Three Portraits from Mae Sot, Thailand

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

To see more of my artwork, please visit MikeSchultzPaintings.com.

Venus Lake, Finland

Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 5.5 x 6″, 2009-2010

New Studio With Black Box and Assistant

Recently I moved into a new studio and home.  Here is a shot of my assistant, Violet, with a state-of-the-art black box that I have been using to paint a new series of works involving still lives.  The box enables me to easily direct and limit the amount of light on my subjects.  My assistant administers motion to the subjects if they persist in being static to her disliking.

The Ocean at Manzanita

Gouache on Paper, 8 x 8″, 2010

Here is a painting from a recent trip to the ocean at Manzanita, Oregon.

Wedding Ketubah

Sumi Ink on Rives BFK Paper, 18 x 22″, 2008 (Detail)

This is a detail of a commissioned wedding Ketubah.   A Ketubah is a traditional Jewish marriage contract, literally translated to mean “it is written”, that dates back more than 2000 years.

The lower half of the image  is the wedding text and vows.

A Marriage Portrait

Oil on Oak Panel, 2 x 2′, 2004-2009

This painting is a commissioned portrait that I made for a friend in celebration of a marriage.  It was painted on a beautiful wooden oak panel that was made by my friend Jack Baumgartner.

To see examples of Jack’s woodwork, as well as his artwork, you can visit his website at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

Joseph and the Whale Constellation

Gouache on Paper, 9 x 11″, 2009

The Lion’s Den

Oil on Rives BFK, 11 x 14″, 2009

Earth Home

Gouache on Paper, 9 x 12″, 2009

Daniel

Sumi Ink on Paper, 11 x 20″, 2009

Maasai Sky

Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 11 x 14″, 2009

Heart Constellation

Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 8 x 11″, 2009

Garden

Oil on Rives BFK, 8 x 11″, 2009

Open Serengeti

Oil on Rives BFK Paper, 6 x 11″, 2009