Done! Anchorage & Irene

I finally finished my pastel “Anchorage! You can see the progression in the below posts. It has come a long way, and it took me a long time to finish but I fell in love with the subject even more so than when I began. The light in Anchorage in the evening is the most amazing light I have ever seen. I have also finished a little drawing called “Irene”. I had some fun with this one adding abstractions and atmosphere to it. Now it’s time to start new work. that is always a little unnerving.

I am going to do a large drawing in the style of :Reverie” or another girl reading a book. I already prepared the drawing board and it is just waiting. It is going to be approx 18×24 in graphite, charcoal and Conte Noir. I am also starting two pastel still lives and an abstract snowy landscape of Anchorage again. And I am still working on my little grisaille still life. I want to start a new painting so bad I can taste it. In color even!  Anyway, here is “Anchorage” and “Irene” . I really hope you like them!

Re-Beginning Oil Painting — Yay!

Umber underpainting with open grisaille on the right.

I have decided to begin my oil painting re-introduction in Grisaille, or monochrome. I will be using a gray palette where I can focus on learning the feel of the paint in application and clearly communicate value. I am basically teaching myself painting using my drawing classes as a foundation and information I can find online from classical realists and different ateliers that openly share knowledge.

I applaud the ateliers that do this. They are making at least some portion of a classical education available to us who simply cannot afford the atelier classes. I know that without the critique of an experienced teacher it is an uphill battle with results that may never match those with a full house of classes and workshops but, what? Do I just not do it because I can’t pursue the curriculum full tilt boogie. Do I wallow in the discouragement or just get over it and paint. I seek to find the best sources of information and apply it to the best of my ability. I am very fortunate to be able to take figure drawing and classical drawing at the Neoteric Renaissance School of Art. Drawing is the backbone of my painting program. I have already seen a vast improvement in my painting from where I left off over ten years ago just through applying how I am starting to see and sticking with the spirit of classical art studies.

All that said I begin with two still lifes.

The first some eggs and the second some oranges. I will post some as I move forward in the work. Below are my under paintings and the “open grisaille” beginnings along with the reference material I am working from. I have no room in my very small apartment for a still life so I am relegated to working with photos of still lives I have put together. The drawings are done using a grid system and the techniques I am learning via the Bargue system of drawing. The under painting is a burnt umber. The grisaille palette is a value string made of a mixture of ivory black and burnt umber for the dark and titanium white for the light. I am using a nine value string. My lean medium for my open grisaille is turpenoid with a tad of liquin to assist drying time. My fat medium will have a little more of the liquin.
Other than that, in terms of application I feel like I am learning to drive for the first time and I am just a little out of control of the car.

Bell, Book and Candle – Final Project Pastels – Done!

New drawings for my final project. Bell Book and Candle Series, Pastel on prepared paper. I like these though not as much as some others I have done recently. I was trying to use use the marks to give a subdued, realistic still life energy and atmosphere. There is a symbolic story to the series drawing from the literary and mystical traditions of the object relationships.

In Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, the lead character is subjected to excommunication using this process: “Bell, book, and candle; candle, book and bell, / Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.” (Scene 7, lines 83-84).

My title piece, Bell, Book and Candle (the three items) is the final piece and represents the closure of the excommunication, a renunciation and the final end/death. Like the Death card in the Tarot – it has a reverse significance. In death is a new beginning.

Of course, the paintings have to communicate this in some way, and in that I was not as successful and I would have liked to have been. Pastel is a new medium for me and it was fun to work with, through trixtie. Lost control of it a little, also the series went a little darker in value than I intended when all was said and done. Loved doing the realism of the still life, I think I lost it a little in the marks. All in all tons of lesson! And fortunatly, there is always more art to make!

Bell Book and Candle 15″x22″ pastel on prepared paper

Book and Bell 15″x11″ pastel on prepared paper

Bell and Candle, 15″x11″ pastel on prepared paper

Book and Candle, 15″x11″ pastel on prepared paper

Hard at Work

Hard at work on my four pieces for my final project. A lot going on in a very little space… They will look very different when done than they way they look here. Things are flowing very well! I love pastels. The marks you can make are so amazing. I have however, devised a way to paint with oils in my little apartment. I will try it this summer. We shall see. I will always have a fondness and will probably always do pastels.

Where I Work

I have been asked before about my studio space. I have also been asked why I do not work in oils anymore and also why I work so small. One image will answer those questions. I work in a little corner of the living area in my tiny flat. It is flat in an old Victorian that has been converted into apartments. I also have a big gas heater in the living room as well. All of this adds up to no strong smells out of respect for the other tenants and no fumes out of a healthy respect for combustion.

Though I am loving my pastels and learning so, so SO much. I am starting to literally pine for oils again. I just read about a ‘natural’ turpentine that has almost no odor and little to no fumes. I am skeptical. However if it is good enough to clean brushes I can use a little of the good spirits to paint with along with a medium.  I will find away to make this work… I must be into oil painting by this summer. I love pastels but to my taste the surface is just so very vulnerable it leaves me uneasy. Also, if I do not start really practicing my representational work in oils now I may never achieve any real level of skill. Oils are harder to handle than pastels and take much more time to learn to simply maneuver in the medium. I have some experience with them but need much, much more. The pastels are exciting me so much and if it were not for them, I might not “make a way” to come back to oils after seven years away from them.

So here is a shot of my ‘studio’ space. Big things start in small forms!!

Seraphim – Acrylic on paper

I just finished this small painting of an angel. This is the last acrylic I am going to do on the very rough 140lb Arches Watercolor Paper. I liked the matte effect the acrylics achieved on the paper but it is just too hard to get any detail at all, it is rough on the brushes and the paper likes to roll a bit after it is removed form the board. This goes for my acrylic abstracts as well. I think I am going to be painting on canvas and on panels that I prepare from now on. I really did like the effect the watercolor paper had on the acrylic though. Ah well, another experiment done. By the time I learn to paint I will know exactly what I want to paint on. Where my skills are really being tuned are my still lifes in drawing and pastel. But I am compelled to paint and I know one day my skill will meet my vision. It is just a matter of ‘doing the work every day’. Something inside compels me now like a man on fire… but happy. The symbol of the Seraphim has much significance for me and it is really an overly simplistic title for this piece. I am very influenced by alchemical image and vision.

Squash on Blue – First Pastel Drawing

My first pastel drawing is done. I know it is really simple but it is my first use of the medium and was the most fun with a medium that I have had since I had to stop oil painting. The only thing about pastel that makes me cringe is the vulnerability of the surface but I am using a self prepared surface that has a lot of pumice tooth so your not supposed to have to worry about the permanence. Still….. In all other regards it a really fun medium. Pure, opaque pigment lets you layer easily and blend there on the paper. People call it drawing but it feels quite like painting to me. I do miss using my brushes though, and the smell of turp. As a alternative medium it is making really happy at the moment. I am working on two other pastels I will post the results when they are done.

Hard Pastel
Prepared Arches Paper
11″ x 15″

Neil Gaiman – Inspirational Speech at the University of the Arts 2012

This is the most encouraging and inspiring talk that I have heard, possibly ever. Ya, it is that good.

As you may know I am going back to school at 46 years old. I ran into some really difficult times over the last few years that pretty much ‘simplified’ everything for me and opened up some time. Instead of letting the losses get me down anymore – I am turning it into an the opportunity of a lifetime. A time to completely re-invent myself in the image of who I have always wanted to be, doing what I have always wanted to do – make art. Some people have told me that it is too late to learn the skills I need to express myself the way I would like. There is the fear that I am nuts for trying to establish myself as an artist so late in life. They are saying it is too late to be who I want to be – and I refuse to believe that.

This talk is not just for young graduates, but for anyone that is on the artist’s journey – no matter when it begins.

Composition 23 – New Work

I just finished a new piece. This is a 15″ x 11″ Acrylic on Arches 140 lb., cold press paper. I have a really small working area in my flat so am limited in size and to a certain extent gesture, but not imagination. I have found the challenges of working both small and in acrylic really interesting. I’ve become very aware of how external constraints manifest themselves both in the conceiving and the execution of a work. I am just starting to get used to the small size and re-discovering my voice all over again.

Composition 23

New Portfolio Site

I created a new portfolio on a site called See|Me. See|Me is a professional site for creatives of all types to share and promote their work. I really like it and it makes available awards and grants under different conditions, though it is the portfolio aspect I am most interested in. So check it out, support it if you wish, like it if you can and let me know what you think of the art! Love paint…