Get Your Yah Yahs Out

As a fairly traditional, I guess "academic" painter, the methods that I use can sometimes seem restricting and methodical. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy most of the time with the results. It's just that sometimes you get the urge to paint thickly and broadly; you want to slash the paint on like the Van Gogh demon you've always secretly wanted to be. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I'm not in the Sargent-Sorolla-Zorn mode of painting. If you listen real hard to your inner voice, not to be confused with schizo like paranoia, you can figure out that there's a reason that you gravitated to a particular way of painting. Carefully applying paint to a fully mapped out drawing using a carefully mixed palette of values and colors suits me. That's just how it is, and I'm okay with it. I do however, enjoy dabbling in other methods, ones that I have no intention of selling, pressure free slathering, maybe the way that art is occasionally supposed to be.
       The "poster" study gives me a chance to step outside of my comfort zone. The idea behind it is to make a miniature version of the painting your about to start. I usually do mine on 6"x8" cheapo canvas boards. I don't want to start thinking of them as precious "masterpieces" because, as I previously stated, the idea is to have some fun, while also figuring out some things that might help me to make a better painting. I'm not about capturing the setup exactly as it appears. Maybe I have a God complex, my wife would say "no maybe's about it!", but I want to arrange the values and colors to capture the inner vision that sparked the idea of the painting in the first place. Right now I'm working a little bit in "back to the future" mode, because I'm making the poster study after already having transferred the final drawing to a larger canvas. What I really should be doing is making several poster studies, trying out a few arrangements, before I start the finished drawing and transfer. This is how the study was traditionally used and it makes a lot of sense. The problem is that in today's world it's just so danged easy to snap a photo of the finished drawing, print it out at 6 x 8 and make a quick poster. I'm at the point in my development now where I need to slow down and do things that will help me get off of this plateau and onto the next level. Spending more time on studies seems like the best way to get there.
  In the picture above you can see the poster study and grisaille umber wipe out for my current painting "Gloria Mundi". I decided to limit the poster study to no more than three values for each area. I don't blend the paint, I lay it down in separate value and color patches. I'm looking for the "abstract" quality of the painting as well as composition, color, and tone. I'm not trying to make "art". I love these little color studies but clearly they are an acquired taste. I once had a bunch of them at a solo show, priced very reasonably so that the less wealthy, or as I like to call them "cheapskates" could buy an affordable piece of art; really affordable, as in dirt cheap! I couldn't give them away. Not even one. I guess that's a good thing, because if I start to think of them as too precious, I probably wouldn't be dancing around my studio, blasting "Purple Haze", and letting down what hair I have left!

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?).

The Other Side of the Fence

           Recently, I was asked to be the sole juror for a local art club's annual members competition. I somewhat reluctantly accepted because I  have had a somewhat contentious history with thirty years of submitting work to juried shows, and I didn't want anyone to be having those same evil thoughts about me! I do have some experience. I've been on the jurying committee of a well known art organization for some time, and I've done a few smaller shows on my own. The good thing about this show was that I could judge from actual work. The awards were to be given out immediately following my jurying so it was a little bit stressful, as all of the artists were there, and I was expected to explain my selections and also to give out some critiques if asked. The work was all pretty good which made choosing the better pieces even more complicated.
        The art club had a form that they wanted me to fill out for the award winners that asked me to expand on things like the use of the elements and principles of art, technique, and expression. After emphasizing the elements and principles of art to high school students for over thirty years I can't tell you how many times I was pleasantly surprised when students would come up with their own solutions. I've come to realize that there are things that go into the creation of a successful work of art besides the standard "rules". I explained to the club members that to my way of thinking all art is essentially abstract and good underlying design structure is important no matter what your means of expression is. What makes a good design is somewhat debatable I guess but it seems to be something that's obvious even to "untrained" eyes. I have occasionally had something pointed out to me as a problem in my painting by a casual stranger, and son of a gun, most of the time they're right. (I really hate that!)
      One of the judging categories was "expression" and I have to say that I find that to be the least important element. In my undergraduate and graduate studies in painting expression was the God before which we all knelt. As I got older and began to re-train myself, I stopped worrying about whether or not I was expressing myself and just tried to make good paintings. I remember bringing some paintings to a gallery owner at the recommendation of one of my instructors. The owner asked me how I would describe my "style". I told her that I was working very hard not to have one. I guess she thought I was a little crazy but eventually she got the idea. More important than "expression" is harmony. Does the work hold together? We've all had those pieces where we love one little section of passage in a work at the expense of the other 70% of surface area. Each art work is a specific entity with it's own rules and logic. What worked in your last painting won't necessarily work in this one, you have to problem solve on a case by case basis. That's one of the things that I love about the process, it never gets boring. It can also make critiquing work somewhat problematic. I told the artists in the club that rather than me pointing out what I think might be "wrong" in their painting or drawing, it would be better if they asked me for advice on how to problem solve something that was troubling them. As I explained, what might be wrong in this work, could be right in the next.
     At the end of the evening we got into a discussion about submitting work digitally to competitions. The biggest problem with digital submissions is that you are using one art form, photography, to stand in for another art form, painting, drawing, sculpture, etc; All of the things that work well in photographs, value contrasts, flattening, perspective exaggerations, can be murder on an image of a painting. As someone who has been judging work digitally, I am often amazed  at the difference between the image and the real thing. One thing that will come through, even in a digital image, is a strong design (going back to my first point). I explained that if you're going to submit work to online competitions sometimes you have to go with the work that looks the best digitally, not necessarily what you see as the best in your studio. I use to pay photographers to photograph my work, but I was never completely satisfied with the results. They were seeing things from the photographers point of view. Once I learned to take my own photos I was able to limit the shortcomings from actual image to digital version as much as I could. The internet has opened up a whole new world for artists, but it's far from perfect. I often think of the Impressionists and their dealings with the official salon juries and wonder what they would have made of today's world of electronic jurying. Perhaps they would have revolted, maybe we should too.

"Behind the Scenes" oil on panel

The "Life Changing" Block-In

                 I'll never forget the first time that I learned of the "block-in" and the "straight line" drawing method. It was my first day in a still life painting class run by Robert Armetta www.robertarmetta.com . I was working in charcoal on a small canvas depicting a few oranges and a vase. I was freely rendering the oranges when it was pointed out to me that they all looked like ping pong balls, perfectly round, with no way of distinguishing one from the other. Robert pointed to a poster of an enlarged Bargue (Charles Bargue artist) drawing on the wall, and explained to me that if I used straight lines at first, like the Bargue drawing, I'd be better able to capture the unique quality of each specific orange. I didn't get it right away, and in fact I'm still working it out 15 years later, but it has probably been one of the largest factors in shaping the look and direction of my work.
    I've recently started a small still life of a mermaid figurine placed inside of a shell; no symbolism implied, I just like the way the forms fit together. Last week I went to see the Sargent show at the Met. The show was great. It was very crowded, even though the museum had just opened. Leaving the exhibit I remember feeling very anxious, I wanted to start a whole new body of work with thicker paint and more brushstrokes, and less underpainting and preliminary drawing. Than I happened to notice that there was a George Caleb Bingham exhibit. The galleries were empty. As I walked through the exhibit I was captivated by the calm workman like way that Bingham had struggled to capture a particular slice of American life. There were lots of drawings and you could see what a large part the drawings played in the look of the finished paintings. It calmed me down considerably. I realized that everyone isn't cut out to be or needs to be a John Singer Sargent. Not to take anything away from Sargent, he is still one of my favorite painters, but I don't feel bad anymore that I don't have his bravura technique. The work that I find myself drawn to these days is a meal, to use an analogy, that's prepared on a slow cooker. Anyway, getting back to my drawing, I suppose I could draw directly with brush on the canvas, but there's something about the contemplative nature of the block-in that I believe ultimately gives strength and character to the eventual painting. Maybe the difference is subtle, and I'm the only one who sees it, but in this era of figurative painting where artists seem determined to figure out who can come up with the most expressive applications of paint, it seems important to remember the Classical ideals that gave me my start.

Here you can see my initial straight line block-in, including the envelope used to measure out the forms. The second drawing shows me adding further refinement while not losing the underlying structure indicated by the block-in.  I will give it one more pass of refinement before I transfer it to a canvas.

Chasing The Model

"Portrait Study" 9"x12" oil on linen on board, "Caesar's Last Bath" oil on linen on board 16"x20", "Pancho" 16"x20" oil on linen. Not doing a great job with the photographing but I thought I'd blog these anyway. I will rephoto after varnishing and post better shots. The portrait study was made at my saturday mornings group session. The model came in having had only one hour's sleep (not her fault). The session was for three hours. She started with her head inclined and her eyes open, but her eyes kept closing and her head was flopping around like one of those bobble heads. I kept hearing my former instructors voice like Obi Wan telling me to use my experience to paint the portrait rather than relying on observation alone, so I gave it my best shot and rushed to nail down what I could in 3 hours. Than my friend Carlos tells me afterwards that he's going to have the model back for another 4 hour session. I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. So in this session I worked on getting the hair in, correcting the drawing and smoothing some of the transitions. The model seemed better rested but she still could not hold the pose. I guess if I ever decide to paint someones portrait on the subway I'm going to be well prepared.

Rainy Day Painting

Since I'm currently working on a still life that requires daylight, I need something to occupy my time on rainy days so I started a study of this Bargue painting which I've always loved. The reproduction is only a couple of inches so it's been a little tough, but even at that scale Bargues brilliance shines through. As I was working on the drawing block-in I was starting to tune in to all of these internal rhythms and inner curves that crisscross throughout the painting. For a brief moment i felt a kind of mind-meld thing happening and I guess that's the great thing about art is that something can reach out across the centuries and affect someone in a very immediate way.

"Turbans..." Ebauche and Color Study

The color study is on a panel about 5"x7". I took a photo of my block-in drawing, printed it, and then used it to make a charcoal transfer. It made it a lot easier to come up with a mini version to use for a color study. The ebauche on the larger painting (16"x20") has a bit of that dead coloring that comes from working over a wipe-out. I prefer it to doing a color ebauche directly on the white canvas because I kind of like that neutrality to guage my colors against when I do my finishing pass (next stage).

New Model

This is the beginning of a block-in for a portrait that I'm finally doing in my own studio. I'm about three hours in at this point. I've got everything setup exactly how I wanted it so I'm a happy camper. I have the B&H lighting setup that was recommended to me by Doug Flynt suspended on a hook about twenty feet in the air at the peek of my converted garage studio. I have it back far enough that there's enough light on my easel and that it's the same light that's on the model. That helps a lot with matching the color notes and values. I have my 24 year old daughter working to the right of me on her own drawing, which is looking pretty good (damn her!). Ever since I decided to hire this model my brain has been flooded with these Gerome like images. I made dozens of imaginary sketches but nothing was really clicking. Then I picked up this four foot wine bottle at an auction and something clicked. I made a turban for the model, set up my home made model stand, and we were off and running. I'm going to take my time to get the drawing as close to perfect as I can. I've been trying Scott Waddells technique of knocking back the drawing with an eraser to get a semi fresh start and it's been working pretty good. The only bad thing is I'm going to blow a fuse having to wait until next saturday to get back into it.

New Stuff

"poster for "Still Room" 4"x6", Underpainting for "Still Room" 16"x20", Wipeout for "Moon Box" panel, 11"x14"

First Sketch

This is a little 5"x7" sketch from my imagination that I've been thinking about doing for a few weeks. I'm fascinated by the process that artists had to go through to compete in the Prix de Rome. They would be given a subject and had to come up with thumbnails, sketches and a fully realized color study that if they were chosen would be worked up into a full blown painting using life references. So eventually I would like to follow that process for this painting. The subject is a figure in a dark studio holding up a panel to a window that causes the light to flow in a beam onto a table where a model of a gothic building stands. I'm not sure what it all means, maybe it's about what inspires me, I don't want to figure it out before I've even started to really paint it. My next step will be to construct a box with a little tableau and see what the light might actually do in this kind of setup. Hopefully this summer I'll be able to hire a model and see it happen. That will give me a lot of time to really study the idea. But this little sketch already has my blood going and I guess that's what's supposed to happen.

Eakins Study

" Study after Eakins" oil on linen on board, 8"x10". Eakins father sounds like he was the perfect "artists' dad". He supported young Eakins decision to study art. He stuck by his son when he was ousted from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art teaching staff, under what must have been very trying conditions for this stolid family man. He also took Eakins side in the dispute with his sister and her husband, who was a former Eakins student, eventually asking them to leave his household. The pose that he's in also looks very tiring and considering the way that Eakins usually worked on his portraits he probably put in some long hours modeling. In the end though he must have been pleased with the result as Eakins painting has to rank as one of the best portrayals of an artist's father by his son.