Bucky Balls Back Story

You might be wondering where the title Bucky Balls came from? Anyone hear of Buckminster Fuller before? He was a futurist and author I’ve always found really interesting and his nickname was Bucky. . Buckyballs are a type of spherical molecule named after Bucky Fuller because he invented the geodesic dome and a buckyball molecule resembles the geodesic dome. Ok, you’ve learned your something new for the day. You can call it good. LOL.

This piece of artwork sat unfinished well over a year. Then I discovered this cool little goodie called a sponge pouncer from my oil painting friend, Kelly Delp.

When I travelled to Florida in April 2014, as I often do when I travel, I painted a lot and I finished Bucky Balls using the sponge pouncer to add all the circular shapes. To get the mixture of colors within the circular shapes, I used more than one paint color on the sponge and rotated the sponge on the watercolor paper. I also used opaque white watercolor paint, which made for some interesting effects.
I used the sponge pouncer for the piece below as well, “Sweet Bounty,” which was recently sold and shipped to Minnesota. (Thank you, Ric!) In early 2014 I’ll be teaching a workshop where we’ll be painting “Sweet Bounty.”

As I mentioned, Bucky Balls sat undone—in its awkward teenage stage, as I like to call paintings sometimes—for quite awhile. (It looked unfinished, but had lots of potential.) ;-) It started as a practice piece of what I call double dipping, a technique Linda Kemp is famous for where you take a big wash brush and dip the corners of the brush into two different colors and run it across a very wet piece of watercolor paper…twisting and turning the brush as you move it across the paper.

Bucky Balls was on display at i.m.b.i.b.e. art and wine bar in Moses Lake, Washington, USA, for the month of October 2013 while I was the featured artist. You can see some of my artwork in person at Goose Ridge Winery in Richland, WA, USA, or you can always visit my home studio by appointment. Just email or give me a jingle at 509.430.8633. Happy November everyone!

In gratitude,

Chris Blevins, The Unexpected Artist

P.S. Follow the link to the full blog post to see pictures of Pouncers and of Sweet Bounty.

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