dan's painting's ... a woodworker does color

ok ... i've been fooling around with this stuff

now for a couple years and i am ready to let it out of the bag ...

i like color!  

woodworking, there's not so much.  you've got

your different woods, your lights and your darks, your curlies

and your burls and other oddities, but the tones are earthy, and after a while,

they sort of blend and you find yourself fussing with subtle variations of brown

over and over and over.  red brown, green brown, light brown, dark brown ...

where are the cadmium reds and oranges, the cerulean blues?

you can't find them in the wood pile ...

so, off to the right there is a new page with a link to a slideshow

of my paintings, only some of which are shown here.  you can see all of them

at this link  i've got a million of em ...

trust me, this is just the beginning.  i am inspired not only

by my friend horst , a multidisciplined creator if ever there was one, but also by reading recently

on the mid century americans, motherwell, johns, diebenkorn, krasner, frankenthaler, o'keefe ...

you get the idea ... 

i plan to add to this post, which will also be accessible from the 'dan's paintings' page 

once it leaves 'home'

enjoy, comment, criticize ... i am open to your thoughts ..

ps .. it looks like you may have to sign into your google account to view the slideshow
ever since they ditched picasa, i have been having trouble sharing new slide shows
my sincere apologies ... 

" and now for something completely different " ....

 

 every now and so often, i get the urge to break out of the natural wood/stained wood palette and stretch a little.  i have done it several times, like in the picture of the desk below that i made back in the late 80's ... lately too, i've been doing some pottery with bright colors and patterns, and when i had to make a piece for a guild of vermont furnituremakers show at the vermont statehouse, i thought,
why not ??  click the photos to enlarge them ...

 i started with some sketches, and a 30"slab of white oak that has 

been hanging around for a while now.  i have a 6' chunk left that would
make a nice small dining table

first sketch with a natural top and red edges

 

sam and i had recently been to the clark art museum to see david smith's circles, so there was that ...

and once i had the sketch/drawing, and the slab

 

the base just sort of designed itself

 being still a little unsure, i painted the bottom of the top first, as a test of the concept

i  made a 'pattern' on the cnc, which i used as a 'guide' while i hand painted the circle motif.  i raised it off the suurface with some carpet glides so i didn't have to worry about 'bleed' and got a round, yet handpainted looking circle.  the dark surround was a full strength coat of dark brown/black aniline dye that i painted, brushed out, and left to dry.  it was important to me to get some strong color, yet still see the grain of the wood through it when i was 'done'.

 

all in, all done, and in montpelier now .. the show opens saturday, and i will have more on that soon.