Facing the Wall

Jane Wilson, Restless Sky at Dusk, 2009, DC Moore Gallery

I am spending a lot more time seeing art in my mind's eye than I am actually making it. Part of my getting stuck comes from the disconnect between my mind art and the art that I produce.


If only Steve Jobs would invent the "from the mind to the canvas" app, the wrestling match between my mind and my canvas would be over.


I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day about a landscape painter, Jane Wilson. And this quote made me laugh (in a good way.) "You get stuck. You don't know what the hell is gong on. You get mad at the paining so you turn its face to the wall. And then one day you turn it around and you think 'oh, I know what's wrong. And why couldn't I see it before? ' But I couldn't see it before. So I proceed from there."


An 86 year old woman who is still arguing with her art! I think I love her. 

Fun with Landscapes

While my own painting has become a torturous affair, it was fun to read about Wayne Thiebaud and see his paintings. Especially this one. Much as I try, I have lost the ability to talk about art in any meaningful, intellectual way. Know what I love about this painting? The giggle inducing, roller coaster ride of the swoop and sway of the lines and the way the electric-ey purple color hugs the green.  Don't you just want to lay your cheek up against those two colors and feel the vibration? And then the way  that sharp vee of cool/hot green, purple and blue rise up to just tip touch the yellow. Delicious painting (no pun or play on all those cupcakes of his.)

For the smarter art analysis, go here. 

Green Daze

I don't even like working with the color green, so how did I get mired in this green hazey-mazey painting? Hmmm, could it be that I haven't changed the water yet, so I am rinsing my brushes and thinning my colors with  mucky green sludge? 

Yes, this is that electric colored painting, Sterling. Poor painting- death by muddy colors. 

Maybe the cooler fall weather will blow the cobwebs from my brain, the muck from my brushes and who knows- maybe a few months worth of old paint off my palette. 

Inspiration (or lack thereof)

Another beautiful thing about these water soluble paints- I can leave the studio for 6 weeks and the brushes can survive my neglect and disinterest.

No excuse for my  painting disconnect or maybe a million excuses- too hot, too distracted. Too much head scratching over art, maybe. Too little focus and a core boredom with my art, maybe. Maybe I can't answer the "why do this"puzzle. 

Stuffing a mattress indeed.

 Or  maybe it's cause I'm just not a  big, brawny, hard drinkin druggin guy, like Dan Colen. Those guys always have the most fun. 

Maybe inspiration, that unruly dog, will come sniffing back before the water dries. 

Sasha

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Oil on canvas. 

I have never been comfortable with watercolors, but I find myself using these new oils as though they are watercolors. I may leave this painting just he way it is-water color like transparencies and all.

Sterling

Oil on canvas. The colors are a little too electric right now,  but I like the geometry of it. 

I'm getting swept away by those cobalts, veridians and cad yellows. (What am I,  David Hockney?) I love the swoop-ey line across the mid section.

Edinburgh

Oil on canvas.

I can't help myself.

Skye 2

Oil on board. Slowly layering on color.

Saturday Sketch

Charcoal doodle of Sasha.

Matisse

Henri Matisse, Young Girl in White on a Red Background, 1944, Private Collection

Still thinking about Matisse; his stripped down  use of line and color, the "just do it" bravado of a painting like this. (See this painting in better detail here.)

Freedom and Hope

So here I am, trying bravely to get used to these water soluble oils and I come across this in the book I am reading. The author is describing the primary character's feelings as he walks into the art studio after dark:

"He loved the quiet, the sense that he was safe is some embryonic way, and he loved the exotic smells of the turpentine and the paints, which forever would fill him with a sense of freedom and hope." From Lisa Grunwald's "The Irresistible Henry House". 

Sigh. These new oils, they are easier on the environment and on me, but I doubt anyone will ever get that Proustian moment from them. Last complaining post about them, though.  I think I am painting more because of them and I am beginning to think that it is the act of painting, not the smell of the materials, that fills me with that sense of freedom and hope. 

Wondering Glee

 

Henri Matisse, Olga Merson, 1911, Museum of Fine Arts Houston

 It seems that I only read Peter Schjeldahl once a year.  Or maybe he only strikes a chord once a year. Or maybe I am so distracted I only remember what I read once a year.

In any case, in the 26 July New Yorker he reviews the Matisse show at MOMA. It's a good review but this is the best sentence: "I'm just in a mood- enhanced now, by the thought of the inexplicable inchoately thrilling arc of black paint that slashes Matisse's "Portrait of Olga Merson" (1911) from chin to left thigh- to insist on a hierarchy of sensations that favor the experience of being tripped cleanly out of ourselves and into wondering glee." 

How great is that? " trip us out of ourselves and into wondering glee."

Sterling

Water soluble oil on canvas. I guess it is time to stop complaining about these paints.

Dogscape

What a funny style this is for me.

Skye 2

Water soluble oil on clayboard. The clayboard really soaks up the paint- I probably should gesso before I start painting seriously.This is a small sketch, landscape, not sure if I am interested enough in the geometry to keep at it.

Fling

This is not one of my dogs, but a dog from one of Beanie's and my favorite sites, 

Secret Schnoodle. They are not boys we know, but we are big fans.

A good thing about water-oils is that they make it easier to sketch- no big clean up involved, no ventilation required. It's easier to fool around, makes painting feel like less of a commitment and more of a fling.

Fling. Catch it?

Clayboard Landscape

 
I love working on Clayboard.(I feel as though somewhere in my past I actually learned how to make my own, but it involved lots of lead grinding and maybe even a dead bunny skin or two. Or maybe I am misremembering.) Anyway, small clayboard 5 x 5, my favorite theme, that Edinburgh landscape again.

Did I mention my great love of De Stael?

 

Nicolas De Stael, Rue Gauguet, 1949, Museum of Fine Ats, Boston

Oil on Plywood. No kidding - I didn't realize it til now.

Smocked

 
I have learned to accept the fact that I am a paint slob. I have tried it all- aprons, men's shirts- and don't like anything. Too hot, too much time to get on and off, no pockets -  so I always go back to wiping my hands on my shirt and then cursing myself for the mess.

But while shopping in my favorite store  I found this- a cooks jacket for $5. Who knew the painting smock of my dreams could be found at Odd Lot?

Man in Cove

 
Begrudging acceptance of water based oils. Small, 8 x 10 maybe? Dog in landscape -  my two favorite subjects combined. A style so unlike me I wonder how long it will take before I scrape it away.


The plus of water based oils- clean up is  easy and there is zero toxic smell. I like the Holbein more than the Winsor Newton- consistency is better and color seems more authentic. Down side? Ungodly expensive, unusual color names and everything on the tube is written in Japanese. 

First Wash

 
My first attempt at painting with water based oils. I used Winsor Newton water soluble oils. I hate them.

Ok, I need to give this a chance. It is great to clean brushes in water and there is no odor. But the texture, the colors, the "paint-iness" of the paints- I don't know, it's all lacking somehow. On the bright side, they don't have the plastic quality of acrylics.


I went to Utrecht's to whine and left with some Holbein paints. The heavily pierced young man assured me that I will like them more than the Winsor Newton paints ( the worst, he agreed.) He tells me "green" art materials are becoming more popular and are bound to get better.

Green art materials. Maybe I should switch to photography.

The Air of Art

I love the smell of turpentine. It has the same effect on me that cinnamon and apples has on other people. One whiff and I can feel  those chemicals releasing relaxation, calm and focusing in my brain.

But much as I love it,  I have to face the fact that turp is a toxin . For me and the environment. Reed Kay was right. The air of art is poisoned. 

So I am saying goodbye to turpentine and pure oil paints.

I have done this before and the break up is never pretty. I am cranky, dissatisfied and pissy.

Tango

This dog portrait is so much larger than what I am used to; it feels funny painting on this scale. (Not that big- 18 x24 maybe? but big for me) I am using such dirty, scrappy paint for this. I think I will do this dog a favor and scrape my palette clean, give her some fresh paints.

Edinburgh

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the studio. New canvas, new size, same old oils (though I am trying a  non-flammable, low odor paint thinner to replace my beloved but toxic, stinky and highly flammable  turpentine.)

I can't quite reconcile the visual memory of this place-  the roads, the quilted landscape -with painting it. 

Though I don't really like it,  I am feeling a little Milton Avery-ish with this first wash. Each painting seems to be a little art history tour for me, lately.  Forget the seven faces of eve, I am the 200 chapters of Jansens.

Tango

Goodbye to Edinburgh (for good.) Hello to Tango (for maybe). Oil on canvas and much bigger than my usual dog portrait. Early, early stages (can you see Edinburgh peeking through?)

Just kids

Just finished Patti Smith's "Just Kids". Just in time for one of my own kid's graduation. This time / space thing has me stumped.

Patti certainly had a lot of cosmic convergences in the 70s. After reading the book I thought Patti lived in somebody's new york...but not mine.

natura morta

Ever since I pulled out this vase I have been thinking about Morandi. (And those handmaiden sisters of his.) So I had to take a shot, even if it was only a 2 minute quickie. Thank god my palette is always full of half dried paint- a little turp and you're good to go.

I don't think I will be going back to natura morta anytime soon. No patience, no inclination, no handmaiden sisters making sure the world turns while I sit in my studio and stare. But even though I can't do it, I do love the muted stillness of Morandi.

 Giorgio Morandi, Natura Morta (Still Life), 1964, Museo Morandi

9

Habit of seeing

 

 It has probably been 20 years since I looked at something and tried to draw it. I think I have lost the habit of seeing a thing in space. I did enjoy the feeling of charcoal against rag paper, though.

Conflict and Tinkering

                                          Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape, 1963, SFMOMA

"The strength, and the curiosity, of his work also involves the contradiction inherent in the idea that indecision, conflict and tinkering could become the essence of such sensuous and seductive painting."

Thinking about David Park leads me right back to Diebenkorn. (The above quote is from Michael Kimmelman's NYT obit. It is a  wonderful, insightful art appraisal -cum-obit.)

Conflict and tinkering and art. 

Angelina

I am having fun with this pretty girl. She may be done. I'll look at her in a few days and decide. I like the wishy-washy paint.

Poppy

 

Can you tell,  the garden is blooming. Art and life do tangle, don't they? To experience one is to be reminded of the other. 

 

Georgia O'Keeffe, Red Poppy, 1927, O'Keeffe Museum

O'Keeffe, so cannibalized by consumerism that she borders on the cliche. But I can't look at a red poppy without seeing hers.