Thursday, March 3, 2011

There He Goes Again

The Rebetsky Horizontal, 1987, 16 X 21, mixed media. 


Rebetsky detail A

Rebetsky detail B

Rebetsky detail C

This mixed media extravaganza started with a stylus impressing textures into the paper (thick bristol is the only paper I had found to withstand the abuse of one of these), followed by a tripple tone pen and ink stage  (.03 Rapidograph, black, blue and brown ), a series of rubbed pastel dust and tempura powder layers,  prismacolor toning, graphite lining and toning, and splatter layers in several colors.  These details seem fairly close to original size, but you can still click on them for even more of a blow-up. 

I think of this as pure art--playful, meditative, vigorous, silly, serious, intense, escapist--where the purpose of the paper is only to contain all that.   I have no idea what purpose it all serves, or how it fits in to anything in the art world, and I don't really care.   OK maybe I care a little.  I just like to do them again and again. 

Enough said.

\\///\

PS   I've added a detail to the previous post, the Arc Ascendant--way better.

10 comments:

RH Carpenter said...

I enjoy the meditative quality of this one. It's like you sat at a loom and wove this one, thread by thread. Beautiful!

patty Oblack said...

I also think this is amazingly beautiful, why aren't you doing more?

hw (hallie) farber said...

I agree with Rhonda--beautiful. And, I grinned when I looked at Arc Ascendant; enjoyed reading the comments.

William Cook said...

Hi Patty--Thanks so much! I did a lot of exploring along these lines, from the mid 70's through the mid eighties and beyond to today (only occasionally). There are possibly about 100 works, in varying degrees of complexity. You're right though, this blog is helping to bring me back to this stuff--my own unique work. I am being rejuvinated. We'll see. \\///\

William Cook said...

Hi Halie--I remember getting so frustrated with Joe as I did my best to be serious and come up with all that terribly critical art booshwa about this piece, but he just kept grinnin. I swear I had no idea when I was making it. I'm innocent I tell you...innocent...
\\///\

debwardart said...

Hi - and thanks for commenting over on my blog. So glad you are enjoying my attempt at teaching! Don't let watercolor scare ya - and for sure not w/c pencils! You will be a natural and will create wonderful art with them (not like my pathetic little attempts!) Love all of the tiny, fine lines in your painting here; like I just said, you will do wonderful things with w/c pencils! And maybe some day with watercolor ("face your fears"!)

William Cook said...

Hi Deb--Check out Maggie Latham's sketches--it's all her fault. I simply can't resist having a whack at it. At the moment I'm just going to limit my explorations to outdoor sketching. If I come up with anything I'll post it--if nothing else it will give all you watercolorists a belly laugh, all apologies to Maggie of course. Water is so , well, wet. Your teaching is nice, no so fast. \\///\

Linda Roth said...

Intricately interwoven threads, dimension in space and Fats Waller.
You're an interesting guy William. Your work makes me want to go back to my pencils because if anyone is giving the watercolorists a laugh it's me. Your Fats gave me a laugh. As I recalled my own heavy set dad with a twinkle in his eye sit down and tickle that tune on the ivories as he sang that song. Great memory. Thank you.

Rebecca Crowell said...

Love this piece and the richness you achieve with mixed media--wow.

William Cook said...

Hi Rebecca - Thanks! I somehow knew you would be noticing the mixed-media aspects of these pieces. I am dying to pick up here, and bust loose with a brand new body of similar works. Still "stewing", "ruminating", "incubating". (your post was espicially timely). \\///\