Best New Products of 2011.

As you may or may not have noticed, Liquitex makes a few products that really float my boat. I'd be lost without their Pouring Medium (I've probably gone through three gallons of it so far this year), and they make the best palette knives I've ever had the pleasure to use.

But recently they're stepped up their game in a couple areas. For one, they've got a new line of brushes aimed (primarily) at street artists called Liquitex Freestyle. As you can see from the link these are divided into two groups, the large-scale brushes and the more traditionally-sized ones. The first group is particularly innovative, and obviously the result of listening to what painters actually want. The paddle brush and the splatter brush are my faves so far.

The other product shown in the photo is Acrylic Inks. I'm doing a lot of glazing these days, and the inks are amazing in this capacity. Beyond that, they behave a lot like watercolours, but have the permanence and lightfastness of acrylics. That's a winning combo in my book.

Now I just need to paint something huge...

It's All About Context.

One of the things that makes being an artist so fulfilling is the feedback I get from people. Another big one is knowing that my art is in so many people's homes and offices. Ideally I'd like to have something of mine in every Canadian province and U.S. state (among many other places).

Off the top of my head, there is art of mine in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. That only leaves Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In the U.S.: California, Ohio, North Dakota, D.C., Pennsylvania, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Virginia... obviously I've got a long way to go there. I've also sold prints, calendars and t-shirts in England and Australia.

What really floats my boat, though, is seeing the art in context - hanging on someone's wall, where people see it every day. It's kinda mindblowing sometimes to think that people are spending their time looking at my art that way. A handful of people have even been kind enough to send me photos:

Honestly, this does my heart good. Thanks, everybody.

Six More.

Slowly accumulating ideas for the Metalflake series of paintings. I almost wish I'd called it something else, because I seem to be pathologically incapable of typing the word without help.

At any rate, there are now four completed paintings (three of which have been sold), seven more that will soon be ready for the white lineart, and another six that are just in the early, texture-building stage right now. The single most time-consuming phase, of course, is slowly building up layers of clearcoat over the metallic-looking textures.

In the meantime I'm free to design the lineart. I've got a 3.5x5.5-inch drawing pad that I've been slowly filling with thumbnails since December. The process goes something like this: I scan the thumbnails, import them into Adobe Illustrator and redraw the lineart in vector format. Eventually the vector art gets printed at actual size, and I use that to make my stencils.

The ideas have been coming fast and furious lately - inspiration comes when it comes, I guess. Here are the basic designs for the next six:

Till next time,
Bret Taylor
Vancouver
June 20/2011

Super Chicks.

Just finished a new piece tonight. From start to finish, only a handful of days:

Planning to do a small, signed and numbered run of prints soon. Still working out prices and such, but I'll keep you posted.

Dawn Patrol Redux.

Just got this photo via email tonight:

The paintings are officially mounted on the wall in their new home, and all is well in the world.