Every painting medium is different in its own way. The application of oil on canvas varies considerably from working with watercolor on paper, both mediums which I use often. When diluted with turpentine or other such thinning agents oil paint can acheive a similar washed look watercolor does, but the primed canvas will never rival good quality watercolor paper when trying to achieve a splashy or bled look. I first learned painting in watercolor and later attempted to copy the same technique when I began using oil, working with loads of turpentine which resulted in similar transparent washes. However, the beauty of oil, as I soon discoverd, is that you can add layer after layer, working on top of the initial washed stroke and incorporating it as a base for the entire composiiton. That technique is what I did when making the waves on the lower half of the painting shown here, and a little of the initial sky (left image) which I later covered up and changed completely with the rainbow sky (right image). I could never have the freedom of changing my mind this easily with watercolor because by nature it is too transparent, and adding wash after wash on top of each other will quickly look like mush. I often think watercolor is much more demanding in this way.
Jean Dubuffet, (1901-1985) worked in France most of his life but towards the end of his career as an artist had produced an immense body of work including massive sculptures in select US cities and in Europe. He had a style all his own and a strong disregard for beax-art standards. Although he worked during the same time as the Dada and Surrealist movements, he never associated himself with them. In his writings, he explains how he was inspired in part by art brut, and art created by children.
On art brut: “Is work made by people without any formal artistic culture, work in which mimeticism, ulike what happens with intellectuals, plays little or no part. So the creators of this work derive everything (subjects, choice of materials employed, means of transposition, rhythms, ways of writing, etc.) from within themselves and not from the conventions of classical art or fashionable contemporary art. So what we see is totally pure artistic activity, raw, reinvented throughout every entire phase by its author just according to his own impulses and nothing else. In other words art in which invention alone is in operation, and not, as always in mainstream art, the modes of the chameleon and the monkey.”
On art produced by children: “Children are beyond society, beyond the law, asocial, alienated: in fact what an artist should be. This is why their drawings are so piquant, inventive and bold, and so carefree in line and form. And above all - and this is the essence of painting - a child has the power to see deep within the painted image (even if it’s something trivial) without a critical reflex immediately blocking it off, as happens with adults. At all times a child is equally happy to see or to envision, and moves easily from the real to the imaginary, from the physical to the conceptual (and vice versa).”
Today I confirmed this year’s burning man trip. I am honored to be camping with San Francisco-based Comfort and Joy, a camp that designed Mylar Rain, one of my favorite art installations at the playa, which consisted of thousands of 5 ft long shiny mylar strips tied to a mesh grid that hung like rain and dazzled in the wind. It was so resourceful, bright and spectacular. I intend on doing a lot of painting while I’m there, working on more oil landscapes and also co-teaching a watercolor workshop at the camp. Pictured here is an image of a beautiful man in a tent. I anticipate there being a lot of both at the burn.