The slightly corrected version from the early Sunday post.
Note: I am trying the new feature for Google + that links my blog with google plus accounts. These links have a + sign in front of them. +Oregon State University . Congratulations to +Jordan Poyer . Defensive All American.
I decided to do this watercolor of Jordan Poyer of OSU as a gift for my sister and her husband who are huge OSU fans. I was hoping to post this watercolor before the game yesterday, but I wasn't where I wanted to be with it. Then I watched in disbelief as OSU lost the +Alamo Bowl to that Texas team which shall remain unnamed. This is definitely a painting that I want to make into a slideshow (my next project today). At times I felt like I was painting a landscape on a pinhead. It started to become tedious and I had to back away several times to try to loosen it up. I'm trying not to nitpick it to death. It will never be perfect, I just want to be able to look at it (hopefully years from now) and not regret fixing something. It took me the most part of two days to get it to this point.
My impatience almost hurt me, because I started out with NO Orange on my palette. I had to mix the Orange about 300 times ( felt like it) as I went along and as you can see, this is an Orange dominated painting.
There were times where I couldn't find my little mixtures of blue for the subtle shadows. My palette started to look like a color hoarder's, with about 14 little puddles of paint mixtures hanging around the main colors
The challenge of getting a painting like this to look loose enough without being sloppy is considerable, because practically everything has to be in proper proportion. I was working in an 11" X 15" inch window. I found out that the brushes I have are not small enough for this, and I was alternating between a stiff #1 (A Grumbacher that I've had for over 20years), and 2 way-too-soft liners. That tiny Grumbacher saved me, because I had to remove paint in tiny spots several times, and nothing else I have will do that.
This is the slideshow I made to track my progress on this painting. The software didn't allow me to comment on each slide. Something I need to do to track my steps. You will notice about halfway thru I had to wipe out the face and completely overhaul the helmet angle. The funny thing is, that was a huge mistake on the most focal part of the painting. I remember not having a clear look at the detail of the face. I had to go back and magnify the face to get a better idea what I needed to do.
Not much to say here. I liked the photo my daughter took of her and her new adopted dog. The challenge was trying to get the close up view of the dog to look identifiable. A lot of pencil strokes later... In fact many more than I anticipated having to do I got the look I was after, but I might have to tinker once I study it for a bit. I just finished this and you know how it is. I'll see something that isn't right and need to go back in.
It's been bothering me that I haven't done a finished watercolor yet. I want to get that done today, but time isn't on my side.
I'm keeping this short because Chuck Close has told me to get off the computer and get to work. But I have to share this link for his words of wisdom, and yes, inspiration.
Described as the link between Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst is Jeff Koons work...vinyl toy represented in a metal sculpture.
Damien Hirst Two parrots with grotesque baby
Tracey Emins Friendship, one of the only remaining early works. She destroyed the others.
I want to start with this statement. I started this blog to show how I am developing my skills as a visual artist.
I don't necessarily care about making a statement in everything I draw or paint at this point. And that's why I include a variety of subjects here. Eventually as I move forward I will show more focus on specific topics.
First, my thanks to a real artist Candace Bohannon. She along with her husband Julio Reyes (and other fine representational artists ) has inspired me. She posted the above link because representational artists get little respect in the world of "high Art". So I began to look at the many current artists who have gained notoriety. I don't want to harp on this too long because there are enough people doing that already. So why should I even give these artists (Koons, Emin, Hirst) mention in my blog much less post pictures of their work? They certainly don't need any more exposure. I was reluctant to do so, but decided I have come this far with my "research" and people deserve to see what I am referring to. It's not that I hate everything they do, I just don't think they're true artists. Since I define visual artists as those who can paint, draw, sculpt or photograph with at least a modicum of skill and vision. In fact, well, they can't and don't.
And I guess that's the very point that they make. Art is not necessarily about skill or mastery. It's about expression. I get it. But at what point does expression become the only criteria for being widely accepted as an artist.
If you want to hear an Art critics view of this sort of art, I have the interview with Camille Paglia here too. I can't say that she's mentioned these artists directly, but these names have popped up in the conversation around the topic.
I wanted to see Tracy Emins earlier work (above) so I could possibly see how she finally came to the conclusion that putting her dirty bed on display is art.
I found Damien Hirsts painting so I could show how he paints, if in fact that is his painting and not simply one that he directed. I honestly don't know..
Jeff Koons uses expensive materials to make replicas of cheap objects. Like balloon toys. Well crafted huge and colorful.
I know this is not a complete picture, and I've only scratched the surface. I don't have enough time to do more.Again, my personal goal is to develop my skills to a degree that I feel comfortable asking people to accept what I present as art and not just an idea.
Camille Paglia describes her affinity for "Genius" George Lucas in this interview...."the long finale of Revenge of the Sith is the most powerful and the most significant work of art in any genre including literature in the last 30 years".
I'm not yet prepared to comment on that statement, but she does include statements like "...there is a Monolithic Orthodoxy (I take that to mean blind faith) that dictates in the art world that I feel is not in the best interest of art." This I can fully agree with. See the examples of art by Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Tracy Emin.
One final note. I might have mentioned before why I don't post many pictures of other artists work on my blog. I also refrain from posting photographs of the work I do. I don't like to do this because of the possible "let down" of someone seeing something I have posted, then realizing that it is either a photograph, or something I didn't do. That's why I put the statement "This is NOT my work.." in the title of this post. In fact, in my very first post here I had the photo first and my painting below it. I got a comment of "WOW" by someone not realizing the first was a photo. Then the inevitable letdown of "but the painting is really good too". I'm confident that those who hit the links to Candace and Julio will not be let down.
I've spent too much time on this days blog, so I apologize if it ends up poorly constructed, but I have no more time to correct it now.
I finally had enough success drawing/'painting my wife Lecia that I am able to post this. (of course this refers to my most recent attempts. I have actually drawn and painted her before). The first attempt was done weeks ago and is shown in the first slide. The second attempt at a watercolor is actually in my last slideshow post. So earlier this week I broke down and did a drawing of one of my favorite photos. Unfortunately it's not the candid picture I was looking for in a piece.
Tuesday:I'm not done with this one yet, but I think I need to put it away for a few days so I can figure out where I want to go with it. When I started it, I had the intention of cropping the painting to make it work, but I think that lack of focus hurt me when I went to paint it. More about this later....
And it is later: Wed. So after looking at the painting I knew that I liked the sky, but wasn't sure about the building (school) on the left. Then something struck me. I think this painting would really work if more of the sky was featured in the top half. Too much foreground and not enough back ground. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I realize the sky could have really brought this to life. Lesson noted
I seemed to have managed only one successful painting of my wife Lecia in over 2 years. I feel the need to make more of an effort. I've tried twice in the last two to three weeks with no success. I did this one about two months after I started painting again, and although it isn't very detailed, I was pretty satisfied with the likeness.
I attempted to fix the slideshow so that it wouldn't start every time you visit here or click on a link. Now the music is muted, so you have to hit the mute button to hear the music. Unfortunately this means that the musicdoes not sync with the slides. But Im working on this as well. (What did I expect for free)
An additional comment about the slideshow. I stopped taking pictures when I realized the first painting was not going to work. So I started on a new sheet of paper for the abstract. I was almost done with that when I realized I should incorporate both into the slideshow. The magic of editing or lack thereof. Both were done Saturday morning. But I was up at 3 and started at 5AM.
Gary Everest and I have been talking about meeting up for months now. It dawned on me that if I actually committed to setting a date, it probably would happen. I've admired Gary's portraits since I found him on Blogger last year. If I remember correctly, I found his blog through our mutual friend RH Carpenter, who seems to have the ability to bring many people together with her informative blog. Essentially I went to Kentucky to find an artist 15 minutes away.
I was trying to find an artist online to show Gary. Looks like I'm dozing off here.
Detail of one of Gary's paintings. I cut myself out of it, so my shoulder is visible in lower left corner.
I was up at 3 Am this morning determined to knock out a painting. So when I met up with Gary at about 11:30, I was looking pretty haggard. His work is more impressive up close, where you can see his meticulous attention to detail. Like myself, Gary will work and re work his paintings to get them right. Neither of us have the ability to just knock out a quick little piece at will. He does a great job of measuring the correct dimensions and checking to make sure they are accurate. This explains why his subjects are so recognizable. One of the most gratifying things about blogging is sharing thoughts and ideas with other like-minded artists like my friend Gary.
As for that painting I was going to knock out this morning. I will have to address that topic later. Suffice it to say it did not turn out as planned, but I did get something painted.
At this point, I knew I was in trouble, but thought there were some possibilities
In between removing and adding layers....A muddy mess at this point, so how much more damage can be done...should I give up or see if I can do some sort of magic here...I think it's move on time. But I hate failures like this.
I seriously considered avoiding the embarrassment of this disaster by just throwing this one away. Especially after visiting some of the websites of the most accomplished artists, who are beyond making the many mistakes I made in this one. In fact, my mood might change and I could decide to remove this post. So if you are one of the lucky (or unlucky, depending on how this makes you feel), this might be the shortest lived post I've ever done.
The reason I decided this morning to post, is because one can always learn from mistakes, disasters, failures. This one started out with a light Gouache wash on Bristol Plate. That would allow me to work it without killing the paper. Unfortunately it was too much white, and the mud began to show early. Nonetheless, I tried to move thru, thinking something good might emerge. In the top photo, things were starting to look okay, but it bothered me how dull, yet busy it looked. I scrubbed off all those little hilites and confusing shapes in the background, but that revealed all the flaws in the subject...it doesn't help that my enthusiasm for painting flowers is minimal at best. I hated the flower shape and tried to give it some sort of believability.
It has not even come close to that.
I am now at the point where I will have to decide whether or not to scrub the mission.
Yes it can be done...This is the successful flower I did last year..Please Read RH's commentand my reply below
A great Saturday... to echo Gary Everest. I finally got to meet Celeste Bergin and David Burbach after months of following their blogs. (Photo by David Burbach)
I live only a mile from Eastmoreland Golf Course. So when I checked Celeste's blog and discovered that she had an exhibit there with Kat Sowa, Dave McBride, and Anton Pavlenko I had to get over there and see it. I met the other artists and as an added bonus photographer David Burbach. I had a chance to talk with Celeste, David, Dave McBride and his wife. I can say that even with David Burbach's professional touch in photography, there is no substitute for seeing the paintings in person. The exhibit was appropriately named Inspirations in Paint. They inspired me to get on the ball and do my daily painting again. Donations from the show went to CASA benefiting children in the foster care system of Multnomah and Washington Counties.
Woodstock Evening. 6.5" X 8" Watercolor . SOLD
Once again it was difficult to photograph this painting without
distorting the colors. It's not this dark, but the other option made it
look too washed out and blotchy. One day I will either get a better
camera, or learn the proper way to photograph my work. If you stand
back about 30 feet you might get the overall effect. Anyway, I stopped
working on it . I think it's time to move on.
As I learn more about representing lights at night with watercolor, I
feel confident that I will one day have an approach that isn't as hit
and miss. I had a couple of moments where I thought I had ruined it,
then turned it around. Finally, I figured that I should take the lessons
learned here and move on. Though you can barely see it I liked how the reddish brown around the
foreground lights gave the slight glow needed. Pulling the tree trunks
from the dark background was useful, and adding the texture of the
ground in the left foreground was also a positive move. Letting the
trees in the top left form from the drips added one of the elements I
was looking for in a night painting. I couldn't get the foreground to
produce the same effect. I don't mind the tactile look of these types of paintngs, but I know I have to be careful where and how much I allow that to happen.
Still didn't get much of a better shot, but this shows pretty much the whole drawing.
This Blog is difficult to work with at times. I wanted to enter this
post quickly because I have to go to work. My usual process is to enter
the Title, upload the photo, go to Post Settings and attach labels for the search
engines, and then type my Blog. I will add a caption in the photo as I think about it. However, I've
noticed that when I enter a caption for the photo before I blog, It
won't allow me to exit the caption mode and type in the Composition field. That is what happened today. I had to re-post this whole thing. Now that I'm out of time, I can only say this about the actual drawing. I did this for my buddy Zach for winning the Season Championship in the Golf Club we belong to. (Sounds expensive, but its just a club that allows you to play around the NW with other golfers). It started as a sketch, but turned into a rather successful drawing. I spent some time with the shading, building layers with the 2H, HB, 2B and 4B pencils, but the paper and my patience weren't quite adequate to achieve more of a seamless, 3 dimensional quality. I will take a better photo of the drawing, and re-post this when I get a chance. Part of the drawing was cut off in my haste to get this done today.
Overall, I'm very happy with the drawing, but eventually, I want to work with Graphite and better paper to get more of what I'm after. More later...
I decided to stop here on this sketch. It became apparent that I was not going to capture the likeness entirely so it's time to move on to the next thing. I'm happy with this as it is, but somehow he looks heavier in the drawing than he really is.
I woke up early to get something done this morning. I was able to start this sketch of my friend Adlai Alexander playing guitar at one of his concerts.
First let me say that this picture is from a movie scene. I was not imposing on someones private moment. I saw this scene in Junebug, and wanted to capture the intensity of the moment. In my rush to get it on paper, I ignored the obvious compositional challenges. Had I been more deliberate I would have printed out the picture from my camera and composed it before proceeding. Instead I used the digital frame to paint from, and couldn't get my lines correct.
And now I realize that I've just confessed to taking someone Else's idea. This solves the question of whether I should try another more finished painting of this scene. If I were to succeed in bringing this to the paper it would never be completely my own. So I will probably move on and take what I learned from this. I think it works in segments but not as a cohesive piece. At least as a study. Lastly, I'm relieved that I found some time to get something done. I had to get up at 2:30 AM to do it...but I did it.
Study
By the way, I have yet to watch the entire movie, but it looked good. About an Art dealer trying to sign an eccentric painter from the south.
Detail: I pasted a photo with glaze and painted around it.
I realized today that I hadn't posted this Acrylic abstract I composed last year. I hadn't worked in acrylics for decades, so I took a little course on acrylic painting and enjoyed this little experiment to test the different textures and effects one can achieve by using the different paints and glazes available. I used about every one in this little 6 X 6. Although I was encouraged by this result, I decided to continue with my watercolor focus. I figured I shouldn't divide my focus, given the limited time I have to paint. Also, investing in a bunch of acrylic products is kind of expensive if you don't plan on spending considerable time on it. If I decide to go into acrylics, I will shift my focus primarily on that.
On the subject of focus, I find myself feeling a strong pull toward at least a few large canvas paintings. I have some general ideas in mind. It's hard to go day after day feeling that there are paintings in me that need to be done, but I don't have the time to produce them. Until that time I'll have to continue to work toward that end by choosing subjects in watercolor that will get me closer to it.
The mission of Golden Leaf Education Foundation (GLEF) is to empower
humanity by enhancing educational opportunities internationally, in
memory of genocide victims and in honor of survivors—golden leaves:
As I've stated before, my schedule at work has me thrown, and I have used this excuse far too many times when explaining why I can't muster the paint or pencil to page. I have been dabbling, but my mornings are taken up now, so I have to find some other time to paint. In the meanwhile, my eldest daughter Grace is making great strides as a member of GLEF . Golden Leaf Education Foundation aims to enhance educational opportunities internationally. http://goldenleafeducationfoundation.org/about/
This water "study" has been sitting on my table for weeks. I finally got it to the point that I thought would be okay to post. The idea was to generate a believable representation of someone in water. I got close, though, the actual picture was taken from a brochure for "Aesthetic Medicine", and was more "aesthetic" in presentation.
So....I was looking for something to post and found this OLD photo of both of my daughters in High School. Grace, second from left, and Adrianne on the far right. They were on the same 4X400 relay team in high school. I was so proud to see both of them on the same team for once. Being two years apart that was a bit of a rarity, though it did happen in other sports as well.
Yes the photo has little to do with my intentions in this post, but I found it after I wrote the following....Well it seems my ship of creative output has run aground. After a hitting a few large waves, I am attempting to right the ship and start painting again, one brush stroke at a time. Today was the first day in weeks that I actually put brush to paper. Unfortunately my camera battery is dead, and I can't post it today. The good news is that I have come up with a solution to get me back up and running. I will be doing a series of abstract watercolors on a daily basis. These may or may not be the most effective use of my ability, but they are going to be a way to get into the habit of painting again. As most artist know, you can spend forever thinking about painting a great work and never get one thing accomplished. So instead of coming up with a subject that might require more time to prepare and execute, I think it is best to first learn how to get into the habit of getting SOMETHING on paper and go from there. In fact, it's taken me longer to write this post than it did to do that first little abstract color study sitting on my desk over there. I haven't even kept up with my list of artists that I usually follow. I'm thinking this will get me going on that as well. My apologies to all of you artists who I have been following. I haven't forgotten about you.
I started this sketch weeks ago after I posted the night scene reference photo. I thought I should post it because I've found that action can give me a little kick start. I used my daughters Oil pastels for this. I found them to be cumbersome to work with because I have trouble blending them. I know I'm not using the right paper or technique, but I much prefer traditional pastels. I plan to pick some up this weekend. I don't know what happened to the huge stash of pastels I had years ago.I used to keep them in a little brief case. Must have been tossed out when we moved. That surprises me because I hate throwing out art supplies more than I hate throwing out old shoes. One might think I grew up in the depression era the way I save old crap....but I digress.
I'm still struggling to get this current project done. It has hampered my ability to paint freely because of the time constraints. The timing of this project was unfortunate, because my schedule had changed and I got very busy. Add to the fact that I haven't done a commission in a very long time and, well... maybe the expression of angst in this attempt is a reflection of my own in getting this finished. It was supposed to be a smile. Oh, and not to mention I thought I had it nailed down awhile ago and had to completely retool. I keep coming back to certain images no matter how I try.
I couldn't stand to see that last post on my blog anymore. It reminds me too much of how little I've done lately. so here's something else to look at......This is the only thing left of this painting. All of the pictures on my computer were deleted when it crashed. That didn't really bother me too much though. I have some online and backed others up before the crash. This painting was cut up to use for a gift tag I believe. Kind of a cliche painting, in fact a sample photo that comes with Windows looks a lot like this. I've been struggling to make time to paint, but mostly because I am back to my procrastinating ways and it has caught up to me. Should have more time once the taxes are done.
It's so difficult to focus on one topic when I'm busy with work. I've decided to start jotting down some of these ideas in my blog if I don't have time to paint in the morning .
I'm thinking about creating a series of night paintings. I want to get back to painting scenes that include people, even if I have to add them into a photo. I took this awhile back and will need to adjust how it is framed up since the focal point is right in the middle. The thing I enjoy about night paintings is all the ambient light and subtle colors that are there, but cannot necessarily be seen in a photo. A lot of artistic freedom can be exercised .
I wanted to move forward with my latest project. I sat down to get some paint on the paper at the very least .. What started as an exercise ended up a finished painting. I was very pleased with this result. One problem. I skipped a crucial step in the process. Working out the details with the client. Although they liked this painting, it was not the style they had in mind. Nevertheless I was happy that I was able to get a painting done. And this gives me confidence to move forward.
I had a plan to cut the 4 panel painting and make it 4 panels with a border around each I'm not sure yet if this works, so I tried it on the computer. It didn't work as a panorama, so I left it in the 4 panels. Any input on this would be appreciated before I go to cutting. This was a quick cut, and I overcropped some of the painting so it does appear smaller in the top photo. Probably wouldn't end up that cropped. Also notice I inadvertently re-arranged them. They might even look better as 4 separate paintings.
This is part of a sketch I did for the commission. I am going to be focusing on finishing this in the next week.
Some of my family might recognize the person in the reference photo.
This is an older painting that is not in my gallery. I did it for a daily painting last year. Work has me finding it hard to make a schedule for painting since I work most of the day. I'm also in the middle of concentrating on a commission. I'm pretty excited to share how that goes when it progresses. Until then I'll be pulling some from the archives, or posting sketches a little more often than in the past. At least until I get a regular schedule worked out.
This is the image that came to me in my sleep the other night. It might look frightening here, but that wasn't the case when I saw it. Most images are quick flashes, but stay with me until I am at least halfway awake moments later. I try to file them in my mind as potential paintings. It's advantageous to paint this way because I'm required to paint more through feeling than actual literal representation. I'd be very interested to hear from
anyone else who gets these visions in their sleep.
I'm not one who believes dreams have underlying meanings. I think these images are combinations of thoughts I've had and images I've seen during the day. These occur more often now that I'm painting because I view the world as one potential drawing or painting after another. However, I remember a number of times in past years when I wasn't actively painting or thinking about art when I would see images that were masterpieces (at least in my mind). At those times I woke up excited but then became disappointed that I either couldn't remember details or didn't feel confident I could actually paint them. I've since forgotten those images. I find it interesting that I woke so excited about what I had seen. That I saw them as actual paintings. They just popped into my mind at random times. I can't really explain why that happened. There have also been times when I've woken up and realized the image was not as good as I had felt it was when I was dreaming it.
Almost done with this dreamscape that appeared in my sleep last night. It was just a flash of a painting that looked like trees in the middle of a forest fire. A powerful image in my mind, and I can't quite get it on paper.
A nice little exercise nonetheless.
The close to final painting. I fiddled around with this abstract for awhile because the large yellow blob in the middle was bothering me. in some ways I think it could have been left as it was.
The first post. The image I had in mind when I started this abstract was a large yellow mass in the middle of the page, but something about it didn't feel right. I kept seeing this cartoon-ish duck in flight. That bothered me enough that I went on to change it.
The first thing I want to point out is that the two photographs taken of this painting are not of the same value. The first photo was auto-corrected and the colors really jumped out. I didn't want to misrepresent the real painting because while the colors are vibrant, they aren't that bright. So I tried to make the finished
Lutz Tavern Watercolor on Yupo: the painting as it looks now...to see what it looked like before I tinkered with it, see the link mentioned below. Hindsight is that the original was actually fine if not better in some ways.
May of 2012 the Lutz Tavern on Yupo original post I found an artist who has been very successful using Yupo for his Watercolors. This piqued my interest once again in using this water resistant paper for a water based medium. The upside to using Yupo is it's resiliency. You can lift paint with absolute ease, in fact all the
It might make no sense for me to explain why I titled this painting Un Gwen Elle and I don't want to inject specific visual suggestions, so I will just say two things in general about this painting. I accidentally snapped a photo of something , I 'm not sure what, on or near my PC , while uploading pictures to my blog the other day. The image was interesting enough that I decided to paint it. The image in the photo was mostly yellow, but I wanted to convey subtle color changes. About halfway through it began to transform into images from my subconscious, and took on a life of its own. So this is where it pretty much came to rest.
Final version of the Abstract Landscape. Although clearly it is not abstract, It started as an abstract and since I didn't use a reference photo for this painting, that, in my mind qualified it as "abstract'.
In this detail, you can see how I allowed the paint to pool to form the shapes by putting color in, then pulling them out with fresh water. There are times when I will add paint to these pools to create a shadow or highlight.
This is my final posting of the abstract landscape that I began last week. If you want to see the total process that went into making this painting, you can refer to the post titled "UPDATE: Abstract Landscape". This project inspired me to do more like this. I found it frees the hand and good things come from this somewhat free form of painting.
