New Year, New Resolve

Ingres is reported to have said that "drawing is the probity of art". My interpretation is that he meant that drawing is truth, and without it a work of art lacks a solid foundation. Whenever I start to feel as if I'm running in place, not advancing as far in my work as I would like, I know that I can go back to the source, drawing, and work my way from there. It's such a simple and basic process, yet profoundly engaging, and often frustrating. My academic training has gotten me away from the "contour line", one shot method, that was emphasized in high school and college, and more towards something fluid; like shaping clay for a sculpture. The nebulous quality of my initial straight line block-in pencil marks, gradually become more refined, and my analytical thought processes undergo a similar refinement. In this way each drawing becomes a new adventure, a self discovery that never seems rote or repetitive.
       With the advent of the new year I've decided to push myself a bit harder on the drawing front. I feel like I haven't fully made use of all that drawing has to offer in terms of advancing my art and so I'm determined to increase my focus. Normally I start a painting by making an actual size drawing, sometimes called a "cartoon", and then transferring it to my canvas. This is done on white sketchpad paper. I do spend quite a bit of time on the drawing, and I keep pushing it until I feel it's "canvas ready". I use a mirror often to check for mistakes, and I do a lot of measuring, and cross measuring. So, what else could I do, one might ask? Usually my painting concept is based on a small thumbnail sketch. I'm going to start making larger, slightly more refined sketches, maybe on toned paper, that include a value study as well. I want to use the drawing as a way of working out several possibilities in each arrangement that I set up, so as to arrive at the best solution. I also want to make individual studies of elements in the setup in order to better understand their individual specifics before encompassing them in the harmony of the overall design.

This is the "cartoon" for a painting that I'm currently about to start. At this point I've transferred it to a canvas, but I haven't started to paint it yet. If I were following my new years resolutions, I would not have made this drawing full size and transferred it without having first made some drawing studies and even some painted studies. It's not that I'm not happy with the drawing, I am, and I'm excited to paint it, it's really just a feeling I have that I need to push myself a little harder to not just come up with an idea but to come up with the best version of that idea. I did however make two miniature transfers on 5 x 7 inch panels on which I'll do a black and white and a color poster study. It's not completely what I resolved to do but it's not a total "cheat" on my "New Years Resolutions", so I'll take it and try to do more on the next one (isn't that what resolutions are all about?).

Slow Crawlings

I'm taking it reallll slow. My models not coming back for a few weeks but I got her to leave her shirt and necklace so I can keep busy. Happy Holidays!

Wipeouts, Block-Ins, and Studies

"Julia Back From Moscow" 11"x14" oil on linen, "Julia Study" oil on canvas board, 5"x7", "Jug, Pan, and Vase" oil on linen, 9"x12", study 5"x7". As you can see it's been a busy weekend. I tweaked Julia's portrait until I finally got a likeness and I was happy with the block-in. The wipeout always loses a little something and then you have to find your way back again. The study went pretty well considering it's taking me a little getting used to painting a portrait in daylight. Next session I'm going to just go for it and start windowshading my way across.

Eakins Senior

Last week, I attended a lecture relating to academic art by the artist Graydon Parrish at the Grand Central Academy of Art ( great lecture, very informative!) Since I had some time to kill before the lecture I thought I would drop in at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and look at some of the artists that would be featured in Graydon's lecture. While there I also went looking for some of Eakins work because I've been doing a lot of reading about him lately. Strangely enough, the Met currently has a lot of the American wing paintings on exhibit in some kind of storage room, locked into glass cases. In a way, it's good because very few people seem to wander in there and it facilitates prolonged study. Anyways, I spent a good deal of time looking at "The Writing Master". I've seen it before and it always captivates me. Eakins was a student of Gerome, and Gerome always claimed that Rembrandt was his favorite artist. Other than the story telling aspect though, I can find no Rembrandt influence in his paintings. Eakins painting of his father is a different story. This painting seems clearly indebted to Rembrandt without overly emulating his style. So in between drying times on other paintings I decided to give "Eakins senior" a shot. The reproduction I'm using is only about three inches tall and I'm working on an 8"x10" panel. I'm experimenting with the method I see demonstrated on Tony Ryders site which is to use an open palette (no pre-mixed color strings) and to window shade my brush strokes working from a dark base (the paint on your palette). It's fun to change things up once in a while. I'm sure this is nothing like the way that Eakins worked so I consider this more of a study than a copy.

Morgan Crawl

"Well we gotta new dance and it goes like this,

bop-shoo-bop it's the portrait painting twist".

I'm slowly crawling my way up Morgan's face. In the last three hour session I started at the bottom of the chin because I wanted to slowly roll up to the strong light on the cheek bones. I'm putting a little bit of color touches here and there, but even though I'm using a flesh palette I'm trying to keep it fairly mono chromatic. I'm avoiding, at least at this stage, chromatic changes in the flesh color because I'm concentrating on rendering the light on the subtle forms. It's a real challenge to not have the face look too sculptural or mask like. Once the basic planar structure is noted I have to look for the subtle weaving of related forms, "pathways of light" as Tony Ryder would say. The other problem is the primitive nature of the lighting setup. Because we're working in a space that also doubles as a gallery, there are rows of flourescent lights that can't be turned off. I had to light the model with a 150 watt outdoor spotlight just to cut through the ambient light. That being said, I'm pretty much conceptualizing the forms as per my cast painting training so I'm not strictly painting the light as it is. The next one I'm going to arrange in my studio with one or two other artists and definitely have much better lighting.

Nancy Ebauche

Got a little more done on the ebauche (underpainting) stage. It's a little tricky using oil paint likes it's watercolor, but I'm starting to get used to it and I'm digging it. I got to give Tony Ryder credit this ain't easy and mine doesn't yet have the form logic of his ebauches, but I'm trying my best to make it work. My idea is to keep the values darker and grayer until I roll up to the more intense lights around the cheekbone. I'm also trying to nail any microforms I come across as well as looking for larger pathways of form that the light will use to connect the various planes. One way that I differ from the Ryder methds is that I carefully mix up color strings with a palette knife before I start to paint. I do end up doing some brush mixing anyway but I prefer to have the string as a base. I'm working on a 9'x12' Utrecht oil primed linen on board which I'm enjoying more than I thought I would. It responds pretty well to the paint.