"Well begun is half done."
- att. Mary Poppins, but see InfoPlease Sources
The love story continues, with warm thanks to Judi of Approachable Art for the kind comment that has inspired me to promptly carry on!
In Part One, we discussed the project genesis -- read: "Holy expletive-deleted, I've got to deliver this for exhibit in four days!" -- initial underpainting, and value sketch. Now begins the fun/messy part.
On Monday morning, I sketched the trees freehand in charcoal and then mixed up nice big puddles of burnt umber, diox red, and Indian yellow (again). As a condiment, I added about a quarter-cup of Golden Regular Gloss Gel to the palette (it's worth every penny).
I then used a painting knife to begin negative-painting the background; this is a watercolor technique but can be used with any medium where you are glazing darker colors on top of lighter ones. To change up the opacity of the pure paints, I smudged gloss gel over the wet paint at irregular intervals.
Here is the result, looking pleasantly soft and moody:
To get a translucent effect where background meets sky, I double-loaded the painting knife with pure Indian yellow and pure gel medium, then twisted and turned the tip of the painting knife to gently smoosh them together on the canvas. (This is a watercolor technique; if I was working in watercolor, I'd be using water instead of gel medium for similar effects).
Things were rolling along so well that I stuck with the painting knife and laid in highlights on the tree trunks with white gesso. I would hesitate to duplicate this step in the future, though; I had to spend significant time later to soften these hard edges:
At the end of this step, the painting had entered the "Ohmigod stage." This is shorthand for, "Ohmigod, this looks so bad that I am going to burn all my paintbrushes immdiately and enroll in stockbroker school."
The only solution to the OMG stage, however, is to take a deep breath and paint right through it. So that's what we will do in the next and final entry.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night . . .
- W.B. Yeats
In this entry, and probably the next, I shall detail a love story. For those who like spoilers, here's how it ends:
Okay, I confess, it was an arranged marriage that grew into a love story. I was under deadline for a size-large painting to run across two canvases. Several grand plans for clever compositions failed to gel, one after another, while the clock ticked down. As I dipped one toe into the panic pool via phone, my genius mother -- a highly accomplished artist herself -- suggested, "Paint trees. They are vertical, everybody loves them, and they go really fast."
Inwardly, I gasped in horror. After all, wasn't my very last blog entry about painting with soul? How, then, could I face compromising the ambition to meditate, contemplate, and connect with every subject?
Easily, it turned out, when you're whining to your mother from the playground on a fine Sunday afternoon and the artwork is due for delivery on Thursday morning.
So, immediately upon returning home, I handed a foam brush to my toddler with a promise that we'd be painting in color today.
"Hep Mom payn! [help Mom paint!]" she chortled with delight, twirling around and around with the foam brush. Excellent; that's exactly the kind of enthusiasm that I needed!
We laid out the canvases in the garage, and my little one merrily "hepped" me prime them. Then she took a very great interest in the mixing of cerulean blue and white gesso, and again "hepped" me swirl in both colors for a high, clear, cool autumn sky.
At this point, happily, her attention span, our paint, and my patience all ran out at the same time. (Baths, also, were desperately needed.) After tucking her into bed on Sunday evening, I completed very washy underpainting of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and Indian yellow:
Then, just before bed, I did my traditional value sketch in hopes that my my brain would work overnight on the exact method needed to alchemize scumbles into trees:
More to come in the next entry.
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again . . .
- John Donne
Today's stumper: can "soul" be snuffed? Or does it just go dormant from time to time?
For several months, I've been intensely thinking about what separates good artwork from good art work. The answer that keeps coming back -- from multple channels -- could be translated as "soul." Said otherwise, the artist has something to say, and that something is best -- perhaps exclusively -- capable of being visually expressed.
That's so very not a bad thing. Today I had the privilege of purchasing a painting that is technical, intense, and strong, yet utterly and deliciously reeking of soul. (I'll post the link here after it's safely delivered and enshrined upon my wall, because I love it that much.)
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of viewing artworks in fiber that also hummed and resonated with soul. The creator of those works doesn't put them out into the public. Although I think the public is missing out, I feel, again, privileged to have seen them.
I did not anticipate, though I should have anticipated, that seeking out such company, such influence, ultimately would cause/require my own strings to murmur again.
[N.B. - I had to shelve that line of pondering for the moment, because I suddenly found myself at a nexus of laundry buzzers, the Tinkerbell movie, a spouse home from work, a dog pawing at me for dinner, and a toddler needing a snack. So I wondered, "Am I fussing at myself for a lack of soul? Or could it be that I just can't hear the darned thing over the local daily ruckus?"]
When I was twenty-something-ish, a person very special to me returned to our hometown after a long absence. We met for a drink and awkwardly compared notes.
"So," he said, "you're not painting? Acting? Any of that now?"
I tossed my head with all the lovely arrogance of a Twenty-Something on the Fast Track to Somewhere and affirmed that indeed, I had put all such childish things behind me.
"No capes? No poet shirts? Not even . . . bows on your shoes?"
No, no such foolishness!, I averred, avowed, and affirmed. (I must have painfully convincing, because 15 years down the road I still remember -- and do not like the memory of -- the quiet look in his eyes at that moment.)
At that time, I had reasons to shove everything creative into a heavy strongbox and lock it up treble and toss the key far, far, far into deep thickety thickets. At that time, I was much-differently wired. At that time, I could see a clear path, but I didn't like the price tag. And they say that "if you have to ask, you can't afford it," right?
Fast-forward: I no longer believe that creativity equals craziness. This is certainly a frequent misconception of artistic twentysomethings: I forgive myself.
Further, I no longer believe that there's any particular merit to craziness-qua-craziness. It doesn't make you special. It just makes you crazy.
Further still, I believe that good art work -- three words, in italics -- comes from a serious place of study and discipline. There is always a place for the native genius, the brilliant naive, and suchlike, but the firm ground where I want to stand is underpinned with good skills and good training.
The question, then, is whether an artist/actress [turned] paralegal/lawyer [turned] artist again can complete that emotional triathlon with any tread left on the soul-tires.
I can recover the technical skills. Some never went away, and some even have improved with age and patience. But can I do this kind of painting again?
I'm banking on the possible. I'll let you know.
Sa’id envisions lines in the sand.
The pieces are not yet framed in glass.
-- "Deryk," Chess Sans Voir
I am trying to solve a problem of composition.
[N.B. - Said problem-solving is not made easier -- albeit not made significantly harder -- by the tweedling of a kiddie show on the television and the occasional soprano piping at my knee: "Mama, pease I can haff . . .[item]?" [Item] can be anything, but basically it translates to "undivided attention." She is my delight.]
This week, I completed a 4x4 (foot) artwork for a commercial space, Local Market in Golden, Colorado. It was a sound project, with sound subject matter, and I am glad to have it ready for their ribbon-cutting on August 22. (Yes, it will be for sale. You can preview it here.)
Now, to balance the other side of those large walls -- and in part just to see if I can do it -- I want to do another 4x4 in the next ten days. I further want to do the second painting as a diptych. This presents some interesting problems, because my panels are 2x4 feet each, but mountains tend to be horizontal-ish things.
So. How to create two separate canvases where the images flow across as a single composition, yet keep each canvas standing on its own as a complete painting?
This problem was well-solved, over and over again, by Marcel Mouly. Although they are single images, if you divide any of his images into quadrants, each quadrant is a beautiful complete composition. Here's a nice collection for that game.
Oh, and if you'd like to purchase any little somethin' somethin' for me from that Mouly site, as an unbirthday present or for any other reason, please be my guest.
Believe one who has proved it.
-- Virgil, Aeneid
I thought I could live with my previous clouds, but I could not. Ergo, I set off on a cloud-chasing mission.
A lot of folks will tell you how to paint clouds. But Tim Gagnon will tell you how to do it right. This generous soul has posted fabulous YouTube lessons on the art of cloud-painting. I tried to be an apt pupil. Here's what I've concluded:
1. A square brush makes bad clouds.
2. A round brush is a Very Good Thing: see further Tim Gagnon commentary on this issue.
3. Clouds are three-dimensional and must be modeled accordingly.
4. To beat the acrylics clock, you need to pre-mix three or four shades of grey.
Thus armed, off we go.
First, I pre-mixed several shades of grey and kept handy a big blob of unsullied white gesso. I also trimmed off a sponge brush for dabbing:
I next applied the shades of grey in layers (darkest to lightest), blending each layer out with a dry filbert brush:
On the final layer, I preserved a few hard edges:
What a beautiful difference. At this point, much emboldened, I set down my practice canvas and again attacked the poor tragic clouds in my actual workpiece.
Workpiece before:
Ew. Workpiece after:
Ah-ha! These were vastly improved but still a bit harsh, so for the next 24 hours I slapped on a gesso glaze every time I walked by the dining room table. The final product:
Splendiferous. Float me away on a fleecy cloud o' bliss. Now I must go write a thank-you note to Mr. Gagnon.
"What do I look like?"
"You look like a bear holding on to a balloon," you said.
"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?"
"Not very much."
- A.A. Milne
Today I have been wrestling with clouds, which is neither as biblical nor as romantic as it sounds.
At yesterday's Open Studio, I began two paintings side-by-side. On the left-hand painting, the clouds were lovely, wispy, atmospheric, and everything you would want from a cloud. Witness:
On the right-hand painting, the clouds were . . . not. And they stubbornly have remained so. I've tried regular brushes, sponge brushes, paper towels, fingers, re-glazing, lifting, and even gesso-everything-and-start-overing. Here's where they stand, and they are still utterly, utterly tragic:
I am going to sleep on this problem, and perhaps I will reach for my cure-all collage papers tomorrow. In the meantime, however, the below floated by 'round sunset time:
I think Somebody up there has a wicked sense of humor.
... twenty minutes later . . .
Those tragic clouds were so embarassing that -- admittedly in a fit of pique -- I slashed a glaze of gesso over the whole sky and tackled them again. My weapon of choice for this round was a wet paper towel. It took three additional tries, but now I think can live with them:
My wise sculptor brother-in-law says that all art is a series of experiments. I repeat that to myself like a mantra. It's saving me a bucket in therapy bills.
“Oh, you mean draw you a cow that looks like a cow?” she said with a poisonous and knowing smile.
“Go ahead. Funny, but everybody I can think of right off the top of the head could sure God draw a fat realistic cow if they ever happened to want to. Hans Hoffman, Kline, Marca-Relli, Guston, Solomon, Rivers, Picasso, Kandinsky Motherwell, Pollock. And you know it, baby. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You dabblers bug me. You want the applause without all the thousands of hours of labor learning how to draw, how to make brush strokes, learning all the things that give painting some bite and bones even when you don’t use any part of it. Go ahead, draw the lamp. Quick sketch. Prove I’m a jackass.”
- John D. MacDonald, One Fearful Yellow Eye
This morning, I am 10% chagrined and 90% determined.
I'm chagrined because I've known for years that I should do more heavy lifting, i.e., drawing classes, composition work, value studies, color studies, figure studies, and all the other "business of art" things that - in dear Travis McGee's words - create "bite and bones."
I'm determined because a) I've always enjoyed heavy lifting, and b) I now have opportunity and motivation for it.
At yesterday's Open Studio, we were treated to a guest appearance and critique from author, consultant, and professional curator, Rose Fredrick.
Ms. Fredrick not only has serious art chops, but an energetic style that is simultaneously warm and fearless. She was sensitive but clear with her critiques and beautifully - mesmerizing-ly - articulate about how to take each person's art to the next level.
Note: in that last sentence, I said "art," not "paintings." She did give wonderful advice for individual paintings. But she also identified skill-sets specific to each artist's style and medium; shared a basic how-to for plein aire (I needed this so much); suggested artists to contact for further training; and generously dished about what she looks for when curating a exhibit or exhibit/sale.
For hours, literally, Ms. Fredrick unflaggingly discussed our work and the larger creative process. She vivified concepts that previously were just words to me: "art is a conversation," for example. She gave extensive research and reading take-aways. I came away clutching pages of notes and reeling from new ideas. If you ever, ever have a chance to hear this amazing woman speak, you must attend.
In the meantime, please enjoy this interview, Talking with Thiebaud, on Ms. Fredrick's website. Fair warning: you'll want to curl up with your favorite adult beverage and allow plenty of time to digest the delights herein.
Now, from the mountaintop to the laundry: on Ms. Fredrick's advice, I am determined to draw something, anything, from life, every day. No matter what my schedule, surely I can find a pencil and a scrap of lunchbag somewhere in this house.
Thus: Draw 365. I started yesterday while my toddler was creating her own masterpieces:
And today I found a moment - albeit one not quite long enough - while the dog was eating her breakfast:
I don't plan to post 365 pieces of litter from my kitchen counter, but I'll keep you updated on the project. Now go read that interview!
