MARKWEGNER PAINTING PHOTOGRAPHY MIXED MEDIA ABOUT BLOG
©Mark Wegner - www.markwegner.com

Posts: 2024/23/22/21  2020/19

February 4, 2024
Stretching it Out


Rubber Bands
On this day, 2/4/18 I staged a shot of 'rubber bands' and utilized a dash of ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). I kinda miss doing those setups and 'round the same time did some 'studies' of push pins, paper clips and clothes pins.





December 9, 2023
Down in the Bunker


New Painting: Bunker - Showers, 2023
40” x 30” x 2”, Oils, Cold Wax and Beach Sand on Canvas

Back in late August, Carol and I spent 5 nights up in Port Townsend, WA and a highlight was visiting the nearby Fort Flagler State Historic Park. I’ve been chasing these WWI bunkers along Washington State’s Peugeot Sound and western coast for years due to their photogenic qualities. These at Fort Flagler were among the most visually interesting ones I’ve seen. First the painting scheme was very graphic with each room painted with the bottom third black and the top two thirds a grungy white/grey. It brought a consistency or sorts to the numerous rooms which were varied in size, configuration, some with graffiti, old cast iron and steel props, vintage electrical connections, etc. I found them quite abstract and several had a typographical element that added to the overall ‘graphicness’. Names like ’Showers’, ‘Mess Hall’, ‘Powder Hoist’, ‘Fuse Room’, ‘Shell Room ‘Latrine’ to name a few.

This first painting (‘Showers’) is what I hope will become part of a series (5 or 6 maybe). Time will tell if my enthusiasm for the project can be maintained. Well see ; )





October 27, 2023
A loop central to our travels



I've nicknamed our recent road trip 'The Central California Loop'. It's a run we've made many times over the years, yet one that seemingly never gets old...at least to Carol and I.
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October 6, 2023
Accidental Painting



It’s never a good sign…eerrr, when a painting’s ‘scrap/scratch board’ starts to look more interesting than the in-progress painting itself. I dunno...kinda a nice dry-brush (zen thingy) starting to happen.





August 15, 2023
5 Nights in Port Townsend, WA



Port Townsend is located at the northeastern tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula and was developed around 1850. It was a strategically placed, well-sheltered, deep-harbor port at the junction of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Admiralty Inlet which provided access to Puget Sound. Historically well-preserved, it's a maritime wonderland for boaters, rowers, kyackers....and of course, run-of-the-mill tourists like Carol and I.
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July 1, 2023
OCMA in the 'OC'



Recently Carol and I took a quick flight down to Orange County, CA to visit my Dad - where (among other things) the three of us committed a ruthless slaughtering and overdose of raw oysters at the fab Santa Monica Seafood Market in Costa Mesa. Over the course of three nights and four days we squeezed in a few others stops as well. First up was (finally) a visit to the recently opened OCMA, aka The Orange County Museum of Art that now iconically anchors the Segrestrom Center for the Arts campus.
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June 1, 2023
Hanging Out at Jalama Beach



We're back from a 6 night camping run down the Central California coast along with a few notes and pics here.
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April 2, 2023
Radiator. Radiator.



Vintage Radiator (core)
152cm x 102cm (60" x 40") Diptych
As a test I had two 30" x 40" prints made at a Staples Print Center and then 'tacked' them to two 30" x 40" x 2.5" stretched canvas panels. For cheap inkjet prints ($75 for both) they held up pretty well (sharpness-wise). The 1:1 (large) digital files I provided certainly helped. What the piece is asking for though, are two, high-gloss, high-quality metal prints.





March 21, 2023
Celebrating in Mendocino, CA



Carol and I were married March 20, 1976. Doesn’t exactly sound like the dark ages...does it? OK, don’t answer that! Anyway, we celebrated our 47th a couple hours up the coast in Mendocino, CA for a few days recently.
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February 10, 2023
Let it Snow!



Last month’s ‘atmospheric rivers’ in Northern, CA that brought us 19” of rain also dumped record breaking snow in the Eastern Sierra Mountains. As of this writing, the snowpack stands at 204% of normal and in some areas, deeper snow than California has seen in four decades.
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January 22, 2023
A new painting for a new year



BlowOut - 2023, 41” x 29”
acrylic, graphite pencil and powder, charcoal stick on paper

I seemingly can’t go too long without doing a graphite drawing of some kind. I started this one the day before the ‘atmospheric rivers’ began here in Northern, CA, A relatively quick piece, I gnawed at it here and there...and finished it a couple days ago. It’s done but the rain ain’t. Perhaps a premonition of ‘something wicked this way comes’.





December 25, 2022
The magical Polaroid SX-70



It was back in the mid-1980s that I first saw Polaroid SX-70 manipulations. They were created by exposing an image onto Polaroid's Time Zero film via their SX-70 or a 600 series cameras. A Daylab slide printer or even an enlarger could be used as well. After the image developed, the film emulsion remained pliable for about an hour or so.
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November 5, 2022
Mining the Gold Country



California's Gold Country is a region of California that includes the foothills of the western Sierra Nevada mountains and many historic towns that date to the 1849 California Gold Rush. Thank you Wikipedia. The area is a fairly easy reach from our neck-of-the -woods, depending on where you're heading. Roughly 3-4 hours. The Sacramento Delta is even closer at 2 hrs and change.
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August 30, 2022
Living in a Mixed-media world



METAL NUDE
127cm x 82.5cm x 7.5cm (50” x 32.5” x 3”)
Mixed Media on Canvas board
Oil, cold wax, acrylic, graphite powder, nylon bolt & nut, rubber gasket, styrofoam discs, plexiglass and pvc board

The frame was a bigger project than the mixed media art piece. It had to be built with lightweight materials considering the large and hefty 3/16” cutout plexiglass front and the archival clear cover plexiglass behind it. Next it had to be securely glued and assembled - which the adhesive fusion of plastic to pvc board backing frame accomplished. It also had to be archival in the sense that it could be reversible (backing components could be disassembled on the back side to swap out different art pieces). Time and material costs demanded this. This was the prototype and I messed with various materials and construction methods for nearly 6 months. But with one down, I hope I'm off 'to the races' for future work in this format.





July 31, 2022
City Life in the Northwest



A planned, yet somewhat out-of-the-blue hankering for some immersion into city life led Carol and I to Seattle, WA and Victoria and Vancouver, BC. For the record, more my request than hers. We've visited these cities before but this trip allowed for a deeper dive with three nights in each place and easy walking distance to all three city centers.
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June 4, 2022
The road to Westport, CA



Westport, CA (population 200 and change) is about as sleepy a town as it gets along the Northern California coast. 120ish miles due North and 2 hrs, 40 minutes travel time from home — depending on your angle of attack. The scenic, jogging and twisting inland route or straight up the edge of the continent on California's iconic Highway 1.
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May 15, 2022
A tale of two lamps



I requested and received these two lamps in a barter with friend, Sculptor Bruce Johnson. They’re tremendous…and for a sense of scale, the floor lamp is 6’ feet tall. The bases are carved from solid Cedar…and yeah, they’re heavy. As impressive as the carved bases are the Japanese-styled lanterns are the pièce de résistance. He hammered and formed their frames out of flatten copper then wrapped them in a heavy mulberry paper. If that wasn’t enough, both lamps feature a 3-way touch control for on/off and brightness control (via the copper).





March 23, 2022
That's what a hamburger is all about




Anyone who lives or even traveled in California would be familiar with the In’n Out Burger fast food chain. 10 or so years ago, while traveling through Los Angeles, I tracked down a very unique one-off In ’n Out restaurant designed by architect Stephen Kanner. He called it his homage to the ’50’s Jet Age’. When I saw it (along with a Burger of course) definitely got his “Jetson’s Vibe’ from the place. I took a few shots (see small pic below) and recently dug ‘em back out and produced this digital illustration. Rendered in a silkscreen style with only 15 colors, perhaps it’s my own homage to long time LA artist Ed Ruscha - who still champions classic retro works.




February 24, 2022
A lifetime of Landscapes


2000 Landscape Photos
...kinda of an homage to my many years of photographing the land. Yeah, this piece took awhile...an hour here, several hours there that 'finally' resulted in an overall 10,000 x 12,000 pixel image at 300 dpi . The image itself is 33" x 40" unframed





January 5, 2022
Deja Vu in Newport Beach



Last year, January 5th, 2021 was a fullblown family milestone, my Dad's 100th Birthday. Unfortunately due to Covid concerns we had to settle for a Facetime gathering to celebrate it. This January with the family fully vacinated, N95 masks in tow, Carol, myself, son Rob, daughter Kaci and her partner Travis carpooled down to Orange County to catch his 101st. Read more.




December 24, 2021
Sculptural Perfection



This piece, part of the installation 'The Nervous System' by powerhouse art duo Elmgreen & Dragset’, hits all the notes I can hear. As a sidenote, they're also the force behind 'Prada Marfa', which I finally saw driving into Marfa, TX recently.




October 23, 2021
The Road to Marfa, TX

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

The Road to Marfa blog title is actually a subset of the much larger journey dubbed the 'Autumn Escape' by Carol and niece Terri Griffin. Both of them meticulously planned all the logistics including routes, time frames and campground/motel reservations. At the end of the final day we had driven nearly 5,000 miles, over 25 days and across four states - California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. We mostly camped but the trip coordinators spaced that out nicely with periodic reservations at motels, inns and even some primetime at two southwestern casitas.
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September 7, 2021
The big, little town of Bridgeport, CA

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

The town of Bridgeport is one of several small rural towns along the California's Eastern Sierras that dot the legendary and the scenic Hwy 395. You can't miss it. It runs smack through the middle of the two-block town. Carol and I have driven by it too many times to count and always considered it something of a one-horse town. Or a gas stop.
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August 25, 2021
The Beasley Compound

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

Back in August, after a design presentation to Sculptor Bruce Beasley, I squeezed in a quick walkabout around his impressive compound of studios, warehouses and private residence. The place is a rich shooting environment to say the least.
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July 18, 2021
Colusa UnAmerican

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

I recently finished up my largest work (on paper), Colusa UnAmerican. 40" x 29" Oil and Cold Wax. Inspiration arrived with the help from a couple strange bedfellows. The corrugated metal buildings of farmland Colusa, CA and a visceral reaction to the thuggery on display at the capital building in Washington D.C. back on 1.6.21. A dimensional effect for the corrugated metal was achieved by scraping a row of nails vertically down the entire painting. View all paintings-->




May 15, 2021
Garibaldi, Oregon

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

Our recent camping run up the coasts of Northern California and Oregon could have been called the 'same as it ever was tour'. We revisted several old favorites and added a couple new ones as well. Port Garibaldi, Oregon (our furthest Northern point) was our destination this trip and after back-to-back visits, it's now firmly entrenched as a must stop. A very sleepy, small fishing town that I suspect would easily feel at home along the coast of Maine or even further north in Newfoundland, Canada. In the winter, maybe not so much ; )
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April 20, 2021
A Serious Case of Greenhouse

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

Sunset State Beach (just outside Watsonville, CA) was homebase for a three night camping trip last week. The area is an epicenter of commerical succulent growers and spreads across California's Santa Cruz, San Mateo and Monterey counties. We touched them all. Greenhouses in particular are high on my list of photography subjects these days and they come in all shapes, styles, sizes and levels of beautiful decay. The one constant is they sometimes result in a heaping serving of semi-abstraction material. The older, the grungier, the better!
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April 1, 2021
New Painting: BARB'd

Acrylic on paper, 30" x 22"
When working on larger, longer term abstract pieces, I think I'm falling into a habit of sneaking in something a little less serious and a bit PoP.

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com




March 18, 2021
The Accidental Birder

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

Earlier in the week, we braved some 'end-of-winter' weather (☁ +☂+☃) - including 'campfire hail') while spending a couple nights with camping compadres, Terri and Vance. Our destination was the San Luis Reservoir Recreation Area-Basalt Campground near the city of Los Banos, CA — 2.5 hours southeast from Sonoma County.
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February 1, 2021
A direction is taking root

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

Shoshone Truck: Detail
Oil and Cold Wax on paper, 30" x 22"
An abandoned vintage truck (just outside of Death Valley National Park) served up numerous photo scraps to paint this detail scene of the truck's door. The winds and sand over time are relentlessly revealing its pure metal origins.




January 7, 2021
The Barn

Mark Wegner, Photographer - www.markwegner.com

The quaint and historic Point Reyes is one of my favorite towns in our immediate area of Marin and Sonoma County. It doesn't hurt that it's the gateway to the prestine Point Reyes National Seashore either.
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Posts: 2023/22/21  2020/19