Cement, original Betker oil on canvas, Seattle’s Harbor Island, industrial-recreational marina

Cement, © BVF Betker, oil on canvas, 36” x 36”

Seattle’s Harbor Island, mixed-use industrial and recreational marina
Currently exhibited and available at Jamieson Furniture Gallery, Bellevue, Washington
www.greatroomfurn.com/
See more at www.betkerfineart.com.
Inquires to halfsweet@betkerart.com

splash in the pan

Beauty Alley II, ©2012 BVF Betker, oil on canvas, 24" x 36"

It has been pointed out to me I haven't posted in awhile. That's because I've been putting everything new on the website instead of writing about it. I need a staff!

Last November the sun came from behind the clouds and I started painting in earnest and building what might actually be considered a body of work -- rather than the Frankenstein's monster I'd been gathering all these years. Its focus is human territory: the occupied landscape.

Rather than begin at the beginning, here is one of the latest pieces. I paint with a knife, thus avoiding the need for solvents, and adding that element of sculpture with impasto that I love so much!

rail yard

A few weeks ago I sketched this scene in ink on canvas at Fishermen's terminal. It was freezing but bright! Later painted it in the studio. 4.5" x 4.5"

bridge to somewhere

Here are my two newest tiny (4 inches square) paintings. I am tempted to just do these tiny little paintings forever, this is really satisfying! They begin as pen/brush drawings on gessoed canvas in airbrush-consistency acrylic (I call it ink); when that is dry, I add tiny bits of color, transparent and opaque, until they are suddenly done!

These are views of the Aurora bridge west of Gas Works Park here in Seattle.

This one, West From Gas Works II, was originally drawn in white acrylic on black gesso:

West From Gas Works III was sketched in anthraquinone blue acrylic "ink" on white gesso:

avenging the leopard

Here is a piece that began as an experiment in layers of acrylic paint and mediums, collaging in separately created acrylic skins and painted paper. It developed organically -- a means I enjoy and will have to keep learning from; right now I think it worked well! 36" x 36" acrylic/collage on canvas.
(The leopard in question was my painted silk kimono-style fiber sculpture, stolen from Seattle Center in the early nineties. It walked off its display as I sat 20 feet away, attending to something I guess... I have mourned long enough.)