You almost forgot...

"The Mantle" oil on illus. board 8" x 10"

Yeah, remember that I had done studies and such for this painting? Well, here it is. The intent was to do this much larger, and to be honest, it would have been far easier to do it that way. Getting the facial features and such at this size (the head must be a half inch high) was just a pain. Plus, I think I painted this thing at least 3 times. The first time, I had big retouch varnish problems. Then, it fell off the easel into a full palette. And the third time was because I repainted the head, and messed up the background around it while doing it - not seeing the correct values due to the paint sinking into the surface (a new kind of treated foamboard: it sucks).

Anyway, I don't know if I'll blow this up or not. At the moment, being in the midst of the second round of minumentals, I have no intent. There's certainly enough good info here to do it, so I may use it later. Or perhaps I will just sell it as a finished piece. Who knows?

I had other reference ready to do a series of these, but again, it will have to wait. Perhaps some day there will be a window to re-indulge my figurative ideas. At least the next time, I'll know better about trying new surface materials. That painter's foam is crap. And I'm sure getting used to the triple primed linen. Supersmooth surfaces can expose a ton of surface anomalies when photographed. I had to scan this (new scanner!), because I varnished it with Galkyd Lite. The retouch varnish proved impossible to apply on this surface. But the Galkyd is super shiny, and when I went to take a pic of this, all I could see was a reflection of me with a camera. That wouldn't enhance the feel of this piece very well, would it?

Color Study & FFAW

Color Study of Molly - oil on museum board 14" x 9".

This is from a 3-hour session. Another quick photo, sorry - there's glare coming off the wet paint. It is intentionally low contrast, though. You would think I would want a darker background so her pale skin tones would really pop, but I have a particular atmosphere in mind. I really didn't try very hard with her features or proportions, as you see. It's more comic-book scale here at 7 1/2 heads high or thereabout. Nevertheless, this is what I need for the bigger painting in terms of color. I wanted to work out the edge planes and flat light against the light neutral, as well as incorporate some of the atmosphere in the skin tones themselves. It was fun to do, and Molly is fun to work with. I hope to see her back this winter & I wish her the best in her cross country trek. I might need her anyway, should I run into trouble with the final piece.

Tonight is First Friday. Come by if you can!

More info at www.firstfridayartwalk.com

New Model

Here's a 3-hour Study of Molly (Ebony pencil on paper, 14" x 24") for a new painting I'm working on. Sorry for the poorly-lit photo of the piece - I just snapped it quickly before I locked the studio for the night. [click for a larger version, as usual]

It's been a long time since I've worked one-on-one with a model, and I'm so glad that it's Molly who I tapped for this project. She's an artist herself, and it makes things so much easier (as I've stated in previous posts about figure models) for me, as she is truly into the idea and understands what I'm striving for with the image. I had wanted to work with her since March, after having worked with her at drawing room, because she fit in perfectly with an idea I had for a figure in a landscape. There's some specific things I won't mention, because I'll give away the idea, but I will say that her skin tone had a lot to do with it. Of course, now that I have (barely) some time to get down to work with her, she's headed for California until the winter. But, she was gracious and cool enough to fit me in, knowing that I was serious and that it would be a good experience for us both.

So far, as you can see, it's been great after the one sitting. I plan on working with her again tonight and hopefully I will get a quick color study out of it. She's leaving over the weekend, so I think this may be it. Nevertheless, if I nail the study, as I feel I did with this drawing, I'll be armed with all the info I need to place her in the landscape. Of course, I'll need to do a composite study of that too. You'll see it all here!

Finding A Way

(from the top)
Princess of Edo - oil on board, 14" x 16" (circa 1994)
Martina & The Artist's Way - oil on board, 12" x 16". (2002)

There's 8 years between these paintings! A lot happened in that time, and a lot has happened since. On a personal level, there's too much to tell, and anyway, that's not germane to this blog. Artistically, there's a lot to tell, too - but I want to focus on the biggest changes.

After graduating from the School of Visual Arts, my intention was to hit the NYC pavement as hard as I could with my student portfolio. I acted far more confident than I truly was, but this was to my benefit when I got face time with art directors (which was always a difficult prospect to arrange). Very slowly, I built a professional portfolio, but I sort of plateaued at a level that was dissatisfying to me, both artistically and financially. Truly, I was getting bored with the painting process.

And 'process' is all it was: My mentor in the final 2 years of school was a great proponent of efficient process. And, I must say, it's a method that works incredibly well. It really informs you on a highly technical level, steeping you in the understanding of the "how" of painting. In so many art schools, this is a rare thing, so I must look back on this as an incredible benefit to my future as a competent artist. But, even though these skill-building processes were necessary and beneficial, I (nor any of my fellow students, for that matter) was not ever told that these things were not the be-all/end-all of painting. What I failed to see, being so young and impressionable, was that this method was just a template for future experimentation and growth as a painter.

What made it harder for me to see beyond process was the fact that I apprenticed with my mentor for an additional year after graduation. At the time, he never veered beyond the process, fully comfortable with executing everything with precision planning. Nothing was ever left to chance. All color values were pre-tubed. Photo reference was projected into place. The gray glass palette was gridded in order to place the predetermined color values in their proper order (1-9, lightest to darkest). There was a brush holder labeled for 4 tiers of 9 brushes, each one for one value only; you laid in paint one color at a time. He was certainly no hypocrite - he practiced exactly what he preached. Therefore, this is what I thought true painting was. He was successful, so why not imitate him as closely as possible? If only someone could have told me that this was a dead-end path. He never did - it was sort of to his benefit that I didn't know. But things like this were never discussed, anyway. But, I can't blame anyone but myself for hyping what I'd learned beyond what it really meant.

Yes, this uber-logical approach to painting began to wear on me. It was no fun. So I stopped for 6 months. I worked in various environments, from bookstores to vineyards, but I missed the creative part of me. I started up again, but this time, I kept my pre-tubed values (I still have a lot of those tubes!) in the drawer, and mixed color on the fly doing little still-life setups. I found that I knew all my values cold without the aid of grid, chart or premixed color. The thing that caused me a bit of smiling chagrin is the realization that I had always known these things ever since I'd completed my official course of study. I was just using the process as a crutch. It was a comfort zone I was too naive (and maybe afraid) to break from. With new confidence, I revamped my portfolio and got into a solid agency who repped me for the next 7 years.

Then my illustration career ended. I was disenchanted with the choices my agent was making for me. I had also just moved to Maine, and was inspired by Wyeth country and the eternally lingering aura of the Hudson River School painters who so loved Acadia and the Maine coast. This heralded my embarking on a career as a fine artist. I also had no idea what this meant or what to do. I floundered for a while. I became an elite athlete (road cycling), but not a better painter. I had no true focus.

Then a couple of things happened. I realized that I was still relying on photo reference too much, so I attended a few local life drawing sessions. It was a little sad to see how rusty I had become in this department, so I decided to re-immerse myself in the difficult task of figurative work. The models I worked with had a big impact on my work, but none greater than Martina. She was a beautiful and vital German woman with an artistic eye of her own. We became close friends, mostly because she was so sharp and saw right through my rationalizing about my lack of artistic focus, and I knew she saw it. I never had known anyone so direct, and it was refreshing. Of course, she was not American, so there you go. She was a muse for me in a difficult artistic period.

At this time, I became aware of Bo Bartlett's (see link to the right) work through Jamie Wyeth's suggestion (yes, I knew Jamie - or, at least, he would talk with me when I saw him on Main Street in Rockland: "You're that young illustrator fella," he'd say). At the time, his website held a link to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Curious, I checked it out and eventually bought the book. Skeptical, I tried it, and I was hooked. The serendipity that is part of the process came into full form when Martina called me one morning and told me of a new artist's residency that had one spot left for a Maine artist. I called the director of the residency, met with her to show my work, and that was it - I was in. For 6 weeks I painted at the Robert MacNamara residency, and there I immersed myself in plein air, painting outdoors whenever possible. I had never learned how to do this, and finally I had the time to teach myself. It was a huge step for me. All the facets of painting were beginning to come together.

Of course, I am still learning. A four-year stint of teaching at the BFA level taught me that painting is an eternal process. For example, even the recent Utah trip was a huge painting lesson for me. I want more. I need more. My day job as a corporate illustrator shows me how stagnant art can be if it's just rehashing what is deemed successful (by "successful," I mean the bottom line of the spreadsheet). At the end of the day, I sometimes feel beaten down by the incessant banality. But it is within my power to get past it. I may sound arrogant when I say that I am beyond it - but if I didn't believe that, all would seem kind of hopeless.

If I have learned anything from my experiences to this point it is this: Nothing is fixed - true art is fluid. I await with great hope the next opportunity. And as I wait, I will keep painting in preparation.

Hopes and Dreams

She Dreams - oil on panel, 5" x 8.25".

This is a very recent piece, and it is very important to me, despite its small size. It is an allegory of hope, of facing one's fear, of dreaming, of looking to the future. Here's a rare thing: I am not ready to part with this, even though I've had interested buyers. Not yet.

You see, as I've said (and as I've posted) in this blog, I feel very strongly about the figure, and I want it to be a bigger part of my oeuvre. One might look at this blog and ask, "Well, isn't it?" No, it's not so much. I'm torn in too many directions. My full time position demands professionalism and skill, but gives no room for personal creativity. Nevertheless, I am compensated well enough to keep me there - more out of necessity than anything else. My art outside the commercial realm is now in flux: do I keep painting the landscape so that I maintain a salable portfolio, or do I return to the figure and fulfill a more personal ambition with a less-than-salable series of works? I have a solid history of selling landscapes, so I'm aware of what the buying public prefers (from me, anyway).

[I should note here: models need to get paid. It's an expensive proposition. It's not like a photographer who can do a TFP trade - that is - time for prints. As wonderful as the model may be, I can't give her the painting! Maybe some painting lessons? Time for Teaching?]

Why be so concerned with selling? Practically speaking, some extra money always helps. And there's that dream of one day making a living from doing my own work as opposed to completing someone else's. Yes, yes , my art is worth something to me - but does it convey what I'm trying to convey? I've always been interested in narrative, in storytelling. How can I tell if the stories or the meanings are ringing true? If someone pays good money for a painting, the investment indicates that they have gotten it - or something close to it. They are also investing their lives in it; they are going to look at the painting for a long, long time. That is the biggest deal for me - that someone would want to do that with my work. It is an important validation.

The sentiment of this painting here addresses a lot of what is said above. The funny thing is, the initial impetus for this was to not only attempt a new figurative work as a test (hence the scale), but it was also a reflection of someone else's artistic and personal journey. She faces difficult choices, as well. It was only in the midst of painting this that I realized I was in the same boat, albeit in a different career phase. It's a fairly universal sentiment, now that I think upon it, and I think the prospective buyers saw this.

Well, the test succeeded on a pictorial level, I feel, but the dreams themselves ares still being deciphered.

Meanwhile, I have to take better pictures of the latest landscape that sits happy and finished in the studio. I shall post those shots this weekend.

Charcoal = Controlled Smudging

Another drawing room session piece in charcoal with the wonderful Caribeth. This was a 20 minute pose with some enhancements after the fact. I think adding the dark tone is a plus in order to get added dimension and even a little atmosphere. Sargent did this often - and who better to try and emulate?
No drawing room this week - there's a show happening there, so I'm a little bummed. However, there are some things I could and probably will tend to in the studio Thursday night instead. I have completed a large piece, and need to properly photograph it. If I get a good shot, I'll post it here, plus a small WIP of how it came together.

Early Spring

This is Rachel, Early Spring oil on linen, 14"x17". In the detail shot you can see drawings of Rachel on the wall, and I found a scan of one of them. I think this drawing is possibly from the first session I ever had with Rachel - a drawing group at Round Top Center For the Arts in Damariscotta. She was a totally unique person in so many ways. She was rather shy and very soft-spoken, but she preferred to be without clothes, and was perfectly comfortable that way. She is an artist herself - a painter- as well as a dancer and consummate yoga practitioner. Those things combined made her one of the best figure models I've ever come across. She was also very sweet, and could be pretty silly and funny, as I found out when we got better acquainted. I should mention that she was also a gearhead, and could swap out a transmission on a Subaru faster than I could change an oil filter.
This particular painting was a kind of breakthrough for me, because it was a consummate disaster from the get-go. I had recently purchased the John Howard Sanden book on alla prima (or in his words: premier coup) painting, and I had designs to do a painting of Rachel with no study and no underpainting in one - maybe two - sessions. Like I said, it was a disaster as far as my initial idea was concerned. But I really wanted to finish this thing and make something out of it regardless. Rachel was game, so she sat for me for I don't know how many sittings. At one point I thought I was done, but coming back to the piece a few days after a session, I realized that her head was totally misaligned on the shoulders, and no amount of fancy rendering could cure it, so I sanded it out. Rachel came the next week and was totally floored that her head was gone. I repainted it, and when I was done, she told me it was the best likeness of her that she'd seen so far - and she modeled for a LOT of people. It's true, she has a unique look; what with her aquiline features and dramatically bowed lips. It was hard to capture these things without concentrated objective observation. And even though the paint surface is not what it should be, her likeness is true.
I look at this piece now, and now that I know so much more about the physical properties of oils, I can see I was very flawed in my technique here. However, it was all an important experience, and I have to thank Rachel, as she stayed with my not-quite-there-yet vision on this one. She was also a good sport in another way. Notice the leather pants hanging from the window. She showed up one day wearing these - a new purchase - and I remarked, "Look at you in your rock star pants!" She was abashed, and sought to hide her embarrassment by getting naked. That was Rachel, and that's why I had to include the pants.
For my growth as a painter, I feel that I need to re-visit this kind of painting. It's really quite difficult, and can send an artist to a new level if you can get through it. I just need the right model.

Class-ified

Two more 20 minute poses of Kelly and Caribeth, respectively.

drawing room returns this Thursday, after a week off, and I am acting monitor. I do not mind this at all, as it is vaguely reminiscent of my teaching days. And yes, I still miss those days very much. I was offered an opportunity to teach a Spring/Summer session at Sanctuary Arts, where I had taught before. Christopher, the director, told me that people were still asking abut me, even though it's been almost 2 years since I'd stopped because of my new job. I am so flattered by this - and a little sad, too, as I had to decline. Frankly, it's just too much driving. I would have had to go straight there (25 miles south) from my current job, probably have to skip dinner, and drive 50 miles home at 9:30 PM. The reason I know this wouldn't work is because I've done it before without a full time job, and it was rough. If Sanctuary was in Portland, I would surely have done it. Heck, I'd still be teaching there, period.

I also miss teaching in BFA, as well. I just loved my students. So much energy (well, some of them), and eagerness to make art the lifeblood of their existence! - it was encouraging for me, absolutely. Teaching was perhaps the only job where I really felt 100% comfortable, because I knew how to do it, somehow. I never trained as a teacher, I just tell people what I know, and if they don't get it that way, I show them. It's pretty simple, yet there were a great number of students who would come to me from other classes - students whom I did not know - and ask for my help, because they'd heard or seen the results from my students. This was kind of baffling, and I couldn't understand why or how their teachers led them astray - or, more often than not - let them do "whatever" and figure it out on their own. How could they not see that the students needed them so much? I would never, ever refuse a student help, no matter what. I may have been a little goofy with my impersonations and silly humor, but in the end, everyone knew I was serious about painting and drawing, and that I was always looking for results. The students knew this was a fair practice, because they saw that I demanded no less from my own work.

The problem with teaching was (and still is) money. I could never make enough doing it full time to support my family, and I had to take a corporate gig. Had I gone for my MFA, I would be the Chair of Illustration at NHIA in Manchester, no question. That may have been okay financially, but in hindsight, perhaps it was best I moved on when I did. And frankly, the only place where I would even consider getting an MFA is the NY Academy of Figurative Art in Manhattan. Again, with a family of 5, how could this be done? And anyway, degrees mean very little when it comes to art, with the exception of educational job positions, apparently. No one asked to see my BFA for my current job, and I work in a full-on corporate structure! All they really cared about was the work. A piece of paper for which you paid 50k (or whatever) does not a portfolio make.

I have a lot to give, and I'd love to give it. I just want there to be some livable wage involved. It seems it's too much to ask for in the medieval hierarchy of education.

Reasons For the Figure

This is Reasons For Drowning, oil on panel 14" square. I did this for the Baroque/Classical group called Initial Ascent, and it is on the CD cover of the selfsame album title.
Here, I think, is an example of how the nude can really help convey emotion. It was imperative that the dark melancholia that pervades the music of this album come across on its cover. That was my assignment. Were just the landscape and sky depicted by themselves, I think it would fall short. There would be too much room for interpretation. It would be too open-ended and vague. The nude, pronate woman nails the whole thing, however: the vulnerability, the stillness, the very fact that you are unsure if she is alive -- it is an allegory that we can connect with, because of the nature of the figure.
Too often the nude is exploited for the easy thrill/shock via sexuality. This is akin to fast food; you can taste salt and fat and sugar easily - but where is the actual food? I this instance I would ask a John Currin (use Google image search, but beware): where is the actual art? Humanity needs to be lifted up again, a la the Renaissance. That is: artists need to depict the human figure in a way that elevates it beyond the base qualities of worldly existence. This has yet to be fully explored in a 20th/21st century context. There are a bold few who have done so, but it is not enough. It should really be a new movement. Too often has the figure been denigrated, in both low and high arts. The Divine that is in the Human Spirit can be captured in art. Why are we not seeing it? We need to see it, to have hope again.

This Seat's Been Taken

All 20 minute poses from Kelly. We drew her last night, too, and she is consistently excellent.

I was a tad late last night (5 minutes), and all the easels were taken. Alex set me up on a chair configured like a drawing horse, which was wonderful of her, but I truly prefer to stand. I can't get far enough away from the drawing while sitting down. I need to sight-size as a whole in order to lay in the initial structure. It is far easier to adjust one's drawing in the early stages.

This is why I used to make all my students stand when working from life. Some of them complained quite a bit, but when I did a demonstration, they observed my pacing back and forth from the easel, observing far more than mark-making in the initial lay-in of forms. Noting the successful results of a 5 minute drawing, with all the proper marks in place, I informed them that I would not have been able to execute as quickly if I couldn't see all the forms at once. I could not play one against the other in the context of the whole. This refers not just to the model, and not just to the drawing, but to both at once. This kind of objective seeing is the foundation of sight-size.

Regular Thursday Night @ drawing room

So, here's Alexis in charcoal, done at drawing room. From the top, the poses are 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, and 20 minute poses. The two 15's are actually 10's with some touch-ups while the model was on break. Yeah, you're not really supposed to do that, but I just felt I had enough info to make some improvements.

I usually try for at least one portrait each session. It's a challenge to really capture a likeness with some quality. I am always happy when I can do that. I think I really got it in the last one - and I wouldn't say that if it didn't really capture Alexis. She's an artist herself, and I think this really helps, as she is very aware of what we, the artists, are getting from her. It's great, and I believe it leads to much higher-quality poses, better energy from the group, and a more natural flow in the drawing process.

No Present Like the Time

A little life drawing for you. This is Ida in an Eames Chair, 14"x17" charcoal on paper. This was done in Joe Begnaud's studio a while back.

Been a while since the last blog entry. I had the chance to browse a few blogs, and I realize that the most successful ones are the ones that are updated more regularly. Well, I never set out to win any awards with this thing.

So, a lot happened in the interim: I had to go to New York, as my father had to have open heart surgery, and at the same time, my brother-in-law became a first-time dad. So, the visit was kind of an emotional rollercoaster. I also got sick with an ailment that seems to have visited most of the people I know including my family, my co-workers, and basically anybody I run into on the street in Portland. I had a birthday, and I also played two league matches to start the men's 4.0 season. All those things combined served to kind of run me down so that I fell ill again, or perhaps, I relapsed from the first illness. It was only yesterday that I really started feeling like myself again.

I missed a week at Berehaven, but I'm making good progress, still. Gnomon is nearly complete, and it looks like I had envisioned it. There was a small issue of the earth tones in the shadows sinking in, but I hit the completed sections with retouch varnish, and I was able to match the adjacent areas. I actually (geek) made a little diagram to remind me what I varnished, so I can apply retouch to the rest of the piece when it is done, so that the varnish surfaces and gloss are even. I kind of forgot that this happens when you work big. It's been a while, and I'm glad I'm doing this, regardless of the time factor. I won't be working this size for a while, as most of the ideas I have are for smaller pieces.

drawing room was excellent this week, with a model I had not met yet. She was graceful like a dancer (I suspect she was a dancer), and had a lovely poise. I hit the mark a few times that night, so I was pleased. I haven't taken pictures of the drawings from that session, but I have some from other sessions. I may post them here, but I think I might hold out until I get this website thing underway. Yes, I will have a site again, finally. It's a long time coming, but the priority wasn't that high when I first started the full time job. Now that I'm back painting my own work on the side, it's time to market it a bit.

I have a big trip planned for the Spring. Details soon.