Easy Livin'

Easy Livin'   conte crayon on toned pastel paper   15.5 x 11.5

is a drawing that I like...completed at an expressive drawing workshop.  The reference was an old family photo that features two couples in swimsuits at a favorite lake.  Toned paper was used...quite handy as used as a mid-tone value.  Individual characteristics are downplayed, while the group gesture becomes all-important...the way in which the four figures relate to each other to support their relationships.  Negative spaces become important.  Patterns of darks were worked in a balanced way, creating a satisfactory pattern of its own, independent of the details of the reality provided.  Likewise with the whites.  This drawing was worked by using basically only three values. While likenesses and leg details were mostly suggested, I placed the emphasis on the relationships of the torsos...not the torsos themselves, but on the relationships between them.

I like this drawing very much.  It was fun to do and provides the feeling that I wished to convey in a minimal way.  Less is more

Ancestry

Union   watercolor    20 x 11

Having your DNA tested seems to be the thing these days.  My results did not yield any surprises from that which I suspected.  There is a bit of an excitement, however, in the discovery of a linkage, a past history, often disrupted by modern life and especially by the immigration of our relatives to these United States, where family tree lineage often comes to a screeching halt.  As a result of this renewed interested, we sifted through old photos to see what we actually had.

Vintage photos are wonderful to use as painting references!  The photos can be interpreted without fear of achieving exact likenesses or making Aunt Maude look 10 pounds too heavy.  I like to use them monochromatically as a study of value.  By subtracting color from the mix, one is able to fully understand the great power of value in description. 

The photo of the valiant soldier at the right was labelled on the back as "Pas Eisenhour",  from my husband's family, who fought for the Union in the Civil War from Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Three Lads

Three Lads   conte/charcoal/relief ink on paper   19 x 14

was inspired in part by a vintage photograph in our family archives which features my father-in-law Luther and two companions on a boat ride on the Hudson River sometime in the 30's.  By subtracting detail and color, the three gestural shapes are emphasized and empowered.  White values start at the top and work their way down.  Just the opposite with the darks.  Ties were printed on later using relief ink, erasers and tracing paper templates.

This drawing was begun in a workshop "Using Value to Punctuate and Strengthen Drawings and Paintings".  I joyfully finished it at home.

The Crayola Girls..jazzing up some vintage photos

The Crayola Girls   oil/canvas   40 x 30 x 1.25

A year ago, six months ago even, I would never have guessed I would be using cad yellow deep as a major color shape in a painting.  But...I do pay attention to what catches my eye visually, those little glances that give me a minor thrill.  And, in this case, it was a magazine cover that sparked the excitement.  Originally I had planned to give each of the skirts a different patterned treatment.  But the simplicity of the skirt forms won me over and I decided to wait a while on that decision.  Another prospect was to paint a dark horizontal behind the shoulder blades in order to bring up the hands resting on the middle girl's shoulders.  That, too, was considered and sent to the possibilities file.  A month later, I was still happy with the simplicity of the work.  As every artist knows, changing just one thing in a work sets up a domino effect of changes that must be made in order to make the work consistent, appropriate and balanced.  And so, this is my final answer.  "The Crayola Girls" can be seen at Hudson Fine Art and Framing.   

P.S. My Grandma Daisy is the sister on the right.

Picket Fence...the American Dream

Picket Fence   oil/canvas   40 x 30 x .75

is a notion that has been around a long while...the desire to own a safe and happy place of one's own...a place to be and a place for family.  The woman in this painting is my maternal great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Pitchford Black Kannard.  The reference photo shows her in front of a log cabin home with, yes indeed, a picket fence out front.  The children in the photo are not relatives....they are her children with her second husband.  My great-great-grandfather (her first husband) Adam Black did not return from the Civil War. She was pregnant when he went off to war.  The picket fence dream hasn't changed much.  The notion of what constitutes that dream has changed drastically however.  The average American home was 983 square feet in 1950, the year of my birth.  In 2004, that average had climbed to 2,349 square feet, an increase of 140%.  Since then we have seen the advent of garage mahals, Hummer houses, starter castles and McMansions.  It appears that we have become greedier and greedier, moving from a "being" mode to a "having" mode.  Even Don Draper in the popular series "Madmen" cannot understand his wife's serious emotional problems since he has provided her and their children with just about everything a person could want.  Being.  Having.  A continuum along which we must all declare a point.  Erich Fromm's book The Essential Fromm:  Life Between Having and Being is a good place to start.

Evolution Revolution...interpreting the past...Catch...a painting of my father

Catch   Oil/Canvas   14 x 10

Personal evolution keeps me working, keeps me interested, keeps me painting.  During the past couple of years, I found myself less interested in working from a life model with its inherent reality and emotion, which is inevitably connected to the sitter's openness and disposition.  Often, in group situations(which is economical to be sure), costumes are added for visual interest.  But those costumes were, in a sense, distancing, especially those that are historical or overly romantic.  Or especially, for me, those involving military uniforms.  And so, I have been using old family photographs as reference.  These allow me great freedom in their interpretation and a sense of connectedness that results in commitment.  My goal is to reduce the amount of given detail to fairly simple shapes, especially in the visage, in order to make that figure more universal, more approachable.  Definitely not a portrait.  "Catch" was painted from an old family photograph of my father at an early age.  The resultant joy from a young fisher-boy is, I think, timeless.  I am pleased.