House in Accomack
Oil on cradled beech board, 16x16
I stumbled onto what I am calling "mosaic painting" when I was working to figure out what to do at the very bottom of a giant painting I'd made earlier in the year for a window at Jerry's Artarama.
I'd gotten to the bottom of the painting - painted the giant delphiniums and daisies and coneflowers - and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want just grass, or just dirt - I wanted some color down there. Some interest. Some action.
I'd been on a pastels kick just before I made this behemoth, and I decided to try using the oil paints in the way I'd been using pastels - putting down rough patches of color to suggest. I tried it and I liked it - and it occurred to me to make a painting using only that approach - and that's how the first of the mosaics came about.
I'm working to learn the ins and outs of this mosaic painting, how to use color with this technique, how to get motion and distance and atmosphere into the painting, how to make it all work in a way that I like, and that I like doing.
The biggest difference between the mosaics and my more regular style of painting is time. It takes me days and days and days to complete even a small mosaic. In the time it takes to make one of these, I can make three or even four "regular" paintings - if I work hard and quickly.
So, while these are painstaking and time-consuming, I find them captivating and thrilling. I love looking at them. They shimmer, they change, they evoke, they evolve.
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"Couldn't Drag Me Away"
Gesso, acrylic, ink, powder and gold, silver and copper leaf on canvas, 36x48
MEANTIME, and, I suspect, in response to the precision of the mosaics, I've been presented with these "wild" paintings - extremely fast, extremely loose multi-media pieces that just announced themselves one afternoon in April.
Initially, the bifurcation bothered me, but I am learning to accept it and delight in it.
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Newfoundland!
THE TIMING is a little bit up in the air, but this summer (June-July or August-September), I am heading to Newfoundland to paint!
It's a sponsored painting trip, meaning that you can buy a painting in advance, receive my sponsor-only travel- and painting blog while I'm on the road, and then, when I get home, choose your painting in the order in which you signed up.
The trip will be somewhat limited, time-wise, so I am accepting only 12 sponsors. There are a few spots left, and one or more of them could be yours! It's $125 for a 10x10-inch painting, and $300 for a larger piece.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will also be making a painting trip to Utah, in the fall, so if you're interested in sponsorship but would prefer Utah, that's fine.
For more on the Newfoundland trip, please click here to reach that page on my website, Jacobson Arts
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Workshop Coming Up
I'LL BE TEACHING a palette-knife painting workshop in Westerly, RI, on Wednesday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.! It's at Avondale Arts, 95 Watch Hill Road, Westerly... The class goes from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's $95, limited to 12 people, and you must have at least some painting experience. Contact Avondale Arts for more info and to sign up. (http://www.avondalearts.com/) Want me to do a workshop in your area? Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com
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Dog of the Day
What a a face on this guy! I met him out in Arizona, and he was just as sweet as he looks.
Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com
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A Final Thought
"I make art. Sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all."
- Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
