New Giclee Prints by Chanan Mazal!
23 x 30 cm. Signed and numbered, edition of 200
Please contact me for purchasing. Available framed as well.
הדפסים חדשים של חנן מזל

Pomegranates, Oranges and Figs
Acrylic on canvas. Sold
More of the fruit series - two with an ancient association with the Promised Land, and one modern. (Actually they are native to India, and not to Florida and Sicily.)
Each fruit was painted over a ground of it's complementary color. The figs were a greater color challenge, as they ripen from green to purple.

Love Thy Neighbor

My new series of small giclee prints will be published this week. Most of my recent work has been on paper, and I completed many that I was happy with. Choosing which to print was hard. In the end, I chose mostly painting that I did several months ago.
The newer paintings, like this one incorporate lettering and very thick textured layers of gouache.

אלטע היים
"המולדת הישנה" ציור שמן של חנן מזל
The Old Country
Oil on canvas by Chanan Mazal
71 x 111 cm, 28" x 44"
George Washington Bridge, NY-NJ.
My signature circa 1961, is copied from the inner cover of "The Man Who Didn't Was His Dishes", by Phyllis Krasilovsky

Greeting Card Designs











My greeting cards are now distributed by Palphot Ltd. Last week, I completed a collection of 20 new cards, which will be printed within the next few days. I added this preview of a few styles. (Sorry, the blog program wouldn't let me add more to this post.)

I have been experimenting in abstraction, monochromatic palettes, large areas of color, and in general, breaking old painting habits. Alas, these canvases are hard to photograph in a way that looks half decent on a computer screen. Even when seen "live", subtle changes in lighting, can tun them dynamic, deep, flat, or just into a mass of shiny reflection. Sorry for not posting them, until I figure out what to do with the photography.

Yet, this work in oil paints has had a wonderful influence on my gouache illustration work:

Unlike aquarelle, gouache can be used in layers, taking advantage of the thick textured brush strokes and papers. When working with little water, the brush bristles only catch on the bumps and ridges, leaving the undercolor revealed in the little "valleys", as may be seen in the Bar and Bat Mitzva cards.

My use color had progressed as well. After a hiatus of several years, I had rediscovered the sophisiticated and quite beauty of muddy colors. When placed next to a bit of purer shades, they never cease to complement each other. And these neutrals are tricky chameleons: The same batch of color can look green when painted next to gray violet, an then rich purple when painted by lime green. We may not notice it happening, but the visual cortex in our brains tries to make sense out of it all. Quite engaging!

I have painted many canvases, and designed dozens of greeting cards recently. But I have also been delinquent about posting any images here. I beg your pardons.
The intensive card work in gouache has given me opportunities to experiment with less conventional color palettes.

Mud colored gouache, 15.5 x 23 cm

Archeology of My Current Painting:

Undercoat - all complementary colors. I was happy with my choices.

Strong! Good depth and vibrancy. The "empty area" in the center works well.
I like the open contours of areas of color

Too busy! The universal use of dabbled paint and pattern flattened the painting.

Looking for contrast between "noisy" and quite areas.

Present coat of paint.

I'm not sure if it is done yet. I liked the freshness and excitement of it's second coat of paint, and the quite sophisticated colors of the present coat. Sometimes I wish that I could go back and make a clone of the painting as it was, so I could have both!
חג שמח

Layer 100
It's almost done. I guess. Please compare to earlier stages of this painting in earlier posts, Layers 4 and 8.

Amulet based on traditional folk art, gouache 31 x 41 cm.
"For he will give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all ways." Psalm 91



Mizrach
"From the rising of the sun, till the going down thereof, the name of the Lord is to be praised." Psalm 113.
Gouache, 31 x 41 cm

Mizrach
Gouache, 26 x 36 cm

Layer 4


Layer 8

I have reworked this painting repeatedly. Every so often, my brain tells me that something is logically wrong with the composition, and patiently destroy its passion. They, after 3 sessions of progressively graying it. I though paint at it in a frenzy. These shots were taken after frenzy. It is currently still at Layer 8. I ain't 100% happy with it. I miss some of those black attacks visibly in Layer 4 .... but should I just leave it as it is? If I attack the painting with blue black, will I not know when to stop again?

On Thursday, I started a new one, based on the same little pencil sketch that this one was. I think that I will include the bunch of pomegranates that appear on the lower right of the earlier stages, and some of the curved motion.

Bouncing On Jerome

Bronx memory. Bouncing on the Jerome Ave. over cobblestones and abandoned trolley tracks, in the back seat of th 1956 Oldsmobile. Uptown to Grandma Polly, downtown to Sadie. Getting a glimpse at the roaring intestines of the subway cars, after they belched forth from the depths of Manhattan.

דאס קליינער איז מיד
Dos Kleiner Iz Mid
The Little One is Tired
His temper tantrums aren't any milder today. Part of a series of Bronx memories, visiting both Grandmas. 1956 Oldsmobile - Two Toned. I just read that the paint colors were copied from women's underwear fashions. White roof, pastel body. How silly Americans are - I thought that cars were for going from here to there!
Oil, 60 x 70 cm

Pomegranate Rays

Oil, 120 x 140 cm, 47 x 55 inches, Dec 2008
I reworked this over months, finding that what interested me most was the relation between the foreground and background. There is a lot to learn from artists like Dufy and the Viennese, who freely moved between fine art and the decorative arts.

Jerusalem with Bird
Illustration work, gouache, 26 x 36 cm, to be printed smaller.
That dark green could never exist here, even if we had rain the past 5 years, and not this drought.

If I Forget Thee O' Jerusalem



I painted this 2 or 3 years ago, but just scanned it now. Gouache on Arches Watercolor Paper, 35 x 50 cm, Framed.
Any buyers?

Study of Feet


I need to draw more!

Shir's Hands


I thought that I would be drawing a full model. (I was making up for a class that I had missed, and sat in on another.) Little did I know that the challenge would be even bigger. Hands. This actor has the big expressive hands and toes like fingers

Sketches for a Shoah Memorial





Drawn in pencil and eraser, yellow "charcoal" pencil and white chalk