Therein Lies The Rub(bings)

This June I visited my friend and mentor, artist Christopher Colvin, in Brooklyn. He paints gorgeous large-scale portraits and city scenes using a variety of singular techniques he has developed over time. We talked one afternoon about sources of texture for a large painting he is working on, and as I was about to head out West to the mountains, I decided to make some rubbings of rock faces and send them his way for inspiration.

I got some supplies and practiced on my 165-year-old wooden floor. When I sent a sample to Christopher, he urged me to continue but to keep them for myself as individual abstract artworks. I've been experimenting more and more with a variety of materials and surfaces, and am loving the process (thank you for the encouragement Christopher)!

Two of the rubbings will be part of the same staff exhibit as the Ghost Farm photos I posted earlier:

Red Dragon/Blue Dragon

 

 

The Piano

 

I made a lot of rubbings out West as well-- I will most likely continue to work on a few to incorporate other colors and textures, but there are some that seem to be just perfect without much more manipulation:

 

 

 

On one of my flights home, I sat next to a lovely gentleman who is a retired creative director for a Mad Men-style 1960's NYC ad agency. We talked the entire flight about the evolution of technology in advertising, as well as visual art. He is now free to be an artist full-time, and he showed me his collection on his ipad. I had a few of the above photos on my phone, so I shared them, and he told me he was inspired to try it out when he got home!