Revised Website

I have polished and revised my website. It looks better, operates even better, and includes new artwork.

See it at www.kenkatzen.com

Collage valentine

Here's a Valentine collage that I created for my wife in Illustrator and Photoshop. For a while there was a hand-cut collage (on a background created with those programs,) but this looked a lot better. Like a lot of art, I threw out a whole bunch of versions on the way to the final one.

The last month

Since Valentine's Day, I have been updating my website with a thorough going-over and new work. The new version will be up by next week.

Jacob and the Angel

Jacob and the Angel ©2010 Ken Katzen

Here's another angel, from the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling "a man," usually interpreted to be an angel from the context. If there are angels on earth, they are probably the ones we wrestle with, and they don't look like we expect them to. Sometimes, like Jacob, we get hurt before we are blessed. You never know.

Folks are often interested in how a work of art gets made. Here are some of the steps in Jacob and the Angel:

 The idea comes into mind, and usually won't let me go until I create the art. It often begins with sketches, like these, from my sketchbook. 

Then I sketch it onto the canvas if it's a painting, and add a neutral tone. This one is unusual in that I didn't add the neutrals tones all at once.

Here I began to add darker tones to study where I wanted the darks and lights to be.

Then I began to add color, and keep going! Usually, the painting takes on a life of its own, and lots of things change as I go. The whole thing can take weeks or months.

Recent Work: Sorrowful Angel

Sorrowful Angel © 2010 Ken Katzen

I have been woking on angels in 2010. Angels aren't just those beatific Renaissance cherubs or equally beatific grown up cherubs. Here's Sorrowful Angel, inspired by a Patti Lovelace song. I hope it leads you to think about angels in a new way.