August, 2008 | Cabin Art

new understanding

Today I continued to work on the oil painting of Blossom Peak as per suggestions, instructions and corrections from the man I will refer to as CC. He is not an artist, but he has a great eye and is able to articulate. He is doing for me what I do for my students – not letting me finish until it is the best it can be. Phew! This is frustrating! I do this to my students and they PAY me for this abuse! I have been wanting a teacher for 2-1/2 years who would help me in this manner. What’s more, he is free! (his words, not mine!) So, right now, all I can say about this painting is I QUIT. Maybe. Can’t quite hear the fat lady singing yet. (NO CC, don’t go getting all bowed up! It’s just a figure of speech!)

Momentum lost

Wow, this was a learning experience once again! A day in the studio, a day of appointments and errands, a morning of errands, and poof. I looked at the mural and worked on my book. (More on that subject will be revealed in the fullness of time.) I looked at the mural and returned some phone calls. I looked at the mural and worked on an oil painting. I looked at the mural and just sat there with Zeke. I looked at the mural and thought. Good grief, what is going on here?? Finally, I made a decision to detail the rocks, because what I REALLY wanted to do was go into the studio and draw. Once I got started, I realized the light was getting a little low. Nope, this would not become another excuse, so I pressed on. Then I realized that I was missing music! My neighbor needed her boom box back, so I very guiltily carried it back over. This leaves me with an AM radio that buzzes and fuzzes. Is music that important of a motivator or is lack of it just another excuse? But here is an improvement: I set it all up again, this time in a stable position where the 2 current panels are actually touching. Why it took me so long to figure this out causes me to wonder if I am slightly simple or mentally impaired. Never mind, here, just look at the mural:

It only appears as if the panel on the left doesn’t match the ones on the right because it is sitting behind the 2 that are on the right. You can also sort of see my sketch and a few of my zillions of reference photos on the floor.

Portraits

Today I had an appointment to begin a portrait commission. This means taking photos of someone who is not accustomed to having a camera in her face. We had to laugh as I said, “I’m not a photographer and you are not a model. Shall we begin?”We took photos all around her office, looking for different types of lighting, trying different angles, and just getting used to the whole camera-in-the-face experience. It usually takes awhile for a person to relax into body language and expressions that are natural.

The next step is for me to sort through all the photos and narrow it to about 5 choices. The customer gets to see these and decide which, if any, are pleasing. Then, I order prints and begin the drawing process. My goal is always to achieve the best likeness possible.

Each drawing starts out quickly, and a person is emerges from the paper. The problem is that everyone has the same stuff on his face (with the exception of various forms of whiskers, vision correction and perhaps moles), so how do I make it look like the right person? It is quite possible to work like crazy and accidentally draw the guy’s cousin, whether or not he has one! So, after getting a human face on the paper, then I begin the laborious process of turning it into the right one.

Here is one that succeeded quite well, if I do say so myself! I followed this lovely child around her yard, and at the end of the session, she ran to this swinging chair and said, “This is my favorite place to sit!” I could tell by the delighted and delightful expression on her face! It got a bit complicated when she asked me to draw her with my cat, Zeke. So I asked a neighbor of mine to pose with Zeke, who was Not Happy about the process. Then I went through my photos of Zeke (I have a zillion or two, because I LOVE my blue-eyed boy!) and found one that worked.

Love my pencils

Today the plan was to paint the mural, after I finished the unavoidable paperwork and phonecalls. Being a bit antsy about time, I usually try to do something productive while on the phone. Drawing works well in this capacity, so I worked on a commissioned piece. All of the sudden it was 5:30 p.m.! Whoa, I love to draw!

Who am I??

I have been dinking around on a painting that supposedly was finished several months ago. This is before:

And here is after: (the color differences are due to my photographic ignorance)

It is representational of the inner war each time I paint. In my head is a cacophony of voices saying “looser, stop drawing with your paintbrush, just concentrate on color and value”. And then there is a clear voice of my own experience that says “make it right and include almost everything; treat your paintbrush as an extension of your hand and eye; paint like you draw because is is who you are”. Authenticity is always my goal in almost every thing I say and do. So why am I trying to discern voices from the cacophony? Look at that word: it has the word “phony” in it!!! Aha! There’s my answer!

Now I need to add some more detail to the trees in the foreground AND the pasture in the middle ground! Will I ever finish. . .? More will be revealed!

In which I climb back on the mural that threw me

On a new ladder, of course. My husband, who graciously didn’t say “I told you so”, said the ladder could be repaired. Right. Would you trust a repaired parachute? Anyway, when Michael came home and saw the twisted ladder flung outside, his first thought was that I had fallen off the thing and was in the hospital. (There is a minor history here. . . sigh.) So, he was relieved to learn that the mural broke the ladder rather than me! And, you will be pleased to learn that I did not curl into a fetal position under my dining table. Instead, I took myself into the studio and sat down with my pencils to begin work on a new commissioned piece. Drawing is safe. Drawing is good. Drawing is not full of surprises. Drawing doesn’t involve large panels that succumb to gravity. Here is an aside: for years I have had a couple of plastic thingies in my desk drawer. Although I have no idea what purpose they serve, they look important, so I have continued to save them and wonder why. Today the mystery was solved! As I unfolded my new ladder, I found the same kind of thingie holding the legs of the ladder from flying apart. Well! Now I can throw those old thingies away with good conscience. That’s a relief.

Take note of the different “feet” between panels #3 and #4. These will remain perpendicular to the panels and prevent another calamity. They also prevent the scooting together of 2 panels at one time, but stability seems to be taking precedence now.

Calamity Jiddle

If you are a woman born in the late 50s or early 60s, you might remember Liddle Kiddles. Very cute little dolls, maybe 3″ high, with goofy names, these toys appealed to girls like me who weren’t really into dolls. My favorite was a little cowgirl named Calamity Jiddle. Today, I am Calamity Jiddle. I was walking back to the house for something and I heard a terrible noise. I kept walking. (Brings to mind the time I was driving to work and heard a terrible noise so I turned up the stereo and kept driving. I wrecked the tire, but not the rim.) After girding the loins of my courage, I resolutely walked back to the workshop. My mural, panels #3 and #4, were on the floor. So was the ladder and the supporting screens and all the paint bowls and palette. I picked it all up, piece by piece, and the panels are okay. I set it all back up, but a little differently. (One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. I have a tendency to ignore bad things, but I am not insane. Yet.) There are no photos. It was too ugly. There is no chocolate in the house, I don’t drink, and I am too paint splattered to go to the yarn store. I might just go lie down. Perhaps the fetal position with my thumb in my mouth. Maybe even under the bed. When I have gathered myself together again, I will have to buy another ladder. (no photos of that either – it too is ugly).

The Best Source

Do you remember being given art assignments in grammar school, high school, or even college? They were generally focused on ways to use different media, and somehow we were expected to be instinctively creative enough to come up with an idea to illustrate the teacher’s vague instructions. “Show transparency” “Design a container for air” “Make a self-portrait but don’t draw your face” (as if we could draw our own faces at that point!) Those assignments instantly caused the problem of WHAT to draw or paint or sculpt. Endless thumbing through magazines provided by the teacher only occasionally solved the problem of WHAT (never mind the copyright issues!) Now, I hear similar woes from my drawing students. “Oh no, I’m almost finished and I don’t know what to draw next!” I remember that awful feeling of lostness and a blank mind. I watch them struggle through the binder of (copyrighted, but explained) photos and my own envelope of photos to find an image to draw. Part of the struggle comes from something I tell everyone who draws with me: Pick something you LOVE because you will be staring at it for a long long time. How do you pick something you love from a pile of other people’s pictures?? Other people’s pictures represent other people’s experiences. (Reminds me of one of the many things I learned from That Shirley Who Can Do Anything. When she owned a store, she would never buy a product to sell unless she had “held it, smelled it and felt it”. Pretty hard to love a view or an item if we haven’t “held it, smelled it and felt it”!) The point is that the older we get, the more we experience, and it is precisely this experience that gives us the ideas! Now that I am pushing 50 with an ever-shorter stick, the ideas are overwhelming me! Everything I see, every place I go, ideas are flooding into my brain! Nothing in my life is exempt from consideration for a drawing or painting! (The only necessary filter is the consideration whether or not anyone else will like it, because if my art doesn’t sell, I will have to get a job.)

A Good Yarn – colored pencil – SOLD

Confounded, at times

Today we did another redesign. This thing is evolving, changing daily, teaching me new lessons daily, challenging me, confounding me even! Brings to mind my Mom saying “Confound it!” This wasn’t a good thing, but now I am finding the definition to mean surprise or confuse, act against expectations, even can mean to defeat. And, the final usage is considered “dated” – to express anger or annoyance! Here are today’s lessons: 1. Wear Teva sandals when you paint. This is so that you can go outside and hose off your feet when you drop the palette on them. 2. Those little sponge “brushes” have a life span of about 8 minutes. 3. New brushes are FANTASTIC to use! 4. When you wipe a wet paintbrush on your clothing, the paint soaks through to your skin.

New Lessons in Painting

1. Did you know that sometimes the bristles of brushes come out in big chunks? yep. 2. Did you know that if you bang on a paint lid with a hammer to loosen it, sometimes it breaks? sure enough. 3. Did you know that even when you have done all the preliminary sketches, drawn your plan to scale and had it approved, that a better idea (or six) will emerge? 4. Did you know that it is very very very challenging to paint a scene for which no photograph exists? oh yeah. Definitely challenging. 5. How about this: you probably know that acrylic paints dry very fast. But did you know that when they are too dry to blend, and dry to the touch, and for all intents and purposes just plain dry that those giant clothespin-type clamps will not only stick, but REMOVE the paint??? I hate that.

You can see that panel #1 is finished (maybe) and leaning back behind #2. Panel #2 now has a small lake or pond and some rocks. Panel #3 is beginning to take shape. More will continue to be revealed!

Month: August 2008