Traveling Without A Map

The origins of this piece appeared awhile back in my post A Grab Bag of Progress: Part IX.  It's just kinda evolving on its own.  I have no real plans for it (right now anyway).  I'm seeing where it wants to go.  This is the first layer of imagery combined with the fabric-wrapped negative shape from an older piece.

Colors.

A second layer of imagery is on its way.

A New Wave For Voyage of Discovery: Part I

Voyage of Discovery has been receiving a lot of attention in the studio lately.  I'm almost done carving the top portion of the frame.  At over 9' in length, that's a fair amount of carving.  I still have the right side to finish carving, and I haven't even done the sketches for the bottom panel/frame.

Still more to carve...

For most of the artists I know personally, art making is rarely a straight line process.  Some ideas work just as envisioned, but many others need to be modified along the way, or outright abandoned in favor of something better/more eloquent.

One day, while staring intently at Voyage of Discovery, I was contemplating where to take the piece.  I realized the maze portions I had added weren't visually working the way I needed them to.  The maze areas demanded too much attention and visually were kind of confusing/muddled.

Even though I had spent many hours (and the 4' assassin had also spent considerable time too) applying maze to the surface, I needed to edit most of it out.  I still wanted maze in several places, just in a more subdued fashion.  Here I am taking an X-Acto knife to trim the maze walls.

Freshly trimmed.

In other areas, I pulled off the maze completely -which left behind a wonderful residue of adhesive in the shape of the maze.  Better to be lucky than good!

I also wanted to finally address Captain Midnight's Scurvy-Dog Crew.  The faces/heads/masks are leftovers from work I was doing on my piece Quest(Shun).  Here is a link to that earlier POST.

The faces were initially designed to have bodies built around them, but since the space I had allowed was way too tight, I just lopped off their necks and added little wooden bodies.

In lieu of the masses of small and visually muddled maze areas, I've opted to add larger shapes to accentuate a flowing feel to the composition.

Building the composition one shape at a time.

I wrap my shapes with old fabric.  Below you can see an old silkscreen T-shirt design I made over 25 years ago.

Stepping back to take in the whole piece/composition.

More detail shots.

Now it is time to cover the remaining wall sections of the maze with fabric.  I'll be honest, there is not a lot of joy to be found in this kind of endeavor.  In fact, if it were something I had to do for my 'job' versus for making my art, I'd quit that job.  No one has got time for that nonsense.

Some of tonight's fabric will be brought to us by my old Aladdin's Castle T-Shirt.  Good Times.....

After the maze walls have been covered, here are a few detail shots to close out this post.

Highly similar to earlier images except, you know..........greener.

Bigger. Better. Badder. Bro Kin.

This is Bro Kin from Heidi Hernandez's and my show, Merican-Tastic!, back in 2012.  I've kind of been itching to turn Bro Kin into something more/different.

Bro Kin needs a new home.  Time for a canvas-endectomy......

.....pull several dozen staples.......

.....and attach to a larger canvas.......

Bro Kin has some really nice textures that I want to maintain in its new incarnation.

I also had this relief element left over from an earlier version of Los Reyes that I removed but kept around in the studio because it had too much potential to just discard.

I can't say that I am a huge fan of the line work on this two-headed figure.  I will likely paint over it.

I combed through my sketchbooks and found some drawings I thought could work as a base layer.

Time to add color.

You can see RE/DE in the background.  I try to keep other pieces around me while I am working because when I see what is going on in those pieces, I frequently gain insight(s) into what I need to do on the piece on which I'm actually working.

Last few touches on the first color layer.

Time for the color wash to separate the layers of imagery.....

I have to admit, I'm really happy with how this haze layer turned out.  Believe it or not, I kinda want to paint a bunch more parking lot on this piece.  We'll see.

A sketch that may find its way into the second layer......?

That's it for Bro Kin for now.  Next time we take a look at what is going on with Voyage of Discovery.