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.

July in the rear view mirror (almost)!

July has been a hard month over here. Aside from the very happy problems of getting used to a new work schedule at the NRSOA and developing my stamina for drawing three hours a day I have been beset by little things; the plumbing falters, the fan breaks, AC on the car on the blink, computer DIES, post dated checks are cashed early. You just duck and cover and wait for the next blow cause the hits just keep on coming. I thank the Great Spirit that it is not always that way. But because it is often that way I guess you just have to look at the good as hard as you tend to look at the bad. I am not a pie in the sky kinda person and in fact I struggle with severe depression which I have proudly spent the last seven years overcoming. I have learned this… that hope is real thing worth fighting for, that miracles happen all the time and that things could always, always be a whole hell of a lot worse. So I tend to look now at the good with the bad. It makes sense that doing this feels a whole lot better than dwelling on the bad all the time. Sometimes it comes down to a choice.

So I take a deep breath in and think about all that is good and the new beginnings in my life right now. The plumbing was fixed in a day, not a week. The computer was fixed the next day and under $50. I sold some books so had the money in the bank for the check and I now have a new fan. Most importantly today has been peaceful.

I did have a birthday this month in the middle of all the craziness. I spent it at a wonderful live Demo of sigh size sculpting by artist Jonathan Chorn and Lisa Silas, my love got me a cake just like I used to get as a kid and Lisa gave me some flowers.

I also made an important decision on Friday. I have been struggling with acrylics and then water soluble oils and have found no real solutions to the problem of replacing oil paints. I have not worked with oils for over seven years, since I moved into an apartment, due to the possibility of neighbors disliking the smell and the possibility of fumes interacting with the gas heater and going boom. Well I finally just had enough. I am going to paint with oils again.. period. I will use Turpenoid to avoid the smell problem and work small and with a fan to avoid going boom. My love, a number of artists and my landlord all thing this is a fine set up so I once again set upon the journey of painting with oils. I am going to keep doing pastels because they just come so naturally to me but I am going to focus my attention on oil painting. It goes without saying that I will continue my drawing discipline and studies. I can already see a huge improvement in my “seeing”.

So the bonus is that I had over $500 worth of artist grade oil paint and mediums in storage and canvases that were halted when I was forced to stop painting all those years ago. Even better, all the tubes opened up after over seven years of sitting in storage!

Finally, I in fact started two works in oils already. One is a simple egg study and the other a painting of a girl in front of a window. I already wiped out the girl a couple times. I am sooo rusty but having a great time!!!

August is going to be a terrific month!

New Blog: An Atelier Student’s Journey

A lot of people have suggested I document my drawing instruction as it progresses… for this purpose I have created a blog to post work after each session and the revelations that go along with the work. We see and enjoy so much the work of realist artists living today. They all started somewhere and for some that somewhere may have looked a little like this. It is going to be a very long, very special journey.

New Poem: Candle at 4am

Candle at 4am

I lit a candle at 4am.
It was an awkward flame,
Trying hard to glow
But the sleepless air
Pressed heavy against
The Light – a tiny egg
Of pale yellow and white
Without even a flicker
Or a flinch.

It could not quite burn
Through the layers
of Stillness. The strangeness
Of the hour bore down
On its brave light,
Forcing it into
a  Slight curl of smoke.

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″

Reverie – Graphite, Conte on Paper

Here is a gallery of my most recent drawing Reverie. I am finally starting to come into my own in class and get comfortable with the mediums. I have also been looking at a ton of great contemporary representational artists that both elevate my aspirations and inspire my learning. Looking at great art also keeps you humble, very, very humble! For the first time in a completed drawing I achieved the goals I had and found a few unexpected lessons along the way. I am now drawing almost every moment that I am not in class or asleep and I am loving it. I am also exploring pastels and will put up my first pastel eggs as soon as I get a picture of them.

I am so grateful to the circumstances that have made my study of art possible – though they are so – very – hard. At 46 years old you hear a lot of things in your mind that carry doubt and fear. To start over, to begin new where I should have begun years ago is a humbling moment of acknowledging big mistakes and embracing a future that you have no idea where it will lead. So many of the artist’s I look at with awe are younger than me and have already been doing their art 10-15 years, and I wonder if I can even achieve half of what they have achieved in terms of craft, I wonder if I should even be so bold as to try. The answer to that lay in my heart and is truth, and must be honored. One thing that my experiences and age has taught me is to appreciate the ride, enjoy the act of creating itself and don’t let competition and outcomes drive too much of your activity. It is the ego that wants to be a great artist. It is the Artist that simply wants to create. Be the artist, do your very best.

ReverieGraphite and Conte Pierre Noirre on Paper
15.5″ x 22″

This gave me hope

I am back in school and hammering myself with technique so I can become a better artist. I am really good at some things, and other things are so hard for me. I am having a great time but I find myself comparing myself to more experienced professional artists who have amazing technique that seems lifetimes away from what I may ever accomplish. This quote gave me a ton of hope in the struggle for technique vs. innate creativity.

“You cannot reconcile creativity with technical achievement. You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter…having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won’t have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti