11 posts tagged “painting”
Pearl Buck
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, texting, cell phones, Skype, hoaxes, cyber art... new technology surrounds us with tools, options, decisions and distractions.
The barrage is constant.
The only control available is in your head.
Choosing inspiration is a good start.
I have always found serenity, energy and clarity in the works of Joseph Raffael.
Enjoy a visual feast and respite and then:
Go to the studio and MAKE ART!
It was wonderful to see old friends by O'Keeffe such as
The Lawrence Tree painted in 1929.
When the Wadsworth Atheneum acquired the painting in 1981, O’Keeffe commented that, “The painting was done so it could be hung with any end up.” The painting is presently hung in keeping with the artist’s strong early preference, which she stated on numerous occasions, instructing that the tree should “stand on its head.”
The painting is in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum
At the Clark they had hung it with the trunk on top. Very fun.
The show addressed the interaction between the two artists. Very interesting to see how their work was correlated and how they respectfully fed off of each other's imagery. Initially O'Keeffe, the younger of the two, responded to Dove's development of abstraction, but as her work rapidly matured Dove's imagery obviously begins to respond to hers.
All very interesting.
”When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.”
Henry J. Kaiser
I'm hearing that voice loud and clear. I thought it was finished, but it kept calling to me, telling me that it needed more movement and interest in the lower left. Color differences in the two images are only due to lighting. The colors are pretty much as in the final.
Last week mornings were spent painting with several fine art students. We drew with charcoal and pencil and then painted in acrylic.
Our soggy weather finally gave us a break letting us go out into the Vermont landscape to paint. Acrylic, loaded with a retarding agent, worked perfectly for plein air painting. On our last day we had a model in class for drawing and a small figure study in acrylic.
That was a ton of fun!
Back to the easel!
And working is what I have been doing.
Painting in acrylic and watercolor, ink drawings, charcoal, and clay sculpture. Also a little plein air and cloudscape. How can you not respond to this astonishing landscape, so overwhelming and immense, continually changing.
There is a constant sense of wonder.
I hope to have finished 2 small clay sculptures. One is done, but has yet to pass trial by fire. The other is nearly done. My days alternate between my home studio (painting) and Santa Fe Clay, where I've rented studio space. That has worked out quite well, although there's never enough time to get it all done.
I had one night of camping on my land near Taos. My car, an Element named Georgia (for guess-who, who used to paint in her car) was very happy to be there in the quiet, serene sagebrush across the Rio Grande Gorge from Taos.
Never enough time!
Back to work now.
because they don't know when to quit.
This quote made me laugh outloud. It's not self denigration, just humor.
I'm actually quite excited. I just FINALLY finished the coral reef image that is the introductory page for the children's book that Cynthia and I are working on. Now to proceed to the next step of contacting publishers.
- That is what learning is.
- You suddenly understand something
- you've understood all your life,
- but in a new way.
- That's my hope for the students in this new class: that with the effort we put forth in the next two weeks we will begin to see more deeply and thoroughly. Color and form, and the relationship between the spaces.
- Now I'm off to teach a summer watercolor class at Castleton in this unceasing rain.
Now there is an intriguing word.
From the latin: thoroughly (per) involved, entwined or braided. (plectere)
My life is currently quite entwined (and usually.)
Many threads interwoven into a riotous, whole fabric. And that is perplexing.
Today was a seriously summery day. Heat has suddenly arrived.
From sweatshirts to sweat, overnight.
Today: Working on the web, in the garden, in the flowerbeds, in the kitchen cooking sauteed turnip greens in a yummy omelet with garlic and brie, then more web work, graphic design, piano practice and under the crescent moon, our wonderful, hot tub book club.
of thoughtful citizens
for his belief.
I am perennially hopeful. Not much for sacrifice. Certainly not on a grand scale. But it is increasingly important to think of these greater spirits in these times of chaotic, distracted self-indulgence.
Uninterrupted studio time in a spacious studio, with great natural light and an incredible view. Talk about self-indulgence. Focus and passion are essential. I begin with color pours, just trying to get my hands in the dirt... a feel for where I am and what I am doing... These little exercises seem pointless, but at least I am doing something with interesting (to me) results. Like push-ups. The struggle to get into gear in a new space.
Meanwhile, I am surrounded by astonishing vistas, amazing natural beauty. Raw earth on an immense scale. The sounds of spring bird call are everywhere, rushing snow melt and flowers in the the meadows.
Much rain, though. Mist and clouds.
January... the new year.
Hope and promise and the full moon rising in the misty east.
Misty?
In January?
In Vermont?
The northlands are reeling with warmth.
Where is the snow?
I was given new telemark skis for christmas, but there is no backwoods snow. My skis are white with bright flowers on the front, like a japanese print. quite lovely. But they are sitting sadly in the mudroom, awaiting the opportunity to glide through the woods, across moose tracks and under heavy hanging hemlocks, weighted with ponderous snow. All the snow is in New Mexico and Colorado. Today began with freezing rain. and then thawed.
Many of my friends are interested in snow shoeing. They trudge up to the signpost on the Long Trail (Vermont's left hand turn to Canada from the Appalachian Trail) and then trudge back down. I've gone with them a few times, but it seems silly to do all that work in both directions. On skis you trudge up, but then laugh and glide all the way back down instead of sloshing along with wide, webbed feet. The long glide is the reward and another challenge
It ever so difficult at anytime of year to focus as an artist.
Even as driven as I normally am, the holiday season is particularly challenging. Family beckons.
Deadlines loom.
Energy wanes.
Here's a small painting that I just finished. The surface of the eggs is golden with an antique crackle pattern... a diversion from my norm of quasi-scientific accuracy. While I was working on it, my great-aunt Sis, Lillian Shipley, was continually in my mind. Among her many careers was a stint as a milliner in West Virginia. It was nice to spend time with her in the process of creating the painting. In another phase of her life she had a chicken farm in Westminister, Maryland, and she spent the last years of her life as director of the Carroll County Historical Society in the same town. She was born in 1890 and lived until 1989. Rumor has it that she was quite the wild young woman in West Virginia. I remember her warm, slightly raspy voice with a southern drawl, while she served us mint chocolate chip ice cream on the back porch, with the scent of summer box bushes rising up in the July heat.
Hard to imagine how the world changed during that time span...
Just finished a commission: a portrait of a branch with a small, exquisite nest that is probably from an American Redstart: entwined twigs lined with pine needles. Quite elegant and unusual. Tiny bits of birch bark are woven into the exterior. Attached to the branch on the right side are two leaves: one actually still attached to the stem & twig; the other is oddly impaled on the end of another twig. It was found in the yard of the people who requested the portrait, blown down in a storm. It took me quite a while to get the painted branch to have the sheen of living bark, but I'm finally pleased with it.
Painting is the most magical of mediums. The
transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I
see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat
surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a
life experience.
- Chuck Close
I began it in April, while visiting in Santa Fe, though I had planned it out somewhat before I got there. But, art is about communication, and part of that communication is between the artist and the art work. I work on it for a bit, and then listen to what the painting has to say. My muse has a private conversation with the canvas or clay, and the color and the composition. Sooner or later, the next step becomes obvious.
I begin with a black surface, and slowly the colors illuminate the composition, and the image emerges from the darkness.
When I work with clay, I begin with a simple coil process, essentially building a coil pot that turns into a figure. Sometimes the full torso, sometimes partial. This diva needed a bird. She holds a nest. A canyon wren is sitting in the palm of her hand.
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