Current: Blue Rectangles on Red

Here is another I just finished from the series called Current. This one also has about eight layers of oil enamel rectangles, which means it has about forty layers of clear polyurethane sandwiched in-between. The lower layers of blue turn green because of the natural slight yellow tint of the polyurethane.

Paul Booker
Current: Blue Rectangles on Red    2010
Ink, Oil Enamel, Polyurethane on Panel
16"x 12"

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

My brain thinks first in images, and then much later in symbols, words and numbers. Recent technology has enabled people to transform statistical data into visual images that are instantly comprehensible, much like a painting.

Irreducible Complexity Cut Down to Size

Explaining how complexity can arise through gradual evolution and debunking anti-evolutionist arguments.

Current: Blue Rectangles on Green

I think I am calling this piece done. It is a small piece, but these oil enamel paintings are usually about six months in the making.

I have only used a single color of blue in this painting. It has about eight layers of blue oil enamel on it and there are five layers of clear polyurethane between each layer of oil enamel, which is slightly yellow in tone and is what turns the successive layers of blue oil enamel green. So in total, there are about forty layers of polyurethane on the painting, which floats the top layers of blue about 1/8" inch above the surface of the panel. 

Current: Blue Rectangles on Green     2010
Ink, Oil Enamel, Polyurethane on Panel
8" x 12"

Keystone Shapes: Balloon Form

These are two views of a currently unfinished piece.

Keystone Shapes: Balloon Form    (unfinished)
Lexan, Ink, Steel Pins
12"x 12" x 10"

Red Arrows: Tunnel- Bottom Right Corner

I finished this piece a few days ago. I photographed a bunch of things I have around the studio yesterday, both finished and unfinished work. I'll be uploading some things as I get them edited.

Red Arrows: Tunnel- Bottom Right Corner   2010
Watercolor and Ink on Bristol
18"x14"

Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

 
  From the author of: The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution

TED collaborates with animator Andrew Park to illustrate Denis Dutton's provocative theory on beauty -- that art, music and other beautiful things, far from being simply "in the eye of the beholder," are a core part of human nature with deep evolutionary origins.

Keystone Shapes

One from the new series of sculpture.

Keystone Shapes: Tilted Half Dome
Lexan, Ink, Steel pins 
16"x 18"x 12"

Minutemen- Corona Acoustic

I had heard the acoustic version of "History Lesson", but I didn't realize they also did a version of Corona.

Something New

This blog started as an outlet for me to focus on things outside my own artwork, and usually things outside the topic of visual art in general... I guess it stems from the idea of the shoeless cobbler or even the landscaper who has a crappy lawn. We all get tired of looking at what we do all day...
 
But I think I might start including personal images.  A kind of sketchbook. Some images might be finished pieces, but most won't, other things might be reference photos or detail images of larger works... I think seeing these pieces I've been looking at for dozens (if not hundreds) of hours in a context outside my studio might be interesting and refreshing. We will see how it goes.

Balloon Form
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
22"x30"

Keith Rowe - Prepared Guitar

Keith Rowe of the free-improvisational group AMM since 1966, has done with the guitar what John Cage did with the piano. That is, a complete re-working and re-envisioning of what the traditional instrument is capable of.

Hey Ed, I think this may be Volume 4 of your "Worst Selling Guitar Hero Titles"

Lawrence Lessig: The Future of Copyright Law and Creativity

These are two great lectures by Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down and Control Creativity (Penguin 2004).

Lawrence Lessig: Laws That Choke Creativity     filmed March 2007

Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the Remix     filmed April 2010

The Troxler Effect

Stare at the black cross in the middle of the image.

Notice that the rotating vacant spot will begin to turn green and then the pink dots will begin to fade from view. The green happens because of an effect similar to that of the afterimage seen from a camera flash. When we look at a color for a period of time and then the color is suddenly taken away, our eyes tend to see an afterimage of that color perceived as the color's opposite. In this case, the opposite for pink would be pale green.


But the fading of the pink dots in our peripheral vision is an effect known as the Troxler Effect.
From Wikipedia:

Troxler's fading or Troxler's effect is a phenomenon of visual perception. When one fixates a particular point, after about 20 seconds or so, a stimulus away from the fixation point, in peripheral vision, will fade away and disappear. The effect is enhanced if the stimulus is small, is of low contrast or equiluminant, or is blurred. The effect is enhanced the further the stimulus is away from the fixation point.