Side trip to Illinois

My last art-related visit to Illinois was in late last September for the Port Clinton Art Festival. This time I am shepherding only one painting to Illinois, which will be on display in an exhibit titled “Windows and Doors” at Tall Grass Arts Association in Park Forest. Since I already wrote a descriptive piece for the exhibit, I’m going to cheat a bit here and repost the statement–

This painting was done several years back but has remained among my absolute favorites. Probably a bit useless to say, but it looks a lot spookier in person! I often wonder if I still have that creative touch today to completely change a color scheme through imagination. This one, and a few others I worked through the same way, are a totally different mind process than any of the Sky Pads paintings. The basic difference is that Sky Pads are almost completely randomly built around a skeleton of an idea. This one, on the other hand, is purposely carefully designed toward a specific effect.

Here’s another example, from basically flat white to raucous color:

From almost monochrome—

To a roiling blast of red, white and blue–

This one, titled “Red Wind”, as far as I know ended up in a Doral hotel in Illinois. It was sold a couple decades ago through an agent, and they don’t always tell you exactly who bought it. Kind of completing the Illinois circle for this style, maybe?