“Departure” – Simplicity of value and color

'Departure' Oil on Kraft Paper

‘Departure’ measures 48″ x 36″, painted in oils on Kraft paper cut from a giant roll and tacked to the wall.  Painted in 2007, it was the first of a series of seven large oils on Kraft. (Link to earlier blog entries featuring two more paintings in the series.) The palette is simple: cadmium yellow pale, cadmium red light, ivory black and a mix of permalba white with a touch of cadmium yellow pale and a touch of cadmium red light.  The only mixed color is the white, the others are used straight from the tube.

I had become frustrated with the haphazardness of my watercolor method, that of throwing paint onto the surface, layer after layer, waiting and watching for the suggestion of an image to be triggered in my mind.  This method often led to hours of patient layering only to carry the large watercolor paper down the stairs to the work sink to be washed off for a new beginning.  It was painful watching the expensive pigments running off the paper and down the drain. I needed a change.  Time to switch back to oils.

Having the cost of materials on my mind, using a large, costly canvas to sooth my frustration didn’t seem like a good idea.  I needed a break in my routine.  While painting for gallery exhibits my normal attitude of playfulness had been replaced by an attitude of overly cautious work.  The large roll of kraft paper used for dust covers on framed pieces beckoned from the corner of my studio, a perfect solution.

Another consideration as I tacked the paper on the wall, was allowing something from my own life to spill out onto the canvas.  Too many of the abstract watercolor figures were not connected with my personal history, they were simply energetic, playful abstractions in which the human figure emerged as a recognizable element.  I felt it was time to allow my own stories to surface from wherever they might be hiding.  I still wanted to work intuitively.  I did not want to begin with a preconceived idea of the story to be told.

Beginning with orbs felt like the right thing to do since orbs have always tapped into something unconscious within me. (Link to sample of orbs paintings.) I also wanted to allow figures to impose themselves if that happened at any point.  Spheres often become ovoids and can lead to figures.  That is exactly what happened during the drawing stage of  ‘Departure’.

Getting back to an analysis of the simplicity of value and color, there are only four values in the painting.  The white mixture works as the lightest value.  Cadmium yellow pale brushed thinly over the paper so that the color of the kraft paper tones it to a more neutral hue acts as the lighter mid-value.  Cadmium red light painted more opaquely acts as the darker mid-value.  Ivory black works as the darkest value. Each shape is varied and strong.  The shapes in the two lightest values (white and yellow) fit together well, creating a unified shape juxtaposed against the unified plane of the two darker valued shapes, the red and the black.

What I find most interesting about this painting is that I had no idea of the story I was telling until the painting was complete.  This rarely happens and I consider it a gift.  Had I intended to tell the story of my mother’s death bed, I would not have been able to constrain my tendency towards realism and the impact would have been compromised.  Finding that balance between realism and abstraction is always a challenge for me.

 

Evaluating Older Paintings

Eric Ortega, Oil on Paper

When the landscape and everyday objects around me begin to look different in a measurable way, I know I am on a new plateau, one that I’ve been working steadily to reach.  I am finally beginning to reap the rewards of a recent return to the study of color and value scales.  Knowing that my surrounding are now looking different, I evaluated older paintings to see if I can understand why I am either pleased or displeased with them.

The portrait of Eric Ortega continues to be one of my favorite paintings in spite of the fact that it falls into the realm of realism.  In fact, it hangs on the wall, rather than filed away on a storage shelf in the basement.  Until recently, I have not understood why I continue to enjoy viewing this painting.

The shapes are varied in both size and contour (straight, curved, jagged).  There is a clear delineation between color values of light, medium and dark.  The subordinate values within each of these ranges stay within the appropriate limits of the range.  For example, the darks in Eric’s pants are still lighter than the mid-value of his arms and face which fall into the medium value range of the entire painting.  The darks in his flesh are still much lighter than the mid or dark values in his hair, shirt, shadow or floor.

The dark values in the entire painting connect in one way or another.  The lights and mid-tones in the painting also connect, allowing the eye to move freely throughout the painting from one shape to another.  This supports the feeling of Eric’s dance movements.  He does not appear to be frozen in space like a cut-out against the floor and wall.

Warm colors and cool colors play against each other adding to the sense of form and dimension, creating the depth of the space Eric moves through.

As I review more of my completed paintings, I am creating another pile of paintings to be sanded down and painted over.  About ten percent find their way back onto the storage shelves.  I find it refreshing that I can let go of so many canvases and feel good about it.

 

Color Value and Temperature

Exercise 3

Exercise #3: Color Value and Temperature has been posted.  Visit the Creative Color Blog.

Direct Link to Exercise #3

Link to Creative Color Blog

 

Creative Color Study #2

Creative Color Study #2 has now been posted on the workshop blog.

Link to Exercise #2 on Creative Color blog

 

Unexpected Delay

The sun had not yet risen on Monday morning as I packed the climbing gear into the box for mailing.  Suddenly the lights went out and I heard Tom cursing from the kitchen above me.  I thought it a bit excessive since we often lose electricity during stormy weather.  The wind was blowing strongly and it had been raining all through the night.

It turned out that Tom’s reaction was in response to the sight of our large storage shelter being lifted and airborne by a powerful gust of wind.  Only one of the four corner stakes held, tethering it from flying into the road.  As it flipped over, it took down the wires that run to our house, electric, phone and internet.  The wires lay lifeless across the cars.  Fortunately the tent missed hitting the cars and the house.

Ironically, while we were stranded in our house, not knowing if the wires across the cars were live or not, my father and Jane were stranded in Machu Picchu!  The next day they were fortunate to be flown by helicopter from Machu Picchu to Cuzco, where they gathered their luggage and continued their journey.

The bit of yellow in the photo above is my slicker.  We had to weather the storm and cut the shelter canvas away from the metal supports so that it would not become airborne again, flying into the road and surprising a driver.  The weight of the frame and canvas is not slight.  It took five of us to drag the shelter out of the driveway once we pulled out the last stake.

I am always in awe of the strength of nature.

 

Turning the page

Climbing harness, chalk bag and EBs

Tomorrow morning I will place my climbing harness, chalk bag, locking caribiner and EBs into a box and ship these precious parts of me to my daughter Alexis.  When I first set eyes upon her father, all of these items moved with my breath and were drenched in my sweat.  My brother and I were working our way across the country climbing cliffs and jumping off of roofs.  At the time I met Michael, my brother and I were in Boulder, Colorado.  These items have known the great outdoors, never having been in a climbing gym.  Time have changed.  I am older now, too old to tackle the 5.10 climbs I once proudly checked off in my journal.

I hesitated, not wanting to admit that I’m not strong anymore and the chances of ever doing five fingertip pull-ups on the molding trim of a doorway are next to nil.  A smile begins in my heart and works its way to my face.  My goals are different now.  I want to be a better painter.  I run five miles at the gym each morning and practice yoga so that I can carry my paints through a wilderness or across the seas to a foreign land.  I want to express my impressions of the world in paint.  When I was a climber, my time was devoted to making money to travel and working out, morning, noon and night.  Occasionally, I painted.

Another distraction that I was dedicated to was playing the flute and then the fiddle.  Then there was honky-tonk piano and blues guitar.  Oh yes… and clogging.  A huge distraction was making handmade note cards and captured-digigraph collages of natural objects.  I loved every minute of all those distractions.

I will send the package off to Alexis with a sense of relief that I have let go of one more collection of “things” that clutter my life because of the stories I have attached to them.  The climbing gear does not have to hang in my studio for me to be warmed by the memories of the adventures they shared with me.  My hope is that they will help Alexis be safe while on her own adventures.  They will carry with them my love for her and the memories of the good times I had with her father.

P.S.  The truth is that Michael and I met in a parking lot in New Paltz, New York several months earlier, but neither he nor I remembered that meeting until much later in our relationship.  That detail wouldn’t have worked into my story very well, so I conveniently forgot it at the time of the telling.

 

Connections between art and poetry

The New Evolution - Oil on Kraft Paper

I awoke to find an email from Oriana Pickmann, a writer born in Peru and now living in Norway.  She wrote to me to ask permission to use my paintings to illustrate her words on several of her blogs, all written in Spanish.  I visited the blogs and gave her permission to use whichever paintings she thought appropriate to complement her words.

After a bit of frustration looking for an easy way to translate the words that were paired with my images I found a wonderful site that translates entire paragraphs, not just words. I’m sure the meaning is not quite what Oriana has intended, but at least I have an idea of what my images have evoked through her eyes.

For me, these occasional intercontinental connections that are possible in today’s world of the internet are more exciting than a gallery exhibition.  I usually don’t have any idea at all of the connections being made by the people visiting the gallery.

Here are links to two of the blogs where Oriana has posted my paintings:

http://quimicamenteimpuro.blogspot.com/2010_01_24_archive.html

http://asipasacuandosucede-op.blogspot.com/2010/01/emociones.html

And this is the link to the site that translates entire paragraphs from Spanish into English: http://www.studyspanish.com/translator.htm

A bit later …… Oriana just emailed me a link to another website that translates many languages… GoogleTranslate.com .  When I downloaded Babylon Free Translating Software it changed all my settings so I uninstalled it.  The two online translating websites work quite well without fouling up your computer.

 

Eggplant and Bananas

Eggplant and Bananas - three variations - Watercolor Sketch

After two terribly overworked sketches of my Parker 21 in the Vasoline Glass Vase I asked Tom to bring back something yellow and something dark from the grocery story.  Along with the fresh green beans and squid for dinner, he brought me an eggplant, a bunch of three bananas, a lemon and a bunch of beets.  That is true love.

I like the freshness of the first stage.  When I put the “L mat” sections on top of it I felt I needed to see what happened with a background wash.  Though I lost clarity of color in the shadow cast by the plate, I needed a darker value to ground the dark value of the eggplant.  I would like to see some cooler colors in the upper left corner, but I didn’t want to lose the transparency and lightness of that area.

Inspired by Charles Reid, I am allowing paints to mix on the paper and to paint directly with pure pigments based on where the color pigments fall on the value scale.  It has taken me two decades to follow his excellent suggestion to paint with value as a higher priority than color.  If the value is right, and the color is not over-mixed, the painting will have life and movement and, for the moment, not land in the trash can.

Overworked watercolor sketch of Parker 21 Fountain Pen in Vasoline Glass Vase

The upper background in the sketch on the left is the strongest part of that painting.  The vasoline glass vase is formless.  The position of the vase in the sketch on the right allows the eye to enter the painting and move about a bit.  Still….. I find it over-worked.  A bit of cropping helps.

Cropped sketch of Fountain Pen in Vaseline Glass Vase

 

Fountain Pens and Radiators

Maybe next year I will attend the Philadelphia Pen Show.  By then I hope to have replaced a few bad bladders in my recent collection of pens in need.  Right now, my little K-car’s new radiator took priority over a day of drooling over fountain pens and attending a discussion on repairing pens.  The day, however, promises to be productive.  The sun is drenching the landscape and pouring in through my windows.

I had planned on painting a lemon and eggplant.  Instead, I will paint my Parker 21 desk model fountain pen sitting in its makeshift holder, a Vaseline glass vase.  I use an extra cap from another pen to keep the point from drying out.  I want to play with a light value object and a dark value object.  My early morning watercolor sketches of my Parker 45 fountain pen helped make the decision to go for the pen and vase rather than the lemon and eggplant.

 

Color Exercises

Moving forward, I have added a section of Color Exercises on my Creative Color Blog.  A new exercise will be added each week.  I like the idea of sharing my explorations with artists around the world instead of the limitation of artists within driving distance of my home studio.