Watermedia Works

Art and Fear

2011-12-15T22:25:00.001-07:00

Cognizantithesis 4

Acrylic & gesso on Yupo

25" X 19"

"Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others. In a general way, fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work."

David Bayles & Ted Orland

Art & Fear

I cannot recommend this book enough. If you are serious about your work it is a must read. If you have read it already, read it again.

It's Been Awhile

2011-09-26T23:08:00.000-06:00

Pompadour

25" X 19"

Acrylic & Gesso on Yupo

It's been awhile since I've blogged and wouldn't you know it, just like Facebook this crazy blogger compose interface has changed. What can I say, perhaps I'm just not a natural born blogger. It takes so much time to do this and quite frankly I'd rather be painting. I'm 62 years old this November and still working a full time job to support the family (one daughter still at home and one starting her freshman year at Northern Arizona University). So I find myself going into the studio at all kinds of crazy hours. I apologize for not keeping up with all of my blogger friends and miss the interaction every time I get on here. I'm still lurking about looking at all the wonderful art that pops up from those I follow but just barely have the time to look at all of it. I do have some wonderful news to report (at least to me): I had a painting (Lunatic Fringe) accepted for the 91st Annual Exhibition of the National Watercolor Society. The painting was also chosen for the traveling exhibit. Oh yeah, and probably the best news, I was awarded signature status so it's off to San Pedro, California in October.

Sentinel

2011-06-26T22:33:00.000-06:00

Sentinel

5.29.2011

6.4.2011

6.12.2011

6.18.2011

6.19.2012

6.25.2011

6.26.2011

Nereid

2011-05-28T19:33:00.000-06:00

Nereid


5.1.2011

5.7.2011

5.15.2011

5.21.2011

5.22.2011


5.2.2011

5.22.2011a

5.22.2011b

Depravity 7

2011-04-24T13:51:00.000-06:00

Depravity 7

Painting with Sarah

2011-04-17T15:24:00.006-06:00

Depravity 6

Sarah's Painting

Last night I was in the studio when my daughter Sarah came in asked if she could paint too. I was pleasantly surprised. She's almost 18 and I don't think she has asked that since she was in the early years of elementary school. Anyway I said, "Sure!, what would you like to paint?" She said she didn't care, "...lets just paint something together." So I fetched two painting surfaces and chose a palette that I thought would be fun for this exercise. It was Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine, Cadmium Orange, Cobalt Turquoise, Alizarin Crimson and Thalo Green. I created a dark Sepia hue by mixing Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna, then poured it around in various locations on the surface. I showed Sarah how to move the pigment around to catch some of the sides so as not to center anything but all the while leaving some valuable white space. Next we added Cadmium Orange and Cobalt Turquoise in various locations. Finally, we pulled it together using a Gray made from Alizarin Crimson, Thalo Green and gesso. These two paintings are our results.

3.13.2011

3.19.2011

3.20.2011

3.26.2011

3.27.2011

4.2.2011

4.3.2011

4.8.2011

4.9.2011

4.17.2011

Passing Pleasures

2011-03-14T23:46:00.000-06:00

Passing Pleasures


2.13.2011

2.20.2011

2.24.2011

3.6.2011

3.12.2011

2011-02-15T23:36:00.003-07:00

Depravity 3

depravity |diˈpravitē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
moral corruption : a tale of wickedness and depravity.
• a wicked or morally corrupt act.
• Christian Theology the innate corruptness of human nature, due to original sin.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: alteration (influenced by deprave ) of obsolete pravity, from Latin pravitas, from pravus ‘crooked, perverse.’

Thesaurus
depravity
noun
the depravity of white slavers corruption, vice, perversion, deviance, degeneracy, immorality, debauchery, dissipation, profligacy, licentiousness, lechery, prurience, obscenity, indecency; wickedness, sin, iniquity; formal turpitude.


1.1.2011

1.9.2011

1.22.2011

1.29.2011

1.30.2011

2.4.2011

2.5.2011

2.6.2011

11.25.2010

11.26.2010

12.5.2010

12.12.2010

12.18.2010

12.19.2010

12.27.2010

12.31.2010

Depravity

2011-01-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

Depravity

Prone to Depravity

Thankful

2010-11-25T23:24:00.002-07:00

Lunatic Fringe

Reaper

Finally, a little time off to do a few things I haven't done in awhile. I've been scrambling since late spring to make a living. I've been in graphic design and production for over 30 years and worked primarily for one company the last 16 years, up untill late last spring when the woes of the economy steadily decreased my work flow and consequently the number of hours in a pay period until there were none. After sitting around a couple of weeks back in May fretting about the situation I decided it was time to make some serious career adjustments (my paintings certainly weren't selling like hot-cakes). I was able to get a few freelance projects and a couple of painting commissions, but it wasn't enough to support my family, so I took a job at Home Depot in July for not-too-much-payola and continued with the freelance in the off hours. Home Depot was exhausting. The position there was with the Merchandising Execution Team (MET), which involved keeping merchandise stocked in order according to planograms for each bay created by corporate and built by MET. It was nothing too cerebral but physically exhausting. Add to all of this the fact that I have two teen daughters who are both high school varsity cheerleaders. Cheerleading is EXPENSIVE! My oldest daughter and three grandchildren moved in with us so there are 8 of us living here now. Around the first of October I started a position doing web development. Some aspects of the job are challenging and there is a learning curve happening, usually in the evening when I'm not pressured by clients needing alterations or fixes "ASAP". I really like it though and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with it daily.

All of this being said, there is an up side:

I was determined not to let these times effect my work as an artist. In fact, this year I have sold more paintings and won more awards than in any previous year. I have also taught my first workshop and will be teaching another in January, and have been approached by several groups to teach workshops. Some of the awards I received were: Award of Excellence in the Arizona Watercolor Association's Spring Membership Exhibition (juried by Michael Schlicting), the David Gail Memorial Award in the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies 35th Annual Exhibition (juried by Carla O'Connor) and most recently, Best of Show in the Arizona Watercolor Association's Fall Membership Exhibition (juried by Ted Nuttall). My WFWS painting was featured in American Artist's Watercolor Magazine. I have also had two solo exhibitions. I have much to be thankful for.

Workshop

Some New Work

2010-08-16T23:03:00.003-06:00

Recent Watercolor Sketches

The Stroll

Lipstick

Recent Drawings

Landfill Apparition

Landfill Elastic

Landfill Fodder

Landfill Lollipop

Landfill Orchestral

Landfill Seed

Landfill Harvest

What is the Meaning?

2010-07-12T09:46:00.005-06:00

Landfill #11

Recently I was asked by Katherine Treffinger to participate in her "Art and Meaning Project" which asks the question, "What is the meaning of doing art for you?" You can see my response on her blog "Treffinger Daily" here:

http://katherinetreffinger.blogspot.com/2010/07/stan-kurth-art-and-meaning.html

Sorry to all my blogging friends out there; I've been socially lacking here lately. Graphics business has been in a tail spin and I've taken a job with substantial pay cut. Sales of art are few and far between. With all that is going on in my life at this time I haven't had a lot of time to blog. Hopefully changes will come around. In the mean time please accept my apology for not being very social. I'm looking at your posts, I just don't have all the time and energy I want to make comment. I will not quit making art.

Recent Drawings

Landfill #10 and recent drawings

2010-06-27T22:56:00.001-06:00

Landfill #10

Landfill Joe with Gun

Landfill Variation

Landfill Seating

Landfill Venetian

Landfill Information Booth

Landfill Angel

Landfill Attendant

Revisions and Drawings

2010-06-06T00:58:00.001-06:00

Landfill #7 (revised)

Landfill #5 (revised)

DRAWINGS

Hand that Feeds

Mother and Child

Security

Shaman's Gallery

2010-05-29T15:16:00.005-06:00

Recently two close friends of mine journeyed to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon near Torowheap to visit the ancient Shaman's Gallery which is nested on the side of a wash about 3 miles down from the rim. The drive there from Phoenix is about 9 hours. This was Diane's birthday trip to the Canyon and I was supposed to go along but daughter duties prevailed. I've included some pictures of their visit to this incredible gallery. What I find interesting about these images is they are not typical of Native American petroglyphs or pictographs that I've seen. Some of the animals look familiar, but most of the figures are quite different from any I have seen. The images are pictographs; all done with pigment. I can only imagine what they looked like when freshly painted. I find them fascinating. Enjoy!

Magma

2010-05-25T00:46:00.007-06:00

Received notification along with a catalog, certificate, check and disc Saturday from the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies representative for the Arizona Watercolor Association via snail mail informing me that I had won the David Gale Memorial Award (2nd Place) for this painting in the WFWS 35th Annual Exhibition being held at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, May 14th - June 26th. The juror was Carla O'Connor AWS, DF, NWS. I probably would have gone to the opening in Utah had I known what the award was.

Landfill #6

2010-05-23T23:53:00.001-06:00

Landfill #6

I've modified this one a bit.

Some more from the sketch book:

Landfills and Family

2010-05-16T22:26:00.002-06:00

Landfill #5

Landfill #6

Landfill #7

My newest work has taken a turn. I still consider it part of the "Childish Things" series but it has become more abstract. These paintings are all titled the same for this reason: there is a wide variety of discarded objects dumped in the landfills around the world and likewise in my landfills there are many ideas being dumped on the medium. All of this derived from my fascination with the dump when I was a child. If you think about it most everything ends up in a landfill; it's why archeologists have jobs. We're all destined to end up there someday, are we not?

Some recent images from the sketch book:

Childish Things

Dot Matrix

Landfill #4

MEET MY FAMILY

Just for grins because I love them so much, I thought I'd share my family with you all. They are all big supporters of my artistic endeavors, which means they also put up with my temperament. They were instrumental in my return to painting after a long period of not painting with fully focused intent. The photos of family members were taken by my daughter Briana and you can see her work on her blog at kurthphotography.wordpress.com Not pictured is my son Steve because I don't have a recent digital photo, so as soon as I do I will post. He is the oldest of my six children.

Wife Janet

Stepdaughter Julia

Daughter Briana

Daughter Candice

Daughter Sarah

Daughter Emily (the baby)

A FEW SHOTS TAKEN AT THE OPENING OF MY SOLO

Granddaughter Lily & Daughter Candice

"Perilous Allure" revisited

2010-04-12T01:39:00.002-06:00

This painting Perilous Allure was my very first blog entry back in late December 09. I found out last Thursday that it won an Award of Excellence in the Arizona Watercolor Association's Spring Exhibition. The juror was Michael Schlicting, whose work I've admired for many years.

Dump #1

2010-03-28T16:23:00.000-06:00

Dump #1

Acrylic and Gesso on Yupo

19" X 19"

Landfill #3

Ink on Paper

8" X 7.5"

I Think I'll hang out it here at the dump for awhile; it smells so good and I need to do some searching. What do you think? Is there anything worth looking for here; are there any buried treasures? I think there might be, so I'm going to rummage about.

Continuing In Childish Ways!

2010-03-15T00:20:00.001-06:00

Landfill-1

ink on paper

8" X 8"

Landfill-2

ink on paper

8" X 8"

I loved going to the dump with my dad when I was young. I don't think I did any drawings of it but I did draw the same type of bulldozers in different situations. I really got off on watching heavy equipment being operated no matter where it was. At the dump there was no lack of interesting people and garbage. I kind of like the landfill concept as it relates to my childhood and how I see it now. I was laying in bed the other night almost asleep and it came to me; the "dump", then, now and more. There are a lot of possible ways to go with this. I may stay here for awhile and see what develops. I'm thinking there is a plethora of socioeconomic statements to be made with garbage. You can use refuse to represent all sorts of things. I have a friend who is an engineer and works for a firm that designs and builds landfills. They're quite different than the dumps I knew as a child. One thing hasn't changed though: they still kinda smell the same. One of my thoughts as a kid was if I was smelling that stuff that meant I must be breathing it too. I wondered how those guys could work there all day.

More Childish Things!

2010-03-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

"Liberation"
19" X 19" , Acrylic & Gesso on Yupo

I'm continuing with the series and as of yet I'm not clear on the direction it will go, but I'm fairly certain that it will become more abstract as I correlate "then" with "now". I must say I'm having a blast rethinking these drawings of the past. Quite a bit of the early drawings I did were of imagined WWII combat scenes. The graphite point on the pencil was live ammo. Lots of death and destruction. I've garnished a bit.

One thing I might mention. I do all of this drawing from my head as I did as a child. So all you Sherman Tank aficionados (or whatever the popular tank of the war was) take heed. My point is not tank rendering but tank representation.

"Power"

6" X 6" , Ink on Paper

One subject that I have repeatedly drawn throughout my entire life is the automobile. Early drawings had potato shaped bodies and obscure tires and ornaments. During grades 5 through 8 I was heavily into model car building; not too many customs, mostly hot-rods or dragsters. So the drawings from that era reflected that and I still did all of the drawing from memory. If you give a good inspection of the drawing above you'll notice a rather distorted version of a GMC 671 Blower & belt assembly. Again, I have no idea how accurate. Good times!

"More Power"

6" X 6", Ink on Paper

"Dosage"

6" X 6", Ink on Paper

This drawing is not related to the series (or is it?). Just thought I'd throw it in for the heck of it.

Childish Things!

2010-02-27T14:46:00.006-07:00

Untitled Oil Painting 6.5" X 10"

Memory seems to work best with associations. Although the memories associated with this painting are vague, it was sort of a launching pad for my life as an artist. It was painted at my aunt Barb's house where she very kindly stretched this small canvas for me and provided me with a palette and some brushes. The painting is of a horse or some kind of animal in a corral with a water tank. There is a road along the mountains leading to a parking area near the corral and a fine looking saguaro near the parking area. I don't remember aunt Barb helping me too much other than with the signature.

At a young age I drew scenes that included subjects I was fascinated with. I remember construction crews putting in sewer lines in our neighborhood to replace septic tanks. I was fascinated with all the heavy equipment like trenchers, backhoes, graders, payloaders and earthmovers and the weathered faces of men operating them. I would draw these things in a fashion like being in the picture plane operating that equipment, often emulating the noises made by them. Oh how I wanted to drive those things. I put in many details like the barricades set up around the work sites and pipes ready to go down in freshly excavated trenches. It was play-drawing. Group play-drawing was the most fun; usually done with my cousins and my brother with aunt Barb dispensing the drawing materials. I was fortunate to land a seating arrangement in third grade with three others kids of a similar artistic bent (coincidence? I don't think so). Mrs Wilkinson doubled up two-seater desks opposing so pairs of students were facing each other; what I look back on now as a rather novel concept. The next year as you can see in the picture below, it was back to everyone facing the front of the class with Mrs. Robinson. Anyway it was Dennis Elliot to my left, Glen haring across from him and Bill Serkland (threw the pot shown below) across from me. Whenever we had free time or "art" time we would all do our thing. I can't remember how we chose the subjects but we were all drawing the same things, mostly action stuff, secretly checking out each others work while striving to make ours the coolest. It was competitive play-drawing. Dennis Elliot was the best of us. This skinny asthmatic with coke bottle bottom eyes was so talented that most of the time we were watching him in awe. He drew airplanes in perspective with foreshortening! Third grade! He was left handed of course; came natural to him. I don't know whatever happened to Dennis and Glen, but Bill was my best friend throughout most of high school. I went to college in Flagstaff and he went to a community college in Phoenix where he took on ceramics. I loved his Raku glazes. We remained good friends up until he died six years ago.

From Watermedia Works

Pot by Bill Serkland

Lately I've really been reflecting on my life as an artist. Somewhere in a blog I read this byline: "I am an artist, I have to create art whether I want to or not". This is exactly the way I feel and whenever or wherever in my life I have repressed that, I found myself miserable and in the midst of miserable people or maybe I just saw them that way because I was miserable. But when I create art I have what I refer to as "reciprocal purpose". The creating communicates that which is intangible and reflective of purpose, and the purpose drives me to create. Since having cancer and treatment seven years ago I made a decision that I would be more serious and in focus with this purpose. I cannot express what is deep within me any other way. So, I'm embarking on a series that will explore my life as a child artist. I'm mixing then with now; a series of self portraits.

"Tank"

6" X 6", ink on paper

"Fireworks"

19" X 19"

acrylic, graphite and gesso on Yupo

Dine With Me

2010-02-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Inflamed

2010-02-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Acrylic on Coated Lithographic Paper

11" X 11"

Door

2010-02-06T23:21:00.001-07:00

Acrylic on Coated Lithographic Paper

11" X 11"

This painting was done about a year ago. The two below were both done within the last week.

El Baton

2010-02-06T23:14:00.001-07:00

Acrylic, gesso and rice paper on Yupo

11" X 11"

Linkage

2010-02-06T23:08:00.001-07:00

Acrylic, gaphite, gesso, rice paper and Yupo on Yupo

11" X 11"

Parasites

2010-01-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

My daughter Sarah and I posing in front of the painting "Parasites" which won Best of Show at the Arizona Watercolor Association Spring Exhibition 2009. It also won Best of Show at The Contemporary Watercolorists of Arizona 37th Annual Exhibition in October of 2008. This painting is transparent watercolor and watercolor crayon on 140# Arches Cold Press. The juror for the AWA exhibit was Betsy Dillard Stroud DF, AWS, NWS. These are her notes on "Parasites":

- strength in rhythm -

- content strong.. -

- content is implicit & inherent in technique -

- unpredictablility of organization is a real plus -

- excitement comes from movement! -

- different -

- suggestive so allows a visual dialogue -

Magma

2010-01-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

Received notification today from the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies representative. This painting, "Magma" (acrylic on gessoed Yupo) was accepted into the 35th Annual Western Federation of Watercolor Societies Exhibition juried by Carla O'Connor. This is also my 4th and gives me signature status. There were close to a thousand entries and 92 accepted, 13 from the Arizona Watercolor Association.

Western Federation of Watercolor Societies

The title has much to do with my roots here in Arizona. My mother and father met at Superior High School in Superior, Arizona. Superior was and still is a small copper mining town about 60 miles east of Phoenix. Magma Copper Corporation was the name of the company where my dad's father was a fleet manager and my mom's father was a foreman in the mine in the late thirties and early forties. I remember as a small child when we visited my dad's uncle I was fascinated, especially at night, by the red hot slag that was dumped over the old black slag. It was like man made lava.

magma |ˈmagmə|

noun
hot fluid or semifluid material below or within the earth's crust from which lava and other igneous rock is formed by cooling.

Supes Moon

2010-01-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

Haven't painted with pure transparent watercolor in a couple years. What a challenge. Did not get the desired results but this is it. I call it "Supes Moon" short for Full Moon over the Superstition Mountains. There will be a full moon on the 29th and a couple friends and I will be backpacking into the Superstitions starting Friday night, the 29th and coming out Sunday. We'll hike into Garden Valley the first night and decide where we are going from there the next morning.

Agony

2010-01-03T21:06:00.001-07:00

If you are a Bank of America Customer be sure to check this out for your area or if you are traveling in a participating area:

Free Art Museum Admissions

White Water

2010-01-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden

Hydro Resonance

2010-01-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year to all,

hoping you have a very blessed 2010!

Delirium 0f Desire

2009-12-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Solitary Observation Brought Back from a Sojourn in Hell

At midnight tears
Run in your ears.

Louise Bogan

Green Facade

2009-12-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

Now that I've made an initial post I'll have to get into this blog thing and write a bit. In the mean time here is another recent painting.

Perilous Allure

2009-12-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Finished this painting today. Started this blog today.