Piece of the Week

For this week's piece of the week, a peek at a piece from the new series I'm working on, the title of the series is still up in the air but here's the piece.

Morning
watercolor
9x9in
2012
Series: Genesis
Photo by Hawkinson Photography

Studio Music

One of my teachers in school was very adamant that one shouldn't listen to music while working because it hurts your ability to focus. I do think that this is true but I generally don't work in silence. Usually when I'm working I listen to my local classical music radio station and I enjoy it, I think that the music sometimes probably does hurt my focus but I also feel like there are benefits to listening to beautiful music while working.
Yesterday however I switched things up a bit. I got really frustrated by something before I started working and so I pulled out my ipod to listen to Billy Joel's Glass Houses. I love Billy Joel and I listened to this album all the time during my year in school while I worked in a communal studio space. Sometimes I would listen to block out loud conversations in other quadrants of the space, sometimes to keep myself working longer. So there you have it.

Piece of the Week

It's time again for Piece of the Week. I've been working on a new series and maybe one of these days I'll share that news series but for now here's a piece from a different new-ish series which has sort of been put on hold for the moment.Untitled
watercolor and sumi ink
9x9 in
2011
Series: Hex

I wasn't really sure what to call this series, but I've been calling it Hex in lieu of a better title. The idea behind the series was to really focus on geometric and Islamic designs, I decided that one way to do that would be to pick a number/shape and explore all the possibilities with it and then possibly do the same with other numbers/shapes. What I mean by 'number/shape' is that the patterns and designs would all be based off, in this case, the number six which is a hexagon or hexagonal shapes in the geometric form.
I didn't get very far with this series idea before my attention was turned elsewhere, but I hope to continue with it.

Piece of the Week

Here we go for the second round of piece of the week. This piece has been shown on this blog before but it's been a while. It's part of a series I did a few years back called Bees, which was about honey bees.
Having a favorite piece of art is akin to having a favorite child but I really do love the way this piece turned out.

Direction
watercolor covered by transparent paper with pen and ink
2009
9x9 in
Series: Bees
photo by David Hawkinson

Piece of the Week

Alright, I'm hoping to be better about updating this blog and so I'm going to try and post at least one piece every week. These pieces may be brand new or they may be older. I'd love to hear feedback on them.
This is one from the archives, the first series that I started after graduating. I was really interested in rose windows in cathedrals and their significance. I decided to make some of my own.

Adam and Eve
Watercolor on Arches watercolor paper
2009
Series: Rose Windows

I was recently talking to a friend and fellow artist who shared that in the new year he hopes he'll be able to quit his job and support himself with his painting. I'm so excited for him. It's always great to hear about a friend's artistic success, so many times that doesn't happen, or maybe that's just what the world says and I've heard it so much that I started to believe it. A lot of times I get discouraged and feel like a failure. There's always the opportunity to improve upon the past, meanwhile I haven't been a total failure, I had the privileged to be included in a great show this year, with artists that I respect. I'm going up from there and not going back.


Finally, here are pictures of the piece that was in the Springville show.

Enlightened
graphite pencil on arches 88
2010