Breakthrough

I've been working on this portrait of Eric for awhile.  I don't have a lot of time at one sitting but I have managed to put in about about 20 hours already.  The thing I loved about this sitting was the warm lighting on his face and the cool tones on his chest.... his skin looked almost translucent.  I wanted to find a way to replicate that.

The live sitting was a nice study (see earlier blog.) But the photo that I took of the session was beautiful and moody and dark and really inspired me to do another painting working from the photo.  I uploaded the images from my camera, tweaked them in PS, and then printed a couple out.  I'm ALWAYS disappointed in the results of the printer.  But I thought that with the original study and the images together I could get close to what I wanted. 

Then I got a brilliant idea.  I got my hands on our old PC and hooked it up on the table beside my easel with the monitor sitting on top of it and began paint off the monitor.  What a delight!  I opened a couple of photos from the session and now I can push and pull the values, zoom in and out as much as I want, and tweak the hue if needed.  Wish I had done this before.  It is fabulous.

Over the last year I have really gotten bold with mixing the skin tones.  Today I woke up from a nap with the idea of mixing raw ochre with dioxyzine purple for the skin tones.  That really started adding some life likeness to the build up. Also I have been using Liquin as a medium and absolutely learning to love it.  It makes the paints really move a lot but dries overnight so I build layers quickly. 

I'm also really happy to be learning how to paint at the drop of a hat.  I really don't have a lot of concentrated time to paint and the most time consuming part of oil painting is laying out the palette and cleaning it up.  And I don't care what system is advertised: they don't keep paints wet for long.  So I've got a nice little cigar box with a tight fit and a brass clasp that I fitted a pane of glass for.  I lay out my paints in there but mix them on a bigger pallette.  But when I'm ready to paint I pop open my homemade pochade and paint as little or as long as I like and then snap it shut when I'm done.  I still have to scrape down my bigger palette but that's not a problem.  Like a plein air painter, ready to go at the moment's notice.  Hope you like it.  More soon.

A New Direction

A blog a day, a painting a day, something done intentionally each day to bring myself into correct alignment.  I know it won't happen everyday but if good intentions mean anything....

Six weeks ago we drove to Alabama and loaded up my parents and brought them to live with us here. It has gone well, better than I could have ever expected.  They are healthy and happy and are settling into their new lifestyle in a our home.

It has increased the work load for me but it has also made me more intentional about the time that I have. It's also teaching me flexibility, to switch modes quickly and without frustration (okay, I'm working on that.)

So I have a few minutes each week to paint but a few is better than none.  I vow to make the most of the time, to grab little snatches of time and to rejoice in them!

(This is a study done from live model in one session with a short follow up the next day.)

Brush Strokes

The view from the kitchen window is a canopy of fragile autumn light. The redbud closest to the house is a deep vibrant yellow. The leaves of the ash are yellow underneath but garnet on top. The red maple that towers over both is in transition from deepest green to fiery red. I looked out yesterday as the wind ripped away a hundred ash leaves and tossed them to the sky. I wanted to cry out at the wastefulness, to slow down the destruction, so that I might savor it at my leisure. It's as if some marvelous painter, after a frenzy of beautiful bravura brush strokes, threw down his brush and tore the canvas to shreds and let the wind carry it all away. Nature says, I've done my work for the season, I've adorned my trees in their finest, for my own glory, and now I am tired and will take my rest.

I have never comprehended the radiance that emanates from the dying leaves. It appears not to be reflected light but generated from within. Particularly on a cloudy day, each leaf shines brilliantly as if a tiny solar system cycled around it, irradiated by its golden glow. I do not want to let it pass without celebration, this fleeting moment between autumn and winter, seconds before the wind ravishes the leaves and tosses them carelessly to the sky. I want to hold onto the leaves, pressing them into my mind, painting them with thick chiaroscuro strokes of pure pigment. If I turn my head, if I look away in busiedness, I may miss it, this dying of a million suns.

Nothing is wasted by the loss of leaves, but rather they are speedily dispatched to be shared by the ecosystem of which they are an integral part. I know all about the leaves turning to sugar and falling to the ground to be used as compost to nourish the soil. I'm a gardener, after all, and comprehend the overall genius of the master plan. But nothing makes me more sentimental.

I do not willingly allow the past to be flung away in gusts of time. I yearn for past autumns when my children walked down the street carpeted with leaves, backpacks flung over a shoulder, books curled in an arm. The light is suspended in tiny fluttering suns above them, around them, and below. Yet in my memory they are always walking away from me, always going towards some thing, some where, some one else. It is a selfish longing, to hold onto leaves, children, the past. They go the way they are meant to by the master gardener. Only in trying to grasp the present do we lose it. Let them be swept up into the azure sky, trusting that they will flutter down gently to be used mightily in another time and place.

Creative Energy

I've been on hiatus. I decided to express my feelings of frustration and anger and even rage by painting them rather than writing in this journal. Perhaps it's because these emotions were unspeakably dark and I was afraid. Or maybe I just didn't want to dilute the passion by pouring it into too many vessels. I chose to paint.

I'm constrained after all, by the fact that my family and friends read this. Of course, I could write in secret, lock it with a key, "Dear Diary", and all that. However, constraints are not necessarily bad. They provide a framework, a metered verse, a haiku, into which I must form an economy of ideas and words.

But more than this, I needed to push away from the safety of the shoreline in my painting. Looking over the progression of my work this year I see growth, change and some success. But mostly I detect a change in direction from the painting of safe, pretty pictures to bolder statements of vulnerability and exposure. For that I needed to mine raw emotional materials that had not been codifed and cauterized through writing.

Of course, I am aware that I've just written about not writing and... I'm still writing... and I hope this hasn't siphoned off the energy needed for my next painting.

Artist's Block

I can't do anything. It feels like not being able to feed myself or forgetting how to walk. It's awful. I laid out my pallet, loaded up a brush with paint and brought it to the canvas and nothing happened. No shading, no contour, no values: just paint. I manipulated clay and it never became an arm or a nose or anything other than mud. My hands have betrayed me, my eyes do not see. I am bereft.

I question everything. Why do I bother? What does it all matter? Who cares if I make art? My art doesn't measure up anyway. I think I'll throw my paintings in the garbage or burn them. Smash my sculpture and stomp on it.

It fills me with despair. I blame myself, my husband, my bank account, my students, everything. What is wrong?

Am I tired? Am I empty? Have I given all and left nothing for myself? Have I failed to nourish my body, my spirit, my mind? Do I need to sleep? Walk? Play with the dogs? Swing on the hammock?

I'm going home now. I'm going to take a nap and sip a beer and swing on the swing and call my momma and play with the dogs and wish Isaac a happy birthday and watch a Woody Allen movie and sleep late in the morning and go to church and spend the rest of the weekend praising God for all his many many gifts. And maybe next week try it again.

Various Likenessess

Someone once said that the only perfect painting is the one that hasn't been started yet. With every stroke of paint the possibilities become increasingly limited by one's level of skill and vision. Painting portraits runs an even greater risk for failure. For me, nothing else comes close to the feeling I get when I finish a portrait and it still looks like the person it started out to be. But if it doesn't capture the likeness of my subject, my incompetence is exposed for any and all to see. Who would choose such a path? Who would want to expose themselves in such a vulnerable way? "Here's my belly! Plunge your knives of criticism right here!"

However, there is something blissful that happens when I step back and observe that one correct stroke of paint. I walk away, turning to see the painting from another vantage point. A bubble rises, like hope, all the way from my toes to the top of my head. Then, with joy shooting out of me like sunbeams, I reel around the studio, dancing with the dogs, laughing out loud and crying prayers of thankfulness.

Knowing that these moments will come make all the other times worth the struggle. That's why I paint.