Tag: blog

Look Ahead (candy)

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized
Look Ahead (Candy)

This is an 18″ x 18″ acrylic painting that I recently finished.

Before I took the final photograph I took a snapshot with my iPhone in the studio. My subjects have been bouncing around from minimal landscapes to portraits of cows (cowscapes)? I thought it was interesting seeing the latest cow portrait next to “Cloud & Sea” on my easel. Wondering how these paintings will relate to one another in the context of a gallery show. Each painting was done by the same hand, same mediums and the same general approach. They are different paintings but they both are sort of a simplistic study of isolation/solitude. These two in particular had a nice relationship and set my mind at ease to some degree.

Building a collection of paintings for a show is both exciting and a bit daunting. I am always wondering if I shouldn’t narrow my scope and make a really tight collection of paintings with a very specific subject holding them together. The problem is when I’m working I always get excited about “the next painting”. Often this leads to something seemingly unrelated to the previous piece. Tangents and random explorations are part of the creative process and lead to new ideas and often new approaches. In a perfect world I would love to have a massive space where I could hang paintings to really get the overall feel. Then I would replace paintings that were not bolstering the show. Remove paintings that felt redundant or didn’t enrich the overall feeling. Create new paintings that would fill out the collection in just the right way. Of course this is not a perfect world and that is just a daydream. So ultimately I will follow my gut when choosing pieces and have a little faith…

Ballad of the fatted calf

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

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The fatted calf scampered over to the fence. He assumed my presence at the wire signaled it was time for me to feed him! ‘Twas  the other way round.

Note: This is a work of fiction. The calf, lovingly called “fatty”, has many sunny days ahead, presumably.

This is a painting I just varnished today. It is an 18″ x 18″ acrylic painting. The unusual textures throughout were predominantly created with a small squeegee and a palette knife. The very short story was something that occurred to me when I was out shooting reference shots of cows in some of the local fields. I felt guilty the way they would come running up to the fence and all I had to offer was a smile…
Brian

Throwback Thursday

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

 

Ten years ago I painted the labels for this series of Snoqualmie wines. It was a fun experience because one of my friends was the designer at the winery… it is who you know. It was an excuse to go out to lunch and hang around under the banner of “work”. Sadly he left the winery before the project was finished.

The end result was kind of an interesting look. It was a lot of fun to see the wine in stores, every time I went to a new grocery store I would look for it! I’ve attached two pictures I took at the Snoqualmie Winery in Prosser Washington. If you are a fan of wine this is a great area to do a lot of wine tasting. There are several dozen tasting rooms and several annual wine-tasting events. It is also on the dry side of Washington State so odds are good you will see some sunshine! .

I decided to do this post as a result of instagram. I was poking around, as people do, and just happened to come across a picture of someone with one of these bottles of wine next to a glass enjoying a summers day. Hard to believe ten years have come and gone… they come and go faster now don’t they. Snoqualmie introduced new labels a couple of years ago so you can no longer find mine in stores.

Sea & Sky

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized
Coud & Sea

I have finished two more paintings recently. These are continuations of a theme I started last spring. That theme is essentially a study in atmosphere and emptiness in landscape painting.

Both paintings are acrylic paint on plexiglass. “Cloud and Sea” is 20″ x 20″ and Water’s Lullaby is 18″ x 18″. I think the cloud painting is the most successful, it has a moody ethereal felling that I like. Which painting do you prefer and why?

More and more I want to reduce my imagery down to a minimal form and allow the paint to be the subtle star of the show. If only I didn’t have to work a day job! But the isolating night is a pretty ideal setting for this type of imagery… the trick is staying motivated and awake.

Clouds in my mind

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

This is a cloud painting I’m finally getting close to finishing. I guess when something is “finished” it has officially run out of potential? Maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet these last few weeks. I am trying to wrap up a number of paintings… Of course I have to start some more to keep the wheel turning.

I’m also attaching a photo I took last night. I was thinking this particular corner of the studio had a lot of interesting things happening. It isn’t the “landfill” style of decoration I have used around the rest of the space. Anyway just got nostalgic looking at objects representing the last 6 years or so. One of the last crazy Halloween masks I made was in the shot along with paintings and show flyers. I did a terrible job framing the shot but it was good enough for Instagram!

If you say run

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

 

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I wasn’t intending to post a photo of what I was working on tonight… but here we are. Still with David Bowie stuck in my brain. I always liked him but was never more excited about him than hearing Kurt Cobain say “that was a David Bowie song”… Today on rollingstone.com I was reminded of the excellent sketch he was in on Extras… oh man it reminds me why I loved Rickey Jervace as well… To a much lesser degree obviously. None of this has a thing to do with my late night painting… just thoughts and marks on a board. Also beef, it’s what’s for dinner.

Shadows in the Light

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

Shadows in the LightThis is an atmospheric painting I have just been working on. Working with thinly applied paint with very little opacity. I blend and remove paint while it is still wet and try to work out a sense of shadow and volume. It is an exciting and odd method of working that can help create that haunted forsaken feeling that seems to be my endless goal. I struggle not to overwork the image, it is incredibly difficult to find a balance between not enough and overwrought (it turns out too much is never enough! is nonsense 1980’s MTV!). I continue to create a large body of unfinished work. Ultimately I need to step up my game so that I can put together a proper show by late March.

R.I.P. David Bowie

Portrait Vignette

by Brian Sostrom, posted in Uncategorized

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This was a 10″ x 10″ cow portrait I did in acrylic not too long ago. Once again using the cow as sympathetic subject. I have been working on highly atmospheric environmental scenes of late. I have largely abandoned opaque colors since doing this painting. I am trying to make work with a lot of transparency and light penetrating the paint.  I hope to bring it back around and do some large sweeping landscapes with shadowy cows. We shall see where things go… Best to follow the work rather than trying to map out a plan.