Nice, yes? Their mid-1950s 300 SL is counted among the world’s most highly-rated and sought-after automobiles, even being voted “Sports Car of the Century” in 1999. Today, the 1955 300 SL Gullwing Coupe (below) can bring nearly $750,000 at auction.

Does the new SLS measure up? Comparing the two models is both unfair and unavoidable, but from everything I’ve seen I say “absolutely!” Advance reviews are somewhat mixed:

About $200,000 IF you know someone who knows someone. Available in Europe next year; as yet no official on-sale date for North America. Gorgeous!

The only car on the road that will blow the doors off itself
So how did Mercedes get a gullwing design approved in the US? Exploding bolts! Should the car overturn, pyrotechnic hinges will blow and passengers can escape.

When it comes to creating art, I’m managing to stay productive. I completed MAPLE TWIST this past weekend and couldn’t wait to plug it into the blog.

Once again, I worked extensively with various grayscale versions of this piece throughout its creation, and I have included the final grayscale for you here. When working with fractals, it is easy to get pulled off track and hypnotized by the copious detail, especially when applying the final colors and textures. I find that frequently referring to the grayscale image helps keep me focused on the overall impact and composition.

I am especially pleased with how the greens fade to deep purples in the upper center of the piece, and how the maple-colored background supports the orangy-golds.

As shown —
Finished size: 43.5″ x 30.0″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art: 32.0″ x 18.0″
Frame: Distressed Black with Gold Bead, 2″ width
Top Mat: Digital White, Width: Top 3.5″, Bottom 4″, Sides 3.5″
Bottom Mat: Cranberry
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic
Normally ships in 6-8 business days

MAPLE TWIST is available for purchase (in a variety of sizes and substrates) as of this moment. You may contact me directly to answer questions or assist you with your order, or click here to order now.

I must be in my RED period; I couldn’t get enough red when working on these two ethereal pieces. That, and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.

For all you lovers.

Hmmm. Is framed art more impressive than a card? Oh my yes!

It’s fun to be up to your elbows in the art, isn’t it? Once I’m past the conceptual stages and it feels like things are going to work out, it’s exciting to push and pull the boundaries, work on detail and play with color. That I was able to produce two pieces from this concept is double-good.

Once again, the marvelous detail achievable with fractals (shown above) astounds me. It is beauty within beauty; I never tire of the infinite permutations. The texture, which is generally lost at web sizes, is tasty at close range.

Love Blooms for the Goddess 1, and,
Love Blooms for the Goddess 2, as shown —
Finished size (each): 29.5″ x 44.3″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art: 18.0″ x 32.0″
Frames: Metropolitan Black with Gold, 2″ width
Top Mat: Fairfield White, Width: Top 3.5″, Bottom 4.25″, Sides 3.5″
Bottom Mat: Digital White
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic

Both GODDESS pieces are available for purchase now. You may contact me directly to answer questions or assist you with your order, or click here to order now. FREE SHIPPING throughout the United States through February 2nd. Use promo code CUPID09.

Artists are a lost bunch. All of us. We’re always pushing the envelope, burning the midnight oil, biting off more than we can chew and forging trails where there aren’t any. I may look like I know exactly what I’m doing, but I can assure you I’m lost half the time. It’s my job, because it’s the quickest way to end up somewhere I’ve never been.

Getting lost takes minimal skill. If you’re curious about things and a bit of an explorer, you’ll get lost. The trick, of course, is in finding your way home again.

How many times have you started an art project — filled with optimism and certainty — and followed your creative muse around this way and that until, about halfway through, you’re in no man’s land with no clear path to the finish line?

A key question to ask is “What am I trying to do?” Reestablish your original vision in your mind or — gut check — admit you were hoping things would become clear as you went along. Then push on. Move confidently into unknown territory and keep your eyes open for familiar sign posts: Emotional content, solid composition, pleasing color, visual hooks, tonal harmony and masterful technique.

You can rarely think your way out of an art dilemma of this nature. Too many options, too much procrastination. Roll up your sleeves and get in there, even if you’re not sure where it’s all heading. Work it. Push it. Find the art.

Illustration courtesy Lindsay Podd used under a Creative Commons license.

Simply stated, tonal harmony is “a pleasing pattern in the balance between light and dark.” Before I introduce my latest work, THE JUPITER EXPEDITION, I’d like to point out a technique you may find useful when evaluating the tones in your own art: Convert to grayscale.

Before you send your paintings, photographs or digital creations into the world, look at them in grayscale. Does the work hold up in a pleasing way, or is color being used to disguise tonal deficiencies? Some art is intended to be low-contrast, but if your work can benefit from balanced tonal separation and tonal harmony, there is no quicker way to identify areas of weakness than with grayscale.

Now, on to the new art! I like lost civilizations, ancient tombs and daring expeditions. But…can those themes — and especially those feelings — be conveyed in abstract works of art? I think so, and with a fair amount of drama and imagination. THE JUPITER EXPEDITION was very exciting to work on, from the first tentative anchor shapes to the tattered edges and bleeding tones, to the final explosion of crimson and gold. For me, it is a remarkably satisfying piece. I hope it is for you, too.

As shown —
Finished size: 46.0″ x 32.8″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art: 32.0″ x 18.0″
Frame: Wide Bronze Scoop, 3.5″ width
Top Mat: Digital White, Width: Top 3.25″, Bottom 4″, Sides 3.25″
Bottom Mat: Crimson
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic

THE JUPITER EXPEDITION is available for purchase (in a variety of sizes and substrates) as of this moment. You may contact me directly to answer questions or assist you with your order, or click here to order now.

Titles are not just a way to catalog art, but an important signpost which connects artists to their audience. Thoughtful naming allows/suggests a path for viewers to more fully experience the art’s meaning and it’s overall effect. For me, naming a new piece of art can sometimes take longer than creating it in the first place. That’s how important names are.

Certainly, there is the other side of the coin. Over the years I’ve had discussions with artists who refuse to name their work beyond “Untitled”. They say “I don’t want to influence what the viewer sees in them.” I understand their logic, especially with regard to abstract pieces.

However, I’m not willing to divorce myself from my work to that degree. Not anymore, anyway. Naming the art gives that art it’s soul. Now it’s ready; now it’s complete. And there’s no getting around it — the title gives my patrons and viewers an important connection to me, the artist. It is additional insight into my mood, my process, my emotions and my moment.

I have often thought that a piece’s title should pop into my head when I’m doing the work, or at least during the last hours of completion. But no. Whichever part of my brain is responsible for naming things is completely shut off when I’m creating art.

That turns out to be a good thing. Once finished with the visual, I can then look at the work with a slightly different set of eyes — less creative art lust and more contemplative afterglow. Ha! Perhaps at times I seek to balance an over-zealous image by giving it a civilized, respectable name. Or maybe not. I am just as likely to hint at a wild streak which is not readily apparent.

Image courtesy chaymation, used under a Creative Commons license.

Design is my passion. When creating art, I see and feel design long before color, texture or even representative objects are a consideration. I spend inordinate amounts of time working out rhythm, harmony, contrast, tension and balance for each of my fine art compositions.

MAGELLAN is the name of this black & white creation. I feel it projects a subtle map-like quality which conjures thoughts of daring expeditions into the unknown. It is an ode to ancient mariners, modern aviators and legions of future explorers who will hurtle through the galaxies in sleek star ships.

The art was digitally created in Ultra Fractal, which means detail (above) at even the larger sizes is crisp and sure.

In this instance, the image worked so well in black & white that color seemed superfluous and overreaching. I played with color, of course, but couldn’t improve upon the piece’s naked purity and bold confidence.

This art also “finished” nicely. If you’re an artist, you know that on every project there is always something else you can do or would like to try. The tweaking can go on forever! I often say that art isn’t so much finished as abandoned. At some point you just have to sign your work and send it into the world and let it fend for itself. MAGELLAN didn’t put me through that. It practically screamed “Stop messing with me, I’m done!”

I don’t generally show close-ups of frames, but look at this beautiful thing! Together with a set of white over black mats, MAGELLAN is very nicely dressed, like so:

As shown —
Finished size: 44.8″ x 37.5″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art: 32.0″ x 24.0″
Frame: Silver Distressed, 2.13″ width
Top Mat: Digital White, Width: Top 4″, Bottom 4.75″, Sides 4″
Bottom Mat: Ivory Black
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic

For readers of my blog, I am holding the price of MAGELLAN (sized and finished as shown) at $653.37 through next Sunday, August 24, 2008. The art normally ships in 6-8 business days. You may contact me directly to answer questions or assist you with your order, or click here to order now.

MAGELLAN looks great in home or office, and will make a superb addition to your collection.

For all its flighty, swirly motion, I am pleased with the final weight and balance of MEDUSA TOO. Created with a Wacom graphics tablet almost entirely in Corel Painter, I find there is something elephantine and calming about this otherwise chaotic composition.

During it’s creation, I was searching for a way to tame near-pandemonium and introduce order. This was achieved by slicing my original foundation image vertically and repeating a portion of it. Then I experimented with overlapping the two parts and adjusting both the color and layer opacities to produce the lighter center slice. That move turned out to be just what I was looking for: It added a disciplined design element to the composition and instilled a level of ordered repetition. Both of those things served to tame the hurricane of flying tendrils and set the composition solidly on it’s rectangular field.

MEDUSA TOO is a swirling, frenetic celebration of life. It is also an engaging portrait of seductive excess.

This piece shows well with an ivory black top mat and a digital white bottom mat. I like to finish it with a contemporary Satin Black frame and non-glare acrylic. The museum-quality giclee is beautifully printed on Somerset Velvet Fine Art paper. As shown, the overall dimensions are 43.3″ x 28.5″. For the next seven days (through August 16, 2008) I am making it available to you fully framed and finished for $545.99. The art normally ships in 6-8 business days. You may contact me directly to answer questions or assist you with your order, or click here to order now.

Here’s why: Because more often than not, the underlying question is “How can I do that?” The answer always involves life experiences, education, mentors, motivations, locations, successes, failures, tools and mysterious mental wranglings that are different from yours. Oh that we could simply buy John Lennon’s guitar or Picasso’s brushes and get on with it!

That last bit isn’t so far off the mark. Most artists start out copying things they see, including the work of artists who inspire them. Does that sound like you? As you gain confidence with your tools and technique — even if they were originally the tools and techniques of others — your own style will emerge. It’s only a matter of stepping up, getting involved and staying in the game. Step by step you will find your way through. Then, sooner than you think, you will be asked the inevitable question: How do you do that?

Image courtesy saintbob, used under a Creative Commons license.

What sort of art do you produce when you are free to produce anything you want? That question might be complicated for two reasons:

1. Do you know what you want?
2. Do you have the skills to produce your art in a way that does justice to your vision?

For me, those questions were answered with a digital painting I completed in early 2001. Until then, I had created some interesting fine art, but I wasn’t focused. I was working with paintings, assemblages, photography and digital art. The most fun I had was throwing paint on canvas and moving it around. I loved that part! Everything after that — attempting to finish the piece or make it into “art” — not so much. I owned stacks of unfinished canvases.

I felt digital imagery held a lot of promise and I bruised my computer attempting to reproduce all the good parts of throwing paint on canvas. I filled up gigabytes of disc space with unfinished art. Then one afternoon I created the piece (above) that became SMOKE. Oddly enough, the feeling was similar to the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies: “And then one day he was shootin’ at some food, and up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude…” I had it, I knew I had it, and it was just that simple!

SMOKE represents no-strings-attached art. It was produced for the pure joy of doing it. But it has since become much more to me; a personal touchstone; literally a jumping off point for all that was to come. By understanding this piece, I understood where I could go with my art. That understanding didn’t have much to do with hardware, software or technique, but rather the A-ha! moment that exploded me out of the gates. I felt I could swoop in and around and through the image, and I could see the infinite possibilities for future art.

The computers and software I owned when I produced SMOKE are long gone; replaced with newer, better, stronger. Today I continue to explore all manner of artistic detours, but the discoveries I gleaned from SMOKE will forever fuel my artistic vision.

If you’re an artist, does your body of work include a pivotal piece which focused your artistic vision?

If you’re an art collector, can you identify a specific work of art which has come to define your collection effort?