Hey Look! I have a shop!

Okay, I didn't use Matt's idea: the shop is just called Miro Roi cards & art. I only have a couple things up at the moment, but I'm working on getting more together.

My biggest problem - for the blog and now for the store - seems to be getting decent pictures of my work.

Here's a couple new paintings: Tommy pauses before entering his apartment building, and a diagram of my understanding of how petitionary prayer works.

Shop Name Contest!

Well, not really a contest, but I'd like some feedback.

The email I use for this blog is "MiroRoi(at)gmail.com" (long story, not important), and I was thinking of using it for my shop name. It's unique, and it links back to my primary cartoon character. I keep hesitating, though; any thoughts about the name, or suggestions for an alternative?

In any case, before I start selling paintings, I'm going to put some cards out there to get a sense of selling things online. These are some of the designs I've got so far: hand painted, blank inside, various sizes. (I'm working on an owl too. Julie likes owls.) Feedback on the cards would also be helpful.

It also occurred to me that I could sell the panels I've been painting on: 24"x24" 1/4 luaun, backed with a cradle made of 1"x2" select pine to prevent warping, all primed. The only things like that on Etsy are pretty small, and I've really enjoyed having a larger surface to work on.

I still have to put The Hand away when I go to bed, though.

If Mechthild is my Monday name...

...then this must be Susana.

This is the same painting in progression - monochromatic underpainting, again about halfway through, and then the final version. Mostly acrylic, but I just can't keep my hands off whatever is near, so it has this and that in it as well.

In other news, I've attempted to put some panels for painting for sale on craigslist. The ones I've finished are 24" square, with a 2" cradle on the back to keep them from warping; primed front and back, with the edges finished. The ad hasn't shown up yet, so I may have done something wrong.

At some point, I'm going to put some of my paintings for sale on Etsy.com - some of the work there is pretty good. I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime if you see anything on here you like, let me know - it could be yours!

As far as the other kind of painting is going, the only news is that my boss has been cited for Nonpoint Source Water Pollution, a class three misdemeanor, and his accountant burned down last week.

No actual work, though.

Duck Duck Goose

A Second Cup

I started reading Gordon Kaufman's An Essay on Theological Method again yesterday; an interesting contrast with Rudolph Bultmann's Jesus and the Word.

Also an interesting contrast with David Jensen's In the Company of Others, which my local book group has been reading on my recommendation.

Well, I recommended that we read it; I'm not sure who has actually done the reading. Are all book groups like this? Not that they haven't been reading: several of the people wanted to talk about another book which they had read (but I had not), Pema Chödrön's Taking the Leap.

I have since read the first chapter, and I'm not terribly impressed. I'd much rather re-read Joko Beck's Everyday Zen.

None of which has to do with the picture here, except that coffee was consumed during the reading of all these various books.

Two paintings

Um, not a whole lot to say today.

Both of these are mixed media pictures based on photos: the cormorant picture from a photo taken by Greg Rogers, a friend living in Florida; the old men sitting on a stone wall... from a book I found in the college library, written in French, with many black and white photos.

Hand

Since I'm not painting (houses), I'm painting (my hand).

As with the Cup, as well as the picture below ("Ohne Titel"), this was painted on a 2' x 2' birch panel, the hand in acrylic and the background in acrylic and semi-gloss latex.

I'll take a better picture later, but this gives you a sense of what I've been working on.

Painting for a New Year...

...even though I finished it at the end of last year. I continue to be amused that the most difficult part seems to be getting a halfway decent picture of what I've painted. I've tried to resist any digital "fixing" beyond adjusting the color, and for this one I haven't even done that. I like the overexposed/supersaturated look that direct sunlight seems to give with my camera, but while you a get a good sense of the color (maybe too good--the blue in the upper left hand corner tends to blend pretty well into the black background), you lose some of the details (the brushwork on the dove, for instance).

Jennifer still likes the cup better, so I've also added a new picture of that.