Searching

I recently finished reading a fictitious account of Monet's life called "Claude and Camille" by Stephanie Cowell.  I'd read two of her previous books, fictitious accounts of the lives of Shakespeare and a woman who marries Mozart. She's a good writer. But that's not why I read the book about Monet.

You see, I am still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I am an artist. This new identity has only been with me for about 9 months now. I'm still not used to it.  When people I meet ask me what I do and I say I am an artist, it feels strange. 

So I guess I read the book in search of something to help myself come to peace with being an artist. So did the book help? Well, yes and no. Monet certainly didn't have the happiest life. He fell madly in love with Camille, his muse/model, and finally married her only to have her die a few years later. If the book is historically accurate, he was very narcissistic (or at least completely obsessed with his work), and he flipped out and slashed canvases he wasn't pleased with.  Fascinating but depressing to say the least. But what I did get from the book is that many of the emotional struggles I am encountering in being an artist are universal and timeless. Not selling as much as I want. Fighting the need for affirmation from the world that my work is worthy. Questioning my ability. Accepting my "artistic temperment."

And now the reading continues. I went to the library in search of escapist British chick lit. (Go ahead and laugh if you will!) but came home with another fictitious novel called "The Painted Kiss" by Elizabeth Hickey. The story is told from the point of view of Gustav Klimt's muse, Emilie. I'm only part-way through so I can't say much about the book, but it is also perhaps in some subtle way helping me comes to terms with or understand who I am. Next on the list? "The Wayward Muse" also by Elizabeth Hickey, told from the point of view of the muse of Dante Gabirel Rossetti. So where is all of this reading getting me?  Stay tuned. 

"Falling Light" (painted while reading "Claude and Camille")

 Click for more information about "Falling Light."

The Advent of Light

The Advent of Light: Earth, Wind, and Fire

Click here for more info.

Back in the studio after a long break

After almost a month off, I finally decided to walk back in and hit the paints on Friday. I've noticed several times now that when I take longer breaks, my style of painting changes more dramatically and this is no exception. Here is the result.

For more information on "Awash", click here.

The Process: Waning Sun

People are asking more and more about the process I use to create my paintings. Because the process is 100% intuitive and spontaneous (and therefore different every time), it's really impossible to explain. So yesterday, I shot a few pics while I was working. Enjoy.

 
For more info on Waning Sun, click here. 

Dusk

This is the first time I've combined 4 different techniques of applying paint, in 4 layers.

Layer 1: Applied paint with brush.

Layer 2: Applied paint in small pats of my finger tips. Let dry overnight.

Layer 3: Rubbed paint into the dried, heavily textured paint from the day before.

Layer 4: Wiped paint across parts of the painting.

The Final Result

A heavily textured, deeply toned, complex, vibrant painting. And a contented artist. Well, at least for the moment.

For more information on "Dusk", click here.

Ch, ch, ch changes...

I finally painted my first abstract yesterday in weeks.I used the same technique- laying some paints on the canvas, swishing them around a bit with a brush, and adding texture & further blending the paint with my fingers. As usual, I had no preconceived notion of what I was about to paint. But something was different. Very abruptly, a change had transpired in my work. And it freaked me out a bit. There was more differentiation in shades of colors. And it was more static, which is very unusual for my work. Just about every piece I've done has had a lot of movement and energy in it. This piece is all calm.

So what's going on? I've been practicing portraiture, a huge departure from painting abstracts. I study everyone's faces now in great detail, particularly looking at how lighting casts shadows on their foreheads, their eyes, their cheekbones. I don't even like working with skin colors (depressing compared to the colors I can use in my abstracts). Portraiture is extremely difficult! I keep asking myself why I am doing it. I still don't have an answer, but I know it's something I have to do. And it's obviously affecting my abstracts. All I can figure out is that I am training myself, forcing myself out of my comfort zone. And changing. Enjoy the video.

A method to my madness

http://www.drawright.com/

So this is my bible. I love this book. I must have bought it back in the early 90's when I was doing the pastel portraits but am pretty sure I never had the patience or the discipline to work through much of the book. It's filled with what I'd call a psychological discussion of how our brains typically see versus how an artist must see, two very different things. The book is full of exercises which train you to turn off the rational left hemisphere of your brain & turn on the creative right side. Probably the most famous exercise is the one in which you turn your subject (assuming it's a photo and not a person ) upside-down in order to stop seeing the subject as a whole but rather as various components that fit together.

Having looked through bits and pieces of the book a few weeks ago, I decided to jump to Chapter 7 yesterday, "The Positive Aspects of Negative Space." One of the exercises was to draw the space around a complex object, so I took this photo of Jeff on the bike and did this sketch. I managed to hack off a bit of his leg , but I found the exercise very educational.

Finally, I did this sketch of Jeff yesterday after he crashed, totally wiped out from a day teaching 70 French students. It doesn't totally look like Jeff's but it's a huge improvement over the sketch I did a few days ago & it took 20 minutes instead of 3 hours. Today, I get some perspective. We can only hope.