A WORK IN PROGRESS

This is a painting I started last Thursday night at our Montpelier painting group. The model was entirely back lit, presenting quite a challenge for me. But I wanted to concentrate on the face so I went ahead with it.  I am fairly well pleased with the result - enough that I would like to work on it some more. I will even up the shadows, especially on the shoulder. And I will straighten the eyes. The hair looked like a glowing cloud against the dark background. I was encouraged to paint it in white for now and to work on it later with glazes after the paint dries. So that is what I will do.

ANCESTORS - COLOR PORTRAITS FROM BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS

Thomas Urry Young

Sarah Ann Wilderspin

I have been making a lot of little paintings based on old black and white photos that I have found on the internet. These two people are part of my history - my great - great grandparents who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century in England and Ireland. I've been having so much fun with this series and now I am off on a whole new tangent.  I plan to create a gallery of family portraits for my nostalgia wall.

TWO PAINTINGS FROM HISTORIC PHOTOS

I've been practicing my portrait skills by using old black and white photos as references. I supply the color and I try to work as quickly as possible.  I think that this exercise is a lot of fun and is teaching me to be faster, less uptight and more confident in painting. 

A FAMILY PHOTO

I came across an old black and white photo of my uncle Sam, taken when he was about two years old. I felt compelled to convert it into a tiny color portrait.  This painting is 8"x6".  I find it really fun and useful to use a black and white photo as a reference for a color portrait.  I already know something about painting skin tones, so I can rely on that.  But since there are no colors there for me to try to copy, I won't slavishly try to render them exactly.  I tried to be a quick as I could with this one and had enough sense to know when to stop.  If I had worked on this any further, I think I would have lost all spontaneity and ruined it in a useless quest for perfection.  The perfect is the enemy of the good.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Feeling myself somewhat at a loss about what to do next, I decided to just practice some little portraits based on photos.  This one is 8"x6".  I think that this is a good way to rekindle interest and to do something fresh rather than endlessly toiling over the same few pieces trying to reach perfection.  This little portrait may not be perfect, but it is good.  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

PAITNING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day six

The last day of the workshop was a Saturday.  I was so sorry to see it end.  Max set up a difficult pose for the model, Pat, who somehow managed to hold it all day with a few breaks. Max asked him to pose as if he were just getting up out of the chair.  This meant that Pat couldn't relax at all, but had to keep his muscles tense all of the time.  I'm not used to working on the same alla prima piece for an entire day, but I did it that day and the result please me.  Afterwards, we all went out to eat at a Greek restaurant in Astoria, Queens.

PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day five

Pat was our model for an all day pose.  I think I did ok with this one except for the torso being a little short.  Or maybe the thighs are a little to long.  It is really important to look carefully and work these things out in the beginning rather than trying to correct them later on.

THE STORY BEHIND A PAINTING

COLLATERAL DAMAGE - 42"x34"

 I have been asked to write something about the story behind this painting - COLLATERAL DAMAGE - so here it is.  I frequently attend painting groups here in Northern Vermont.  Painters get together and pool their resources to hire a model, which few of us can afford on our own.  The model showed up with his own prop - an American flag, which someone tacked to the wall and he sat down in front of it.  THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY is the study I did that day.  It was just chance but the painting turned out to represent, for me, some poor innocent boy who was being sent off as cannon fodder.  I chose the title from the Kipling poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade".  At about the same time, I was practicing painting faces by copying pictures I saw in books and magazines.  RED, WHITE AND BLUE  was done in this way.  The magazine picture was of one of our senators. (I'n not saying which one)  The two pictures just seemed to go together.  I thought the politician was duping the young man into going off to fight a useless war that would somehow benefit the privileged classes and the rich and powerful.  I had two of my friends pose together so I could get the pose right.  I found the image of the gun on the internet.  The two children are kids I know and the grieving mother, I made up.  I wanted the background to somehow represent the USA, so the "amber waves of grain" became the stars and stripes.  Et voila. I think that it all turned out pretty well but there are still some changes I would like to make.

THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY  12"x10"

RED, WHITE AND BLUE 8"x6"

PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day four

We spent the morning in Manhattan at the Hispanic Society of America, looking at the paintings of Joaquin Sorolla - a Spanish bravura painter who is a particular favorite of Max's. Then, in the afternoon back at the studio in Long Island City, we worked on head studies of Pat.  This is mine at the beginning and at the end. At this point, I began to feel that I was getting somewhere in learning to paint.

PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day three

On the third day, we had an all day pose.  In the first picture, I am working out the drawing.  After correcting a few errors, I completed the painting as can be seen in the second picture. I think I did pretty well with this.  I certainly learned the importance of slowing down and looking closely at the model and getting the proportions and angels right at the start - so much easier than trying to correct them later.  With this taken care of, I was able to go ahead and add color - warm and cool.  This is as far as I got that day.

PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day two

On the second day of Max's excellent workshop, we had an assignment. It was to make two quick oil sketches that included the entire body - no cutting off the feet allowed.  After Max helped me correct the drawings, I think I did pretty well.  One thing I learned was to make the lower legs darker and more purplish by using a little alizarin crimson. Pale skin is difficult for me, but by concentrating on tone and big forms, I think I did ok.

PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH MAX GINSBURG - day one

I recently attended a six day workshop at the Long Island City studio of Max Ginsburg. On the first day, after watching Max's demonstration, we attempted two head studies. 

In the first one, I think that I failed to capture the model's thin and frail look. It is all a learning experience, though. I rubbed this one out.

My second attempt was much more successful, I think.  She was delicate and I think I got that on the second try.  I was learning something every minute that I was working with Max.

A WORKING ARTIST'S STUDIO

Here is a view of my studio. The photo makes it look much bigger than it is.  I offer this picture a counterpoint to the notion that a clean and orderly studio leads to greater creativity and productivity.  I notice that this idea is mostly promoted by people who call themselves artist advisors.  These people are organizers and writers - probably not visual artists.  If being neat and tidy works for them, then they should be that way.  But how can they know anything about what will work for another person.  If I ever do get around to cleaning up my studio, my next act is to start messing it up again.  I do concede however, that it would be nice to have my table top free of clutter so that I could do something on it.  Instead, I open up a folding table for a project.  Then I fold it up and put it away so that I cannot put any stuff on it.

ATLANTIC BEACHES - LOBSTER CLAW

When roaming the beaches of the Atlantic coast, I find that most of the things that have washed up are dead - relics of sea life. In these bits and fragments of once living matter I find an endless array of color and pattern that finds its way into my paintings.  This one is part of a series of "dead things on the " that has already reached over 65 in number.  most of them are 6"x6", but this one is 20"x20" - oil on canvas.

GAIA WALKS AMONG HER DEAD - STEP THREE

Now, I have added a lot more stuff to the ground in this painting.  Bones - trash - tires.  I need to use color and value to direct the viewers' interest to the hands and the tiny new plant that Mother Nature is placing into the scorched earth to restore a ruined world.

WHAT I SAW ON MY TRIP TO CALIFORNIA

I spent only one day on the beaches south of Monterey, but found there enough material to start a new series of of paintings based on life in the tide pools.  My Atlantic Beaches series was all about dead things on the beach (shells, dead jellyfish, lobster claws).  The Pacific Beaches series will be about live things on the beach (anemones, crabs, live jellyfish).  I can't wait to get started but will have to work it in between all of my other painting projects.

Gaia Walks Among Her Dead

Stage two. It is hard to see in this photo, but I am getting into pointillism with a lot of dots in the dirt. Now, Mother Nature has her plant, which she will use to start repopulating the scorched earth. I will be away from this painting for couple of week while it dries and I soak up some sun in the Southwest.

MOTHER NATURE WALKS AMONG HER DEAD

This is a sort of a first draft of a painting that I started working on when, somewhere, I heard the phrase, "Mother Nature walks among her dead".  The image seemed quite clear to me.  There would be a field of scorched earth, littered with dead - natural beings and human trash alike. The animals are there to suggest the dying earth and the trash is there to suggest that it is the fault of humanity.  As I work on this, I will make the ground browner and deader with more debris.  The key to it all, the most important part, will be that Mother Nature will have in her hands a tiny plant seedling.  I hope that this painting works out with the clear message that it is only Mother Nature who has the power to clean up the mess that we have made and repopulate the Earth with teeming life and diversity that belong here.  It will take a long time though.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

At some point in the career of a painter, there comes a desire to do a selfie.  This is mine.  Sometimes, one lacks a model to paint.  Sometimes, as in this case, one is asked to attend a dinner party for artists to which each guest is expected to bring a self portrait.  So I did this one in two short sessions.  Not exactly alla prima, but almost.  I did it one day and touched it up a bit the second. It is kind of fun to do a self portrait, but revealing. I became acutely aware that I am not seventeen years old anymore. Oh, well.

FACEBOOK ART CHALLENGE - DAY FIVE

Day 5 - art challenge. Recently, my interest has been directed toward painting greatly enlarged views of tiny natural objects. This are pictures of the decaying autumn leaves of the floating pond plant, Water Shield. Too much fun.