adjustment

One painting, and it is my favorite from the 6x6 series was covered in the post, so here it is again. The backlit trees.

October in New Hampshire

I have done 8 small pieces for a Women's Caucus for Art 6"x6" show. These itsy paintings are not always as quick as they would seem. The fall colors have inspired the work with light bouncing off the leaves in a brilliant landscape. I have greatly enjoyed being outside even though the weather is mixed. I think it best just to put them up.

I have also finished a painting from a trip to Provincetown in September. I was in a marsh in the East end. The light was beautiful. The painting feels right.If I don't get it in the right position it will still be pretty clear that it is not New Hampshire.
The last one is from New Hampshire. It was a bright day because of the leaves. I like the picture I have because it is on the easel in a dark studio. The trees almost lost substance in the painting. I hesitated several times over how far I wanted to carry the painting when the colors were so ephemeral.

September already

I took a class at the Provincetown Art Museum in August with Robert Henry. The link in his name will bring you to a video about his life in art with his wife of more than 50 years. Celebrate. He called the class: the Taproot of the Imagination. Having studied with Hans Hoffman and developed a style that is spontaneous and intuitive, he was a challenging teacher for me. I enjoyed watching him walk back and forth in the studio, paint with a butcher knife or squeegee and change an area he had worked on for quite while because another idea came to mind. I will think about the concepts and approach to making art. My paintings from the class I leave behind but carry on with the ideas. He said to do what you do well. I use color well. I have started doing canvases again, and using oil bars. So here are a couple new ones.
This one is on canvas and a rough canvas at that. I used oil bars to form the lights and used a palete knife to add color and cover the canvas. I had started with an acrylic underpainting to create a composition. I do like the light at the end of the day and it is when I get out most often to paint. An advantage with this is I can work on a bigger piece without taking forever to do it. This is 18"x24".
I have a sketch of the next one. I notice it is rather blurred. In Henry's class we used a reed to draw, with sumi ink, a beginning idea. Though then we drew from our imagination, I find drawing has always helped me think through what I want to paint and this is the same. The reed pen is less precise even then other tools I have used. So you can see the effect. He used feathers too or string tied to the end of a stick. I will try that too.

This one was done on a panel. The effect of oil bars is slightly different on a panel. This was a day of bright color.

I have a few more to add here. They are in progress. I was back on the Cape in early September. I am working out two paintings from that trip. I have a couple I have done in Concord recently as well. Those are for a 6x6 show with the NHWomen's Caucus for Art. An itsy painting is an interesting design problem.

Late July

I have a couple new paintings to share. I started a book to track locations of interest or that might work to paint in. I found hidden parking lots were quite appealing. Sometimes I thought I found a great spot and when I went back, there was no place to set up an easel without being in the road or half in a swamp.
This red house was a bit of an extrapolation from the site but I like the way it perches where it is. The dark shadows gave it place. I took the picture with the painting on my studio easel.
Again, I found a great spot behind a church with a view that was no too remarkable though I like the result.
I love to walk at night. The night air, the lights from houses or the moon or streetlights and the peaceful calm that settles over the city charm me. I was out recently with my sketchbox. I carry a plastic clipboard with an inside. Inside I put my conte crayon and paper. I can use a couple pieces then store them back inside. I can take them out as I use them for a painting which makes it easier than a sketchbook. So here are two drawings from that walk. They both translated to paintings nicely though work in the studio generally take me longer to work through. I suppose without having the scene in fron of me, the problem solving is differnet and more a product of my mind. I am still wroking on the one with the cars next to the house. It may change some more.

June

The weather changes daily. I have been painting outside, most often with Dinah. Usually we find a spot around Concord . Sometimes it is hard to decide just where to paint. Decisions about where to paint are affected by whether it is a gray day or better to be left alone or we want to paint houses. Sometimes I spot a perfect location on a drive but when I return, the atmosphere has changed enough to reduce the location to uninspiring. Sometimes I want to paint without the interruption of people coming to look and ask questions. It is a curious sight still to see the easel set up. I am afraid I fill the characterization of an artist with painted pants, straw hat, french easel. Funny thing is all those things work for this particular form. One day while I was painting the corn field, an ice cream truck came by. The driver stopped when I waved for ice cream and then gave me some spots she found in her rambles that would make good locations. She said she thought it reminded her of Paris to see artists outside painting. I chuckle with delight. Yes, Paris, I think, transported. Being outside is a reward for me, but Paris is fine memories and aspirations.
My latest discoveries with paint are around setting up a background with a hue that helps me see the composition before I paint and still resides in the color after I am done. I have one more just finished but has not been through an inspection process. I like to review my work in the dark light of the studio without the grand beauty and detail of the outdoors. The collection I put here is the most recent work, or work from June.

May

Though I have not posted anything for a while, I have not been idle. Spring has finally opened the doors and it is great to be in the late afternoon sun painting. I have done a bit of traveling so I have some paintings from NY. I found it a task to account for the light change. The landscape was different as well. The buildings are big and dominate the landscape. The light was more diffuse, I think so was challenging for me to capture.
I was in the mountains and had a chance to stay by the side of the road for a while. The pleasure was interpreting a dream I had with the giants in front of me.

Another image was based on a drawing from the Saturday Morning life drawing group. I was struck by the model's fierceness and interpreted it as a warrior.
This image was with me for quite a while.







The colors are quick to change now. It was challenging to use so many bright greens and so many pale colors. I am still having trouble taking good photos, so so appear distorted. I think you can get the sense of the painting though.

Drawing

I have been attending a life drawing group on Saturdays with Dinah at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. www.nhia.edu. We pay a small fee and work quietly for several hours interpreting the poses in several different media. Some folks draw, some paint,some use a computer program. I have found drawing helps me both satisfy the need to draw and put together some poses I can interpret later. I was using a bamboo pen and washes until I ran out of some excellent paper I had that absorbed the wash but left enough moisture to blur ink as it was applied. I find the bambo pen is an extension of my arm and if I train my eyes on the model, the line I put down carries the feeling of the pose.



I draw with a calligraphy pen as well. Theses drawings have been on smaller paper, 8x11. I use a delivery man's plastic clipboard with an inside compartment. In it I can carry loose paper which I find suits my style of drawing very well. I can take the paper and use it alone without having to rip apart a spiral bound notebook. The clipboard holds the paper in the wind. The compartment protects finished drawings. I use the calligraphy pen for sketching outside as well. I also carry conte crayon which I have added to some drawings. Some of these are gesture drawings are made in one minute. Warmup work which helps one get with the feeling of the model, the underlying attitude in gesture and the way they hold their body. Some drawing I also do on large paper from Staples with a conte crayon. One of a model struck me for the fierce attitude she conveys, along with no modesty which I have worked into a painting of a warrior, or I think of it that way. It isn't quite ready for display.

Now that I ran out of the paper, which was maybe 20x 34 and was captured from a recycling bin so not easily found again, I bought some chipboard in hopes I can use it the same way. Instead I have found that oil crayons worked well for crafting an image. It is done the same way. I use a bamboo pen, study the model while my pen/arm go over the form. I have added the crayon for highlights.

Some poses have proven to be a bit stiff for further work, but may well form some library for me of images I can use as I work on pulling images together in painting.

the end of March

I have been thinking about art for many years. Recently, it has seemed to me to be an expression of wordless feelings, an exercise in freely using colors and images to convey feelings that I may not have reached otherwise. The act of making art helps me think through feelings or ideas just as writers use words to make them think through ideas. I just finished a small book called "But is it art?" by Cynthia Freeland. I am interested in theory and what is expressed by thinkers about art. I was delighted by this quote from Susan Langer "Sometimes our comprehension of a total experience is mediated by a metaphorical symbol because the experience is new, and language has words and phrases only for familiar notions.....But the symbolic presentation of subjective reality for contemplation is not only tentatively beyond the words we have;it is impossible in the essential frame of language." I am sure I would not go that far, but language often stops short of some experience or need for expression that comes only with the manipulation of paint. It is to arrive more distinctly formed once a painting is finished. So I have here the painting I mentioned of the woman in her garden.



This view of Concord was just this past week.
Painting outside is slightly different from the thoughts expressed above, although I do allow myself freedom with color, there is still a representation of light and dark and a city.




Dinah and I were out with a Plein air group a couple Sundays ago. The ice was still on the pond but it was great to be in the sun standing on it.
I have Dinah's painting of children on the ice and mine of a tree by the side.

March light

Crazy March weather in NH means a snow storm one day and fifty degrees the next. I plan to be out in the sun this afternoon with a larger group of plein-air friends. The conversation in life drawing added to our group.
I did another painting from the drawings I made but this time I decided to start with the body in green. I wasn't sure where I was going with that start until I was at a Lucinda Williams concert the other night. The vision coalesced and I now see I did not photograph the result but will add it later today. It started with the drawing in the last blog.
I finished a small painting I did from a cross country ski tour I love to make through White Farm area in Concord. Coming back, the view is across a field to a few trees. One afternoon. the late light hit the snow to create a lavender light.
I finished another small painting based on the drawings from a model. I thought her pose suggested vulnerability so I emphasized it with the color of her body. I think the painting stands on its own and uses a pose to create a poem.