Mary on the right, I've converted the glass to soft pastel colors which I used throughout the painting. I replaced the triangular glass corners with bluebirds. While each gallery-wrap painting is signed on the edge, as usual I have incorporated monograph signatures in the paintings. The book cover in my hands ...   And the trim on Mary's right sleeve...          

 Chiaroscuro  Here's a chiaroscuro painting  October Gold  as we enter autumn.    Another chiaroscuro painting is "Ryan Alone," based on my snapshots while he was performing at the Queen in Wilmington.  The master of chiaroscuro was Caravaggio, the 16-17th century Italian artist, a hotheaded brawler and murderer.    

Painting Monograms: 2   Some older painting monograms, clockwise from upper left: Poe Meets Dickens,  influenced by 19th century book covers; Equus,  echoing classical Greco/Roman art; my generic monogram, stamped with a hand carved rubber eraser; Fortuna,  on a Venetian architectural view.    

 Painting Monograms Most of my paintings are signed with only initials or a monogram.   In my most recent paintings this summer I have incorporated a signature monogram as an element of the painting. In  Sydney's Service  the monogram is her logo on her laptop. In  In My Library  a book themed monogram is on the cover of the book I am holding. The nameplate "RoMiWa" on the sailboat in Bowsprit   is my signature.