Griffin

I thought it might be a nice throwback to the 19th c cafes of Paris, full of artists furiously drawing in their sketchbooks, to take a model with me to the local Starbucks and draw him from life while enjoying some coffee and conversation. And so we went one sunny afternoon, he with his good looks and me with an oversized sketchbook; a gift he had given me for my most recent birthday. I paid him for his sitting with vast amounts of delicious coffee and sugary treats, which was all he asked for. What I didn't take into consideration was that my model is nervously hyper without the addition of caffeine and/or sugar to his system and it took only a very short time before he could no longer focus on what he was looking at, let alone sit still for more than a nanosecond. In the end, frustrated with my jacked up, itchy model, I took some photos of him sitting there across from me and we left so he could burn off his nervous energy. The rather convoluted evolution of this portrait is: begun, from life, in a bustling coffee shop and finished, from photos, very quietly on my own time.

Portrait of Griffin Marks, graphite on paper, 2010

Dancer Sketch

Another quick sketch from a Degas original. I really love the energy in all the sketches, pastels and paintings of his dancers. I don't think there is a single piece -in the countless works on this subject matter- that I don't find lovely and moving.

Quick Study of Edgar Degas' A Ballet Dancer in Position, 1872

Dancer Sketch

I've been spending some time doing quick studies of various works I admire. I'm rather fond of Degas' sketches of ballet dancers in rehearsal and so have been drawing sketches from the originals.

Quick Study of Edgar Degas' Dancer at the Bar, 1880

Lenny

Portrait of a show horse completed for a client in time for the holidays.

Lenny, graphite on paper, 2010

Dog Portraits

Three portraits of German Shepherds done for a client for Christmas.

Ginger, graphite on paper, 2010

Beau, graphite on paper, 2010

Jack, graphite on paper, 2010

Edison and Bram

A large (almost life-sized) sketch of the boys, completed just two days before taking on a four-portrait commission for Christmas. All my own sketches, portraits and paintings in my new chair series have been cast aside in order to complete this job by the deadline.

Edison and Bram in Two Beds, graphite on paper, 2010

Harold Reddicliffe

Last night David and I went to the opening of the Harold Reddicliffe retrospective at BU and as I always am when confronted with his work, I found myself once again mesmerized and speechless. I've always been in awe of hyper realists and wish I had the ability to paint in such detail, but alas, it simply is not something of which I'm capable. I'm not wild about cameras, movie projectors, microscopes and various other banal appliances on their own, but in these pieces, arranged so dramatically, lit so beautifully and executed to absolute perfection in vivid colors, I go ga-ga over every single canvas. Thirty years of extraordinarily intricate, intimate and at the same time, bold, works and all of them in one gallery. I defy anyone to not be blown away.

Projector and Light Stand, 2008

Scale, Coffee Pot and Light Stand, 2008
Two Slide Projectors, 2005

Another Purchase

I can't seem to help myself when it comes to buying art. It doesn't matter whether I have the money or not, when something draws my eye and speaks to my heart, that's it. I really, really tried to avoid buying this small oil study of a nude. I really did. I walked away from the artist's studio and told myself I couldn't afford it. I walked through all the other studios, visiting friends among the artists and making new ones, and yet in the back of my mind that entire time was this one piece. I told myself if it was still there when I was done schmoozing and being ADD Art Girl for the day, then I'd buy it. If it had been sold by then, then it wasn't meant to be. I thought of little else for the rest of the day. When the day was done, I wandered back to that studio. There were a lot of little red dots on her works, but this one was hanging there, utterly dot-free, and so I kept my word to myself and bought the piece. I told myself I couldn't afford it as I took it down from the wall and handed the canvas to the artist. I told myself I shouldn't be doing this as I handed the cash to her too. I told myself that this was bad, very bad, as she handed me back my new painting, securely wrapped in brown paper. I spent the ride home trying to justify the purchase of yet another piece of art. And then when I got home, unwrapped it and gazed at what was now mine, I knew that nothing else mattered. Because it's art and art is all I have.

Patience Epstein, Untitled

Fall Open Studios

The 21st annual Open Studios Event will be held this weekend at Saxonville Studios in Framingham, 15 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts. While I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's work (as always), I'm especially looking forward to seeing the current works of Perry Lowell Bent and her new studio. Perry is a fiber artist whose works are both delicate and powerful at the same time, with colors both vibrant and moody, and texture that makes you just want to reach out and touch (just a bit). You can see her works, as well as that of more than a dozen other artists this weekend at the Saxonville Studios.

Saxonville Open Studios

November 6 and 7, from 12-5pm each day

http://www.saxonvillestudios.com/

Perry Lowell Bent, Autumn in New England, 2010

Perry Lowell Bent, Hope Lives, 2010

Historical Palettes Part II

Once again, from my alla prima book and list of historical palettes, come the palettes of another two of history's greatest artists. Part I may be viewed here on August 4, 2010.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)

silver white

red madder

red ochre

cobalt blue

emerald green

verona earth

naples yellow

yellow ochre

raw sienna

ivory black

Girl Braiding Her Hair (Suzanne Valadon), 1885

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

lead white

orpiment (a yellow)

yellow ochre

yellow lake

madder red

vermilion

red ochre

ultramarine blue

cobalt blue

green earth

vert azur (a blue-green)

malachite green

burnt sienna

ivory black

Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, 1615

Confidence

If I, for my part, have some confidence in my own work, it is also because it costs me too much effort for me to believe that nothing will be gained by it or that it is done in vain.

You must by no means suppose that I have great illusions about the appreciation of my work; I think one must be satisfied if one succeeds in convincing a few people of the seriousness of one's intentions, and is understood by them without flattery. For the rest, if there is anything more than that, so much the better, but one must think about it as little as possible. But one need not mind what people in general say and do.

Vincent in a letter to Theo, April 1884.

Parsonage With Flowering Trees, sketch enclosed in the above letter, Nuenen, 1884

From One Artist to Another

I was recently in a consignment shop looking for funky vintage clothing when I happened upon a small pile of decrepit-looking, dusty old feathered birds peeping out of a half-open drawer. Not willing to let them spend an eternity there unwanted and ignored, and in addition to the fact that they're birds (which I adore), I scooped them up, save for one really ratty one with a missing eye. A few minutes later I felt guilty for having abandoned that one and so gathered up the sad little eyeless one as well.

When I finally finished my clothing spree and made my way to the register, the lady who owns the shop told me she had another bird she hadn't priced yet and threw it in for free (along with the one-eyed fellow who also was free of charge). And then in a pile of things she was still checking in, a rather large deer made of real fur caught my eye. David and Griffin were utterly repulsed by it so I passed on it, but there was a tiny fawn that I simply had to have. A few weeks later when I returned to the shop, a twin to the first fawn had been added to the shelf of creepy animals, so he too was scooped up and brought home.

The story behind all these little creatures (and many more still in that vintage shop) is that they belonged to an elderly collage artist who had recently passed away and his son, not at all interested in the oddball objects his dad had laying about his studio, instead chose to consign them rather than keep them. I not only like the little things for their oddness, but I'm rather enamored of the idea that one artist would give a home to the unwanted objects of another artist. I'm not entirely sure what to do with them yet, but when it's meant to happen, something will come to me loud and clear. And in the meantime, the birds have all been safely tucked away where my cat won't be attracted to the feathers from which they're made, and the two furry little fawns have a place of honor on my dresser where they never cease to mildly creep out David every time he walks by them.

Sargent

A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.

-John Singer Sargent

Portrait of Carolus Duran, 1879

Ivy

Ivy is a very delicate little long coat chihuahua who lives in England. This little piece was a challenge not only because she's a mostly white dog, but also in that I wanted very much to translate her daintiness and wispiness into her portrait. I felt that in order for this to be a truly successful piece, it had to be tangibly gentle. I really enjoyed working on this drawing, much more so than my usual dog portraits. I'm not sure why, or what was so different about this particular one, but it was and I did.

Portrait of Ivy, graphite on blush colored paper, 2010

Doris

Doris in Profile, graphite on paper, 2010

Self Portrait

Self Portrait With Messy Hair, graphite on paper, 2010

Tilt-Shift Vincent

I was recently turned on to a fairly simple photographic technique that yields some pretty quirky results and the link I was sent used Vincent's works to illustrate it. Called tilt-shift photography, it requires the use of a special camera lens that gives a real world scene (or in this case, oil paintings) the look of a miniature model. While some have complained that this technique has given Vincent's paintings the amateurish look of a children's diorama, I personally find it wonderful. Seeing his work in this new way, looking vaguely reminiscent of photographs of a tiny model train world, is just thrilling and in this way his paintings have taken on a new dimension and vibrancy. And as generally unhappy and restless as Vincent was, I think seeing his work, however briefly, as funky and fun would be something that Vincent himself might have enjoyed.

The Harvest, 1888

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/hot/tilt-shift-van-gogh.htm

God, Do I Hate This Guy!

I recently watched an older episode of Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel that annoyed the hell out of me. The wonderful Tom Ford explored the studio and working life of the incredibly irritating Jeff Koons. My god, that man drives me to distraction. His talent is virtually non-existent yet his ego is beyond enormous and frankly, his eyes (and his personality) give the uber-creeps. True, Koons has billed himself as "the most written about artist in the world" but I'd bet any money on this being true only because he's such an arrogant, pompous ass that people just have to write about him to vent their hatred of him in a non-violent way.

Dating back to his earliest well-known works in which he boffed that hideously ugly and classless then-wife of his in large-format photos, paintings and sculptures to his current installation pieces that apparently are all executed by his minions under his dictates, virtually every single piece in his career has been (according to Jeff himself) an homage of sorts to another artist: this repetitive image of a playboy model is "an homage" to Warhol's Elvis silkscreens, this silver streak is "an homage" to Warhol's pillows, this thought bubble is "an homage" to Lichtenstein, these basketballs are "an homage" to Duchamp. And what, gentle reader, do you take away from all this? I know what I get from it: Koons seldom has any ideas that are truly original to him and since he's now too important and busy to even create any of his own works anymore, it no longer matters. Actually, it probably never did. I just don't get, have never gotten, what all the positive buzz is about this guy. The negative stuff I more than understand. Having been sued numerous times for copyright infringements of other peoples' works, how anyone can consider this guy an artist, let alone a 'genius' as many clearly insane people believe, is beyond me.

I knew I shouldn't have watched that episode. I knew it was going to get me all riled up about what a joke Koons is. But hell, at least Tom Ford was a joy to watch.

Blue Self Portrait

I've been toying with various color concepts of late and this is one example. The idea was to draw myself in the traditional complementary colors of blue and orange, and that's all I was thinking when I did this piece. David, however, upon seeing this work on the easel just had to ask if I was drawing myself as a character from James Cameron's Avatar, a movie I have never seen nor have any desire to ever see. Yuck. Way to ruin an exercise in creative freedom.

Blue Self Portrait, pastel, graphite and charcoal on paper, 2010

The Gardens at Giverny

"If I can someday see M. Claude Monet's garden, I feel sure that I shall see something that is not so much a garden of flowers as of colors and tones, less an old-fashioned flower garden than a color garden, so to speak, one that achieves an effect not entirely nature's, because it was planted so that only the flowers with matching colors will bloom at the same time, harmonized in an infinite stretch of blue or pink."

-Marcel Proust, "Splendors," Le Figaro, June 15, 1907

Top and middle photo courtesy of giverny.org

Bottom photo courtesy of gay nomad on flickr.

You Decide

I recently got into a rather heated debate with someone about talent and skill within the various genres of art. I'm not even sure how we went from a rather pleasant conversation about art in general to an ugly little verbal boxing match about how much skill is required to execute a particular piece of work, but spar we did.

I am of the belief that it required less technical skill for, say, Hoffman to create a modernist piece than for Monet to have painted a classical portrait. To paint an abstract work is not the same thing as painting a realistic human portrait or landscape and does, I believe, require far less skill. This is not to say that one can paint that abstract work without artistic talent. One can always find at least a handful of people standing before an abstract work in a gallery or museum loudly announcing that their five year old could do that same thing and no one is paying their child millions of dollars for their identical scribbly, splotchy mess. Those artistically ignorant people aside, I stand firm in my belief that it requires more skill to paint something from life as opposed to something comprised entirely of abstract shapes and blocks of color. And while it isn't necessarily true that anyone could paint an abstract work of art, be they artistically inclined or not, but if given a set of paints and a brush and told to make either an abstract piece or a classical portrait, most people would be far more successful at executing the abstract piece than they would the Mona Lisa.

The person with whom I was having this discussion, when he shouted that Picasso's Guernica is considered the greatest work of modern art ever created, was clearly and entirely missing my point. Working on a piece that requires less technical skill in no way means that an artist has no talent, nor does working on a technically simpler piece mean that one is a lesser artist. I would be insane to even think that Picasso was a talentless hack based on his cubist and modernist works. Picasso was a genius and his early classical drawings and paintings reflect a level of technical skill that his later works don't, in my humble opinion, always reflect. But I also will never be swayed in my personal belief that, regardless of how difficult it may be to create an abstract work of art, to execute one will never require the level of technical skill that a classical work requires. Yell at me if you will, on this I firmly stand my ground.

Claude Monet, Woman in the Green Dress (Camille), 1866

Hans Hoffman, The Gate, 1959-1960

Horses

I love horses, but then what girl doesn't love a beautiful horse? On my birthday a couple of weeks back we went for a walk past the horse farm up the road from our house and luckily the horses were all in one of the fields that allows easy access for those of us who are on the outside of the fence to get up close and personal with those residents living inside the fence. Without large brambles and masses of poison ivy we were able to get down and dirty with them, and boy did we. We fed them, we petted them and we took loads of smashing photos of dozens of horses doing all sorts of those horsey things that they do all day long. I wished I had had the time to sit and sketch them live that afternoon, but as that would have been a total downer for my companions to hang around and wait while I did it, I have instead made do with using a few of the many photos to sketch some lovely horses. Some of the drawings have been completed, some are still merely rough sketches.

Horse Head Study, graphite on paper, 2010

Sketch of Grazing Horse, graphite on paper, 2010

Chair Study

Another very small study of an arts & crafts period chair.

Stickley Dining Room Chair With Sideboard, graphite on paper, 6 x 8 inches, 2010

Self Portrait

A fairly small and hastily executed self portrait, graphite on paper, 2010.

Van Gogh's The Sower

So I went to the MFA to fall on my knees before this painting and worship it as any true disciple of Vincent would and I have to say I was just as thrilled with it as I had hoped I would be, and may have even been a bit more excited than I had anticipated (if that's even possible). I took my time heading into the Impressionist gallery, stopping in the hallway just outside it to snap a few photos of a Constable I thought I might like to try my hand at emulating. I wanted to take my time: to savor the moment of that first fleeting view; of seeing a Vincent that I had never seen before. When I got into the room and saw The Sower in the distance, my heart skipped a beat. Several, in fact. There it was in the far corner, hung with Millet's sower that Vincent loved so much. And I was instantly startled by two things: its size and its palette.

The work was much smaller than I had anticipated. I'm not sure why I thought it was bigger than it is, but there you have it. It was small. Intimately and accessibly small. And while I have seen endless photo reproductions of the many versions Vincent painted of The Sower, especially many photos of this particular piece, I now know that not one of them even remotely captured the true life colors Vincent used in creating this tiny masterpiece. Holy cow! A lime green sky, pink clouds, cornflower blue fields, little slashes of vivid cerulean and of course Vincent's beloved yellow. I couldn't tear myself away from it. I tried, but I couldn't. I moved aside every few minutes to let others get a look, only to step back before it the moment they walked away. I committed every brushstroke and every nuance to memory. I took endless photos of it from various angles (and wished I was at least a foot taller to see it eye to eye on the gallery wall). And then when David had asked me to move on for the umpteenth time, I did so grudgingly, but only briefly, as only a few short minutes later I found myself back in front of The Sower once again.

And then it was time to go. I had given much thought to seeing this work, to experiencing this work as completely as I could. I had thought about the time I would spend with it and how I wanted to be sure I stayed calm so as to remember every last detail of the piece and the precious time I spent with it. What I didn't think about at all was the act of walking away from it. Of leaving it once and for all, knowing that in all likelihood I would never, ever see this painting again in my lifetime and knowing that it would be on its return trip to Europe just hours after I walked out of that gallery. It was incredibly difficult to do and I was utterly surprised by how much trouble I had saying goodbye to it, though given my absolute adoration of Vincent, how this could have been a surprise is beyond me.

But leave I finally did. I was joyful at having had the opportunity to experience a Vincent painting I had never before seen, yet sad that this experience was over. I was left with both a sense of the surreal at having been in its presence and a bit melancholy too at how quickly it was over. I think Vincent would more than understand.

Photo of The Sower was taken by me in the Impressionist Gallery at the MFA Boston. While the angle is odd due to the height it was hung at and my rather short staure, I think it is a bit more accurate a representation of the brushwork and pigments used by Vincent than most generic photo reproductions of this piece found online or in books.

Historical Palettes Part I

I'm currently reading a book on painting alla prima and it has, in one chapter, a rather extensive list of the palettes used by some of history's greatest artists. I find it endlessly fascinating to see what pigments these masters used: some very few and some (with the advent of so many new and exciting colors at certain points in time, as well as the convenience of pre-mixed tubes) a great many.

Titian (Italian, c. 1488-1576)

lead white

ultramarine blue

red madder

burnt sienna

malachite green

red ochre

yellow ochre

orpiment (a yellow)

ivory black

Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906)

white

brilliant yellow

naples yellow

chrome yellow

yellow ochre

raw sienna

vermilion

burnt sienna

red madder

crimson lake

burnt lake

veronese green

emerald green

verona earth

cobalt blue

ultramarine blue

prussian blue

peach black

John Constable (English, 1776-1837)

lead white

yellow ochre

umber

red earth

emerald green

ultramarine blue

prussian blue

black

John Constable, Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, 1824 (which, by the way, I find endlessly mesmerizing as one seldom sees his studies and is instead fed a steady diet of his finished works, complete with the most amazing skies).

Neekie Pete

Two portraits of Neekie Pete: the first one that I rejected as soon as I finished it and the second one, which I think is far better than its predecessor. I had the eyes just a bit wrong in my first go-round and it bothered me enough to start over from scratch, which really was a shame because the rest of him was a good likeness. Still, it's the eyes that matter, isn't it? This was a tough little drawing because the dog was laying down at an odd angle in his photograph but after nearly 30 hours of drawing the little guy, I think I at last got it right.

Face Portrait of Neekie Pete, graphite on paper, 2010

Edison Head Study

A medium-sized pencil study of Edison's head and chest. I'm currently working on a portrait of a friend's dog. Actually, to be more precise, a second portrait of that particular dog as I wasn't at all happy with the first one. I just didn't feel I even remotely captured the dog's personality in his eyes so it was back to square one. I hate when things don't go the way I plan, but then that's art for you.

Study of Edison's Head and Chest, graphite on paper, 2010

The Sower

Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which is done completely differently. The sky is yellow and green, the ground violet and orange. There is certainly a picture of this kind to be painted of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done someday, either by me or by someone else. Now, could you paint the Sower in color, with a simultaneous contrast of, for instance, yellow and violet, yes or no? Why, yes. Well, do it then. Yes, that is what old Martin said, "The masterpiece is up to you." But try it and you tumble into a regular metaphysical philosophy of color...a mess that is damnably difficult to get out of with honor. And it makes you as absent-minded as a sleepwalker. And yet if only one could do something good. Well, let's be of good heart, and not despair. I hope to send you this attempt along with some others soon.

Vincent to Theo in a letter from Arles, dated 22 July 1888.

The Sower, 1888

Van Gogh's The Sower is currently on view at the MFA Boston, on loan from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, through August 8.

Bernard

Though he was a friend and artistic contemporary of my beloved Vincent, no matter how much I try, I just can't get into the work of Emile Bernard. I think it might be because so much of it is virtually identical in style and subject to Gauguin's work and we all know how I feel about that. When I look at most of Bernard's canvases, all I see is Gauguin. Vincent was so smitten with Bernard's brush that he not only made copies of his friend's works, but in letters to Theo he implored his brother to promote Bernard's new style of art. This, I guess, shouldn't be surprising as Vincent also thought Gauguin was brilliant. Uh-hunh. At any rate, this is one of the few pieces of Emile Bernard that I really do like. A lot. The juxtaposition between the field of green and the boy's fiery red hair is beautiful, and startling. Its simplicity is a joy. And oh yeah, it looks nothing like a Gauguin.

Boy Sitting in the Grass, 1886

Bram Sitting

Portrait of Bram Sitting, graphite on paper, 2010

Pissarro's Montmartre

There's something about the compulsive artist's penchant for painting the same subject over and over again in different light and in different seasons, ad nauseum, that's very appealing to me. Monet was the master of this, creating no less than 25 canvases of haystacks in less than a year and more than 30 of Rouen Cathedral. But by far, he wasn't the only artist to relentlessly work a subject. There are countless artists known for their need to wring every nuance from a location, an object or a portrait subject, but one of those not necessarily known for this is Pissarro. Granted, he returned again and again to a broader subject, especially in his etchings of peasants, and though he often painted the same scenes from various angles, he's generally not known for painting the same location again and again, from the same vantage point and identical except for the light, the weather or the seasons. But when he was diagnosed with a chronic infection of the tear duct, he was no longer able to paint outdoors on location due to wind and dust, and so spent most of his time painting landscapes and cityscapes from indoors looking out through the windows. While in a Paris hotel in 1897 and 1898, among the numerous works he completed of the city, he painted multiple canvases of Montmartre from the exact same vantage point in every season in all weathers: sunlight, rain, fog, and at all hours of the day and night. Most critics believe that these Paris works are among his most brilliant and well-executed and I would have to agree. While not a huge fan of Camille Pissarro's works, these are truly breathtaking and like Monet's many series of nearly identical works, these thrill me simply for their relentless consistency.

Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897

Boulevard Montmartre Au Printemps, 1897

Boulevard Montmartre La Nuit, 1898

Encaustics VII

I devour nature ceaselessly. I exaggerate, sometimes I make changes in the subject: but still I don't invent the whole picture. On the contrary, I find it already there. It's a question of picking out what one wants from nature.

-Vincent van Gogh

Monet and Renoir

Two paintings of the same scene by Monet and Renoir, painted at Monet's riverside home in the village of Argenteuil, and almost identical in size and vantage point, but each visually distinct from the other. I used to think I preferred Renoir's lighter, airier take on the river, but now I think I like Monet's darker, moodier version more.

Claude Monet, La Grenouillere, 1869

Pierre Auguste Renoir, La Grenouillere, 1869

Pollock

Jackson Pollock was the poster child for Artists With Emotional Disorders and/or Mental Illness (which, let's be honest, is just about every artist to one degree or another), yet he took it beyond the extreme. The man was unbelievably tortured and pretty much on a collision course with a horrible and dramatic death from the day he was born. And the art he is most famous for- his large abstract canvases of the late 40s and early 50s- are simply breathtaking. I guess if the trade-off for being able to produce such emotionally charged works was to be utterly-out-of-your-mind-batshit-crazy then it was worth every psycho, violent minute.

I once, while at the National Gallery in Washington, waited (for what felt like years) for the docent in that gallery to finally leave the room, whereby I climbed over the ropes and cozied up to a favorite Pollock and gently ran my fingers all over that glorious work. Now, please don't tell me how I shouldn't have done that. That as an artist I should have more than known to keep my oily, art-damaging fingers off the canvas. I am aware of it now and I was aware of it then. But sometimes rationality and plain old self-control just fly right out the window. I should know, I'm an artist.

And in case you were wondering, all that heavily dripped paint felt amazing.

Number 16, 1949

Autumn Rhythm, 1950