"Admiration" Process and Progress Shots

                Recently I read an article by an artist who was wondering if it's a mistake for artists to post work in progress shots of their artwork. His feeling was that it was somehow taking away some of the mystery of the work and possibly devaluing it by too much exposure. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the social media age, but one of the best things to come of all of this, is the glimpse into the studios and working habits of artists that I admire but will never get a chance to meet. I was able to introduce my work and get accepted into a new gallery, and this came about entirely through social media. So here's a look into the creation of one of my latest, "Admiration", oil on panel, 16" x 20".
               My initial concept for this painting was to show how our vision and perceptions of the world around us has been filtered through technology and how eventually we have to bring it back to looking at nature if we want to remove the scales from our eyes. How many times will a realist painter have to hear the compliment that it looks just like a photograph, when what they should be hearing is that it looks perfectly natural! I wanted to paint this one using daylight to add another "natural" element to my concept. Once I had set up the vase of flowers with the wooden bowl, I began to look for other circular forms and shapes to add to the composition. I had recently been talking with some students about the apocryphal story of how Giotto submitted a drawing of a circle to the Pope when he asked for a sample of his work, and how Rembrandt included two circles in the background of his self portrait, as if to say "I'm twice as good as Giotto". Once I added the wooden pulley, and silver bowl, the painting really began to take on a mind of it's own (yes sometimes that really does happen, it's not just artist b.s.) I start my making a careful drawing on paper, sized to the canvas, which I transfer using conte crayon on the back of the drawing. I used to save every drawing that I made, thinking I would need them for the eventual retrospective I was going to have, but my studio is small and I just can't store them, so now I use the originals and don't have to deal with the idiots at the copy center. Here's a shot of the transfer with a wipeout using thinned down raw umber. My wipeouts are kept fairly simple; two values. My theory is that if the painting doesn't grab me with a two value structure, it's not going to grab me with twenty.

                My next step is to make a color wash. Most artists thin their paint way down so that it appears almost like a watercolor. I put my paint on thin, but more opaque than a watercolor. I try to get it as much "like" in the color wash pass as I can, so that I can get it even more "like" in the finishing pass. I got this idea from reading Solomon J. Solomon and a workshop I took with Douglas Flynt. I used to make color studies for each painting, and I probably still should, but I've got a lot of ideas in my head, and I'm no "spring chicken" if you get my drift. I paint the color wash very carefully moving from form to form, usually starting with the center of interest and fanning out form there. Here's a shot of the color wash in progress.

          Once the color wash is dry it's time for deja-vu all over again (thanks Yogi Berra). I repaint every part of the painting exactly as I did it the first time, except now I'm noticing some things I didn't pick up on before, and I'm thickening up the lights a bit. My goal is to stay with each form, in a Zen like manner, until I'm completely satisfied, working wet into wet. I don't leave myself a back door option of fixing it later. I will occasionally repaint an area, but I never find it to be as satisfying as getting it right the first time. It loses some of the freshness and snappy brush work! I've always worked this way, even before studying at an atelier, and just assumed I was doing it wrong. Now I  don't care, this is how I paint, take it or leave it. Below is a shot of the final painting. This is one of those rare instances where the painting comes close to my initial concept. Let's face it, no painting is ever going to be as vivid as that initial bolt of lightning when an idea just pops into your head and you see it clear as day for one fleeting second. I guess that's the windmill that keeps me coming back.

The Hard Way

      Recently, I've been working on a series of paintings where I complete two paintings, one an 8" x 10", and the other, a 16" x 20", based on the same setup, simultaneously. The first couple that I did, my process was to make a drawing for the 8x10 and then bring it to FedEx to have it enlarged. It was a little tricky at first, but they figured out how to do it. The last painting that I just completed, "Melon Boat", their machine was down, When it's "go time" I can't wait, so I went home and gridded the drawing, and enlarged it the old fashioned way. It's obviously a lot more work and time, and time is money, so for my latest one (see above), I decided to give FedEx another try. I went with my 8x10 drawing, and explained that I would like one copy to be the same exact size, and one copy to be twice as big, 16"x20". Now I'm not a techno, but this doesn't seem to me to be overly complicated. I always bring a tape measure with me to make sure I don't leave with a wrong size image. The manager first made the one to one copy, it was a half inch smaller. Then she attempted the enlargement. It was an inch smaller, and all of the lines were scrambled and pixelated. She then proceeded to lecture me on why it was my fault for asking for something that was impossible, even though I explained to her that I'd had it done there before.
   I didn't get into an argument with her, I kept my cool, and drove back home empty handed. I try to be aware sometimes when the universe is trying to teach me an important lesson. I gridded up my drawing and proceeded to enlarge it the hard way, one square at a time. What I did was to setup two easels side by side, both facing the still life, and I made the block-in from the drawing, but I did the finished line work on the larger piece from direct observation of the setup. What I noticed was that as I made the enlarged drawing, I was picking up on some subtleties that had eluded me in the smaller piece, and actually might have been distracting in the smaller work. My original idea for doing these enlargements was to highlight some of the things that I do on the smaller pieces, and also to be able to push my brushwork a bit more. After doing the large drawing I transferred it to a canvas by rubbing the back with conte crayon, and tracing over the lines. I then did a very basic wipe out by covering the canvas with thinned down raw umber, and pulled out the lights with a paper towel. Some artists do a very developed and modeled wipe out, my philosophy is that if it doesn't look good with two simple value separations, it's not going to look good with five. My next step will be to add a thinned down color wash using Liquin, where I will paint each form up to as much of a finish as I can achieve with thinned down paint. Check out Doug Flynt's video (highly recommended) at www.douglasflynt.com for a good demonstration of this process. So Thanks FedEx for screwing up, you gave me the kick in the behind that I was needing!

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

Necessary Roughness

"Beholden" oil on panel, 16" x 20". This painting is another one in my series that combines cameras with some element of a traditional still life. I have imagined myself as a "crazed" artist who's sole mission in life is to educate the public about the difference between painting from life and painting with the aid of technology; cameras, computers, projectors, etc;. The title refers to the fact that all representational painters are beholden to nature. The camera is beholden to nature. Without light there is no image. The difference between perceptual observation and technical observation seems to be one that not too many artists care about these days. Everyone is bending over backwards to be politically correct and say that it's the end result that counts. I don't think it is. I don't think that an artists process and intent are unimportant. I believe that ultimately it affects the look of the work. Not online of course, but when the work is viewed in person. I honestly don't care that Vermeer supposedly used a projector. The paintings of his that have those white photo droplets and distorted perspectives are my least favorite. I'll take Rembrandt over Vermeer any day.
    When the market for hand drawn illustrations dried up many illustrators found themselves trained for a career that no longer existed. Concurrently a new wave of artists began to appear that were classically trained and working representationally. At first, galleries were eager to embrace these new "traditionalists" but soon found that they worked too slow and were not willing to push their work into slicker looking, more marketable formulas. Illustrators have no such reticence. Part of their training is to crib from any available source and to produce work quickly with an emphasis on high style and facile brushwork. The end result is a kind of strange hybrid of modernist sampled abstract/realism. A typical painting will have a tightly (photographically) rendered face with gradually dissolving brushstrokes, some neon colors thrown in for good measure, and a Clifford Still or Rothko like background. It looks good in glossy magazines and the higher end galleries seem to be eating it up. But really, what's the point? Wasn't the renewed interest in classical realism supposed to be a reaction against the fact that the art world has deemed representational art to be kitsch and not worthy of any attention whatsoever? Someone with an illustration background wouldn't know that. They wouldn't have noticed that in art school they received no training whatsoever, because an illustration major would have received some traditional training because illustrations couldn't ever become fully conceptual and non-objective. How could you sell a product if the viewer couldn't relate?
    I titled this post "necessary roughness" because I am reminded of Harold Speed's admonition in his book on painting that the artist should beware of making work that is too perfect. That a certain amount of "dither" gives character to a work. Many realists that are working from life have decided to combat the problem of the "illustrators takeover" by either rendering work that is so detailed that it seems "hyper real" or by re-inventing cubism with fractured images. In my own work I want to make paintings that look like what they're supposed to represent, but also look like they're painted. Some artists take it as a compliment when someone says their art looks like a photograph, "even better than the real thing". When someone says that to me I want to hit them. If realism is to survive into the future it can not follow the illustrators down the path of impressionism to expressionism to surrealism to abstract expressionism to neo-expressionism. That was not the point of the return to classicism. It wasn't to re-boot modern art history. Realists need to take a deep breath and look to Chardin, and Corot, and Luis Melendez. Perceptual realism will never be a "big hit", it will never be a "fad", it won't ever be accepted by the cognoscenti. Who cares? I'll just keep looking hard and slow and painting away, while ignoring the siren-song "the end justifies the means".

"True North"

These are what's currently on my easel. As I stated in my last post I've begun to make enlarged versions of smaller paintings. Both of these paintings "True North" 8"x10" and 16" x 20", are shown in progress. They started with transfer drawings (thank God for FedEx), and then I did a raw umber wipeout, a detailed color wash, and I've given a final finish to the bread and the canoe and glass. It might seem strange that I'm painting simultaneously what might seem like a study and a larger version, but both are painted directly from life and the perishable bread has to be completed before it rots. I'm really enjoying this process and I'm thinking of going even larger with the next one. FedEx told me they can enlarge up to 48". Woohoo!

More "Charity"

   I 've spent quite a bit of time working on this drawing. The painting is 16 x 20 and the composition is pretty complicated. I find that the more time I spend on the drawing the less I have to fudge around while I'm painting. Some artists prefer to find the edges as they paint and I totally get that, but for me it's those  little almost unnoticeable nuances that give beauty and life to a painting and I'll never get them with the blunter point of a paintbrush.

These were taken with my cell phone so I apologize for the glare. The second photo is after I've transferred the drawing to the panel using conte crayon on the back. I used to make a photo copy of the drawing but then I started to accumulate all of these still life block ins and my studio is already crammed to the gills, so now I trace over the original drawing. I'm excited about painting this one, and as my usual procedure I'll start with the perishable (bread) first. Some artists have started to dispense with the wipe out stage and go directly to the color wash, but I find that it gives a certain richness to the subsequent layers.

More Poms

 I've gotten a bit further on the small painting "Pomegranate, Canoe, and Box" oil on panel, 8"x10". My usual method when painting fruit is to do a raw umber wipeout and then do a color wash underpainting (ebauche) focusing on the fruit because that's the perishable. I use Liquin for the ebauche, it gives the paint a nice semi glossy transparency and it dries quickly. The photo below shows the completion of the next stage. I start the finishing pass by first laying a couche (thin coating) of my medium (Gamblin Neo-Megilp), which is a modern substitute for Maroger medium (black oil). I mix up my neutral string of colors and my color specific strings and I begin to lay in my block-in adding medium as I go. I usually pick one area that includes a large range of hue, value, and chroma and bring it to completion in order to key the painting. Once I've blocked in that area I'll go back in with "bridge" values and colors so that the larger areas will have smoother transitions, and yet still show some brush strokes, what Ted Seth Jacobs calls "shaping the light". Even though I have a string of colors mixed I'm still doing a lot of improvising with my brush, it's not "paint by numbers" by any means.
       I'm teaching an art class at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to teenagers, which is fun, because they want you to focus on a current exhibit along with your art project. Even though my work could be classified as "academic" that doesn't mean I'm not open to other types of art, as they say "variety is the spice of life". Occasionally I'll get to incorporate some of my own methodologies into what I'm teaching. I'm also starting to teach an adult still life class this Monday at the National Art League nationalartleague.org . I've got seven students signed up so far, so I'm excited. It's a lot of work preparing, I have to construct seven shadow boxes, and lighting setups. I want to focus on working from life because I feel that that's the best way to learn.

  You can see in this snap with my phone that I've painted the pomegranate and canoe up to a finish. I usually do a bit of the background because I want to work the edges while the paint is still wet, and it also makes it easier to judge your value relationships.

Pomegranates

I love painting pomegranates, but I haven't done one in quite some time. There's something about the grittiness and those dusky sunset reds that I find very appealing. The two pics below show the start. I transferred a carefully made pencil drawing to gessoboard and then I did a wipe out using raw umber. The next day I began a thin color wash underpainting starting with the pomegranate. I always enjoy painting something that requires me to use several hues of the same color. In this case I used permanent alizarin crimson, cadmium red deep, cadmium red medium, and cadmium red light. I generally mix out several strings of color, including a neutral string, before I start to paint. This is a pretty small painting, 8" x 10", I'm hoping that the pomegranate will keep it's glorious color long enough for me to paint it. If it doesn't I'll just go out and get another one and use the colors to paint it from memory.

Some New Directions

Lately, I've been incorporating some elements into my paintings that are made up from my imagination. I've been looking at some of the artists that I admire, Chardin, Vallayer-Acosta, and the Dutch masters. I started to realize that Chardin probably didn't live in a castle with stone walls and Neolithic looking table tops. A lot of that had to be made up. I don't know it for a fact, but it seems to be true. It seems to be part of a tradition that maybe has been lost, where paintings are either pretty straight forward realism or so expressive that they border on Surrealism. I want the imaginative parts of my paintings to be in harmony with the observed parts and to seem as if they could be real. It's been a lot of fun so far, and it's been opening up some new ideas that I hadn't considered before. Here's a couple that feature some imaginative elements.

"Silent Partners" oil on panel, 9"x12", "Texas Rose, and Lemons" oil on panel, 9"x12".

Some New Things and Progress Shots

I've got a few things going simultaneously, always a lot easier when I'm of from my day job. I'm still working on a portrait once a week and I'm continuing to work in daylight on some of my still lifes.

"Strawberries, Canoe, and Oranges" oil on panel, 16" x 20". The fruit is completed. Not my usual method but when painting fruit, you can't wait around for the rest of the painting to catch up. You only have a few days before you lose that initial "bloom" that captured your eye in the first place. I've been looking a lot at Chardin (yet again), and I've decided that I kind of like the idea that my paintings clearly spring from that tradition but have a little bit of "magic realism " in them. I always think of that great Chardin painting that's in the met with the cat and the huge orange balanced precariously on top of a silver urn.

"Reveille" oil on panel. 16"x12". I set this one up thinking how great it would be to paint all of these metallic textures, Then a theme suggested itself, that of a wandering soldier ( I have to stop reading "Game of Thrones") Anyway this shows an umber wash in with the beginning of a color pass.

A little more progress on "Phoebe" oil on panel, 9"x12". I hope I'm coming close to capturing the beautiful copper toned quality of her skin. I have to watch that I don't let the paint film get too thin. I have a tendency when I'm really trying hard to capture a subtle turn of not using enough paint so I may have to repaint parts of the cheek and forehead. If this painting goes well I have it in mind to expand the original drawing into a larger painting that incorporates more background. I hope Phoebe is up for it!

Red Delicious Study and Ebauche

The study is about 5"x7". Even though I tried not to over model it, I didn't want it to look like a poster. It's surprising how little noodling is required to create form on these little studies. I guess there's a lesson to be learned there. Ebauches, or color washes, can be very frustrating. The thinned down paint just doesn't work the way it normally does and it takes a bit of adjusting. I was looking at the ebauches of Charles Bargue who is one of my artistic heroes, and they really inspired me to stay with the technique until I get the hang of it.

Red Delicious

"Red Delicious" 12"x16". I have this set up next to a window. The tricky part is that the light on my easel is coming from the right and I'm right handed which means I'm often casting a shadow onto the place that I'm working. It won't be a problem once I start to paint because I use long handled brushes and a maulstick. I had this one all done and I was ready to transfer and I thought measure twice and cut once so I found some egregious errors and had to do dome major surgery.(I'm glad I caught it before the patient died. I fiddled with the idea of placing a mirror in the background, you can see a faint imprint, but I decided I liked the simplicity of the arrangement. I've been letting myself off too easy on the drawing part as of late and I've decided to really bear down and get the drawing absolutely right before I transfer. I chose the all red apples because for one thing, I like the deep reds, but most importantly, they're usually sprayed with something that causes them to last forever.(which is why I don't eat them!)

Squash Study and Ebauche

The ebauche (color wash), is on a 11"x14" canvas on panel, and the study is on a 9"x12" panel. I decided to do the wash in after doing the color study and realizing how complex the lighting was going to be. I was thinking about starting directly in on the vegetables but I decided to do things the way that I needed to and if I end up having to replace the squash, so be it. With the daylight savings time change, I may end up being able to get a few hours in after work each day, so maybe I'll finish before they spoil. This composition is a little different for me, obviously inspired by some of Jacob Collins' earlier still life paintings, meant more as an homage than a rip-off (hopefully it comes off that way).

So Blue

"So Blue" oil on linen on panel, 11"x14", "Dome with Bottles" pencil on paper, 11"x14". I decided to get started on the painting, I'll try and finish the drawing and painting simultaneously. It was too cloudy for natural light and I wanted to paint so I roughed in my artificial light setup. I laid in the colors without thinner over an umber wipeout. I used bristle brushes and I kept the film fairly thin so That I can do a finishing pass over it. I'm really starting to love painting on New Tradition panels covered with Classens linen. I'm getting tired of having to restretch linen canvases and these are easier to store as well, and best of all they are great to paint on! I didn't really start out with a blue painting in mind, one thing led to another and there you have it. It's giving me a lot of room to play with chroma and a variety of blue hues.

Models Away

While the models away the artist will play! My models not coming back for two weeks so I threw her necklace and shirt onto a mannequin and went to work. Then I was thinking about starting in on the background cloth and I happened to be looking out of the window and I thought "hmm, why not?" I've been looking at a book on Ingres lately and those early portraits with the Roman backgrounds are just smokin'. Unfortunately I don't live in Rome so my measley backyard will have to do for now. I decided to block it in on an overcast day because I want to keep it somewhat muted and in the background with little contrast. I had to put a mannequin by the window with a skull balanced on it to get the proportions right, I hope none of my nosy neighbors were looking in.

My Adult Students

These are two examples of paintings from the adult painting class I'm teaching at the National Art League, by Karen and Rhoda. There's a third one by my daughter Krista, which isn't completed yet. It's so nice to teach a class with a block of time longer than 40 minutes, and it's also great to be finally teaching adults. I love teenagers but they are soooo high maintenance!. Most of the classes at the N.A.L. work from photos so setting up a life painting class was quite a challenge. I had to bring my own spotlight, attach it to the ceiling, turn off all of the room lights and clip a small individual lamp with 15 watt bulbs to each easel. It took them a little getting used to working in relative darkness but it was the best way to keep the still life simply lit with a single light source. Both are on 11"x14" canvases. I had them draw directly with charcoal, do a wipe-out, make a small color study, mix up color strings, and then paint each form directly, tiling across the forms, wet-in-wet. For the next one I'm having them draw on paper first, and then transfer, so we can work on some basic block-in skills as well as painting issues.

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.

"Pancho"

Study (8"x10") canvas board, block-in (16"x20") pencil on strathmore, wipe-out (16"x20") oil on linen. I'm continuing to make studies that are a little bit larger. Using a digital photo, I'm able to print a nice 8"x10" that I transfer to a 9"x12" board. I feel that the larger studies are helping me to get more of a handle on what I want the final picture to look like. I'm moving away a bit from the more abstract poster studies of the Ryder school to something more in the nature of a painted sketch. I saw some of Jacob Collins studies at the Adelson gallery exhibit and they inspired me quite a bit. This painting didn't start off with a theme, it just kind of composed itself and the theme became crystal clear as I went along. Sometimes a bit of that "channeling" will happen and I just run with it.

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.

"Turban, Dog, and Rose"

Here's the wipe-out and block-in drawing for "Turban, Dog, and Rose" 11"x14" on linen. This setup is next to a window with semi north light, so theres a lot of chiaroscuro. My easel is setup next to an adjacent window with full on daylight so I can see what I'm doing. The light isn't good in the mornings so I think I'll work on this one in the afternoon and my artificial light setup in the mornings. It'll be interesting to compare the lighting and coloration schemes.