Online Presence...

Angie   conte crayon   20.5 x 14

It is said that we artists need an online presence.  In fact, everyone seems to have an online presence.  It used to be business cards and brochures.  But what better way to reach a large audience for your work?  A few weeks ago, I found myself getting braver and braver in changing elements on my website.  My web mistress and longtime family friend Angie is also a full-time mom to three young sons.  I can relate.  She is busy (understatement).  Well, long story short, I wiped out the entire gallery page on my site and haven't a clue how I did it....OK, perhaps I got click-happy.  End of smug.  Tail between legs.  Desperate call to Angie....SOS.  We met last evening and discussed the possibilities of changing the site so that I won't be intimidated.  She informed me that sites and blogs and evolved enormously just in the past year.  The whole issue for me is I want to spend my precious hours painting...not spending  time managing my online presence.  I am more fearful about making changes, but need to get back in the saddle......just like painting.

Bad painting.....keep painting.  Online disaster....keep clicking.  Summon your courage, lass.

Who am I?...

Hiding Behind Curls   watercolor   10.5 x 9

We artists often struggle with self-definition.  What makes our own particular brand of picture-making our own?  As we study other painters, we wish to assimilate their virtues without copying them.  We also long for self-definition.  Very often, in my experience, we find when we are on the road to SELF when we look around and realize what we are not.  I idolized one particular painter's style until I realized that he just didn't give a damn about paint quality.  Paint quality is so important to me.  So I splintered off from this idolatry toward some other admiration.  And so on and so on.  What is left at the end of the long journey, hopefully, is what we are, what makes our own work our own....SELF.  For some, vivid colors rule.  For others, spontaneous stroke-making.  Story-telling is at the top of the list for some. For others, having a finished work that is exactly like its photograph....one could hardly tell the difference.  Others enjoy softness.  Some lots of simple hard-edged forms.  Calm.  Hyperactive texture.  The list goes on and on.  The list of design elements and principles is our list of ingredients and how we put them all together makes each and every painting recipe a bit different. 

For Christmas, I was given the complete works of Van Gogh.  This book is so heavy that I have to use a pillow on my lap for support....I simply couldn't lift it in order to have a close look.  It really is like holding a child. Van Gogh paints the same subject again and again, each different yet the same.  They are all his.

Maybe we worry too much about self-definition.  Maybe all of our paintings are valid.  I wanna be like Van Gogh......excepting that ear thing.

W.A.R.M.s my heart......

Generous   watercolor   17.75 x 12.25

Artists are barraged with requests to donate artwork.  Sometimes it is exhausting....therefore, we must be selective and truly support those organizations in which we believe.  In this "having" culture of ours, women and children are sometimes considered to be possessions(Erich Fromm To Have or to Be).  Sad but true.  Women are still abused and battered.  Also true.  The majority of students in art schools are women.  Yet the opposite remains true as far as gallery representation:  the great majority are men.  In my 1960's hippie girl days, I believed that we had reached a turning point in equality.  Not so.  Change takes a long time.  Minds are not easily educated. President Obama is still trying to legislate equal pay for women.  Evolution  grinds slowly.  We Americans love to possess things.  

Standing Rock Cultural Arts and Women's Art Recognition Movement (W.A.R.M.) is sponsoring its 9th Annual Silent Auction to benefit safer futures and the Portage County Battered Women's Shelter.  Lots of artwork to bid on.  The opening is Saturday, March 6 at 8 pm.  at the North Water Street Gallery....257 N. Water Street in Kent, Ohio.  The auction and the bidding end at 5 pm on Saturday, March 20.  Gallery Hours are Thursday-Saturdays 1-5 pm.  Call 330.673.4970 or 330.686.9800 for further information.

I think Mrs. Bryner would approve.

ah, the best laid plans...

Garden Bench   mixed/paper   20.5 x 27

We need to be flexible.  No painting ever unfolds exactly the way we see it in our minds. Sometimes there isn't even a plan. For some unknown reason, watercolorists have a difficult time adding other mediums to the mix, as transparent watercolor, the pure way to work, is considered by some to be preferable.  But sometimes the limitations of the medium snag the progress.  "Garden Bench" started as a large watercolor.  I didn't have a preconceived notion of its appearance.  But I knew that I wanted the end result to have a sun-parched, chalky feel.  At some point in its evolution, I added gouache.  That helped, but I seemed to spiral on and on without arriving.  Enter Christmas season and the painting was put away for reconsideration.  Come February, I had had it.  What did I have to lose? Pastel was added, and washed down with water and a large brush.  The resultant painting had the feel that I wanted.  I arrived.....through the back door.

Paint about what you know...

Narrow Bridge   oil/canvas   36 x 24 x 1.5

It is said that writing can best be done when you write about what you know.....the knowing.  I would like to further that notion by stating that, for me, I paint best when I paint what I know.  It is difficult to prop myself up with my easel in unfamiliar surrounds and try to tell a visual story....the story that combines the surround with the feelings that it conjures up inside me.  My feelings are inseparable from the view.  Likewise, when painting from an unfamiliar model, my results are correlate to my feelings about that model.  If he/she is someone with whom I have many positive shared experiences, the end product shows emotion and commitment.  Even a new model will yield positive results is I feel an emotional accessibility.  I have some pretty bad paintings of models who where whiny, stiff, or unable to relate some of their emotional selves.  This correlation presented itself after many years of painting.  And so, for me, for commitment, I chose subjects with which I have an emotional bond....landscapes, people or objects.  Those are the stuff of which I am willing to go the extra mile. "Narrow Bridge" is a scene that I pass several times a week....just down the street from me.  The scene may go unnoticed my many.  For me, it is home.  Pure bliss.

Love your community art center today...

October Hydrangea   watercolor   9.25 x 13.5

Community art centers are such a valuable asset to all communities.  They offer opportunities for intellectual and artistic growth, as well as providing like-minded creative people to spend time together and to learn together.  Unfortunately, the art centers are struggling and need our support....just like the artists who frequent them.  The "Faculty and Student Exhibition" is currently on exhibit in Cuyahoga Falls....that is where I teach.  Three of the artists in my Monday evening class have received awards:  Norma Ott, First Place and both Mo Mosyjowski and Candy Bennington received Honorable Mentions.  I am pleased as punch!  The faculty exhibit is not judged.  Our entries were to have been works that were done within the constructs of the classes.  Can do.  "October Hydrangea" is one of my entries.  

The Cuyahoga Valley Art Center is located on the Front Street Mall in Cuyahoga Falls.  Try something new.....browse....sign up for classes.....visit their gift shop......love your art center.

Craving Some Color...

Turkish Pitcher and Orange   watercolor   14 x 10

It is around this time of year that I have noticed my friend Jo declaring her craving for color...bright color.  We are shut in this year for long periods of time as snow has been in the forecast nearly daily for at least a month.  Cabin fever.  Just as we need extra vitamins C and sunshine D, our souls crave color for elevation, as a mood enhancer.  Norma, an artist in my class, chose to paint oranges under the theme of a "snack" painting.  Her color palette is full of vitamin C as well....citrusy brights to alleviate the boredom and the darkness.  Her painting is freshly rendered, nicely composed and believable.  So...........I guess the lesson is.

February:  eat and paint oranges....in no particular order at all.

What is harder to paint than flowers?...

White Rose Pair   watercolor   6.5 x 20

Nothing, in my opinion.  Although flowers are a popular subject matter for painters, I don't do them much at all.  First of all, I would rather have the real thing in a vase.  Secondly, they just don't provide a spark for me.  And, last, they are so darned difficult to paint.....each bloom is extremely complex in its formation, not to mention the bending of the form to and from the light source that gives it credibility.  Throw in another 8 or 9 blooms and you have a real headache....many decisions to be made as far as a focal point, leading flower actor and supporting blooms.  This week in both of my watercolor classes we will be painting flowers in honor of the love day.  Tonight's class in Kent we will be doing small 5 x 7 paintings of single blooms.....this class just started and we will be easing into larger things.  At Cuyahoga Valley Art Center next Monday, we will tackle "a bouquet that you would like to give to yourself".....a more complex problem for artists who have been painting a while.  No plastic please.  Wish us luck.

PLAN AHEA.............

D.  That is me.  Remember those signs at the turnpike gift shops that were carved with

     "PLAN AHEA

       D"?   (the D is always on the second line)

Grit   conte crayon   34.5 x 20

That is me.  That is my weakness.  No matter what size ground I am given, paper or canvas, small, large, or in-between, I am running off the borders.  My weakness shows up even when I work larger.  I tend to work all over at once, and often consider the subject matter as secondary to other rhythms, (the initial block-in losing a bit of importance) so, often, a bit of time passes before I realize that I don't have room for all of the crucial elements.....and my painting euphoria comes to a screeching halt.

So, in order to compensate for this tendency, I have become used to placing a smaller rectangle inside the real one....an "imaginary boundary" that must be obeyed.  It seems to work for me.  In fact, the pencil boundary can often be seen faintly underlying layers of paint in watercolors.  In oils, it can easily be removed on a subsequent layer.

I once did a drawing of my son Seth who is a runner.  There simply was no room left on the paper for his feet.  And I really liked the drawing.  In this case it worked for me, as the emphasis was on his upper body and face, which was in survival mode.  But this drawing was the final straw for me.....I simply must be more careful.  

PLAN AHEAD.  I guess I was attracted to that sign for a reason.

The Knowing/Unknowing...

Sylvia   watercolor/watercolor pencil   18 x 9

We artists like to think that we are always progressing....that our knowledge increases, becomes more sophisticated, more "there".  But sometimes we pull out work that is years old and are surprised at its immediacy and its power.  Always a surprise.  I believe that there is a fine line between the knowing and the unknowing.  It is always good to be in possession of more knowledge...for sure.  But the goal is to be able to move about the work with a bit of naivete and the enthusiasm that comes only from our R-brain which doesn't concern itself much with rules and formulas.  Such is the case with "Sylvia", an amazing person, and a painting from years ago that I like very very much.

Don't tell anyone, but....

Some Things are Seen More Clearly in Winter - Danseuse   oil/canvas   48 x 24 x 1.5

I am a lover of winter....the snow, the cold and the isolation.  For me, it is my most painting-productive time of year as well as a respite from feverish activity.  This season promotes introspection and the observance of quiet living.  OK.  Well.  Don't ever say it in public, as the vast majority of people seem to prefer other seasons, any other season...summer most often.  It is true that my job does not require me to leave home, so driving and perpetual bundling are not issues.  For me, things are more clearly seen in winter....the visual delights as well as the emotional dilemmas.  Bare Bones.  Less competition.  Definitely less noise.  The cardinal takes on more importance in the background of winter.  Love it.  Love it.  Love it.

End Game...

Lone Cone   watercolor   7 x 7

With watercolor, the end game is always the trickiest....I guess that it is true in all mediums.  The major difference is that in applying the darkest darks, certainty is more crucial, in that these pigments are impossible to remove, and the spoiling of the work is always a possibility.  By the time I have nearly reached a finish, I have an idea of exactly which dark I would like to use.  For me, it doesn't really matter which hue is used, as it is read as "just dark".  I guess that temperature is more important.  It is then applied sparingly (usually) to lead the eye around the picture.  Light washes of cadmium red were added to some of the bracts.  (Thanks to Tom Auld for this new word) Crucial edges become more defined.....last minute details.  More often than not, the artists who look at my work find them to be under-described more than over-. Fine by me.  When I tread across that fine line, the works just don't look like mine anymore.  Most often, we find the areas that have been less-worked to be the freshest and the most agreeable.  More spontaneous.  More calligraphic.  Yes, there will always be passages that hit the mark.  And always those that don't seem to commit.  I guess our goal might be to increase the number of those passages that do. 

more than I ever wanted to know about pinecones....Quiet Conversation..

Quiet Conversation   watercolor   9 x 13

Not really, but drawing or painting any object is really the only way to begin to understand its nature, its rhythm.  The beginning of the painting is always the most important....it sets the stage for me, the mood.  If that beginning is not loose, not rich, and doesn't offer lots of possibilities, I would sooner quit.  So, you see, the pine cone  photo from the last session is really the most important one.  It is not possible to start tight then go looser.  It is only possible to start with wild childlike enthusiasm, then gradually rein it in.

During my second session with this painting, which was at home, I continued to work on:  defining the color temperature; working towards more darks, and also towards more texture.  The temperature was a surprise (YES!) as I really did think that this painting would have a warm dominance.  But as I worked along, the cooler hues were thrilling me more, and setting off the slight warmth of the cones themselves.  Also, I continued to describe areas throughout with crisp well-defined edges that, hopefully, would aid to lead the eye around the composition.  And, there was also the relationship between the two cones on the left, one in front of the other, that needed definition by using dominance.  I am guessing that this second session was about an hour and a half.  Still feeling excited.......