Still life of Lemons in a Bowl, in progress, oil on canvas
Life gave me some lemons recently in the form of a still life painting I started I know not when, which I rediscovered while reorganizing the household. I have already begun working on it again. During my reorganization I found a drawing for a different still life that has the same bowl in it (except that it has pears instead of lemons). The drawing proves useful for completing this painting.
Yet there are elements in this painting’s sketchiness that I want to preserve — such as the pale violet shadow (?) at the base of the bowl on the left side that manifests as a single calligraphic brushstroke. I like it, and I want to keep it. It seems like a good anchor for the rest of the painting. This painting has some of the simplicity and directness that lately I have been craving.
Flower Motif, oil on canvas panel, 12×16 (available)
Around the time I painted my Flower Wall, I was experimenting with different ways of arranging flowers in a picture, putting them into random arrangements in various settings. I have often painted traditional vases of flowers. I thought it would be interesting to paint them as still life, only without the vase. I created a drapery set-up with artificial flowers hung in among the folds of the different drapes which were suspended from a wardrobe rack. The painting above is one of two small oil paintings made in this way.
And here is Flower Wall.
Flower Wall, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (available)
The smaller paintings verge into chaos. They ended up being very abstract, notwithstanding the fact that I painted them descriptively. They turn out to be as much about paint as about flowers.
Going through things in storage, things of all sorts — books, notebooks, papers, clothing, works of art, still life objects, tools, cds and whatnot — while involved in a Marie Kondo style household reorganization, as I make life simpler, I have been finding early paintings. I had completely forgotten a little painting I made of a Christmas cactus. I used to paint simpler subjects and my color choices were much more compact. Seeing these earlier paintings confirms a sentiment that I’ve been feeling lately — a desire to do some smaller simpler motifs. I may experiment with more muted palettes as well, though I do like bright and complex colors, so I probably won’t be giving up color experiments. Instead, I will just add “muted palette” to the things I do occasionally.
Painting smaller pictures should make it easier to try out different ideas.
The painted cactus looks more lively than two actual plants that have overwintered in the kitchen. Thankfully for them with warming weather, they can return outdoors where they are much happier. Hopefully they can regain their pizzazz.
Henri Matisse, Still life with Peaches and Glass, 1916 or 1918
I am wondering how I want to use this blog going forward. I think that I will experiment with it and see where different ideas — and whims — may lead. Maybe the blog should be a laboratory. Laboratories can be messy, so it will probably be a hodgepodge (still) but hopefully an evolving little hodgepodge.
One thing I want to explore are the works of other artists (famous artists past) whose art I love, looking at their art closely to find some precise features I love and to wonder aloud how I can learn to apply those features to my art. Some of the observations may be helpful to others, to both artists and art lovers. I have a post that will appear on Sunday that begins this topic by looking at a still life by Edouard Manet.
At the top of the post is Henri Matisse’s Still life of Peaches and a Glass that I saw decades ago when it was part of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. It expresses the crisp simplicity that I love in Matisse and sometime — perhaps soon — I’ll turn to him for technical and inspirational ideas. For the present, I use his beautiful picture — that features an ocean wave in a glass — to introduce the prospective experiment in ideas.
Thus, on Sunday, first in a series — hopefully. Stay tuned.
Still life drawing of fruits in a blue glass bowl, neopastel
fun sampler page from a notebook, just cutting loose, no reason, just because – neocolors and pencil
Since faith is a quality unconfined to age or station, it may be ours today as much as it has been any man’s at any time. We are not going through a harder time today, a longer or a darker night, than has ever been experienced before. It only seems darker because we have lost faith — the beacon light.
If one will have faith in himself, faith in his fellowman, in the Universe, and in God, that faith will light the place in which he finds himself…. — Ernest Holmes
Going through old notebooks, I find many things to toss into the waste basket. Taking a break from my labors one day, I decided to use sheets of an old notebook for a purely enjoyable and random form of mark making. There were some drawings not at all worth keeping. I decided to use the eraser as a tool, remove some of the old drawing, and put color, line, marks down in complete abandon — just for joy. It was strictly a no gaining idea sort of task. I was not drawing anything. I was not not-drawing anything. It was more like exercise than like drawing. Moving about. Aerobic drawing. I was surprised by how fun it was. I stayed with it much longer than I ever would have imagined.
An artist I follow on Instagram said that doing certain kinds of abstraction helped her whenever she found herself getting stuck with her landscape painting. It sounds like an excellent remedy. But I was not trying to get unstuck from anything art related — unless it was from having such a mess of things to sort and from staring down shiny black contractor bags. I just wanted a break from my chore. The session was so fun it may have slid into a span of two coffee breaks. Very good for recharging the mental batteries and for firming my resolve to master the housekeeping.
Along with scribbling in vivid colors, I have been perusing books for encouragements and find that some quotes help me enormously. I often come upon them randomly. (Open the book anywhere and start reading ….) It amazes me sometimes how apt the quote is. If I had asked specifically for advice, it could not have been more exacting and timely.
Still life with Seashells and Bottles, oil on panel
Do we need duality to experience the good? Sometimes it seems like we do. We certainly experience things more keenly by contrasts. A warm cup of coffee feels especially soothing upon coming inside from a walk outdoors in the chilly wind. A pillow is especially soft when your body is sleepy, and the same comfy pillow might feel hard whenever the middle of night brings insomnia.
I can understand how duality reveals the counterpart, and I have often found a foil to be very useful. In any sort of debate where two sides of a topic emerge as apparent opposites, to examine the opposite idea of your own brings insight. It reveals how other people with different understandings of life reach different conclusions. It can also reveal a stronger and deeper connection to your own belief than you had before you saw your ideas challenged. For these deepened understandings to happen, you have to walk around a while in the parallel universe of ideas.
In art, of course, the role of contrast is invaluable. If you want to make a passage lighter, one method is to make the adjacent area slightly darker. If you want a maximum effect of color contrast, you make use of complementary colors which act upon each other as intensifiers. It produces that quality of light that is so famous in the paintings of the French Impressionists.
But in the arena of emotion, if I feel excluded from something — have I been excluded in fact? Does resentment find equipoise in the thought, “who needs them anyway?” Can that be called poise at all? If I feel poise, I am not excluded from anything — even if in fact I am excluded. If I say I never wanted to belong to that club anyway, I am probably revealing that I did want membership, but that I felt cut off from it. When I say that others are wealthy, am I categorizing myself as poor? If I’m a sociologist — yes, I might need the categories in order to do sociology. I’d have to set parameters, levels of income. Then I would find that my income placed me into one category and not the others. But that is abstraction — useful perhaps in creating information about public policies, but of little use in understanding one’s life.
As I write, it is sunny outdoors — still cold, but the evidences of spring become ever more visible. If I were to visit the wealthiest neighborhoods of my region — I’m not going to actually make this experiment, but am confident about the premise nonetheless — I feel sure that the wealthy citizens are not getting any more sunlight today than I am. In the poorest neighborhoods in the region and in its wealthiest, the sunlight is equal. So, the Bible got that one right. The sun really is available to everyone without respect to persons. If they are rich or poor; if they are good, bad or indifferent, they are getting the same photon stream and all the benefits that derive from sunlight. However, it’s windy today too. And it’s cold. The same wind will blow the hats off the rich and poor equally too — if we’re talking about income demographics which is just one way of sorting human experience.
What I cannot be excluded from is the present moment. I am here. A person might not notice where he is — or that he is. That seems to happen often enough. Here can be a beautiful place if I choose to see it as it really is. The realization of suchness is Buddhism’s gift to the world. I am not a Buddhist, but God bless these practical people who took the time to notice reality. They found it in the last place anyone looks: right under your nose. I have been savoring my tea today. I have discovered since the Buddhists told me to notice my breath that breathing is a wonderful thing. Taking deep draughts of air is exhilarating. How am I only noticing this now? Talk about life in the slow group….
Everyone has bias. We could hardly make sense of anything without some cognitive filter to sift the massive amount of perception that comes our way. Bias is limiting, but it is also structuring. It scaffolds knowledge into manageable components. Nothing says that today’s structure has to be taken as etched in granite. We can use bias as a tool and can set it aside too. We can have more than one way of filtering knowledge. Once aware of bias, though, a person is wise to question things. And the emotional landscape is particularly rich in bias producing experiences. If I think someone snubs me — have they really? If I feel snubbed, does that make the snub real? Maybe, maybe not. It would certainly be unfortunate to believe one is snubbed, then to act upon that belief, perhaps never discovering that no snub was ever there. Those who you thought didn’t want to admit you into their club were ready to welcome you with open arms.
But let’s say the snub is genuine. A rich man thinks you are not his sort. What should you make of that circumstance? Should you ratify it by agreeing? And to assert to yourself that you didn’t want to be his associate anyway is the same as agreeing. That’s a mistake. You have now voluntarily put yourself into the other person’s category. You have donned the other person’s filter like a coat. To do so is not only an error in regard to self-esteem but also an error in fact — for I am just here. I exist in this reality. One almost never thinks in these terms, but perhaps we should. How big is the cosmos? (Is Neil deGrasse Tyson reading by chance? Wanna leave a comment below?) I understand that it’s pretty big. And I — me — your beloved blogger — I am inside it! I have a front row seat! How about them apples?
If you are reading this, I deduce that you are here too! Isn’t it wonderful? So reality has admitted us into Its club. Sounds swanky to me. Once reminded, prodded, nudged to notice this interesting fact, shouldn’t we look around carefully to see what reality looks like from this privileged position? For I also have it on good authority, that the position I occupy is also the exact location of the Big Bang. Where you’re sitting is also the exact location of the Big Bang. Indeed, every location in the universe is the exact location of the Big Bang so the cosmos is the first of the equal opportunity providers.
There is so much HERE to see. I have a marvelous view at my particular scenic overlook. Examine yours closely and I think you’ll find the same is true of your location. This is true for every living being. What happens when my eyes close on some longer sleep, I cannot say though I am inclined to think that there is more….
But back to my original question: can we have good that is just good? I think we can. There is a form of good that is available to anyone at any time, and you find it at your particular location in spacetime. It’s right THERE. Do you see it yet? It’s right where you are now.
If you understood this message, thank a Buddhist….
Apples and Pomegranate, acrylic on watercolor paper
My go-to seems to be round fruit on a table, and apples are a special favorite. Red apples are the best because red is a powerful color. I don’t know if the story about the apple is true for Isaac Newton, but the red round things seem to be great exemplars of gravity if you ask me. In terms of art, they have the most marvelous forms. Simply to indicate shadows and light changing as it curves round these beautiful, settled fruits is so rewarding. I could spend a long time gazing at apples. They feel like they want to sit there, rooted to the earth, their cores pulled by its core. And the dusty ochre is like the dust of earth. It’s all so poetical. Apples have natural gravitas.
I read that “The Persian poet, Rumi, in the 13th century, gives the pomegranate the meaning of joy and love, the highest attainment of the human spirit. For Zoroastrians, the pomegranate was a symbol of immortality and perfection in nature.” So, the pomegranate is no slouch either. Its name comes from medieval Latinpōmum “apple” and grānātum “seeded. Its apple-likeness is recognized in its name.
In my still life, they are like a hen and biddies.
Blue Compotier Still life, neopastel on pastel paper, with additional reworkings begun, work in progress.
I have begun to rework various drawings that I have lately found in storage. Most of the drawings were studies and were never finished for that reason. To finish the drawings now means getting ideas from memory and imagination since the still life set ups are long gone, though in some cases certain still life objects are still in the room with me, available to consult. This drawing is particularly odd in its having a twin. For some reason I made two drawings of the same motif and didn’t finish either one. They appear on same sized sheets and the subjects are very similar. So I have decided to use one to suggest ways of working on the other. Whatever information the one drawing has gets copied to its twin. Then the first reworked drawing in turn becomes the basis for the second one. Between the two I will share as many features as possible. After that point, I will have to invent whatever new features the drawings have.
Blue Compotier Still Life No 2, neopastel on pastel paper
Some additions are just logical, such as extending the yellow color that sits under the compotier stem. When I run out of things like that to add, I suppose that’s when I open one of my books on Pierre Bonnard and begin looking for ideas from him. Either I’ll use my memory and imagination, or I might go shopping through Bonnard’s imagination for ideas on what to do next. These reworkings also offer chances to just play around with technical features — like color mixing, or smearing pigment, adding hatch marks or other kinds of mark making, firming up lines, softening lines, and so on.
Finishing these found drawings is a wonderful excuse to just try out ideas even somewhat randomly. It’s intuitive territory. It’s relaxing activity at the end of the day, too, rest from hours that have been filled with other tasks.
Fruits in a Blue Glass Bowl, neopastel on Canson pastel paper
From Plato’s Phaedrus there is a line about “an intelligent word that can take care of itself and knows when to speak and when to be silent.” In my present musings it pairs with the saying that “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” In reworking some of my old drawings, my former self has become my present teacher. The drawings set up puzzles that present me is eager to solve. It’s an intriguing cooperation between past and present.
The drawing of the bowl of fruit was very unfinished. When I found it in the drawing pile, it depicted only the fruit and part of the bowl. I added the ochre of the table and the grey blue and pale violet of the wall behind. I also began delineating the grapes which were only very slightly indicated. I was so delighted with the drawing after making these simple changes. It may yet undergo some further tweaking. What strikes me now, though, is just the enjoyment of bringing it to a fuller completion — of making it into things. The student was ready, perhaps? Also, the drawing had its silence and its speaking. All the emptiness of the drawing, its silence, was available to become manifest as something. What that something might be was open and indeterminant, available to imagination, to a resonant simplicity in this instance. An artist is surrounded by potential puzzles.
I am letting go of hesitance and “fear” of various types. Sometimes an artist fears to spoil the picture — and note I am not arguing for wild abandon. This drawing sat untouched for a season. That was fine. It only presented itself later as something to possibly carry forward. That was also fine. If I had done nothing to the drawing but enjoyed its degree of portrayal, that would have been okay. If I had tossed it, no tragedy would have ensued. And by adding a table under it and a bit of light catching wall behind it, it has a different sort of pictorial message. If I tweak it further, maybe it gains a bit of nuance. I think more ideas will appear. Little ones. The drawing seems to hold possibility that wants to be realized. Maybe it’s even more unfinished now. These changes are all ideas. Letting them speak at the proper moment teaches forms of intuition and possibly even moves toward insight.
I don’t know if Plato would agree with how I use his words. That’s okay too. They have a life out of context. The words certainly touched my mind and have echoed there across so many years. And when the student is ready the teacher appears. I think the student should be making himself ready. Seek more understanding of whatever it is you do because there is always more available to learn. And the more is wonderful in its way, large or small. Even if I’m inside the elementary school of art, that’s okay, because I want to learn and experience the elemental.
Blue Compotier and Objects on a Table, neopastel on Strathmore paper
That’s supposed to be a bunch of grapes on the table next to the lemon. I think. I’m not sure. This drawing has so much open unfinish in it that I don’t recognize some of what it depicts. Not sure what the brown passage at the center bottom could be. One interesting feature of deciding to rework old drawings is that sometimes there is a lot of space for invention inside them once the real motif is absent. I found this unfinished drawing in the pile and decided to add it to those that I am reworking. However, I haven’t had occasion to think about how it might go forward. And as I write, I still don’t have much idea. It’s just being added to “the list.” Some idea will arrive at the proper time.
Other drawings of the same objects offer suggestions, as do the objects themselves when they happen to be still visible in the room — though some of the objects are in storage at present. These are occasions to use imagination and memory. These drawings are all ways of practicing. They are little meditations on absence. They are little spaces of potential and possibility.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Fantabulous Koi 