Tagged book

The Key Series

I just completed a series of three paintings for my upcoming exhibition in New York City. Three birds-eye view typewriters.

1928 Underwood Portable Standard Typewriter with Three Pencils / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

I love painting the mechanical components of the machines.

1964 Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32 Typewriter with Pencil & Book / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

There will always be something charming and delightful in typewriters. Each piece is 2 feet tall and three feet wide. The typewriters are all depicted as life-size. My goal with these paintings is to have a viewer almost get a sense of being able to touch and use the typewriters.

1926 Royal P Typewriter with Pencil / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

When I start each painting, it never fails that I end up slightly overwhelmed at the number of keys I’ve locked myself into painting. I once told someone that my ability to sit quietly and do something as tedious as painting 150 tiny circles and squares is probably the key to why I can paint as much as I do.

The Popular Art Instructor

Influencers — that’s what we refer to people of persuasion now. People with entrepreneurial zest. They’ve existed forever and used whatever medium is current and available to reach the audience. In this case, really amazing books with so much information it would have kept the Victorian influenced busy for months.

132 years ago this book, The Popular Art Instructor, was published. It’s a collection of instructions on how to achieve artistic perfection in various endeavours. It’s all in there; oil painting, watercolour, floral arrangement, embroidery, house plant care, basket weaving, calligraphy, furniture placement, leaf pressing… everything old is new again. And when I write that I mean everything very, very old is very, very new again.

Instagram is full-to-bursting, overflowing really, with people who’ve made livings out of their various interests laid out in this book from 1888. You can now make a middle-class living by sharing your knowledge on watering house plants and arranging books on a shelf effectively.

The Popular Art Instructor / 24 x 30 inches / oil on canvas / 2020 / on the easel

With this painting, I’m commemorating the spirit of the people who published this book and the people who have strived for perfection and turned a hobby into art they can make a genuine living by.

This painting will be part of my most recent body of work showing at the George Billis Gallery in New York City from September 29 – October 24, 2020.

Do-Over

This past week I spent some time with some do-overs.

These two paintings are from a few years ago and although they don’t look too unusual for my work, they did before I repainted the backgrounds.

The Pleasures of Life / 24 x 24 / oil on canvas

Before these pictures were taken, the backgrounds were what I call explosion blue. They were a vibrant, unnatural, unfamiliar, chemical blue.

They were complete and even hung in a gallery for some time, but I was happy to get them back to correct them. I was pleased with the balance and geometry of the compositions, but the blue was so peculiar to my eyes that I had a hard time looking at the paintings.

I removed the varnish and added some layers of a much more subtle and neutral tone — a white/grey with only the most subtle, barely perceptible hint of blue. Immediately it felt as though my own personality returned to the paintings.

I did the vibrant blue backgrounds on the suggestion from a friend who was giving some opinion on changes they thought would add some “pop” to my work. In a moment of weakness and confusion, I took their advice.  It was as though my own signature was removed from my work.

The opportunity for the do-over has been very therapeutic.

Imagine if life were like a painting. Imagine if you could literally get a moment or an event back, remove the varnish and make your corrections.

The Interpretation of Dreams / 24 x 24 / oil on canvas

The Story of Our Planet

The Story of Our Planet by Christopher Stott
The Story of Our Planet / 20 x 16 / oil on canvas

Browsing through a second hand book shop, I came across this heavy duty science book – The Story of Our Planet. I thought it made the perfect subject, especially juxtaposed with the vintage microscope hidden inside its box.

This painting is available through the Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento, California. Read more

9:10, Vintage Clock & Antique Book

053_stott
20 x 20 / oil on canvas / 2008

I’ve been doing several small studies with these clocks over the past few months. This past week was spent working up, larger on this and another piece. A few years ago I contemplated a career in graphic design. I spent time admiring typefaces and layout. Hence, the obsession with the clocks. It’s the numbers that really do it for me. That and the golden edge of the book.