Disaster Relief for Burmese Refugee Camp
February 25, 2012
On February 23rd, a fire swept through Umphiem Refugee Camp on the Thai-Burma border, engulfing houses, schools, and mosques. Umphiem, Thailand’s second largest camp, is home to 20,000 Burmese refugees. The fire destroyed approximately one third of the camp, leaving thousands of people with nothing but the shirt on their backs.
Video Still from Umphiem Fire, February 23, 2012, taken by Adam and Trish
If you would like to help, donations can be made here.
Our dear friends Adam and Trish live and teach in Umphiem, and have set up this page about the relief effort. Pictured above and below are two stills from a video by Adam and Trish on the day of the fire. We wish them well!
Video Still from Umphiem Fire, February 23, 2012, taken by Adam and Trish
When I lived on the Thai-Burma border, one of my practices was to make what I call Memory Drawings. Essentially, when I saw a moment that I wanted to remember, I would later document it with a quick sketch.
Pictured below are two such drawings. First, a family with a trash cart made from salvaged corrugated sheet metal.
Memory Drawing, Burmese Refugee Family Collecting Plastic in Mae Sot, Graphite on Paper, 2011
After a night of drinking by the fire, my neighbor, a cattle herder, decided to start the day with a little cockfighting at dawn.
Memory Drawing, Morning Cockfight, Graphite on Paper, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Burma Drawings
February 19, 2012
Earlier this week, I shipped out three drawings for a show in Richmond, Virginia. I made these works while living in Mae Sot, Thailand, on the Thai-Burma border. They are part of a larger series, a meditation on the on-going humanitarian crisis in Burma.
Burma and the Witness’ Dilemma, Ink on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
As an NGO worker, I felt a wide range of emotional responses to what I witnessed abroad: empathy, joy, sorrow, guilt over my own privilege, and sometimes an empty, callous feeling, all depending on the situation. My internal response to any given circumstance seemed to morph over time.
Burma as a Tree, Ink on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
All three works were made with washes of Japanese sumi ink on paper. This last image, seen below, was in celebration of the SuperMoon that occurred on March 19, 2011. A SuperMoon, coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, appears quite large in the sky. “In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.” That night, the moon looked bright and enormous over Mae Sot.
SuperMoon, Ink on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Light House
February 5, 2012
This artwork, Light House, is the third component in the Winter Night Triptych, a series of three petite watercolors. My intention was to make images that interlocked visually and thematically, revealing a narrative. However, it is also important to me that the paintings are able to stand alone, if they are viewed or framed, separately.
Light House, Watercolor on Paper, 3.5 x 5", 2011
Here is the black and white digital mock up I made of the composition, and the original thumbnail study from my sketchbook.
Study for Light House, Digital, 2011
Sketchbook Thumbnail for Light House, Graphite on Paper, 2011
Pictured below, are the three images that make up the Winter Night Triptych. In retrospect, I would like to have shown the white mountain, small and in the distance, of the painting with the cottontail rabbit. It is implied with the mountain and the radio tower, but I believe it would have been a nice visual echo if it were in all three pictures.
Winter Night Triptych, Watercolor on Paper, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Tom Bombadil and the Walking Man
January 28, 2012
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This week I wanted to focus on a piece that exemplifies my process of constructing an artwork. I think that this drawing, Tom Bombadil and the Walking Man Enjoying a Cup of Morning Tea, does just that.
Tom Bombadil (pictured below, on the left) is one of my favorite characters from the Lord of the Rings, which I reread while living on the Thai-Burma border this past year. The Walking Man is a character borrowed from my good friend, the painter Jack Baumgartner. Upon reading the trilogy this time around, I was moved to make a series of drawings of Jack’s Walking Man character doing a walking-tour of sorts, of various locations in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
Tom Bombadil and the Walking Man Enjoying a Cup of Morning Tea, Ink on Paper, 9 x12", 2011
Pictured below are the original sketchbook drawings of the visual, where I worked out the general idea and composition of the piece.
Composition Study from Skecthbook, Graphite on Paper, 2011
Original Sketchbook Drawing for the Image, Graphite on Paper, 2011
Here, in order to have a better understanding of what the morning light would look like upon two separate individuals, I posed for photographs in the characters’ general positions, and then built the composition for the final drawing in photoshop. For this drawing it was important to me that the lighting was consistent on each figure, and that the size ratio of characters made sense, as physically, Bombadil is a much larger being than the Walking Man.
Also, I should add that in order to get my legs in the right position for the Walking Man’s pose, I had to sit on top of our small Thai fridge.
Light Study Mock-Up, Digital, 2011
In my opinion, Peter Jackson made a poor choice to edit out a pivotal character like Tom Bombadil in trade for lengthy, crowd-pleasing battle scenes. For me, the books are more about the beauty of language, legend, poetry and song, and essential characters, like Tom Bombadil, who inhabit Tolkien’s narrative. For this, Peter Jackson, ye are a hoser.
Preliminary Drawing, Graphite on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Bygone Works
January 21, 2012
After going though my digital archives, I wanted to share four quiet landscapes, painted in 2007-2008.
Mount St. Helens Erupting, Oil on Wood, 6 x 8", 2004-2007
In March of 2005, Mount St. Helens had another in a series of minor eruptions. At the time, I lived in the hills overlooking Portland, Oregon, and had a great view of St. Helens from my studio window. One evening, the plume looked like a bizarre, cartoonish tube, floating above the mountain. That visual inspired this artwork.
Moonlight on Cayuga Lake, Oil on Panel, 5 x 7, 2007
This painting began as a plein air study from a dock on Cayuga Lake, during one summer in Ithaca, New York. Later, I finished it in my studio as a night painting. For me, this work has always held an odd quality that I like. Perhaps it is the light pollution on the clouds?
Stars Over Cedar Mountain, Oil on Panel, 5 x 7", 2007
Stars Over Cedar Mountain was painted after visiting my grandmother, who now lives in Cody, Wyoming. On her property, there is a small log cabin sauna next to a babbling brook. When one takes a break in the middle of a sauna to cool off, this is the view of Cedar Mountain from the hillside. The air there is dry and clear and smells like sage brush.
Lawrence of Arabia, Oil on Panel, 5 x 7, 2008
This last work was inspired by one of my favorite scenes from the 1962 film epic, Lawrence of Arabia.
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Goodbye Blue Monday, for Kurt Vonnegut
January 13, 2012
Mike Schultz, Goodbye Blue Monday, for Kurt Vonnegut, Oil on Panel, 5 x 7", 2007
In the spring of 2007, I made this portrait of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in the days following his death. Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), influenced my personal philosophy, and remains one of my favorite novels of all time.
Saddened by his death, I wanted to honor him with a painting. So, I made an imagined portrait of a young Kurt Vonnegut looking out over a bleak, war torn Dresden, Germany. In real life, Vonnegut had been captured by the Germans and locked inside of an underground meat locker called slaughterhouse-five, and so then serendipitously survived the fire bombing of Dresden by American forces in February of 1945.
Earlier this week, I came across this painting while going through my digital archives. Five years has passed since I made it, and although my visual aesthetic has shifted, I believe that as an image, it holds up. I know that if I made it now it would be a very different painting, but for me, that is the reason why revisiting one’s work from the past can be so interesting.
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Retrospect 2011
January 4, 2012
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In 2011, I made hundreds of drawings, paintings, and designs while living in Mae Sot, Thailand. Many of these works served different purposes. Some were made for a job or were part of the process of making a commissioned piece. Other images were personal notes, sketches, or were part of a larger body of work. I’d like to share a small selection of images, from various points in the year, to celebrate the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.
Dream Drawing, Bear Attack, Graphite on Paper, 11 x14", 2011
When I have vivid and significant dreams, I like to record them with a drawing.
Sistine Sunrise, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 5 x 9″, 2011
This western landscape contains the basic composition from a section of the Sistine Chapel. I always enjoy working hidden secrets into my artwork.
Sketchbook Drawing of Mae Salong, Thailand, Graphite on Paper, 7 x 8″, 2011
I made this drawing from our balcony, overlooking a valley in my favorite place in Thailand. Doi Mae Salong is a small Chinese founded town located high in the mountains.
Ceramic Box in Process, Clay, 2011
Memory Drawing, Barefoot Burmese Child Collecting Bottles, Mae Sot, Graphite on Paper, 8 x 10″, 2011
Memory drawings are quick sketches that are drawn after the fact, to help me remember visuals that I would see every day.
Design for Ceramic Sacajawea Tile, Digital, 2011
While working with the Puzzlebox Art Studio in Mae Sot, Thailand, I made over 70 designs for sculpted ceramic tiles. The finished tiles are being highlighted in themed rooms in a guesthouse being built by the Puzzlebox Studio’s parent NGO, Youth Connect. For the themed room called the “Map Room”, I wanted to honor a personal hero of mine, Sacajawea. This is the preliminary design for that tile.
Preliminary Drawing for Radio Lino-Cut, Ink and Gouache on Paper, 5 x 7″, 2011
When I was young, I would fall asleep to the crackle of my bedside radio playing AM Talk, love line call-in shows and oldies stations that played music from the 1930′s-1950′s. This is a design for a lino cut I would like to make of the 1970′s hand me down radio that I had. While I do not want to romanticize the past, as I cherish the extraordinary, unparallelled importance of the Internet, it does seem like it was a simpler time.
Preliminary Drawing for Hare and Stump House, Graphite on Paper, 9 x 12″, 2011
Joseph Tile in Sculpting Process, Clay, 6 x 6″, 2011
In 2011, I made several ceramic works based on themes from my paintings. This is one such tile in process. I found the carving and sculpting aspect of working with clay to be wonderful and very much like drawing in the third dimension.
Cobras and Poppies in Burma, Sumi Ink on Paper, 11 x 14″, 2011
This image is one of a body of work I made as a meditation on the current, ongoing humanitarian crisis in Burma.
Memory Drawing, The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Archway in Brooklyn, Graphite on Paper, 5 x 7″, 2011
While teaching Foundations Drawing at the Puzzlebox Art Studio, I had my apprentices make a memory drawing of a specific moment and place from their lives in Burma. I asked them to draw themselves into the image, and have the viewer looking over their shoulder at the memory with them. After seeing how much they enjoyed the process of this exercise, I was moved (read as: I was jealous) to make one for myself. I chose to remember a moment of my life in front of my favorite visual in New York City, the fantastic archway at the head of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Painting Glaze on Heart Tiles, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Winter Night Paintings
December 25, 2011
On this Christmas day, I would like to share two small paintings, and the studies that went into their making. Both are images of clear winter nights. The first work features a white cottontail nestled safely into tall grasses. In the sky behind it is the Big Dipper, the constellation comprised of the seven brightest stars of Ursa Major, also known as Great Bear. Also, pictured on a far away hill is The Radio Tower at the End of Time, an icon that appears often in a separate series of mine called, Joseph and the Moon.
Silent Cottontail, Watercolor on Paper, 3.5 x 5", 2011
Below is the digital study I made for this work, as well as a page of thumbnail drawings from my sketchbook.
Study for Silent Cottontail, Digital, 2011
Thumbnail Sketches for Silent Cottontail, Graphite on Paper, 2011
The second winter night painting is of an old adobe mission style church upon a butte. There is a light in the sky, and a stoic mountain in the distance. I borrowed the general shape of the mountain from an old painting of Oregon’s Mt Hood, which is featured on a Powell’s Books gift card. You can see it here.
Adobe Mission, 2.5 x 5", Watercolor on Paper, 2011
Pictured below is the original thumbnail sketch for this painting, as well as the digital study. With each change in medium, all of these images have a different quality to them. Often, it can be a gratifying struggle, navigating the pieces of each picture that I like, in coming to a final image.
Thumbnail Sketch for Adobe Mission, Graphite on Paper, 2011
Study for Adobe Mission, Digital, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Blue Butte Process
December 17, 2011
Blue Butte, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 5 x 9”, 2011
Often, when I am conjuring imagery for an artwork, I will see small flashes of compositions, which I quickly sketch out. For this piece, I saw a steep mountain of rock shaped like the iconic Mittens Buttes, with stars behind it. Pictured below is the original thumbnail drawing from my sketchbook.
From this small thumbnail composition, I found a photograph of the butte icon that closely resembled what I wanted in my image, and then used photoshop to make a color study mock-up before I began the final watercolor painting. Drawing digitally allows me to try different colors and compositions to see which resonates the most.
Blue Butte Color Mock-Up, Digital, 2011
The morning I finished this piece was coincidentally the culmination of a week of torrential rain in Mae Sot, Thailand, where we were living. That same morning, unbeknownst to us, the Thai authorities opened the reservoir floodgates, which resulted in overflowing the nearby canal and flooding our neighborhood.
My partner Elizabeth and I packed out everything we needed to keep dry in our backpacks, and stayed in a guesthouse until it was safe to return to our home. Here is a photo of the artwork with a view from our guesthouse of the the abandoned, burned out theater next door.
The picturesque view from our guesthouse during the flood of our neighborhood in June of 2011.
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Refugees Fleeing Myawaddy (and Clothing on a Bamboo Pole)
December 11, 2011
After living in Mae Sot, Thailand for 15 months, I said a sad goodbye to my friends this week, and spent four days traveling to return home to Portland, OR. I have since been reflecting on my experience there, and wanted to share two drawings from the past year that demonstrate how life in Mae Sot could be both affecting, as well as mundane.
Refugees Fleeing Myawaddy, Gouache and Watercolor on Paper, 2010
This drawing is a picture of Burmese refugees walking in the hot sun down the highway from the river. Soon after my partner Elizabeth and I first arrived, fighting broke out 3 kilometers away in Myawaddy, the sister city across the border in Burma. In a single day, an estimated 20,000 refugees fled Myawaddy into Mae Sot. They were set up in a temporary refugee camp, and were sent back to Burma the following day. You can watch a video of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the event here.
Clothing on a Bamboo Pole, Graphite on Paper, 5 x 8", 2011
Conversely, here is an image of everyday Mae Sot. This is a preliminary sketch for a painting of laundry drying on a piece of bamboo in the corner of our yard. I liked the visual of the triangular shadow from the morning sun on the cement wall.
Home Brew Label Illustrated
December 3, 2011
What happens when an elitist miniature pinscher markets his own homemade ale? I tried to answer that question when I made this home brewed beer label for a friend of mine, based on his dog, Jo Jo, as a 1920′s aristocrat.
Joseph's Sparkling Urine, Digital, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
The Illustrated Life!
November 26, 2011
I love to draw, regardless of the medium. Ink drawing, painting, working digitally, each has its own unique quality to lend to an artwork.
Looking Out Over Portland (Red), Digital, 2011
This first image depicts a young person on a hike, looking out over Portland, OR towards Mt Hood. A version of this will soon grace a flier for students at Portland State University, on combatting Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as, the winter blues.
Looking Out Over Portland (Blue), Digital, 2011
The image below was made to illustrate a post on Whoa Life!, an entertaining blog written by a friend of mine. The author is witty and funny, and always enjoyable to read.
Illustration for a post on the blog, Whoa Life!, titled, "IncogNOTo (pun?)"
Being a reformed Luddite, I wish that drawing on my computer with a pen tool and drawing tablet wasn’t so enjoyable and forgiving. However, over the past few years, drawing digitally has become an indispensable tool for my art process.
Three Portraits from Mae Sot, Thailand
November 18, 2011
Portraiture of my friends has always been a favorite practice of mine. It’s a nice way to remember people, as drawings can be intimate and quiet windows into a time of one’s life that has passed.
Brotherly Portrait, Ink and Gouache on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
For more than a year, I have lived on the Thai-Burma border, in a small, dynamic city called Mae Sot, Thailand. While living here, I have had the good fortune to brush shoulders with some incredible human beings. Mae Sot is not a tourist destination, but a place where altruistic people from around the globe come to witness some of the most creative driving on earth, as well as work with refugees and migrants from Burma.
Portrait of Jeff, Ink and Gouache on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
These are three sumi ink and gouache drawings selected from the body of work I produced while living in Mae Sot. Drawing Kasper’s woven straw fedora was especially enjoyable.
Portrait of Kasper, Ink and Gouache on Paper, 9 x 12", 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Sunrise Canyon Process
November 11, 2011
Sunrise Canyon, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 5 x 9”, 2011
Sunrise Canyon is part of a series of eight paintings made for a short silent film, now in production. The film is a western, so for each work in the series, I used a vivid palette that would be coherent with the theme.
Before I begin an artwork, I make loose gestural drawings and small thumbnail sketches to work out the composition. Often, I will also make small color studies to get a sense of the overall feel of a piece. I like to work out my ideas and imagery using different mediums, as I find that this type of play often leads to a better painting in the end.
Small thumbnail sketch that the final drawing was based on.
Watercolor thumbnail sketches.
For this work, I also used photoshop to make a color study mock up before I began the final painting. Working digitally has become a valuable tool for my process.
Digital mock up of Sunrise Canyon.
Here are two additional images from the morning that I photographed the piece. The light in the early morning here is pale and soft enough for an accurate color photograph.
The artwork on a small wooden bench outside of our home in Mae Sot, Thailand.
Sunrise Canyon on a small bench.
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Ceramic Tile Blues
November 4, 2011
Ceramic work, fresh from the kiln. Made by hand, here in Mae Sot, Thailand. This selection of tiles is from my ongoing work with the Puzzlebox Art Studio, an NGO that focuses on training Burmese migrant youth to be functional artists.
Many of the blue tiles were inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Many of these designs were inspired directly from the work of William De Morgan (1839-1917) and the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Floral Tile, 2011, is one of the pieces inspired by the ceramic work of William De Morgan.
After varied degrees of success using different underglazes, I eventually gravitated towards the blue end of the spectrum. I found the blue, white and black underglazes to be the most consistent, stable, and beautiful of all my color options.
The Camping Tile, 2011, with the Virgo constellation in the night sky.
I designed the Knight Tile from a suit of armor, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. It is also a visual nod to the current television series, Game of Thrones.
The Knight Tile, 2011
The Peacock Tile is another piece derived from the beautiful work of William De Morgan.
The Peacock Tile, 2011
These works, all made in 2011, are approximately 4 x 4” (10 x 10 cm). A collaborative venture, these tiles were sculpted by Thai ceramicist Komol Kongcharoen, and painted by myself.
The Howling Wolf Tile, 2011
Upon making the Moses Tile, I was surprised to learn from my Burmese apprentice that there is a similar story in Burma of an infant king hidden in a basket to be floated down a river.
The Moses Tile, 2011
To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.
Painting Website Revamped!
October 30, 2011
http://mikeschultzpaintings.com/ Check out my renovated website when you get a chance. New work includes eight new paintings for a silent film (see FILM), and a selection of nine new drawings (see DRAW) that I made while living here in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border.
The Hare and the Stump House, Sumi Ink on Paper, 9 x 12”, 2011
Ceramic Tile Work in Process
October 23, 2011
I have always enjoyed the process of working with clay. It is a wonderful, malleable substance, and for me, sculpting with it feels like making a drawing in 3-D.
In the process of carving heart tiles.
Recently, I was commissioned to make a painting of a Lion in a Garden of Trees. After a dialogue with the patron, I proposed that a ceramic tile, depicting a heart, be inlaid into the wooden frame that will hold the painting. As an icon, the heart tile will tie in seamlessly with the concepts behind the finished artwork.
The first version of the heart tile, with beveled edges.
These pictures are of four versions of the heart tile so far. Each one is slightly different from the others. Eventually, after they are fired, they will be glazed with a simple white, and then with a clear finish.
The second and third versions of the heart tile, with raised borders.
The four heart tiles drying.
Daniel in the Lion’s Den
July 30, 2011
This oil painting is currently for sale.
For inquiries about the purchase of this artwork, please contact me at: mikeschultzpaintings@gmail.com.
Daniel in the Lion’s Den (Blue), Oil on Wood Panel, 3 x 4’ (92 x 122 cm) 2009-2010
This artwork was painted in oil between 2009-2010 in Portland, OR by Mike Schultz.
It was later framed by my good friend, artist and woodworker, Jack Baumgartner.
As this was a special painting for me to make, I would like to present a written explanation of my thoughts and some of the processes involved in creating this work.
Reflections on the painting of Daniel:
Originally, I was asked to make a single painting of the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den. After researching different versions of the narrative, I decided that instead of making a solitary artwork, I would make two paintings of the same subject, at the same time.
Working on the two versions simultaneously was fascinating. With two paintings, I was able to try out different color combinations and painting techniques on the separate works. As they progressed, they naturally developed side by side into sister paintings. As finished pieces with the same composition, they are very similar, but each has a unique color palette and tone.
The two Daniel paintings prior to varnishing and the application of finish to the frames.
Pictured above: The painting on the left (The Blue Version) is currently for sale. Its sister painting on the right (The Violet Version) has already been sold.
Religious texts:
The parables of Daniel are one of those curious examples of a narrative that appears in the texts of several religions, similar to the story of a great flood and an ark, or the visionary, Joseph.
The story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den is told in the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible, and in the Islamic tradition, Daniel is considered to be an Islamic prophet, both as a sage of ancient times, and as a visionary living in captivity in Babylon.
Interpreting the narrative :
For me, this story represents a duality between the external and internal world. It is the external predicament of an inevitable death, and Daniel’s subsequent journey inward into the self, where he travels beyond his fear, to finally arrive at a place of safety and peace.
This moved me to divide the composition into two separate, but interlocking, parts. They are the upper and the lower half of the canvas.
In the upper half of the composition we can see through an arched window to Babylon.
The upper half of the composition, the outer world, shows Babylon through an arched window. The lower half, the inner world, is where Daniel meditates quietly in his cell, safely encircled by lions that purr like docile kittens. He is at peace despite the ominous presence of a human bone on the tiled floor.
Throughout the history of painting, owls and monkeys have symbolized many different things. Borrowing symbolism from different traditions, I chose the monkey to represent a protective and curious spirit. The character echoes Pieter Bruegel’s painting of two monkeys chained to the ledge of an arched window. The owl represents a wise keeper of secrets or the companion of a visionary.
In the lower half, Daniel meditates in his cell, safely encircled by lions that purr like docile kittens.
Babylon and the Tower of Babel:
According to the narrative, Daniel is held captive in Babylon. I illustrated ancient Babylon in four ways.
Photographs of the ruins at ancient Babylon show a crumbling plateau of mud bricks. Therefore, on the horizon I painted a walled city on a plateau, and within the city is the fabled Tower of Babel, spiraling upwards.
In the den, there is a tiled lion on the wall, bathed in moonlight. This image replicates photographs of actual mosaic lions from the walls and gates of Babylon. These artifacts are now dispersed in museums around the world.
Unlike many depictions of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, I chose the location of the den to be a palace tower, with flowering pillars and tiled lions on the walls.
I surmise that a society sophisticated enough to build an ancient megalithic “skyscraper”, such as the Tower of Babel, and tile their building walls with ornate ceramic brick mosaics, would also have a palace den that was not merely an earthen cave, but just that: a “den” worthy of a palace.
The flowering pillars are a reference to The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which, along with the Great Pyramid of Giza, were once known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Depicted on the horizon is a plateau with the walled city of Babylon, and the fabled Tower of Babel.
Color palette:
The cool color palette was chosen to represent the night. I wanted the blues, violets, grays and blacks to give the feeling of the soft glow of moonlight reflecting in the den.
Video of the painting process:
While working on the underpainting for these two works, I made a video of my process. An underpainting is an initial, thin layer of paint applied to a prepared surface, which serves as a base for subsequent layers of paint. To view the video, go here.
Video still showing mixing colors on the palette.
Video still depicting working on the underpainting.
Video still of the two paintings in my studio, during the process of applying the underpainting.
For inquiries into the purchase of this artwork, please contact me at: mikeschultzpaintings@gmail.com.
Cat and Lemon
June 11, 2010
Cat and Lemon, 5.5 x 7″, Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 2010
This work is an original oil painting of a Mexican ceramic cat and a lemon. It was made in Portland, OR, during February of 2010, and is part of an ongoing series of still lives.
Venus Lake, Finland
June 3, 2010
Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 5.5 x 6″, 2009-2010
