More new work now at the George Billis Gallery in New York.
This new work is also based on old work after looking through my portfolio from the last decade of paintings.
Colored Pencils & #2 Pencils
Western Electric Rotary Telephone – 2004 & 2017
Western Electric Rotary Telephone – this new painting is showing at the George Billis Gallery in New York City.
Thirteen years ago I painted this phone for the first time. It was when I began seriously building my oeuvre. I would paint fast and furious, thinking that a quickly rendered, expressive way of painting was what I wanted to achieve. It never really felt like a natural way for me to paint, but the subject always felt like the right one.
I was painting with acrylics, and if the painting wasn’t done after an hour of work, then I felt like I was taking too long.
Over time I slowed way, way down and focused with an indirect painting technique. A very slow building of layers in oils. In person my paintings are still far more painterly than they appear on the screen before you.
Over the past several months I have experimented with paintings and tried a few different approaches. I’ll still do such experiments now and again, but I have decided to look back over the last 17 years of my paintings and will simply re-paint my own work with my new approach and technique. I want to copy my own portfolio, I want to see if I can make the paintings better, I want to see if I can learn from my own work.
In 2004 I signed up for Flickr where I have archived 740 of my paintings. Most of my works is there, including work done in 2000 as a student. Anyone who wants to see, warts and all, is welcome to browse.
The Blue Table
Two new paintings showing at the Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina.
I found this little blue table at Everything Old Canada and figured I would use it to inject some texture and colour in to a few paintings. It is a bit of an experiment, a study to see if this is something I would want to pursue in other paintings.
Three New Paintings
Here’s a look at three new paintings off on a plane ride to a collector in Singapore.
Vintage Rotary Telephone in Progress
New Limited Edition Prints
I am happy to announce that I am now selling small, affordable, collectable limited edition prints on paper direct form my studio.
Find them on my new print website
→ xmarksthestott.com
The vibrantly coloured and crisply detailed prints are on archival matte paper. They look great when framed.
Piles of Books
I recently came across a Japanese word that I thought was a good descriptor for this small series of paintings I recently did.
Tsundoku: (n) the act of buying a book and leaving it unread, often piled together with other unread books
I currently suffer a mild case of this tsundoku phenomenon, but I suspect as I get older I’ll find ambitious piles of books growing around me. My wife encourages this.
Silent-Super, Smith-Corona
A new Silent-Super, Smith-Corona painting showing at the Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina.
I thought it would be fun to take a look at a typewriter painting I did exactly 11 years ago. Although I think my precision and technique have changed over the years, I feel rather consistent with subject and approach.
Bubblegum In Progress
Trying to decide where to lay in a thin layer of paint.
Smith-Corona
A Smith-Corona typewriter. Recently completed and now comfortably inspiring a new collector in New Jersey.
Several years ago I started painting a series of typewriter vignettes. Recently looking for inspiration, I found that revisiting my own paintings as a place to learn and grow from.
You can check out all of my typewriter paintings to date on Flickr → click on this link.
