Beata and Abi

"Beata and Abi"
oil on canvas
24 x 20 inches

Spurred along by recent mood to complete works, I pushed through on this one that has also been around in my studio for an unmentionable amount of time in various stages.  It started off very loose like most of my work, but gradually became more detailed as the colors shifted.  The final stage was making the dog on par with the person.  Lots-of-fur.

Squirrel, Redder

This is the latest image of this one as it is nearing the home stretch.   The squirrel is quite a bit more saturated and leaves and branches added for a little depth and context.   Notice the difference? 

Shirt Change

Changed the color on the body/shirt on this one once again, with the latest version shown on the right. I feel like I'm about ready to call this one quits but, then again, you never know.   A link to the previous version is here.

Nightwatching

 

Two more steps past the very quick sketch. Quite a few ideas rattling about on where this one will go. 

Influences

A common feature on many an artist's blog is the shout-out to other artists, alive or historical.   It's been a pretty great temptation to get on my soap box and share, but I've resisted it so far.  I wanted to keep the focus narrow and about personal process. After a couple of years doing this though, my studio floundering has been tough to keep interesting day to day.   So, after some musing, what could not be more personal than mentioning artists who have influenced my own work, views, and perceptions? 

Some artists like to imagine themselves born from the head of Zeus like Athena, fully formed and ready to roll, but its a bit disingenuous.  A big part of what an educated artist thinks about in the studio is how their own work fits into the wider context of contemporary art and art history. For a figurative artist in particular, thousands of years of humans depicting themselves is never far behind. The canon is quoted, played with, reinvented by every generation.  There are works of art that have affected me deeply.  Some I have learned techniques from, some whose images come to mind as I make my own. 

My latest series, which I have been labeling the "Kracow Cycle," accordingly quotes history, indirectly through influence, and directly through allusion.  I described it flippantly to another artist as "Lady with Ermine" filtered through Picasso's rose period.  I had been painting so many blue-violet paintings in the Nocturnes, that a switch two shifts over on the Newton color wheel, to red-violet, was significant. The style, subject matter, context, has almost nothing to do with Picasso, other than the simple idea of a dominant palette shift.  As far as the Lady... which I do quote directly, I'll have to leave that to the forthcoming artist statement.  A Picasso-Leonardo fusion may be a useful label, but really only scratches the surface of whats going.  Influences are rarely that superficial, or clear in the studio or the mind.  It's like isolating bits in a blender after the cocktail is made.

If this sounds complicated, I have only been speaking in reference to "fine art." Sculpture, photography, theater, dance, film are in the cultured mix.  Not to be snobbish, television, magazines, comic books, and video games have also warped my brain more than juts a little.  How has travel affected me?  Nature, a specific tree? I also have a strong memory for faces.... It would be ridiculous, if not altogether self-obsessed, to sort it all out. So, to keep things simple, I start off with some specific paintings I really love, things I want to share, shout-out.   And for lack of a better word, I'll tag it "influences."

Darker, More Saturated

After a few months judgment, this one was far too light.  Of course, I spent the last two steps lightening it to bring out volume, but the atmosphere was all but gone.  As the shadows get more saturated, it's really hard to see any color in the "black" areas of this digital image but, trust me, hues are quite visible in person.  The surface is a lot richer as well, but a there's a little ways to go before I can let this one go.

Reworked (Owl)

Small to big changes from previous in terms of composition and color.  Defined a window, and then warmer tones took over the violet that was dominate before.  The surface on figure was almost completely reworked.  

Down the Rabbit Hole

I've been making some rather big changes on a few of the fictional portraits that have been lying around.  Although I could have left well enough alone on this one from its previous state, I had envisioned defining a bit more of the space to place it in an interior and to divide the picture plane.  I loved the broken, expressive arm  in the earlier stage as well, but I didn't want it to be an issue.  It may be time for a shirt as well.  (On the guy, not the rabbit.)  With the old painting unraveling, a new adventure begins.  Its more complicated,  but far more interesting for me to work through.

Secret Corner Revealed

 

This may come as a bit of a shocker to those who have been following this painting and have been pretty happy with it's progress without any animal interaction.  I mentioned that I had an idea of what was going on all the while, now revealed to be a red squirrel.   I was reticent to show the earlier stage (smaller image) as the block-in reminded me of one of Bill Murray's explosive sculptures from Caddyshack.  It's more recognizable now, and I also had to adjust the position of the arm to seem less cramped and integrate the composition.  Next step is to integrate the colors and start bringing this one in for a landing. 

Bring on the Green

Here's the latest from the Beata/Abi addition to the series.  I can be very rough and intuitive, but occasionally I do stop and make some conscious risks.  I began the painting with violets and ochres instead of conventional flesh tones, and kept warming things up with pinks on top of that. The painting was needing highlights, and my first impulse was to keep going with a lighter pink in the highlight for naturalistic skin tones.  I paused and thought, "what's the fun in that?"   With the colors left on my palette, I mixed up cool mint which would add maximum contrast, hoping this would bring out the volume, and it worked.   Though I've discovered this color logic over the years on my own, it is essentially a very old idea stemming from Venetian painting, where color, not value, is relied upon to create the illusion of volume.  Reflecting further, I am struck by a little more irony and contradiction built into this series:  I began by riffing off of Leonardo's imagery, which is essentially Florentine and his methods are Florentine, relying chiefly on value.   By all accounts, though, my methods are direct and Venetian.   It's a conceptual flaw, but I think I'll just keep going regardless.

Abi 2, Beata 5

The sketchy start from Monday is now revealed:  Beata and Abi, again! Beata insisted that they be included in the new series so who I am to knock two beautiful (and free) models.  I've tired of self-portraits but I enjoy repeat portraits of my favorite models.  By my quick count, I think this makes Abi's second appearance in a painting, and Beata's fifth. Here's to many more!

Another One

Another fresh start for the Kracow cycle.  Stay tuned for updates.

Spots

Pretty subtle changes on this one, beefing up the form on the figure and the owl.  More spots and feathers on the owl.  A few more adjustments and this one might be very close to finished.  

Youth

Speaking of detail, this one's appearance seems dramatically different with the latest additions.  (Eyes and eyebrows tend to do that.) As more of the actual model is referenced, her features seem to convey more youth and earnestness.  The animal's arrival is long overdue.   If you could only see what she and I are seeing...

The Devil's In...(Goat 6,7)

When painting a goat, one is aware of it's more sinister connotations, but I'm not really thinking of that devil.  I'm thinking of the old saying, the "Devil's in the details,"  which usually refers to some small, missed, detail that can wreck an undertaking.  In finishing a painting, I find myself more and more concerned about the detail that gets added, of overworking.  The unwanted added detail amounts to the same effect as the detail overlooked, failure, but my meaning is an inversion, a reminder to avoid the trap of detail. Distraction helps. Luckily, I've been either stretching or priming a canvas each day, so new paintings will join the cycle as these near completion. 

Here are the two latest sessions, with the right showing the current state.   More light has been built up over the face and arm, adding more solidity to the form.  A little youthful roundness has left, the eyes are more tranquil with information added.

Titles

I've made a lot fuss over the cat in this painting, so when it comes to a title, I had thought of simply calling it "Millie."   I tend towards pretty dry titles, in the Modernist vain of "Sleep no. 1" and "Sleep no.6.  Such work makes sense in a title formal series and leaves the viewer to wrestle with looking at the painting without an easy lifeline.    After all, shouldn't the painting to do the work without having to being completed with a title?  I'm also keen on a little bit of mystery. People are infinitely complex and a good portrait just scratches the surface, telling you little more than the sitter's name.   For observed portraits it seems pretentious to make up something literary, so I usually go with something obvious like "Beata and Sadie."  Things are getting a little stranger with the narrative paintings, however, and stranger still when I'm inventing the sitter.   There's a history I'm digging through, someone I'm discovering, and a new working title comes to mind:  "Leonora's Venetian Tendencies."  I'll live with it for a while and see if it sticks.

Rough, Smooth

Between the relative ideas of rough and smooth, I would say my surfaces tend more towards the rough, but only if you compared them with a highly varnished panel.  (A Dutch still life comes to mind.) With regards to the image, most people would still see the image as smooth, thinking of the roundness of the form, even when looking at at painting with a lot of impasto, and general crusty paint. (Monet's haystacks, as an example.) I tend to let surfaces mostly dry and allow opaque layers to show one over another over many sessions.  This latest layer had a lot of direct painting into a wet surface and it felt uncharacteristically smooth. (Previous layers.)   With this series, I am really trying to keep the surfaces as thin for the very practical idea of getting them to Poland.

4,5 Enlargement

The goat had been bothering me.  When I was laying it out, it seemed overwhelming to paint it in to adult scale.  In a series featuring relatively small animals, a real goat seemed huge.  For weeks, I left it under the premise that it was a baby goat. The goat actually owned by the woman in the portrait is much, much larger, but if I rarely worry about an exact human likeness, why fret over a goat?  It's the painting that matters-- its truth trumps nature.  Well, it was a cute goat, and if unblemished beauty has a rough time making the cut in one of my paintings, cuteness doesn't stand a chance. It's still not to actual scale, but I'm satisfied with the compromise--currently. 

Enter: Millie

 

Thanks to my mother and sister for responding so quickly to my plea for a cat reference.  And the winner is-- mom's Millie from Nashville!   So, I've got her blocked in after only one false start.   Reminds me that it's been too long since I painted a cat--eight years!  Yikes, but since I put three in that painting, I still average one cat every two years.  On a side note, I'm not sure what it implies when I've made up the human in the painting and then referenced an actual animal, who's almost a relative. (Step cat?)       

Design

 

Another new one;  I snapped a few pictures during the drawing process so you could see me working with an idea.   Something I tell young students, a painting isn't started until all the white (in this case, pink)  is covered. I mainly tell them this to give them something very simple to achieve in the first class to break through the intimidation of starting a painting.   I don't ask for quality, just coverage.

I often use a toned ground for the same purpose and to see value relationships more clearly, yet I become just as reluctant to see this new clean surface disappear. Drawing on canvas is so beautiful in itself that it could be tempting to just leave it as it is.  When the ground is covered, that energy of a start does die a little, but it leads to a new, quieter, level of process.