Today’s watercolor is a bit different from those of the past few days, during which I concentrated on created an imaginary portrait of my brother Mike (Mike is my older brother, who is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal.) (See Imaginary Brother – New Ideas, So Simple, and Yet…, Imaginary Hug, with Feeling, Tri-Clopean Portrait, and Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brother). […]
Today, I added my self portrait to the imaginary brother I have been experimenting with for the past few days, based on inspiration from Willem de Kooning (Imaginary Brother – New Ideas, So Simple, and Yet…, Imaginary Hug, with Feeling. Tri-Cyclopean Portrait). I think I was spoiled by using oil paints on my last portrait. […]
It has been difficult to progress beyond photo editing to create a hand-made Self Portrait with Imaginary Brother. I was so excited a few days ago to find a sketch of this name executed by Willem de Kooning, one of the great artists of the 20th century. I’ve been reading his biography and remarks by […]
Yesterday’s post was an edited photograph of Dave (my younger brother) and me standing outside Mike’s building at Willowbrook. (For those of you just joining me, Mike is my older brother who is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal.) I’m hugging Dave. I replaced my head with Mike’s, from another family photograph, and Dave’s with mine. […]
The first time I made my imaginary brother, it was an electrifying experience. My real older brother Mike is profoundly low functioning, autistic and nonverbal. He has never acknowledged my presence in any way meaningful to me (although I admit that he may have, but I did not understand). I have spent many hours examining the […]
Today’s watercolor experiment actually began a couple of days ago. I prepared my 12″x9″ paper with the usual transparent red iron oxide, using a rough fiber brush. The de Kooning influence prompted a mustard yellow glaze to cover the rust. Then I went a little crazy with orange and blue random traces. I let the […]
Today, I display the second of the ‘Pink’ series. Yesterday I explained that Willem de Kooning’s work, Pink Angels, inspired me. This painting was a mix of pink body parts strewn on a mustard-yellow background. The pink shapes that I used were also body parts, but instead of being the violently torn-apart appendages of women, mine were […]
I’ve been reading about Willem de Kooning. Many think that his paintings, Pink Angels, was the cusp of his transition from figurative to abstract. I liked it in part, because of the pink figures on the mustard-colored background. I began today with streaks of transparent iron oxide on a titanium white background. Originally I had planned to […]
I’ve been reading about some of the great abstract painters. Willem de Kooning is known for works such as Woman I and Excavation, which I have not seen in person. I am keen to learn more about him since my interest was stimulated by reading Eric Kandel’s book Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the […]
Over a period of about 10 years or so, I must have taken 300 rolls of film of my brother Mike. I combined these photos with old family snapshots, my journal entries and information garnered from my parents, to create a photographic memoir. It is a safe bet to say Mike didn’t know that I […]
