My Porch

My Porch watercolor 20 x 12 Autumn is such a naturally beautiful time of year....and my heart quickens as I approach the side door of our farmhouse. Pumpkins are stunning to me....large and round and ORANGE. This work was painted from reference photos shot at a time of day where the sun played with the objects on the porch. And, yet, there is a sinister quality to this time of year with shortening days and the falling of leaves. No one did pumpkins more soulfully than Andrew Wyeth, in my opinion. The climate of his work is positively haunting. My watercolor style, too, is a bit heavier than some....perhaps that is because I am also an oil painter. I also take "heavier" watercolors more seriously....they have, to me, a more thoughtful, more layered quality that packs a punch that can be read from a distance. (Sometimes, I wish to be a lighter painter, but, I am not). The shadow area in this work was ever so important with a few hues underneath the final dark blue-green wash. The support beam on the porch is not upright and suggests, to me, my approach up the stairs. And, of course, it follows that my notion of life, in general, is more complex, more serious, weightier. And, so.....this is my porch.

Haystacks...and furrows

Haystacks   oil on canvas   8 x 24 x .5

Push and pull.   (Thank you Hans Hoffman)  What is there::what is not.  Relationships.

The quest in this work was the relationship between the haystacks themselves...and the furrows...a play between the cool and the warm.

While a completed snow-covered scene can be beautiful, it can tend towards sweetness and become a bit Hallmark-y.  The rural Pennsylvania scenes that feature both dead grasses along with pockets and dustings of snow a la Andrew Wyeth convey great power and mystery to me.  As an Ohioan, I will attest to the fact that most of the winter scenes depict these two polar opposites.  One of my current reads is The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, a French philosopher.  I am currently in my second go-through in order to absorb his thoughts that I have chosen to underline.  He speaks of the poet's mind which is

touched by the attraction of opposites, which lends dynamism to the great archetypes.

This canvas was toned with orange, which became the base for the furrow.  The process continued slowly, as I tippy-toed toward the amount of snow coverage that satisfied my visual.  In the earlier stages, the diagonal furrows were more dominant....which lead them into distraction.  I did not anticipate just how much energy this problem would require.  I am also reminded of a similar horizontal landscape by the late Jack Richard.....it remains in my mind to this day....it was spot on.

Most of the bales we see today are machine-made and coiled.  These stacks are the work of the Amish.

Drawing, Doing Dishes and Pulling Weeds

Drawing is the seed...the start of it all...the place where your love for a subject begins to express itself.  Amidst the daily chores of doing dishes and pulling weeds, I often find the search for large chunks of time for painting to be relentless and nagging.  After all, it takes me at least an hour to get into the zone, to shed the obsessions of life in hopes of arriving at the mindless freedom that painting is....at least for me.  Drawing takes less time.  Drawing requires fewer materials.  Drawing requires less commitment. Drawing can be more mindless, as imperfections and misplaced lines reside comfortably next to passages that are more truthful.  I enjoy their unfinished, unpolished, wabi-sabi qualities.  Drawing is where my soul finds peace.

Drawing is where I find the excitement and commitment to pursue the subject in paint.  Or not.

 One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.

                                                                                                                        Andrew Wyeth

One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/andrew_wyeth.html

One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/andrew_wyeth.html

Open your eyes.....or windows

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.

Fenetre   oil/canvas board   8 x 8

Alan Alda

I have always loved the spiritual quality of windows and doors. That follows my natural inclination to personify inanimate objects, such as houses and cars. What child hasn't made a face with windows and doors on house drawings? Perhaps I saw Fantasia one too many times. Whatever. In the feng shui world of harmony, windows and doors are key ingredients to creating a harmonic interplay between the indoors and out. In my painting world, I try to create harmony between the subject and its background, or counter-space, by creating "windows" or openings between them to ease those transitions. In other words, I don't much enjoy too many hard edges. Andrew Wyeth's windows make us, the viewers, into voyeurs. His windows and doors have a mystical quality. The home of first place Team Germany in this year's solar decathalon had few, if any, windows. Good for net energy. Bad for feng shui.

Today begins my annual CLEANING OF THE WINDOWS....not an easy task in this old house of 6 over 6 panes in each one. It is fulfilling, however. I like the reflective quality of clean glass during the dark season. I plan to challenge my assumptions as I work.