This season’s selection is COBALT COLOSSUS. It is an endlessly interlocking assemblage of fractals crafted into one monolithic image. The result is warm, powerful and sensual.

Lovingly sized and framed for maximum impact and enjoyment
As shown —
Finished size: 42.8″ x 29.3″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art Paper: 32.0″ x 18.0″
Frame: Gold Distressed, 2.13″ width
Top Mat: Cabernet, Width: Top 3″, Bottom 3.5″, Sides 3″, conservation suede
Middle Mat: Porcelain, acid free paper
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic
Normally ships in 6-8 business days

All 13 Pieces — Under $12,000
The finished, framed COBALT COLOSSUS 12-Pack + 1 is priced at $11,172.60 plus shipping. Contact me to help you arrange delivery directly to the doors of your loved ones and special friends (surprise!). Or — if your sleigh is big enough — I can ship some, most, or all of the art to your house for personal delivery. And yes, the 13th piece is free, with my compliments.

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 plucked this beautiful sprig of leaves from a bush in my backyard. I wish I could tell you the name of the plant. However, when inspiration strikes I am only concerned with making art. From a botany point of view, I only know it’s hearty enough to withstand winter nights in Sedona.

I brought the sprig into my studio and made a high resolution scan. Very nice. From there I adjusted saturation and contrast, then selectively embellished the image with drips and drabs of color. I made a digital collage for the background, parts of which include a rusted metal plate for texture.

The detail is superb. It’s nice to get back to nature every once in a while. Art, as they say, is all around us.

As shown —
Finished size: 46.3″ x 39.0″
Print on Somerset Velvet Fine Art: 32.0″ x 24.0″
Frame: 3 3/8 in. Black/Gold Scoop
Top Mat: Matte White, Width: Top 3.5″, Bottom 4.25″, Sides 3.5″
Bottom Mat: Matte White
Glazing: Non-glare Acrylic
Normally ships in 6-8 business days

EDGE OF EDEN 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.

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.

Today I feature one of my latest works, called Ripple. My intent was to create a strong image that was bold, clean and sassy. I’ve used a very limited color pallet on this one, mostly blues, but a full tonal range from stark white to deep black. I’m happy with how it seems to move.

Notice the upper left quadrant, where the ripples and fade-aways are not predictable, but irregular. I have avoided symmetrical repetition and forced a series of illogical curves. When these designs are married to the more “coordinated” bottom curves, the juxtaposition sets up a nice tension which makes the piece more exciting.

The above full-size close-ups reveal an earthy, gritty texture to the piece which is not apparent when viewing the web-ready representations. This is not pixel-distortion, but an intended texture I worked into the art to give it body and substance.

RIPPLE sings under non-glare acrylic, a white conservation matte and a traditional black scoop frame with low-lights of gold and red. Very pretty! Click here to view my finishing recommendations and to order this piece for your home, office, cruise line or international resort properties.