Friend...a tribute....Jo McGarvey

Jo   Oil/Canvas   20 x 10 x 1.5

I believe that it was Andrew Wyeth who said that one can create from love or from hate.  It is indeed strong emotional content that makes for a good painting.  Creating from passion.  For me, anything in between just won't do.  In this case, my painting of Jo is a tribute in love for the friendship that has lasted for ever-so-many years.  Our families were fast friends.  We each had 3 boys who were stair-stepped in ages.  We holiday-ed together.  We played together.  We shared each others'  traumas as well as the triumphs in-between.  And....we cooked together.  Lots of hungry boys.  Lots of cooking.  Our paths have paralleled throughout the years and created braids of time....with some times away from and some times the returning-towards.  But the foundation is always there.  Jo is an accomplished woman and a strong woman.  We seem to be able to read each others' minds at times....the knowing that that is intuitive and yin.  And, so, this portrait is, for me, greater than the sum of its parts.  It is a tribute.  Merry Christmas, my friend.

Jo - Session 3

When I approached this painting for session 3, I was fairly certain that it would be my last.  My goals were:

* add the necklace

* add hard edges to restate my chosen rhythm around the canvas; and, if necessary, soften others

* adjust the color temperature where necessary; i.e. warming sleeve-tops of the coat.  I will admit, that I like pushing the envelope a bit away from reality and towards more exciting. 

* add highlights....for this, I used a cooled-down white using just a smudge of phthalo turquoise which is in the background and part of my original limited palette

* MOST IMPORTANTLY, I tried to avoid re-stroking areas with which I was pleased.  It serves no intent at all.  I can live with slight errors in draftspersonship more than ill-painted passages.  That is my priority. 

I am satisfied.

Jo - Session 2

Jo   Session 2

First off, my apologies for a really lousy photo.  I was impatient.  The natural light in my studio was next to nothing...a really gray day.  Shutter stayed open for way too long.  The painting has moved on since this photo....no chance for a re-do.  Anyways, session 2 was about 3-4 hours.  Because of the 3-4 day lapse since the first session, I was assured that my original strokes were solid.  My goals were simply to come in for more detail in particular junctures; to assess and correct color; and to establish viable rhythms in the work.  All the while, I try to avoid painting over passages that were exciting to me from the first session.  Things happened easily in this work which is not always the case.  I was very satisfied with the underplayed countenance.  The background color went to a darker turquoise, almost teal.  A good painting day.

Demonstration

Every now and then I agree to do a painting demonstration.  In this case, it was part of a group of Saturday art demonstrations at Summit Artspace as part of the Kaleidoscope 2011 exhibition.  My friend Jo agreed to model.  Demonstrations are difficult to do....mostly due to the fact that my intuitive painting process (done in solitude) is broken by talking and questioning.  I can actually feel the chaos that builds between my L- and R-brain as a result.  I find that my choices are not always the best in this situation.  Because Jo has been a friend for so very many years, I was at least acquainted with a color palette that I deemed to be her own.  I asked her to wear a coat that personifies her personality and has been her mainstay for a while.  So....the pose, the colors and the atmosphere of communion were her contributions.  She seemed at ease.  Her face was comfortable and giving, which I attribute to the fact that she is an actress and seemed to know just what it was that I wanted.  My own goals for the day were to relax and to make juicy, broad and expressive strokes on the canvas that broadly interpreted what I was taking in.  The audience was wonderful....the questions well-informed and thoughtful.  I was pleased with the image at the end of the session which lasted 2 hours.  I knew that it was something that I could build on later.

Jo   oil/canvas   20 x 10 x 1.5

Figure Drawing...using a horizontal format...Ethereal

Ethereal   Charcoal/Pastel   5.25 x 17.5

For the last session of our drawing class, we elected to draw the figure.  The art teacher whose room we borrow at night was happy to recommend a high school art student willing to pose and make a few Christmas dollars.  Yeah!  Maggie was athletic, long and lean.  She was able to relax well for us in this extremely horizontal pose.  Results can be seen in the accompanying slide show.  I felt that we all did well as far as simple shapes and proportions.  There were a few angles(especially for the pillowed head) that were slightly off.  Judging angles visually is difficult but can be aided by using one's pencil at arm's length to find it and replicate it on the paper.  An angle that is off just a smidgen causes the head to lose its state of relaxation and appear to be full of tension, as if getting up.  Once figure drawing is mastered, an artist will be able to use photos for reference without point to point copying without anatomical understanding thereof.  Another problematic area occurred for those whose perspective involved the foreshortening of the head area.  I recommended treating this head and shoulders area as a shallow bowl, with a losing of edges and slight shadowing in the middle with the more complete rendering around the diameter where most of the light would appear.  A difficult, but interesting illusion.

For me, nothing is more rewarding than the curves of the human figure.

Test for Doneness...

Ella   Watercolor   18.5 x 12

The other day I met an old friend for wine at a local vineyard.   She is a professional cookie baker.  We were discussing the finer points thereof when she expressed her preference for cookies that are baked JUST BEFORE browning.  I have always preferred those with a golden color....probably baked a minute or two longer.  That very evening at critique, there were two amazing works on view whose makers expressed that they were "in progress".  Whoa.  I so loved them both as they were.  Michael Nevin paints street scenes, especially Chicago street scenes.  In this case the pencil drawing was revealed....some of the buildings and windows were painted in.  The pencil marks playing with the paint was invigorating to me!  Undercooked perhaps to him.  Barbara Krans Jenkins paints with colored pencil on dried gourds.  She has a fine eye and usually renders small flowers and birds on them.  When finished, one would be hard pressed to know that they are gourds....they are ceramic in nature.  In this case, she was asked to paint abstractly on the gourd using certain colors.  It seemed that this was a bit out of her comfort zone.  She had erased some masses of color thinking that they were mistaken.  The bits of color that had settled into crevices was wonderful....it was there but wasn't.  There was a good deal of rendering on part of the gourd which meandered into the halfway places.  Superb.  I would have considered it a fait accompli.  Again, she considered it undercooked.  Which just shows to go ya that every maker-of-things has a personal aesthetic that takes them along the artistic path and lets them off at different exits.  I feel that there are artists and people of all kinds who carry things too far just because they feel they are doing a good job.  If a little if good, then a lot must be great.  Not always.  An undercooked work allows the viewer to participate in the work....he/she is therefore engaged in the work as well.  The rule of 3's.  That which has been left undone.  That in which there is space to grow.

There are two images here of Ella, a high school art student who modeled for our watercolor class.  I later took the painting to completion at home.  But in this work in particular, I so missed the rawness of the work at the end of the live session.  This lesson will suit me well.

And as for cookies.....they rule.  Undercooked.  Slightly golden.  Whatever.  Joyful participation.