In Training: Epi

Epi sat for the third session.   I was fading at this point, and pretty tired.   Fair likeness, but Epi is far more fabulous in person.

In Training: Willie

 

Willie, my second appointment on Friday.  The likeness is better, but I had trouble working with my red ground color.

In Training: Melvin

 

Today I set up shop in UNCP's painting studio to practice my technique for the upcoming ArtFields contest.   Four of my students each generously donated an hour of their time to sit  and help me train.   First up, Melvin Morris, who is studying Painting as his primary studio area.   I set my watch and carved out the above in an hour.   I have to admit, I was pleased by the result, even though it doesn't really look like Melvin, but more like some heroic, Biblical figure.  He had on a great green shirt, so I was forced to cheat and add in the rest in an additional five minutes:

For the sake of pepping up my ailing blog, I will post the remaining studies over the next three days...

In Training: Art Fields Portrait Competition

How do I get myself into these things?   A week ago I received notice that I have been accepted into  the ArtFields Portrait Contest.  It's a side-event of the larger ArtFields festival in Lake City, SC, and will consist of four rounds where the 24 artists will have an hour to create a portrait.  Each round will be judged and winners who pass elimination proceed to the next round.   When I heard of the contest, it sounded interesting in idea-- art as performance sport.  I briefly entertained the notion of dressing up like the late wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage, complete with gilded cape, and trash talking my opponents as they work.   Maybe if I was actually a performance artist, and if this wasn't in the polite South....

More than that, I'm not really a portrait artist.  What, you might ask?   Sure, I use the historical portrait form in 50% of my work., and I paint illusionistic images of people.   Yet, I rarely paint from perception these days.   I often make my people up completely from imagination.   Of course, this ability comes from years of practice from direct observation, but I am more than a little rusty these days.   And I have never painted a portrait in only an hour.   I more often keep painting over and over an image until it looks right, which may take twenty or a hundred  hours. After all, there are whole schools and societies of professional portraitists who do this for real on a daily basis far better than me.  But I like a challenge, and heard of the bigger ArtFields contest too late, and thought that this would be a good excuse to get into fighting shape and see what this Lake City is all about.   While I hope to make it at least to round two, it's going to be fun either way.   If you are in the area, the event is Saturday, April 27, 2013 from 10 am-4 pm on The Green in Lake City, SC.

Oh yes, and the above drawings were my first warm ups from a life model.   Paintings on the way soon.

Nemo Night Photos

Went out to explore in the blizzard late last night: the snow was as beautiful and cold as you would expect.  I was playing with the camera settings trying to capture all the pink light glancing off the snow and sky. 

Riverside Cemetary

 

Some pictures from my most recent trip to Maine--had a great walk in fresh snow through a romantic old cemetery in Lewiston, Maine.  (Very, very Fredrick.)  Great trip, too short as usual, and quite the climate change from 75 in NC to 14 Maine in the same day.  May seem like a drastic shift, but it wasn't anything like what the hordes of Bates students underwent yesterday. (Witnessed my second puddle jump.)

Hodgman Lies Here

Giacometti in NC

Made a little Thanksgiving trip to Charlotte, NC to check out the city and to visit some of the art venues.  One of my stops was the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art to see their exhibition "Giacometti: Memory and Presence"on view until February 8.  Comprising the entire fourth floor, the show highlights their considerable collection of his work, as well as loans from Zurich and Paris.  Considering the most Giacometti I have seen in a day has been 3-4 pieces, the 60+ works on display were easily worth the pilgrimage from Pembroke.  I've always enjoyed his work, and reproductions of his paintings were always particularly comforting to me as a student in contextualizing my own process.

Simply, Giacometti was reluctant to finish a painting, often working over the same face for many days. (A excellent account of his process and thoughts on art is described by James Lord in A Giacometti Portrait.) Giacometti's paintings reveal a deeply scarred surface of countless layers that evidence the intensity his of investigation. They evoke a strong presence and are objects as much as image.  We are left with the mystery of what is under the final layers.  In art classes we often stress achieving clarity of communication, but Giacometti reminds us that ambivalence and uncertainty can also be evoked, and remain a powerful aspect of the human condition.