RMW Ramblings

    11 May 2021  SPOT COLOR PHOTOS Morning walks in Wilmington are more urban than along the water in Havre de Grace.  Here's the 1400 block of N. Grant Avenue with color spot selected via Photoshop.   And a few blocks away on N. Lincoln St., real colors, but the red door has been replaced   In both photos I isolated the color spots, increased the saturation, and converted the rest of the picture to black and white.  

  4 May 2021 POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS 5. HOP, SKIP, & JUMP   Hop (on the left), Skip (right), and Jump (center) are painted in acrylic on canvas board.  They are set against a matte black background, a technique I use frequently.  The three frames are fastened together to be displayed as a single unit.      

27 April 2021 POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS   4. GALLOP DOCUMENTED   In Gallop Documented  my intent was to produce a triptych in a faux Fin de Siècle mode.  The individual panels are acrylic on canvasboard.  The galloping horse streaks past the photographer, who is capturing his gait. The image was inspired by the classic sequential photographs of action produced by Eadweard Muybridge.  Of course, Muybridge's photos were taken with multiple cameras; a photographer with a single camera, as in my painting, could not have made these multiple exposures with the technology of the late 19th century.  The Fin de Siècle conceit continues in the frame I fabricated. It echos the construction of 19th century photograph case/frames, and the wood cameras of that era.  I have signed the bottom of the frame with my name and an expansive notation of my credentials, typical of author and artist's labeling of that time. (But they are authentic, if irrelevant.)...

19 April 2021 POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS   3. ERODIOS    Erodios [ΕΡΩΔΙΌΣ], or Heron, is a group of four 12 x 12 inch paintings, acrylic on canvas.  On a morning walk on the waterfront in Havre de Grace, I spotted a great blue heron walking and posturing on a railing of the fishing pier. I snapped a few photos for future reference.  The bird's positions reminded me of both classical Greek decorative art and heraldic design.  I merged the two forms in this sequence of paintings. The bird's title in classical Greek style skips across the top of the paintings.  Below the heron is a band of golden flowers in a loose interpretation of  ancient Greek floral ornamentation.  The labels across the bottom of the paintings refer to the heron's posture in the terminology of heraldic charges, casually applied.

15 April 2021 POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS 2. INDIAN FRAME GROUP Thrift stores and flea markets are often a source of unusual frames at bargain prices. I found this one for about fifty cents. It's fun to find an idea for a painting that fits the frame. There is only one frame , but in this case it's six paintings. I assembled the photo above displaying the six little paintings on Masonite panels that I cut to fit.  The subjects are influenced by Indian and South Asia themes. There are only three panels, each painted on both sides.  All three panels reside in a pocket on the back of te frame and the paintings can be rotated to display my choice.  Here is a view of one of the individual paintings...   More group paintings to come.      

13 April 2021 POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS 1. PAINTED TURTLE In an earlier posting (5 April 2021) I referred to an assembly of four photographs of the changing seasons through the door window by my desk as a polyptych , a term usually associated with paintings. Painted Turtle, above, is a more traditional polyptych.   Polyptych literally means "multi-hinged."  This triptych of three paintings is exactly that: The three framed paintings are hinged together. And Painted Turtle is also quite literal; it is a painting of a painted turtle ( Chrysemys picta ), the most common turtle in North America. The paintings are acrylic on canvasboard.  Look closely and you will see a band of glyphs which I have isolated here...  The symbols are adapted from petroglyphs carved into rocks along the Susquehanna River and the northern Chesapeake Bay, a habitat where the painted turtle is widely found.  They may be as much as 4000 years old.  There is an interesting post...

  8 April 2021 OTHER STAINED GLASS ADDED TOUCHES   There is a clear glass lunette transom over our front door into our entry vestibule.   I made a stained glass panel to overlay the existing window with a pattern of  flying birds against a sunset sky.   I followed the swooping pattern of the purple-streaked glass to plan the design. The glass segments were assembled using the copper foil technique. Copper foil is wrapped over the glass edges and the segments united by soldering.   A coating of solder covers the foil. This technique gives finer borders between the glass segments and is   used in lampshades and other work with smaller glass segments. The outside edge of the window is enclosed with lead came.   Came is a metal channel into which the glass edge is inserted. It comes in “H” and “U” cross-sections for use between glass segments and on the outer edge, respectively.   There are zinc, brass, and lead versions, with lead used where ...