Ancient Trees
2009 - 11"x12" Acrylic, graphite, charcoal, newspaper, on wood.
Finished with two coats of Krylon Kamar Varnish #1312
(Private Collection - New York)

January 5, 2009

This is my first painting for 2009 and a good example of how my creative process works. So here's how it went.

The wood is covered with Brooklyn Rail newspaper collage. I add some paint and scribbling, but there's no real direction.

More paint was added and eventually I drew in the large fish. Fish are a common theme in my artwork, but this one turned into a pirate ship. The recent news stories about Somalian pirates were the likely inspiration. I was thinking of an underwater scene so the background turned blue and I painted in the three smaller fish.

In the top sail was a piece of newspaper with part of a poem.

How beautiful
these ancient trees
palatzing to and fro.

After I read this, I added in trees and a few pyramids. These were carved into the newspaper collage using a razor blade. I had watched a documentary about the underwater pyramids of Yonaguni Jima, Japan and thought they fit in well with the pirate ship of tomb robbers.

I was relatively happy with the painting at this point, but the sails didn't look right. I added more newspaper collage to alter the shape. The collage ended up being too thick, so I started pulling newspaper off. The newspaper had this torn, ragged look that I really liked. It was pure accident, and a good example of what aimless improvisation can do. If you look at the photo below, you will see where the newspaper was torn off. Unfortunately, the poem from above was lost in the process.

I liked the trees and pyramids, but they didn't stand out enough from the blue. I carved thicker and deeper lines with a razor blade, then used a white charcoal pencil to trace the lines. The lines were now a bright white and had sufficient contrast with the blue. I signed the painting, and considered it done.

Here is a larger, detailed photo: