Bill Bailey Blogs

This is the first of a series of paintings done with the same colors. The figures came to me in a dream about being on another planet with limited colors and strange angular figures. The figures are humanlike without being human. You will see thes... 

I had an awful lot of help doing this painting. It was done on Christmas Day 20 years ago. I set up the canvas after dinner and everyone in the house (13 people) put at least one brush stroke on the canvas. My youngest daughter named the painting. 

The inspiration for this painting came to me when I visited a recycling plant that crushed all kinds of metal junk. While there, I watched automobiles get crushed in giant presses. The result was neatly stacked bundles that eventually found their w... 

This was inspired by the great Georgia O"Keefe. I love tulips almost as much as the Dutch. I'll bet that most of you non-Dutch, did not know that tulips were so valuable to the Dutch economy once upon a time, that when their value collapsed it caus... 

This is one of a trio of paintings that grew out of a dream wherein, I found myself looking at the whole Universe at once. The companion paintings are "Black Hole" and a painting I have not posted as yet called "The Green Universe." They were origi... 

Black Hole is a companion of the two paintings (Red Shift & The Green Universe) that I mentioned in the previous blog. I am sure you all know that a black hole is a region in space from which nothing, including light, can escape. I am told that ever... 

The feature in this painting is the Mountain. People live around it, of course, but I was trying to capture the Mountain with its snow cap...that has probably been there for eons. Unfortunately that snow cap is in jeapordy and as we write, maybe ev... 

On more than one occassion I have had directed at me a comment about the "phallic" symbolism of this painting. The thought never crossed my mind. The spirit of the painting comes from a music and dancing show, by Gypsies, that I once saw in France.... 

I just started painting stripes of different colors one day. I had no idea what the painting would ultimately look like. When I finished, I liked it. 

Eighty percent of the hardedge abstracts I have done in my life had some combination of these colors with others. Usually there was a bright red background. In some ways they are my signature colors. One day I will cover a skyscrapper with these c... 

This painting speaks for itself. I will probably go to my grave before the 911 fraud is revealed. It was an infamous day in the history of this Nation and I feel sorry for the people who were and remain deceived.  

The artist borrowed from the spirit of Diego Rivera, the great Mexican artist, in this work. It is one of a series of paintings in honor of Rivera that I intend to complete in the next year.  

This duo is another of my examples of wet acrylic painting. After creating a background I used water liberally to swirl in the flowers. When the paint was nearly dry I went back and highlighted with sweeping brush strokes. I love this technique an... 

There are few things on earth that can match the beauty of flowers. They, as a group, have the most interesting of pallets of every conceivable color imaginable. I borrowed from a number of flowers to scatter this canvas of color, but the Lenten Ro... 

This lesson in cultivation, from a senior to a youngster, is almost totally from my own imagination. I read a featured article on the lifestyle of the Menonnites and my admiration for their religious dedication and stoicism inspired this painting.  

This painting fascinates me mostly for its combination of unusual colors. They capture an evening sunset at a beach. The figure was inspired by my grandson and my imagination carried the scene.  

This painting was literally painted in a shower. I wanted to show flowers from a desert in my abstract style and I accidentally spilled the water I cleaned my brushes in, on the painting which had not dried. The effect was intoxicating. I took the... 

This was the very first abstract painting I ever did. It has hung in every kitchen, in every house I have lived in since. The color combination has found its way into dozens of works that I have done over the years. 

The idea for this painting was borrowed from a theme my artist nephew uses in his paintings. I borrow all the time from everybody. Don't we all? 

In both of these paintings I wanted to explode colors in tight juxtaposition to each other without overlapping or spacing. Each painting took many days to complete since each color had to dry before moving to the next.  

This is a portrait of my youngest son. His demeanor is usually far from that of a sad clown. His greatest pleasure is making you laugh. 

With this work I am trying to show various angles at a frozen moment against a solid, pleasant color. As I painted them I was wishing I could make them move.  

Colors...sounds and shapes... come at us...in constant streams... thanks to our consciousness... But we can order them...appreciate them..or sometimes...just ignore them... The magic begins...when we reach out...captu...