Cops, new paintings, if there was no government

The police is the klan is the mafia and they're out for me, and soon they're going to be out to get you, so you better get going if you know it's good for you and take your stand.
Having the dog around has gotten me into the habit of eating lunch in my living room and watching bad TV instead of sitting at my computer desk.  He will follow me into the living room and hang out and I get a change of scenery.  There is not a lot of good TV, especially in the afternoon, but when I'm lucky I'm able to catch an episode of Cops.  My favorites are when a car gets stopped for a rolling stop or a broken tail light and the police uncover massive quantities of drugs.  I also get a kick out of how delighted the cops are once they discover the drugs.  An episode from a couple days ago had an officer find a big bag of weed under the front seat, tell the camera, "That's an ounce," before tossing it onto the roof of the car and shining his flashlight around the car a second time, and proudly announce, "There's a roach."  That must've sealed the deal for him.

Anyway, I figure it's about time I share the paintings I've done since my first post about my paintings.  It's been just over a month since then, and I'm happy with what I've painted in that time.  I am going to post these in chronological order as best as I can remember.  Many of these pics were taken with my mediocre camera phone and shared on instagram, while a few more recent paintings I was able to get more "hi-def" pictures of with an actual digial camera.  It's still a bitch taking pictures of paintings, but I think generally these pics are a good representation of how they look in person.  And honestly I will be damned if I can figure out how to extend my margins.  

8x10" canvas panel

8x10" canvas panel.  Here I decided to add that vertical red line.  It ended up working out, adds depth and a sense of boundary.

I decided to continue exploring lines and messing with the sense of space.  This is a much larger canvas, maybe like a 12x16" or something.  Larger is better because it gives me more room to maneuver and play around, and I can acheive things that are harder in a smaller space at my novice level.  I had a lot of fun mixing colors here.

8x10" canvas panel. This painting is the result of too much creative energy, too much paint, and nothing else.  Nothing going on here.  I painted over this painting which now looks like this:

This painting marks a big change: mixing my acrylic paint with a gloss medium.  The gloss makes the colors pop out and really adds depth.  

Here you can really see the gloss at work.  8x10" canvas panel

My friend Matt came over and we did a couple more collaborative paintings:

8x10" canvas panel

12x16" I believe.  Those pink swirls in the background (men's asses) were done by Matt.  I think the painting redeemed itself by the end.

Me solo again.  If I'm not mistaken, I actually didn't use any gloss, I just managed to get a lot of bright + vivid colors as opposed to the browns and greys that can occur from overmixing colors. 12x16" 

This is a hard one to get a pic of.  At times it looks very dark, but the natural light in this pic reveals the colors that exist in a painting that is dominated by dark colors.  The gloss plays a huge role here.  Fun fact: the white shapes on the left are actually the blank canvas, not white paint.

I painted this for Heather's sister's family.  I ended the experience with a Jerry Lewis moment that splattered gloss all over my jeans, which now bear the mark of the (clumsy) artist.   I believe this is a 10x12" canvas, possibly 12x14.

8x10" canvas panel.  This painting took me roughly 15 minutes.  I just followed my impulse to paint, and then obeyed my impulse to stop.  My dad told me the French critic and poet Paul Valery said a poem is never finished, only abandoned.   Who's to say that is a bad thing?

Well, that about does it.  Sorry again for being bad at blogging and having my pictures + captions go way over the margin.  I really have to sit down and tweak this.  I appreciate everyone who doesn't mind my minimalist (read: nonexistant) regard for proper formatting. Bob Ross feeding a squirrel I figure since the media keeps shoving this "government shutdown" down our throats with the intention of scaring us into buying things, I will end this post with a relevant song from punk history.   What about the children? Who'd teach them in the schools?
Who'd make the beggars keep in line? Learn them all the rules?
Who's tell us whitewash windows? When to take down doors?
Tell us make a flask of tea and survive the holocaust?  Till next time....