Arty Spring Tulips

I was struck by the contrast of these bright tulips next to the black wall in my neighbor's yard. Sadly all the photos came out blurry, so I played around with it in an editing program.

New Painting - Spring Discovery

This is a new watercolor and acrylic painting. I'm finding that I like painting watercolor backgrounds and then using acrylic to paint the main elements.

One great thing about watercolor is it doesn't dry on the brush the way acrylic does. So if Iam painting and get a phone call I don't need to worry about ruining my brush if it dries.

This is an 8x10 watercolor and acrylic on paper.

I'm going to start selling my art again soon.

Cat and Fish Resist

This painting is a new technique I'm trying out. It's done with resist. First the foreground images are painted, then they are covered with the resist. It's a rubbery substance a little like rubber cement. Then the background is painted. When the whole thing is dry, the resist is rubbed off and the details are painted on with acrylic.

I like the way it turned out, I think it has a different feel to it than the paintings I've done with the main images painted over an existing background. I left a white border around the images, partially because I like that look but also because it's very hard to get the resist exactly over the picture!

This is an 8x10 watercolor, pencil and acrylic on paper.

I'm planning to start selling my art again soon. Some of it will be for cat charities and then some of it for myself! I just haven't worked out the details of what and where yet.

New Painting Tiger Lily Cat

This is a new painting I just finished yesterday. It's 8x10 watercolor and ink on watercolor paper. I have an art studio in my house, which is also where I keep all my plants. It's a cat free zone, because my cats were always getting into everything, and one of them really loves to dig in plants. Now my cat free room has four cats in it! The kittens are all too small to be interested in the plants or art stuff and the mother cat doesn't seem to care. So far so good!

Spring Cat

Spring Cat, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is an old painting that feels new to me! It's one I did for the only art fair I have done here in Syracuse - the Art on the Porches festival in the Strathmore neighborhood. I had forgotten about it until I unearthed it from storage while going through my backstock of artwork to go on Etsy. It's a 5x7 acrylic on watercolor paper.

It feels good to be getting back into doing artwork, I'm very happy.

New Artwork!

Bright Roses, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is an acrylic painting on paper which has also been digitally modified. This version is not much different than the original painting, I just painted some brighter colors onto it as highlights and made the background a darker orange.

Garden Cat

Garden Cat, originally uploaded by Melsky.

8x10 acrylic on canvas. This painting will be auctioned off for the PAWCASSO fundraiser for SANS, an organization providing low cost spaying and neutering for cats. It will take place on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at the Palace Theater in Eastwood. For more info click Pawcasso

Fractured Summer

Fractured Summer, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I used to be mostly a painter, that's how I made my living for several years. But lately I've been a busy, busy rental agent. When I started doing real estate I didn't have time to paint. The creative stuff I did was mostly photographs. Now I'm getting back into painting. This is the first painting I've finished in a long time! I started it in mid-summer and just kind of neglected it for a while. Now I'm working on two more and I've resolved that they won't take me so long this time. I have a lot of sketches for some Syracuse themed paintings that I hope to start painting soon.

I've also resolved to start blogging more regularly. Time really flies when you have a blog. I thought this morning that I hadn't written in my blog for a couple of weeks and when I looked it has been a month and a half!

In other news, most of the fall colors are gone - many more trees are bare than have fall leaves on them. It's getting colder and soon we will start with the snow.

I'm going to paint again soon - actually I'm painting a porch! But that is for my work. I promised someone the porch would be painted and if I paint it myself I know it will be done.

Train Tracks on a Bleak Day

Train Tracks on a Bleak Day
Originally uploaded by Melsky

On my birthday I took a walk to Wegman's and did my grocery shopping, then my husband picked me up and took me to dinner at Bonefish Grill, a seafood restaurant. I was shopping while hungry though, which is a bad thing, though the only thing I got that wasn't on my list was blue cheese.

One of the things I like about winter in this climate is you can do your grocery shopping and leave it in the car for a while. We have natural refrigeration.

I'm going to enter this art contest. I'm working on a painting for it.

One of my goals for 2008 is to get in a local gallery. Even if I don't win I think entering will help get me some exposure. Plus I will have another large painting.

I just realized a couple of days ago that it was already the middle of February and I've done almost nothing to realize this goal yet! So this very motivating contest comes at a good time.

Pollock is Relevant

I went to see an exhibit called Pollock Matters last night. It was a big reception for my husband's work. The food was really good. I also enjoyed looking at Jackson Pollock's paintings, or paintings that are possibly his and look like his and i like them as much as his paintings, even though they are not authenticated.

The paintings in question were found by the son of a photographer who used to pal around with Pollock. His name was Herbert Matters, and that is how the show got it's name. Here I was thinking it was trying to say that Pollock is relevant. That's probably what you're supposed to think. Anyway, the son found these paintings wrapped in paper in the basement of his father's old studio. They even had one of the papers they were wrapped in. I told my husband it was the best art there, but I was joking. No one knows why the paintings were there, who put them there, or if Pollock wasn't the painter who was and why. It's just one of those mysteries.

Jackson Pollock gets a bad rap because his paintings look like they would be easy to do. He's the original "my kid could do that" painter. But when you really look at them, they are very complex planned layerings of paint. It's not easy to get paint to do what you want when you are dripping it or flinging it.

So is it art, if they are not Pollock's paintings? I say yes, but not as collectible but still somewhat collectible because of all the notoriety.

It would be funny if the fakes turned out in the future to be worth more money than the originals, like the Japanese shells my dad told me about once. They were shells that were only found in very deep water, so it was hard to get them and they were worth more money to shell collectors. So they started making fake ones, but the problem was the fake ones would dissolve in water. Then they invented better diving equipment, so the shells were easy to find and not worth as much. But the fake ones were now collectible.

To apply this to the situation with Pollock's paintings I guess you'd have to find a huge warehouse full of easy to authenticate Pollock paintings, like thousands of them. So it's not going to happen, but it's interesting to think about.

An introduction.

My name is Melsky and I'm an artist. I live in the Eastwood neighborhood of Syracuse, NY.

I moved here last August from Toronto. Before I lived in Toronto I lived in Wonder Valley, an isolated part of the Mojave Desert. Before that, San Diego, San Francsico and Los Angeles.

Though I grew up in California, I always liked cold weather, changing seasons, fall leaves, spring flowers and big old brick houses with attics and basements. The things I don't like - summer humidity and the fact that it's not a good town to walk in. I miss Toronto for that. I miss interacting on a street level with other pedestrians. The only place where I can have anything like that would be downtown or in a mall, and it's really not the same.

Anyway, this blog is about my experiences, art, and photography in Syracuse.