Artist

Self-Portrait #9

Posted by Cranford

When I get stuck in my painting, I eventually figure out that I need to go back to where I started and paint a self-portrait. I believe this is my ninth. Each one is a different style or approach. I realized as I was planning this one that Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh each did 35 or 36 self-portraits. Self-portraits are liberating. There is no customer who needs to be satisfied or who is going to judge it. The pressure is off.

That is the color of my hair, this week. And, it is cut and combed in a Mohawk. I’m wearing black, so I’m wearing pearls like the ladies on Facebook told me I should.

This painting is acrylic on veneer on an 18″ diameter particle board with a rope loop to hang it.

If you want to buy it. Make me an offer.

Miss Jessie Warhol

Posted by Cranford
Miss Jessie Warhol

This started out as a pair of Miss Jessie daylily blossoms blooming next to our driveway. I photographed them, then tweaked the photo in Photoshop. Then I mirrored the image and inverted the colours. After that, I arranged them checkerboard fashion and added two green borders. This was then museum quality printed on canvas. which I stretched over a handcrafted frame. I made a sleek, modern frame of poplar and coated it with multiple layers of black lacquer, then varnish. This is my favourite daylily! If you look closely, you can even see a tiny insect on one of the petals.

It is named for Andy Warhol, as it is an homage to his Marilyn Monroe serigraphs and Campbell Soup Cans. I never appreciated them from seeing them in books and magazines. I saw them in person at a museum on the University of Minnesota campus around 1990. they were breathtaking, in person! This is why my website is named what it is! Art IS always better in person. Buy some. Take it home.

Overall dimensions are 26″ x 26″ x 2″.

Price: $350 reduced to $150 plus postage

Email me your name, address and phone number, so we can arrange payment and shipment.

Edward Hopper & Edward Hopper

Posted by Cranford
Edward Hopper & Edward Hopper

I dedicated my mural to the 20th century artist Edward Hopper and to the rabbit who lived under the shed, whom I named after him. These portraits were painted (and photographed) in very close quarters. I think the retaining wall was less than two feet from the wall of the house at this point. Edward Hopper, the artist, is my favorite artist of the 20th century. His most famous painting is probably Nighthawks, seen below. Click on it to read a bit more about him.

The rabbit, Edward hopper, was bold. They came very close and did not mind me talking to them. I really don’t know if it was a male or female; or even if it was more than one and I only saw one at a time, and they all had identical markings. But they were nice to have around as I was painting.