SKetchBlog

Fine Arts Blog

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Watercolors Blog
 

Where I struggle in painting and in writing is in the same area: Structure. In painting I have trouble with composition. In writing I have trouble with plot. With sculpture, my sense of design is intuitive; I can plunge right into the clay and improvise and come up with a good design. If I try that with a painting I end up doing a lot of rearranging. If I try that with a novel, it gets bogged down pretty fast. 

Because I can design on the fly with sculpture, I made the mistaken assumption I could do that with painting and with writing. No, that is not the case at all!  Gotta figure out the structure ahead of time in those two areas. With writing and painting the sketchbook is my best friend. 
 

Dryad with tree sculpture, made without designing
it first. Just did it.
 

So I'm talking to some guy who is new on the Austin art scene. He's asking me about my paintings. What do you paint, he says. Still life, I answer. Still life, eh? he responds. I can hear the faintest condensation in his voice. And I'm saying, Yup. Still life.

Never ceases to amaze me, the snobbery in the art world. Some people seem to want everyone else to paint just like them. Otherwise they don't approve.

I'm glad other people don't paint like me. How boring would that be, if we all painted alike? If everyone painted like me, there would be that many more artists out there better than me at what I do.  There's enough of them as it is!

Whatever I paint, I'm doing it because I get a big bang out of it. Because it's FUN! Because it gives me joy. Makes me feel 30 years younger. When I was in art school, Grasshopper, we weren't allowed to paint traditional still lifes. It was anathema to what was Happenin' back then. Realism was a dirty word. There were lots of hot exciting new Ism's. Invent a new Ism and get famous! 

You gotta paint what's in your soul. If you've got an edgy new Ism in your soul, hey, good on you. And if your soul is a tad more traditional, that's wonderful too.

It's all good. Even snobbery.  Snobbery is one of the artist's best and most secret marketing tools. But it's just a tool. You don't have to point that thing at me; I'm happy if you will limit your use of it to selling your work. 

Acrylic paints and drying
This is screamingly obvious, a no-brainer, a real DUH moment. Bet you're dying to know.

I bought some brand new acrylics and was amazed at how much more workable they are than my old ones. Acrylics, when they're half dry on the canvas, get into a sticky stage. At that point the paint is unworkable, and you have to wait until it dries completely before you can go back to painting on that passage.

Paint in old tubes of acrylics is halfway sticky already. So when you squeeze them out onto the palette, they dry real fast. Almost as fast as when painting acrylics in direct sun in the summer (definitely not recommended). And way faster than new paint.

But new paint from new tubes is nice and juicy and stays wet much longer on the palette. At least comparatively.  So the thing to do is paint a lot use them up fast. Then you get to go back to the art store, wheee!

As for the map, I go all over it as an artist. I've tried to concentrate on one area, but I give up. That's just the way I am. Galleries and art directors don't like that, but I figure if I show them a body of work that's consistent, they won't mind if I have more than one body. Heh heh heh.... Ohhhh I am a shape shifter.

The Crossroads:  With sculpture I used to do what sells, but now I want to do art from the heart.  So, what's in this old heart? I felt so odd coming to this junction that I really was at a loss to say what I wanted to do. But little by little, it is coming to me. Doors long closed are rustily squeaking open. (Rust. Red iron oxide. I like that pigment. I like it in clay, and I like it in paint.)

I decided to put my sculpture on hold for now, and focus on 2 dimensional art. When I come back to sculpture it will be sculpture only, and no sound. The sound was lots and lots of fun. I really enjoyed it. I want to explore what else I can do with sculpture. It can wait a little, though. 

As for painting, I can draw fine but I really want to be expert at pushing paint. Watercolor I feel very comfortable with. It's the acrylics that demand practice.

That's all for now. This really is way more fulfilling than arguing online with someone who knows nothing about the properties of clay about the right way to build something in clay so it won't fall apart. So little blog, I welcome myself back to you. Woo hoo!

Pen and ink
A book I'd like to recommend on pen and ink is a Dover publication titled Rendering in Pen and Ink by Arthur L. Guptill. It features work by several wonderful classic illustrators, plus Mr. Guptill's own renderings.

If you've ever messed up quill pens because the ink wouldn't flow, here's a tip: Keep the nib very clean. Wipe it or rinse it. Also you can dilute the ink with a tiny amount of water--especially if you've had the ink for a while, because it will evaporate over time. I once had a bottle of ink with gunk on the bottom, that's how much it had dried up. I poured it into another bottle and it worked fine after that. Guptill recommends wiping the nib with a chamois rag, I'm not that classy and use a section of an old tshirt. Another thing I do is just barely dip the point of the pen in water, enough to make an ink spot on the surface of the water, and that keeps the ink flowing. Then I can draw with impunity. Which is how you want to draw. Impunity is great for artists. 

Watercolor
Now, about watercolors, here's the thing. You have to go with the flow. Literally. Most of the time when I've messed up an area it was because I was not patient enough to let the thing dry thoroughly before coming back in & painting some detail. A watercolor has a certain speed or rhythm to it. Once you catch on to that, the timing of it, you can paint. One way to do this is to have several going at once, a teaching from Michael Frary. 

Another thing about watercolor: most people overdo it and get it all muddy. So you lay down an area of color, and then let it rest. You can put another color into it to give it variations, but don't overdo that. Various stages of wetness will give you different effects when painting wet into wet. Learn those. They are actually quite fun. 

Pencil underdrawing should be done in a very hard pencil. Don't use the B's. Use the H's. Because the graphite from the pencil will get into the paint and muddy it. So you want a pencil that doesn't give very much pigment when you drag it over the paper. 

Watercolors will dry faster on smooth papers, and slower on more textured papers. And it will look different dry than wet. It tends to dry lighter. 

At the right is part of a study I did of Eve with apple. In the background is the snake, with its head circled in blue. 

I circled the snake's head in blue because it is the only element in this composition that is not original. I copied the snake head from "Animals 1419 Copyright Free Illustrations...from 19th Century Sources", page 179, figure 804. Edited by Jim Harter, published by Dover Publications in New York. Its disclaimer reads that the images may be used without permission "for graphics and crafts application" within certain limitations. Of which a single snake's head is well within the boundaries. 

In this age of great concern over copyright issues, professional artists do their best to produce original compositions not only to avoid copyright infringement, but because it is a point of pride. But there comes a time when every artist needs reference. Although I can draw a pretty decent looking human figure from memory if I have to, I cannot necessarily do the same when portraying animals, plants, and man made objects. I have taken many art courses on portraying the human figure but I've never taken courses in portraying snakes. I needed a little help, and called upon my trusty Dover reference book. I wish I had the artist's name who did that snake, I'd list it here. It's obvious he/she did the snake from life. Life is where you get all the good stuff, but it's not always available. 

What I did was not only perfectly legal, it also has had many, many precedents throughout art history. Artists from day one have influenced and borrowed--or like Picasso--stolen from one another.  A study of art history will bear this out.  You can look at any artist's work and trace what the influences were. Something somewhere sometime can be found that has the same components, albeit arranged or interpreted differently.  As the old saying goes, "There's nothing new under the sun." Once the sun was invented, all else was derivative. 

My above statement about the sun was inspired by American poet Joyce Kilmer, who said
"Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree."

Artists can portray trees. We can paint and draw them in entirely new, fresh, and original compositions. We can write about them. We can sing about them, we can dance to imitate their branches in the wind. But no artist could ever invent trees--or animals or planets, or stars. We can make compositions, but we cannot create in the true sense of the word. Genesis is completely out of our league. We do not invent the basic components, we only come up with original arrangements and interpretations of them. 

Acorn Arts  has started a fund called Kards for Katrina, in which artists and calligraphers send in original, hand made cards to be raffled off. Proceeds go to America's Second Harvest to benefit hurricane Katrina survivors.
Here's one of the cards I made for them.

It's from one of my old watercolor paintings that I cut up. I'd always wondered what to do with watercolors that didn't quite make the grade. Had them sitting in a bin. Cropped, they make wonderful small compositions, and now I'll always have  stationery.

One of the fun things about a card made from a watercolor painting is that it's painted front and back when you fold it. Sometimes the inside has color on it, too, because watercolor paper can be used on both sides.

The watercolors are taking root, sprouting up, and I've made a quantum leap with my art. A personal triumph; a little joy to take the edge off the shards of my broken heart-- from how the hurricane Katrina blew up the Gulf coast and flooded New Orleans. 

Every time I took a drink of water or ate a bite of food, I kept thinking about people with no food, no water, contamination and death surrounding them and how could they survive in those conditions? Lots of blame being swapped back and forth between the politicians for agonizingly slow federal response, meanwhile the charities seem to be nicely coordinating. Surviving thirst and destruction, many came to Texas on our governor's invitation. And Texas, I was so proud of what Texas did, taking survivors into her bosom. Ya done good, Mr. Perry. May they all thrive.

(I swore I'd stay away from politics in this journal, but how do you do that in a world filled with politicians and disasters???)

Meanwhile my old teacher Michael Frary has departed planet Earth, leaving behind some beautiful watercolors. Best teacher from my college years. I still remember a lot of the things he told me, they come wafting back into my brain as I paint. Such as, don't layer more than twice if you really want to avoid mud in a transparant watercolor (I think he may have broken that rule a few times but he could do it). 

Roots and Watercolors

In college I took watercolor from Texas artist Michael Frary. It was one of the few things in art school that I really, really connected to. Watercolor felt magical to me No computer solfware will ever be as mysterious and hard to fathom as watercolor. Michael Frary called it "the medium of the masters."

Every now and then I'll see someone I haven't seen in many years, and one of the first things they'll say is, "I still have that little watercolor you gave me."
This is what I used to do with my watercolors: Pass them out like candy. 

In the 1980's I sold watercolors at art fairs. I would paint the same picture over and over in different color schemes. Some things-- like breathing and eating chocolates-- are worth doing over and over, but not paintings. Definitely not paintings.

So the watercolors have lain dormant for a long while, but now they are poking their shining little heads up and saying, hey, how about it? And I'm thinkig well, why not, I seem to be going back to my roots anyway.
 

Right there all along

To make a long blog short, I figured out what my art wants to do with me. It's been clear as mud all along. Whew. Glad the 20 years of confusion is over. Now I'm all fired up with enthusiasm!

The other day I wrote a message to God in my sketchbook. Asking what should I do with my art? I'm so confused about it I think I'll just leave it all up to You.

Of course, I didn't get any angels or lightening bolts or saints bringing me a golden scroll telling me what to do. Nor a divine hand writing grafitti on the wall.

But I did hear from the Muse, who pointed out rather tartly that there were some parts of my art that I'm in very great doubt/confusion about, and others I'm fairly clear about. And that guess what, I tend to promote (ie., make a real attempt to sell besides just putting it on the Web) the things I clearly feel a passion for. And that in these areas, I'm actually making a name for myself whereas in the others, it's a lovely pipedream on the Web. I guess it takes a Muse to point out the obvious. 

I won't tell you which parts are which because you see, it's up to me to entirely untangle the koan of what I want to do with my art. Or perhaps... is it... what my art wants to do with me? Ah. With the question reversed, I have just flipped the "drawing" backwards, as it were. Ever done that? Held a drawing up to a mirror? Flipping it reveals things about the composition, such as what direction things are pulling towards.
 

Plein air sketches from vacation in Big Bend. Done in marker on cheap sketchbook paper. Being an illustrator has spoiled me; I am unconcerned about the originals anymore. Admittedly the originals aren't as nice; but on the other hand I've got more of them because marker is way faster than quill or brush.
These were each done in approx. 30 minutes. Also a chisled edge marker can get beautiful effects. These would make gorgeous prints with a tiny subtle bit of color added. I also did a new  fantasy illo "Plein Air Dragon"
inspired by Big Bend.
 

Wilson Ranch Overlook

Chisos Basin Mountains

Casa Grande

Window

Depression/Obsession, and the Roots of all Teeth

OOps! I got so bogged down in
Tax returns, volunteer work, paid work
AND
General anxiety and depression,
that I didn't do any art! 
And when I get depressed I get obsessed. Nothing like having the same paranoid fears spin in your mind for several weeks to kill off all creative energy.

Whew! That was crazy. What snapped me back to reality was when my 24 year old son was in pain from wiz teeth and needed a fast trip to the dentist. Helping him got me out of the obsessive spin. Generally I don't talk about my family because they're all very private people and besides, they can write their own blogs about their own teeth if they want to. It's just that this one time I had to mention it because helping someone else was the key.

I'm also reading Wayne Dyer's The Power of Intention.
I like it!
I didn't like it at first because I was too obsessed and depressed to understand what he was saying. But now I'm starting to get it. 

Thoughts matter. 
You could even say, Thoughts = Matter
Because general thought patterns have a way of manifesting. Or manifestering.
Take your pick.

Global Gossip
Used to be that if you were too naughty or nasty or outré you'd get gossiped about all over town. Things have changed. Now the gossip is global.

Just think, if you were to festoon the mayor's house in your town with toilet-paper, egg yolks, tinsel, and old shoes (and I'm not suggesting you do that) they might be clicking and clucking over it on the other side of the world. The Internet has transformed planet Earth into a small town.

Here's a cartoon I did inspired by global gossip:

Click to see enlarged.

The bear in my bathroom
There is a bear in my bathroom. It's on the door where the towel rack used to be.  The bear is coming out of a cave after hibernating all winter.  He's looking back into the cave as if to say, well that was a nice warm cave, but I'm hungry. Some folks might say No, it's not a bear, it's a door that needs repainting.  I grant you that this door could use a fresh coat of paint. But I wish that whenever that happens, we could spare the bear. 

Everywhere I go I see pictures, and I always have since I was a little child. Faces are the commonest things to see in wall textures or clouds or shadows, but a whole composition is something marvelous. 

Elektra: a fright at the opera 
The other night we went to Austin Lyric Opera see Elektra, Richard Strauss' opera based on the Greek tragedy.

Here's a rundown of the plot:
1. They killed my dad Agamemnon, I wanna kill 'em back!
2. Oh goody, my brother Orestes is gonna kill 'em for me! 
3. Kill, Orestes, kill!
4. Ding dong hooray! They're dead!
5. Aaak! I'm dying toooooooooooo!

All sung very beautifully and powerfully. You wouldn't believe how sumptously soprano Susan Marie Pierson's cadences rose and fell over the revenge slayings.  A downer to be sure, but any violently tragic opera beats the living daylights out of those wretched shoot-em-up blow-em-sky-high video games they have nowadays. Still, if I were writing the libretto for Elektra, the ghost of Agamemnon would have made an appearance--it needed a little cosmic relief.

Capturing King Kong

Tonight I watched the original King Kong movie with Fay Wray, and decided to sketch directly from a movie. This is hard to do because movies have constant action and the actors rarely hold still. 

However, it's not impossible. With practice, your visual memory improves to the point where you can hold in your mind the gist of an image that you only saw for a couple seconds. Then you get to fill in your own details. I'm convinced that this is how artists did it in the olden days before photography. Only they were watching Shakespeare plays instead of movies...

Also the other day I tried making a double ocarina. Didn't exactly turn out like the sketches below, nor did it sound too great but it's only the first one. Although I won't fire it, I'm going to keep it around to compare to later attempts.
 

A lady from the crowd at Kong's New York debut.

Kong and Ann first meet

An unexpected visitor

Couldn't quite get Kong's jawline right. Notice the attempt at Kong's head facing the other way. 
 

BIG PLANS 

Tonight I was listening to James Galway play flute on KLRU television, and I got to reflecting on how much I've enjoyed making and playing ocarinas for the past 5 years.  Very inspiring, his playing, so while listening I picked up a pencil and did some sketches for some double ocarinas I hope to make in 2005.  After all this time, I'm ready for the challenge. Wish me luck, I'll need it!
Click on thumbnail to see larger image.

There is an old saying
"No good deed will go unpunished."

Have you ever had the experience of knocking yourself out to the point of physical exhaustion to do a great job for the sake of a large group of people,  only to receive bitter complaints?

You have??? Me, too!

Well, let's forget all about it...

Let's go make some ART!!!

My hand survived  two four hour caricaturing gigs in one day, although it nearly killed my back. But it's not the physical aspects of caricaturing that baffle me. Caricaturing is the biggest mental challenge I have ever faced. No pun intended!

There's so much interaction with the person I'm drawing. It's almost magic. Over the years I've noticed that part of a person's mind really believes that the drawing is them.  Sometimes the "magic" is so strong I could color their face blue and add wings and they'd believe it. Such an illusion contained in lines and colors on a sheet of paper.

My job is to be kind when I draw people. It's a very, very thin line to walk. Sometimes the tiniest smidgen of "unkindness" would make a much, much, better drawing. Like the tiny hint of bitterness in dark chocolate. Truth with finesse. I want to be kind to both of us.