10:14am: time to play a bit...
NEW PROJECT 959, END OF DAY
1
Good comparison to a square
Floater Samples
What can I say, the weather was exceptional. My new floater frame samples came in from JFM and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, an unexpected day off.
Friday: Any painting sessions will be tenuous at best for the next few weeks. The barbarians are starting to loiter outside the cave doors.
There are massive amounts of back-of-house chores in front of me... All (20) paintings have to be varnished or not...... a decision yet to be made. Plus, hanging straps applied, and stretch wrap all my edges.
Canvas wraps are fragile and subject to damage until off the floor and on the walls. I found stretch wrap helps at the front end......even for the framed paintings. Some will be installed in "floater frames" and a few in appropriate gallery frames for a little balance between the wraps.
9:14am: I'm good to go!
END OF DAY
959-1 14x60 oil on linen gallery wrap (3-27-15)
Saturday: The lily pad structure was well established yesterday with the promise of a lily
flower amongst a cluster of pads. Against white they look a bit
aggressive.....plus a few Koi poking around. Again I used the dark outline to finish my edges and establish values against the white background. It allows me to paint in my background in one continuous move.
7:30am: time to work.... Today, the
flower will command center stage. The white lilies are more demanding
than most. Getting white on white to read properly at 30 plus feet is a
bit tricky.... What's interesting about this one is a very subtle
colour shift reflecting on the wet lily pads. Even though it was a
bright day, it just stopped raining. Aside from the extreme width, capturing the
rain effect is the real challenge of this project.
BTW
all the lilies are from my little deck pond installed a few years ago.
The pond has a white and a yellow variety common to the area. Last
season I also discovered they were aggressive growers too. The thriving
goldfish population doesn't seem to mind tho......no Koi yet.
END OF DAY
959-2 14x60 oil on linen gallery wrap (3-28-15)
I was invited to see the new Flower exhibit this afternoon at the VMFA....something I'm looking forward to doing.
8:29: Time to paint.....
END OF DAY
959-3 oil on linen gallery wrap (3-29-15)
Detail
Monday: My pads around the lily look a bit messy, somewhere along the line I moved towards the idea of painting lots of water drops....might say this is the setup for doing it.
LOL, I smell impending disaster.....
I enjoyed my experience at the VMFA Flower Exhibit yesterday. The exhibit goes from Traditional Hyper Realism thru the Impressionists...not sure, but about 150 year span. They had a book covering the whole thing I'll pick-up next visit. To my surprise, I was more drawn to the Hyper Realism by the traditionalists.....in fact somewhat disappointed with the Impressionist showing (not the first time). The exhibit shows the extreme differences very clearly.....perhaps unfairly to the revolutionists. My impression and only reference is what I see....not necessarily the intent of the exhibits curators. In that regard, I didn't take the time to read anything much about the exhibit. I was more taken with the visual and technical achievements in paint produced by a mixed group of past artists.
If you appreciate an artists use of subtle light and colour with great skill, you're in for a Hyper Realist treat. If you, on the other hand, enjoy artists trying to "figure it out", the Impressionists will delight you.....I had a couple of favorites in that camp too. "What's in a name" comes to mind when viewing the Impressionist......the "names" exhibited were great indeed, perhaps not represented at their best in all cases tho.
NOTE: I went to the VMFA site (needed the link) - The big three on the Impressionist side; Monet, Van Gogh and Matisse headlined. Those Traditional Realists......who made up the vast majority of the exhibit.... are not even mentioned. I guess they were used as fill.
Regardless. the "hyper camp" had my attention..... It was clearly commanding crowd loitering. Which ever camp you might find yourself in - the exhibit is certainly worth the trip!
8:11: time to paint! Water drops! What was I thinking yesterday? My last paintings clearly have me sticking my toe in hyper space or some version of it. Plus...I was more open to the VMFA Hyper crowd yesterday than ever before. Not the polished photo type, but the esthetically crafted sort...
END OF DAY
959-4 oil on linen gallery wrap (3-30-15)
Detail - emerging water drops
Tuesday:
OK! This is sorta fun, making this thing feel wet should be... but my energy on this painting is being sapped! Where do you stop with it! I don't think I'll ever be that polished
hyper painter where every detail is refined to death with teeny tiny
round brushes. Perhaps not even close to those wonderful craftsmen who
speed-bumped me Sunday at the VMFA.
I don't like constants while painting.....or finding myself cornered. Yesterday I found myself not going with the flow, but more concerned about photo accurate detail. In other words, I was "hard coping" my reference. Not my game, never was....unless I was trying to figure out something. So, this is definitely a study painting about a detail.....water drops in mass.
When water and light is liquid, bleeding through colours and shapes, causing edges to simply disappear; indistinguishable only through intense colour. When it happens, it tells me I'm on the right track. I'm not sure that really happens successfully in the hyper world of painting. It's what's added by the artist that makes the difference, and, I suspect it comes with no constants and understanding your subject well.
If all these things happen in unison and a painting glows....almost on it's own.... a painting hits the mark for me. Regardless who did it or how refined a painting might be, it still needs to happen to get my attention. Learning how to translate that using photo references can be a very fine line when it comes to hard core detail.
Following the light with interesting texture and colour effects.....action typically in the moment! Controlled, yes, but open to possibilities of spontaneity. Something I found can easily be lost during the refining process of this collection. The challenge was and still is finding the balance between that and freedom in aesthetic realism.
All I know, wet-in-wet is ultimately my ruler along with getting the "feel" right visually........it either looks right or it doesn't!
8:02: time to finish 959.....
Yesterday, I had an extra treat, Jennie (Crossroads owner) and I toured the World Art Group facilities here in Richmond. WOW! Who would have ever guessed we had such a wonderful global operation here in Richmond.....well we do! They license, produce and create art on canvas or paper for a world market....any image - any size. I might add, in a good quality range too.
It has my attention for many reasons - for one, broad based exposure in a market place where my original paintings are not affordable. Most of the population can not afford originals. Why exclude them from enjoying our work? If you can own an original, hey, cool, but there's not enough original work to go around and never will be! I'm asked all the time "do I have prints" well, not really....DUH!
In my defense, it's time consuming and requires marketing expertise. My priority is making art not selling it. Our tour yesterday gave me another option - let someone else do it...:=) The after market royalty money, broad based exposure of art in my book is a good thing.
World Art Group and others like them fill an important commercial need for artists and public consumption.
Wednesday: Aside from a very long blog post, it's been an interesting week.... not all of it was spent at the easel either. I experienced a wonderful exhibit at the VMFA, toured a World Art Group and finished a painting on a very cool shape. A nice finish to my first Singular Focus collection. Not the painting, it suffered from too many interruptions to make it into the exhibit......plus I have to work more on water drops!
More importantly those back-of-house chores can't be avoided any longer. The collection has to be delivered in less than a week.
I don't like constants while painting.....or finding myself cornered. Yesterday I found myself not going with the flow, but more concerned about photo accurate detail. In other words, I was "hard coping" my reference. Not my game, never was....unless I was trying to figure out something. So, this is definitely a study painting about a detail.....water drops in mass.
When water and light is liquid, bleeding through colours and shapes, causing edges to simply disappear; indistinguishable only through intense colour. When it happens, it tells me I'm on the right track. I'm not sure that really happens successfully in the hyper world of painting. It's what's added by the artist that makes the difference, and, I suspect it comes with no constants and understanding your subject well.
If all these things happen in unison and a painting glows....almost on it's own.... a painting hits the mark for me. Regardless who did it or how refined a painting might be, it still needs to happen to get my attention. Learning how to translate that using photo references can be a very fine line when it comes to hard core detail.
Following the light with interesting texture and colour effects.....action typically in the moment! Controlled, yes, but open to possibilities of spontaneity. Something I found can easily be lost during the refining process of this collection. The challenge was and still is finding the balance between that and freedom in aesthetic realism.
All I know, wet-in-wet is ultimately my ruler along with getting the "feel" right visually........it either looks right or it doesn't!
8:02: time to finish 959.....
DAYS END AND FINISHED!
959 Koi and Lily 14x60 oil on gallery wrap (3-31-15)
Yesterday, I had an extra treat, Jennie (Crossroads owner) and I toured the World Art Group facilities here in Richmond. WOW! Who would have ever guessed we had such a wonderful global operation here in Richmond.....well we do! They license, produce and create art on canvas or paper for a world market....any image - any size. I might add, in a good quality range too.
It has my attention for many reasons - for one, broad based exposure in a market place where my original paintings are not affordable. Most of the population can not afford originals. Why exclude them from enjoying our work? If you can own an original, hey, cool, but there's not enough original work to go around and never will be! I'm asked all the time "do I have prints" well, not really....DUH!
In my defense, it's time consuming and requires marketing expertise. My priority is making art not selling it. Our tour yesterday gave me another option - let someone else do it...:=) The after market royalty money, broad based exposure of art in my book is a good thing.
World Art Group and others like them fill an important commercial need for artists and public consumption.
Wednesday: Aside from a very long blog post, it's been an interesting week.... not all of it was spent at the easel either. I experienced a wonderful exhibit at the VMFA, toured a World Art Group and finished a painting on a very cool shape. A nice finish to my first Singular Focus collection. Not the painting, it suffered from too many interruptions to make it into the exhibit......plus I have to work more on water drops!
More importantly those back-of-house chores can't be avoided any longer. The collection has to be delivered in less than a week.
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