queens book cover

I am painting a new book cover for ambassador yellow pages...this cover is for the Queens book. I paint on a yellow acrylic base (it is, after all, the yellow pages) It is a challenge to paint on yellow as you must use colors that work with yellow and your work takes on a graphic feel...I am going to paint the Unisphere as it is the unofficial landmark of queens...I have painted it four times thus far and this one I will paint until I have painted five unispheres. How can one have five unispheres when uni means one? My style for the yellow pages completely evolved out of the fact that I am painting on yellow...the first cover I did for them gave me heart attacks as I was at a loss as how to attack the piece. Now I dont worry so much, I just try to keep it fresh. I dont like showing the process as you can see what a non-methodical train wreck I am when I paint but I always find order out of chaos.

drawing of a bronze

I drew this drawing many moons ago and found it today in my old chest. I made a painting of this that hangs in my sisters house. It has a little wear but it brings back memories (of things I cant remember.) The painting I made was an attempt to paint a photo-realistic rendering of bronze, It worked well but I do not have a photo of it to upload...


6" x 14" pencil on paper

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290151063828&lk=URL

wedding

upon returning to northport I took this photo of a bride and groom. God bless the married folk.

"getting married is fun, being married is hell" kid rock

I have no opinion as I am not married but the quote is funny.

the ruins

These are the ruins off of Eaton's Neck. When I was a kid there was a big wall with a grateful dead painting on it that was a big landmark in my mind. I want to paint these ruins at sunset.

cement square

Modern Art or ruin? This is the cement remains of a structure on the beach...I call this "square one" ( as in back to square one.) This is the actual square one.

kayak trip

I went on a six mile trip yesterday in my kayak. I came upon this yacht--- That is a helicopter on the back.

hello

Back to work after breaking my glass art...needed a breather to regroup. I will be n this blog today and tomorrow with new work and I hope all is well for everyone.

alex

unheeded warning

Sometimes we fly off into less than promising skies. We take are fate in our hands and put our hope in our wings. Sometimes our gambles work and other times we crash back to earth. Take your chances when you're young and play it safe when you are old. Zen has really seeped into my work although I do not practice zen consciously. I guess painting is zen when you are lost in a painting.


6 x 10 watercolor on rag paper

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290148539445&lk=URL

the unknown

Mythology is always present in my work even when it is well hidden. I find making these works calming while other works cause me a lot of stress and aggravation.


8 x10 watercolor on arches rag paper

ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290148535201&lk=URL

the joy of glass

I spent over thirty hours on this piece of glass. Most of that time was in a 100 degree studio with a breathing helmet on. I drove it home tonight in my truck to make some design changes before I etch tomorrow and I went over the train tracks too hard and cracked it all the way down the middle. I am somewhere in between laughing and crying right now and feel like burying my face in a bottle of whiskey somewhere but I wont. I will design a new one tonight...The crack was such a horrible sound....what you see is a piece of glass covered in vinyl resist..the crack and the glass are on the other side of the rubber...lesson learned---do not to transport unless secured.

wednesday

Today I will be back in brooklyn etching...sorry for slacking on this blog, I have some glass art to make. and will get back on this asap. Starting queens yellow page cover as well, will show process on here--- if anyone cares.


alex

around the axis

around the axis we all spin
to determine what's left out and what's left in
what's left out and what's left in
who's left out and who's left in
who's left in
the moments come and go like water
I try to hold them but they're fading

---peter gabriel

22 x 30 watercolor on rag paper

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290147180397&lk=URL

lady at sunset

I am not sure who the creeping shadows are nor if they are approaching or leaving.


22 x 30 ink and brush


ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290147164907&lk=URL

stormscape

Growing up in Texas I saw a lot of storms. Being in such a flat landscape enables you to see storms miles away on the horizon. I saw a lot of tornadoes and floods when I was there. More things that bubble oil- like up from the subconscious to the surface.


22 x 30 watercolor on rag paper

the sleeping sun

not to touch the earth not to see the sun.....


watercolor and gold leaf on watercolor paper


12 x 18

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290147094141&lk=URL

artist of the day

There is a face that has seen both sides of life. I read today that johnny cash was once arrested for picking flowers from a stranger's yard (when he was drunk) to give to his wife june carter after they had a big fight. They recently exonerated him post mortem. He once slipped my mom his phone number when she was a flight attendant for TWA---I have no idea what happened to the piece of paper. His brother died working in a saw mill when he was a kid and this haunted Johnny for the rest of his life. If you go to www.johnnycash.com, you can listen to johnny cash radio on your computer as I am doing now.

good morning

I will be on the blog today with new work..As I have to make glass art in brooklyn the rest of the week.

alex

my drafting table

I was looking tonight at my drafting table where I do my non- easel work. I realized it had some character in it's own right. If you look closely by chance you will see a dragon fly had landed on it (I did not see it until after I took the photo.) You could never intentionally make an abstract painting as good as this because you would screw it up by thinking too much. Da vinci suggested throwing a sponge against a wall to get random effects in which you could see armies and clouds and other such things to use as a basis for your art. I bought this table in 2002 for $25 dollars at a garage sale in dobbs ferry ny. I think I have done about 3000-4000 pictures on this table.

Great novel!

I once wrote about the artist Alfred Kubin. Here is his novel I ordered off amazon. I am half done and it is brilliant and a great book to read. It has a hallucinatory feel and an amazing premise. If anyone buys it and reads it let me know what you think. Kubin is an unknown genius and this amazing novel is almost unknown and deserves to be read.


alex

she has to go

my friend gave me this old picture of mine he bought in 2000. I love the piece bought-- I dont like the memories of my ex staring back from my wall...I must let her go. I am selling her framed for 300.00 plus shipping which could be up to 50.00 dollars. I have such mixed feelings as I like the piece but the past must go. email me if you are interested..

it is 25 by 30 roughly

iris woman

SOLD


I took an old piece I had made and added gold leaf where I had yellow paint as I wasn't happy with the yellow. I think I much improved the piece.

12 x 18

a sky made of gold

I was thinking about things we take for granted like waking up and breathing air (which is free) and then I was thinking about the idea if the air was not free and then wondered what it would be like if the air was replace by a commodity like gold. This is not a "pollution" piece of art or a statement it is just more of a story idea about the air turning into gold...I painted this on top of an old watercolor I had left outside and it got ruined by the rain and left me the idea for an interesting visual exploration...

watercolor/ charcoal/ gold leaf on watercolor paper

12 x 18

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290147015989&lk=URL

quote of the day

hard work pays off in the long run but laziness pays off right now....

steven wright


I thought of this while I was out in my kayak not working today.

sunday

Hey,

great day today I will load up new work after I clean up this damn place.

global warming

al gore is so large he has his own climate-----robin williams

note to self

quit complaining and bitching.

good morning

today I will read "our town" by thorton wilder.

crticism

Its not easy to listen to criticism , especially when its true. It is a much better gift than a compliment. Guilty as charged.

detail of daily glass piece

I have chosen to shift a bit towards glass work and gallery work. I will load up new art as I can but I am going to be spending a lot of time in my glass studio as well as working on a mural that will be featured on fox news.I can only give a small sample of todays glass piece due to copyright reasons. I am forcing myself to grind out a piece a day out of my glass studio come hell or high water or equipment problems.

psychedelic glass portrait

I have been messing around with pop imagery a bit. I have a lot of mixed feelings about pop art but dali was the first to use pop imagery and was later copied by warhol. Anything good enough for dali is good enough for me. I think this is a good portrait of the king of radio--- howard stern. Again, I make these images for the value they hold as pop culture icons/ figures not because I am a fan or endorse my subjects. I stopped listening to radio years ago. (except dj mary of course)

skeletal remains of the day

I drew this tonight in a bad mood....the skeletal remains of the day.

watercolor and charcoal...

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290145278310&lk=URL

re-listed mural study

the original buyer pulled out of the deal on this piece.


explained on ebay:


http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290145022938&lk=URL

swim to the moon

Let's swim to the moon, ah ha
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the
City sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive.

jim morrison


22 x30 watercolor on rag paper.


ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290145018336&lk=URL

detail of glass

I know it doesn't look like much but I spent fifteen years trying to get to this point in glass. There are some mistakes here due to equipment but I know why they happened and they are now solved so perfection is just around the corner...


"aside from that mrs. lincoln how did you like the play?"

Glass Portrait

I spent most of yesterday pulling out my hair dealing with 6 hours of equipment problems. I finally solved those problems and remade this portrait .I wont say who it is because I hope you can read that for yourselves. I made this piece as a test not as any kind of political endorsement etc. It was strictly a matter of choosing a high profile person and the hair was what I was mainly interested in interpreting into glass. This was my second attempt at the same person as the first one I made was too "stern" looking and mean. I am expanding my work into glass portraits, a field very few people if any have attempted. The main reason being is that they are so damn difficult and one scratch ruins your whole day/ week/ month....I think this piece works minus a few flaws and I am sure my friend vinny will like it. This piece will be presented to her through a connection of mine.

update

Hello,

I will be etching a lot of glass in brooklyn this week so not as much updates as normal. If anyone has a balance or owes money It would be great to send it to me as I am going upstate to paint on august 3rd and would prefer to have it all squared before I depart!

god bless

colony collapse

I think we are facing something much worse than all the other daily fears we are spoon fed by the news each day. 25 percent of america's honeybees have died off. If we lose the honey bee we lose one third of all food products you buy in the supermarket. I think that spraying millions of gallons of anvil to kill west nile virus probably did not help the bees. I am sure they are not immune to the west nile pesticide anvil (as it will knock a bird right out of the sky on contact.) I never heard of anyone dying from west nile except for one elderly woman who had a compromised immune system. I guess drawing irises made me think of depressing fact.

Iris design

Here is a very unusual direction for me. I usually avoid flat planes of color or such "straight forward" design. When you paint on auto pilot (as I often do) you never know where you hand is going to take you you just have to have faith in the cosmos to bring you through. I think the composition works and there is not much else to stand on here aside from color and composition lose one and you lose the piece.


12 x 18 watercolor and acrylic.

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290144251724&lk=URL

Iris Woman

Here is a nouveau inspired painting I made this morning of a woman abstracted into an iris. Irises are my favorite thing to paint and women are my favorite thing to try to figure out. I think I will be more successful mastering painting rises than figuring out the female mind. This piece could have easily fell apart but I think it works because it harks back to the old lautrec posters etc. before the art world became to cool for itself and relegated good art to the label "kitsch."


12 x 18

watercolor on rag paper

ebay: http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290144245044&lk=URL

Irises

This was painted a while ago when I was doing a lot of mural work. It is a field Iris flowers on gold leaf...it 1s about 20 by 30 must re-measure... I am holding for an interested client then will release it is she passes on it.

alex

detail number two of previously mentioned painting.

detail of sad eyed lady

Here is a detail of the face from my painting described in previous entry.

Sad Eyed Lady

Here is a watercolor of mine my friend found in his basement. I made this in 2000. It is a portrait of my ex girlfriend. She was my only "bad" breakup as I managed to keep at least a human connection to every other girl I ever dated.
She was very wealthy and the idea of marrying into money was nice and tempting but It did not feel right. In the end the house of cards fell and I made for the high roads. Wealth is a strange animal and I think sometimes it tweaks people as much as poverty if they you are not careful. This piece is already nicely framed and the glass makes it hard to photograph without reflection. Serous inquiries only on this piece as I would like a minimum of $700.00 for it and I am not sure I even want to sell it....I will post more details of image in a moment.

26 x 34 w/ frame watercolor...

saturday

hello,

I will be back up today...took a breather yesterday...new work up as well.

alex

madonna with horsehoe crab

Here is the latest update on my glass design. It is the madonna with a horsehoe crab. I am not an athiest nor am I anti-christian and my work is never meant to be heretical. I think the horseshoe crab is a sacred "animal" and has been around in the same form long before mankind ever showed up on the scene. I think a man like christ would have felt the sacredness of suchanimals, especially something as ancient as the horseshoe. I am very excited to make this piece in glass once I perfect the drawing. I must study hands to get them perfect or all is lost. In the davinci masterpiece "virgin on the rocks" One can almost feel there should be a crab in the lower corner to complete the picture. I will have a cala-lily inspired border to frame this piece.

quote of the day

"genius is concealing your sources." S. Dali

Blood of eden

I found this in my parents garage today. It is a painting of the garden of eden. I find it interesting that the ancient sumerians also had a garden of eden and that there are many things in the bible that have history long before the bible was written. joseph campbell wrote a lot about this...This is a large painting about 5 foot long by 18 inches high.

oil on masonite...

Glass Art

SOLD

I will be spending the next three months or so working on glass art. I will be selling the original drawings (there will be many of them!) I think they will be very nice collectible pieces. I am trying to take my glass to a new level of perfection and I will share the entire process with you from beginning to finished piece. The glass pieces are for galleries and will sell for around $3,600 and up, so buy buying my original sketches and designs you will be helping me get the work together as well as getting some nice drawings--- and you will be invited to my eventual opening night. Please support me in this task as I really want to get an entire body of work together! There will be some paintings as well but mostly works of glass inspired by lalique, steuben, tifanny and dali. This is the first piece I am going to carve in glass (It is the first sketch for the first piece. I have much design work to do on it but I will be selling each stage on here. I am starting with this head and working "outward" as my intuition guides me.


This is a large drawing 22 x30 (pencil on strathmore paper)


ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290143308842&lk=URL

Picasso

Whether or not you like picasso, (I personally prefer his early work) It is undeniable that he was a true genius. If you read his words carefully and what he had to say about art and philosophy, If you listen carefully, you pick up the crumbs of his genius. I find quotes of his that cut right to the bone of the matter and make things clearer for me in how I see art.

quote the raven:

"what does it mean...for a painter to paint in the manner of so and so or to actually imitate someone else? What's wrong with that? On the contrary its, it's a good idea. You should constantly try to paint like someone else. But the thing is, you can't. You would like to. You try. But it turns out to be a botch...And it's at the very moment you make a botch of it that you're yourself."

work space

here was my work desk today. I could have a desk thirty feet long and still make a mess of it.

eyes (detail)

I see the doorway to a thousand churches.

great words..

as a kid I messed around with writing a lot..eventually you have to choose your battles (so I chose the visual route.) I still like good writing and good lyrics and such...I fell that the following words paint an amazing and clear picture of a surreal, distinctly American reality. They are by roger waters. (The actual song is equally as fine as the words.

In truck stops and hamburger joints
In Cadillac limousines
In the company of has-beens
And bent-backs
And sleeping forms on pavement steps
In libraries and railway stations
In books and banks
In the pages of history
In suicidal cavalry attacks
I recognise...
Myself in every stranger's eyes
And in wheelchairs by monuments
Under tube trains and commuter accidents
In council care and county courts
At Easter fairs and sea-side resorts
In drawing rooms and city morgues
In award winning photographs
Of life rafts on the China seas
In transit camps, under arc lamps
On unloading ramps
In faces blurred by rubber stamps
I recognize...
Myself in every stranger's eyes
And now, from where I stand
Upon this hill
I plundered from the pool
I look around
I search the skies
I shade my eyes
So nearly blind
And I see signs of half remembered days
I hear bells that chime in strange familiar ways
I recognize...
The hope you kindle in your eyes
It's oh so easy now
As we lie here in the dark
Nothing interferes, it's obvious
How to beat the tears
That threaten to snuff out
The spark of our love

feedback

my assistant left ebay feedback for about one hundred people today...If anyone who has bought art would be kind enough to return the feedback (good or bad) please do so! trying to square away the details...

danke

thank you

merci

Dream Shine

The phenomenon known as planetshine occurs when reflected sunlight from a planet illuminates the dark side of one of its moons. Typically, this results in the moon's dark side being bathed in a soft, faint light. The best known example of planetshine is Earthshine, which can be seen from Earth when the Moon is a thin crescent.

I used this concept loosely as basis for a painting that is a dream state, a place where the heavenly brain is illuminated by the soft under belly of the unconcious during nightly slumber.

22 x 30 --inks, watercolor and white acrylic.

ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290143071278&lk=URL

girl on the beach

see below for description.


charcoal and watercolor on paper.

22 x 30


ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290143056670&lk=URL

a day at the office

I drew this big picture today. I sometimes push my ideas of what art is and what my style is to the point of breaking. Working big is great for the soul, I like to draw outside on big expensive sheets of paper. I have a divided nature, part of me is quiet and calm and reclusive and other part lives very large and loud. You get to be physical when you work large. You get to get involved in the process on other levels instead of just a cerebral one. I met a nice artist- girl at the beach and realized this is probably an unconscious snapshot of that moment.




If you know where you are going then your are lost---gardega

new work

I painted this today when I was thinking about how everything comes to an end...relationships, summers, life...even the bad things in life come to an end..

jim morrison wrote these words about the same idea.

I love you, the best
Better than all the rest
I love you, the best
Better than all the rest
That I meet in the summer
Indian summer
That I meet in the summer
Indian summer
I love you, the best
Better than all the rest



ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290142980149&lk=URL

still life

I picked a lily from my landlords garden...(hope she doesn't read this) I haven't done any still lives in a long time and would like to do more. sorry for bad photo of work...


15 x 20 watercolor


150.00

great video!

to all my people "out there" you must watch this video it is a great look at reality vs. perception. I hope if you are work you can still watch it! It will change your whole day, I promise.

Note: I did not know that it gets religious in the very end (I posted it before I watched the whole video)--the "perception" part is what interests me...

link below:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4232897377629019446

color of the day! cobalt blue

Believe it or not the name cobalt comes from the german kobolt (underground goblin) it is a very costly and very stable color. The great artist maxfield parrish was known for using cobalt blue in his skies so it was also sometimes known as "parrish" blue. Cobalt is often used by gardega when I am in need of the "swirling skies of genius." I often use cobalt for one part of my sky and ultramarine for another part. They are close friends and never quarrel on the canvas. Maxfield Parrish painted in glazes, I will explain glazes in next post!

alex

website is up

Okay...www.gardega.com is up. It is a bit rough in spots and there is mostly older work up (the site was built in 2004 and never really used much, so there is some old crap up that makes me cringe. ...I am getting rid of the illustration work up now and there will be no cartoon work...the site will be a work of art I hope and make life easier and less "linear" than just a blog...please forgive any shortcomings, they are being worked out ASAP.

update on website

My new website will be up in a few hours...the structure is there with just some "filler" art I will be working on it and uploading new work each day for you to see as well as keeping the blog alive. I love the layout of the site and will share it-- but will have to start adding content asap. it has a few bugs I am working out also.

cover art

I do pro bono work (book covers) for citizens against government waste. I believe the government has two purposes--- to take away personal liberties and tax us excessively so it can spend our money like a drunken sailor. Citizens against government waste is a DC based entity that wants to reform earmarks and make the government spend money more responsibly. I cant see anything wrong with that notion. I choose no side in politics except responsibility. Anyone want this original pen and ink? the color was added in photo shop....the original is 25 dollars. now back to our regular programming. Here the little swollen piggy cant get under the low poll numbers of a limbo bar.

after goya

Goya has always been a hero of mine....he spent his last days in darkness exploring the dark underbelly of mankind's soul.


pencil on pastel paper.

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290142288833&lk=URL

nude--sketchbook page

Another sketchbook page from moons ago...hard to look at my older stuff sometimes, other times not so bad.

alex

ebay:

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290142290597&lk=URL

oil paints

thanks for the oils, clay...I was all out of white and cerulean blue!

sketchbook page---butterfly

Here is a sketchbook page of mine. I think I will work her up into a finished canvas. If someone wants to buy this I will finish it (if you wan tme to) and sell it for 75 dollars or best bid...


alex

ebay:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=87404769&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=290142287419&lk=URL

artifacts

I was driving down the road on the way to my mom's sixtieth birthday party. On the side of a road was a file cabinet (out for the trash) something told me to pull over and look in. My whole life I have collected arrowheads ( I have some american indian blood in me.) In the bottom draw I found a wooden box and inside the box I found these american indian artifacts. The larger stone has some symbols carved into it.

set her free

MARSEILLE, France — A woman has been arrested on suspicion of kissing a painting by American artist Cy Twombly and smudging the bone-white canvas with her lipstick, French judicial officials said Saturday.

Police said they arrested the woman after she kissed the work on Thursday. She is to be tried in a court in the southern city of Avignon on Aug. 16 for "damage to a work of art," judicial officials said.

The painting, which is worth an estimated $2 million, was on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon. It is part of an exhibition slated to run at the museum through Sept. 30. Officials did not provide further details on the painting.

Twombly is known for his abstract paintings combining painting and drawing techniques, repetitive lines and the use of graffiti, letters and words.

Born in Lexington, Va., in 1928, Twombly has lived in Italy for nearly a half- century. He won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 2001.