Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Pages from Ayton Volume I, 2006

In honor of my old portfolios being released on Amazon marketplace recently, and their cover thumbnail images appearing (which for some reason takes a while on Amazon, longer than the book titles & descriptions), here are a few selected pages from the Ayton Volume I portfolio. Click on the images for a better view:


Front cover, with Narcissus painting from 1991.


Title/dedication page, with Narcissus drawing from 1991. Dedicated to Diana, my wife, muse, goddess, poet, mother of children, etc.


Page 6, Minotaur from 2006.


Page 14, with Medusa drawing from 1992.


Page 30, with Arbeit Macht Frei (Holocaust) sketch from 2005.


Page 40, with Morning Over Sparta from 2006.


Page 45, with Day of Creation from 2006.


Page 52, with Arch of Debris from 1998.


Page 64 (last page) with Drought from 2005.

Looking back over this portfolio, a few things struck me:

1. It's almost 50-50 color work & monochrome, with color just winning out. That's fine, as that's a fairly representative breakdown of my output -- I tend to do a lot of drawings & large, mononchrome painted pieces.

2. As I released this portfolio in 2006, it's weighted quite a bit toward recent work of that period, as that's what was present in my mind and studio at the time.

3. I tried to represent a couple of major series of works, including the War Room & related work (done a couple of years before) and the Holocaust series (done around 2005). I didn't include the UDHR (human rights) paintings, as they didn't go very well stylistically with the other works.

4. At the time, I cut the selection down to about 64 pieces (the number of pages in the book), for a couple of reasons: the cost of doing a book like this was pretty high, & also to keep the quality of images up to a certain standard. I omitted a lot of very good work. Also, it's been about 3 years since I published this, so I have accumulated a lot more work...a Volume II would not be out of the question.

Handy links:

See my books on Amazon
See my books on Lulu

Friday, May 29, 2009

The War Room Portfolio

Also from around 2006, here are a few sample pages from the War Room portfolio (see posts below for more on portfolios), which now also comes up on Amazon. The War Room is a 4-wall painted installation that surrounds the viewer with the 4 faces of war: warriors, witnesses, victims & aftermath. Please click the images below for a slightly bigger view:


Front cover, with a detail from the Warriors panel. The painting is actually monochrome, but I screened it blue for the cover.


The Witnesses, whole & detail.


Aftermath panel, NYC. Visible through the gap in the middle is The Peace Piece (mannequins & video), by Adelle Lutz, which was shown in the same space.


Cored, a related anti-war drawing.


Man O' War, related painting.

As I mentioned, you can find this small portfolio on Amazon now. I printed it in color, even though many of the images are monochrome. You can also download a free PDF version from the War Room web site.

Handy links:

See my books on Amazon
See my books on Lulu

Small Drawings Portfolio

Regarding the post below this one -- my old portfolios have suddenly appeared on Amazon, actually Amazon Marketplace, which is a bit different I suppose, but they show up on regular Amazon, so to all intents & purposes it's the same. The reason they've just shown up on Amazon, I think, is that Lulu.com (owned by Amazon, the last I heard) has put many of their publications there. Lulu is the on-demand printer I used to publish my portfolios.

I've just been leafing through the Small Drawings portfolio. I hadn't looked at these for a while, as I released this and the other 2 (Ayton Volume I & the War Room portfolio) around 2006 without much fanfare. There are some interesting pieces in them, that I had more or less forgotten about. Here is the cover of the Small Drawings book with a few samples of obscure pieces. Enjoy.


The front cover. The drawing on the cover is Minotaur Squared, 2002, brush & ink on paper, 9" x 6.8". This drawing is also on page 54.


Ball of Souls, 2002, 9" x 7", ink on paper. On page 5.


Coiled, 2002, 11.5" x 8.25", brush & ink on paper. Page 17.


Figure in an Egg, 1992, ink on paper, 5.8" x 4.2". Page 25.


Figure with Missing Arm, 1998, ink on paper, 4.5" x 3.25". Page 55.


The Swan-necked Swan, 1992, ink on paper, 8.5" x 6.75". Page 72.

Most of the pictures in the portfolio have not been published before, either in books or magazines or web sites, etc. A few have. Looking back, it's an interesting selection of oddities, as well as more mainstream pieces, some of which were developed into paintings or other drawings, or, in some cases, should have been or might still be yet. Also interestingly, they tend to be clustered around certain years when I was more likely than not to pick up a brush or pen & small scrap of paper & put something down. At other times, I was more focused on large drawings or paintings.

The book has 78 pages in it, & there are 77 drawings & not much text.

I should at some point put together a volume 2 of this. No rush.

Handy links:

See my books on Amazon
See my books on Lulu