The cookie jar

This is a painting of the Cookie Jar. The cookie jar that sat on the kitchen counter while I was growing up. We didn't have a lot but we did have cookies. My mother was a fabulous baker. The cookie jar was always full. Oatmeal, molasses , wheaties, chocolate chip, sugar, all kinds of wonderful made from scratch cookies.I can see that little knotty pine kitchen with the latch cabinets and covered cake dish. Where there was always a freshly made cake.

Recently I was cleaning out a shed and found it full of a clan of mice living in the at cookie jar. Eggh! I 'washed it out good', popped insome freshly cut Peonies and painted it on a 12 x 9 rough canvas.

A finished sketch really. Just enough to write the story of Ma's cookie jar.

Ma's Cookie Jar with Peonies 12 x 9 oil on canvas 2017

A painting of Mary

This week at Johan's long pose life daw/paint session we had a new model. Mary. She turned out to very, very good model. It was a brightish day so the light in the studio was good but at time a bit of and on from the clouds. I've posted my images of Soha that did at Johan's where I started the painting in session and finshed in the studio. In this painting of Mary I thought I'd cram that process of probably 6 to 8 hours into one 2 and a half hour session. I had to work fast and make decisions instinctively. No time for a lot of ifs ands or others.

I had prepared a canvas ahead of time on which I had applied a gray 'stain' (thanks Mark Carder). Once we had chosen the pose from a half dozen or so 2 minute poses, we got to work. The we is a group of three very talented and accomplished artists from the Upper Delaware area, and me. One day I will make a post showing off there work. I don't carry a lot of colors with me to this weekly session. Every Sunday 12 to 3. Go Pats. I had Burnt Sienna (BS), Ultramarine Blue (UB), Cad Yellow (CY), Cad Red (CR) and Alizarin Crimson and of course Titanium White. Just a few brushes medium sized to big synthetic filberts. I had only my portable tin of OMS (Oderless Mineral Spirits) to use a thinner, medium and brush cleaning. I started out with a washy sienna and blocked in the figure and got some quick tones in. I super roughly sketched in some indication of the pillows and fabric pattern on the sofa. 

Over the next hour and three quarters with model breaks, one of which included a piece of spinach knish, I glazed on the flesh tones very thinly lightening as I built out from the darker mid tone stain. I have to say the time constraint help force me into a zone. The only thing that stopped me was sore feet. At the end of the session I looked at the other artists work. Everybody's work was outstanding. Judy had done  a charcoal  drawing that was precise and beautiful. Gloria a mixed media oil and charcoal(?) that would be at home in a story book. Dianne did an acrylic that was wonderfully colored. Johan was well into a giant canvas of a beautifully foreshortened viewpoint in his immediate and whimsical fashion. I feel privileged to be working with such a fine group.

Painting with plastics...

I've mentioned how my studio is too airtight to paint with oils in the winter. Especially when the temps outside are hovering around zero most of the time. This winter I've been playing with watercolor, gouache and acrylic. Here is a work in progress using acrylic on a panel. 

Dead low tide

I haven't done an acrylic this big in years. Todays acrylics seem different. More like gouache in its flatness. My studio is so dry that I've had to spray the palette with water every 10 or 15 minutes. I'm happy-ish with it. About 70% done. It's a study in grays.

A real departure in composition style. More lyrical than boxy. Now I have to loose some edges. I only have 3 or 4 days that I can get at it before I trade in my knee.

Here is the finish as it is. I took a real different approach to the composition on this. The curves and arcs are the structure of the image. The arcs of the land and water mimic the arcs of the gunnels of the front boat. This was all carefully constructed as a photo comp over the past year. Though it's a  representational or impressionistic reality it's certainly more of an illusion creating the real look. The colors are all grays created by mixing complimentary colors.

Overall as an project I think it's successful. I like it. Is it beautiful art. I don't know. Style wise it's similar to the acrylics that I did early in my career because of the medium. I do prefer Oil or watercolor.

The painting itself took about 10 to 12 hours. That on top of panel preparation, and building the image which actually stared several years ago. I do like that when you look at this from a distance it looks realistic. Up close its a mess.

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Finish 3.9.2014

A little explanation of the composition

Arcs an diagonals

I mentioned that this composition is different for me. Usually my compositions are based on rectangular relationships within the defined rectangle. This painting is based on arcs and diagonals. The picture rectangle was defined by the interlocking of the arced shapes.

26.5 x 22

This happened unintentionally during the process of cutting and pasting for the photo comp in photoshop. I used a couple of versions of the same shot. Moved boats around. Left out outboard motors. Forced some tonalities. Ending up with an image in the 26.5 by 22 scale.

The arc shapes are all base on arc A defined by the foreground boat's shape. It's an abstract where nature and objects blend. Add the strength of the diagonals and the fact that the objects are boats... how can I go wrong. Most of the time in the process I looked only at the subject matter. The lyrical base composition  was difficult for me. I let it sit for a long time. I had distractions. I made a panel for it and let it sit some more. More distractions. frustrated by distractions I started painting. I used Acrylic for several reasons. Because I was unsure of how to handle the surface. Real or more representational? Acrylics can easily go either way. As I painted i realized the abstract nature of the painting. 

It turned out to be a good painting. Not because of realistic detail but the inference of detail. Not real strong colors all grays. A lot of motion based on the above abstract but not so much that the eye escapes the frame. The main arc shapes support the natural arcs of the objects and nature. 

Okay. This is the result of an unconscious process. Not an unknowing process. Because of many years of being a visual wrist in a lot of disciplines I have internalized many mechanisms. Developed an eye. I finally becoming happy with my eye. 

In a later discussion I muse on the visual eye. How some people have to nurture it and others gifted with it.

Back to basics

It's been a while since I posted on the blog. I've been busy chasing options for making my leg better. X-rays, doctors, MRIs, more doctors and finally a diagnosis. A piece of my knee joint has died and needs to be replaced. Bummer. What at first was going to be a simple meniscus tuneup has turned out to be a serious pain in the ass. A half knee replacement. Better than a full knee replacement but just a little. More tests more doctors more freggin' tests. Everybody making more money... but me. On St. Patricks Day I' get a new joint. or at least half a joint. Shit.

What this basics thing you ask.

This summer the high schools in Wayne County have a day of art workshops called Art Academy. I volunteered to run a session on the fundamentals of painting realism. Sounds simple doesn't it.

It is and it's not. I'm breaking it down to a few simple elements. Value, color, space, scale and composition. I only have four or five hours to present these basics. It's taking me a lifetime to even begin to understand them myself. There will be a reading list and reference list of realists that have influenced me over my lifetime. 

My roots in this stuff are Loomis and The Brandywine School. Along with other great American Illustrators and painters of the early 20th century. Their influences were the masters. I'll be borrowing examples of their work and others with the kids this summer. 

Once I have an outline and presentation elements with hands on examples I think I may have the makings for an online workshop. 

I'll keep you informed. 

Back to work

I haven't been working very much since before Thanksgiving. What with the shortest days of the year, hunting season (a bust), Santa season (several appearances as the jolly old elf and then the holidays. Our cars stopped working in the same week and we had to buy a new one - ouch. For over two weeks I've been laid up with what I hope is simply a torn Meniscus. We'll hear tomorrow and have fixed soon. So I've been really distracted though I have done a couple of watercolors and made some panels. I got a free flat file which has helped me organize my paints, printing papers and prints. I got 3 paintings framed and ready for an office hanging. I worked a lot on the website structuring it for direct sales and have begun categorizing and sorting my older humorous illustrations for a web showing. Time hasn't been totally wasted. 

Here's what I learned while being bored, lame and distracted. I can't just sit and paint. The mental, unconscious process, is the most important part of my painting and I have little control of it. There's no hurrying it. I happens only when i'm not distracted or preoccupied with the mundane. I've been feeling bad about not painting and I shouldn't. The holidays are gone and there's 2 more minutes of sunlight every day.

Bummer. My knee is not so simple.

A new model at Ianni's. 010714

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Life drawing from Ianni's 010714  • Click to enlarge

Santa season

Yes it's that time of year again. Santa time. Time for me to get dressed in my Santa suit and sit for pictures with little kids in my lap and have our photos taken. This year I have two gigs both for not for profit groups. 

Between now and Sunday I have to make sure that I don't accidentally burn off my beard or get my hair lobbed off by some Delilah. When it's all over maybe the lbs will magically disappear. Ha!

Why am I mentioning this? It's had me itchy for the past few days. It's the end of deer season the woods are all icy and snowy and it cold as a .... you know. So I started a watercolor painting to scratch the itch. It's of my young setter Trout. Trout the dog. I like it it still has a few sessions until it finishes. Paintings finish themselves. Sometime we go too far.

This isn't much of a post. I'm busy. I have to feed the reindeer.

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iPhone shot of Trout the Dog a watercolor in progress Dec12/13

Real or repro?

This is going to be a short post. I want to pose this simple question. " Would you rather own an original pairing or a reproduction." 

Maybe it's not that simple. We're talking about my work not Van Gogh. My oils sell for  anywhere from $600 to $3000. I haven't done a reproductions of this years painting because it's almost as much effort and a lot more expense than the original painting. In the past I've made reproductions and made a few bucks. Though with a less expensive option available in the print people mostly chose the print over the painting. I sold a lot of prints and a few paintings. Weighing the cost in time and expense it wasn't so profitable.

So I ask you this. Would you like me to make reproductions of my paints and if so which ones?

On the road to realism?

I did this illustration in 1984 for some magazine that I can't remember today. Is it realism? Maybe not realism but certainly everything is 'depicted'. No it's not realism but it can be read like language. We understand every object from the carrot to the triangle and t-square. It's in a humorous shorthand, a vernacular so to speak of realism. 

When I was a student in the 60s at The School of Practical Art, soon to become The Art Institute of Boston, under instruction the illustrator Norman Baer I had a lot of the tools necessary to learn to paint decent realism. There was just one thing in the way. Me. I was from a working class home in a Massachusetts mill town. I  was angry, had little confidence and a cultural affinity for alcohol. I did have one thing in my favor though. I was a funny bastard. There I was in a program focused on illustrating using realism and my lack of confidence held me back. But I used my humor to keep myself afloat. I started drawing my humor. I became a humorous illustrator. Painting realism was forgotten. 

Through the 70s I was lucky to have found work art directing and doing humorous illustration. I was part of a group of illustrators in Boston working for the alternative newspaper The  Real Paper. We had great times and made great illustration. A maturing time for both me and my generation. I cast out demon rum. I actually made an okay living. Got married and moved to NYC and Madison Avenue. My humorous  illustration was not as funny in New York as it had been in Boston. There were a lot more funny bastards in New York. At the same time technology was blossoming and I got the bug. By the late 80s I was a tech guy inventing tools procedures for varied clients and training folks at top publications in the way of the digit. It was a better business, pay was prompt and generous. Life was good but not so funny.

All through most of the 70s I was painting. Mostly realism mostly portraits. I painted in acrylic. When I say mostly realism I mean a stylized realism. 

Beacon Hill 1973

Cambridge 1980

By 1980 i was beginning to work in watercolor doing what I called realism. I was doing paintings like this rock and flowers watercolor strictly for myself. I was driving myself to realism. I had gotten married. Quit drinking and smoking and started painting realism. I kept it to myself not thinking it to be very good or not good enough. Throughout the 80s and 90s i polished this approach to watercolor realism in my down time from work. My work changed and went in different directions but a painting style developed and matured. It was a personal and infrequent thing. Come along to 9/11/2001. The world charged for me, loosing most of my active clients in one horrible morning. Manhattan changed. We were both all of a sudden out of work. After about a year I got serious about being a painter. I struggled for a while looking for a style and medium. I want back through my watercolors and realized this was it. Straight up realism. I had done a series of 'Chairs' paintings in the late 80s that very real and had a styled approach that I began grabbed on to. Guess what? It was one thing to leisurely do the occasional watercolor for myself and quite another to it for real.

Blue Chairs Mt Dessert Island 1986.

Diamond Reo 1982? 

So there i am, 2003, pretty much out of work painting realism stylized but surely real. How do I recreate the magic moments i encountered while developing my process during the past 15 or so years?

I was doing a lot of renderings not really painting. I look at them now and I want to puke. Great renderings but only surface. Realistic but nothing real. No heart, just objects. All I was doing was building inventory. I started using oils which I hadn't touched since I was a teenager.  I painted a few boat paintings and sold them too cheaply. I was getting away from just a rendering. The water i was painting was completely stylized but even more real quicker too read making more impact. For several years I exhibited my stuff in the traveling circus of the juried art fairs. Life in a camper and a tent. Weird but I loved it. I met and talked with hundreds and hundreds of people. Got to commiserate with other artist and artisans. It was the lifestyle of the gypsy artist. Great fun but not very profitable. Not at all.

2006 the financial crisis begins and we are again both without income. I've got to find work. I had been accepted into a lot of the better shows for the winter art fair season in Florida and had no vehicle of money. I was offered a job in a prestigious financial news organization. I had to take it if not for the money the challenge and prestige.

Flash forward to 2012. We were selling our apartment in NY and using the proceeds to build a beautiful home on land we had in PA. My wife had found the one great job there but I was still in the city soon to be homeless when boom. No job in poor health from too much stress.  After dealing with the move and organizing a studio space I finally started painting January 2013 after a complete layoff of 6 years. The longest period ever without painting or drawing. I was very worried about my skills. It took me about 3 months with help from Mark Carders production oriented method and a lot of life drawing to get me back on my hands and production skills. Remarkably I'm handling paint now better than ever.

I've done a few good paintings but I'm starting to seeing objects again. Rendering surfaces to the exclusion of reality. It's easy to fall into this.  

Realism in painting is like it is in in life, it's under the surface. I hope to be able to achieve showing that more in my paintings. So far I've touched on it a little, but I'm not there yet. I feel sort of like that guy in my 1984 humorous illustration with the carrot and painting reality in realism is a really big stick.

Life drawing tune-up

Every week I do at least 1 life drawing session. That's no easy task where I live in Northeastern PA.  I find it essential in my ability to see. I been doing this for about 6 months and it's made an enormous difference in both how I look at thing and how I'm painting. After a very long layoff from drawing and painting with my hands  I'm kinda loving this. Every week I experiment with different tools and techniques. 

It's quite different from painting plein air which I suck at. I am most definitely a studio painter. I feel too clumsy when outdoors painting. I do like to do quicky line art even if they nothing more than minute or two. The radiograph pen has something to do with that.

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At Ianni's 9//3/13