Go Team

I am exhausted today. I tried to write something clever, but it sounded like it was written by someone on drugs- and not the totally awesome kind, but the bad kind of drugs. So I deleted the post.
I am going to keep this short and sweet.

I finished this painting today. Here are a few process shots, showing the first day lay-in (one of the best I have done), followed by a shot a few days later, and the final photo taken today.

Sorry the text is so boring, but give me a break! Writing this blog is tough. A man can only give so much, and I am constantly giving. I give, and you want more, day after day. I can't handle it! I am a giver, that is what I do.

Just enjoy the painting, offer your comments and more blog entries will be coming. I am going to bed.








After the Game, 15 x 19, Oil on linen

Couples and Alcohol

I have been doing some paintings in pairs lately. I enjoy the narrative that happens in these dyptics. Trying to compose two paintings that work individually and together in color, composition, and subject. The current pair are shaped like stone tablets meant for chiseling commandments.



This grouping is a comment on the differences that exist between couples, shown here having a moment together over a drink. She is having a glass of Italian Wine. He is drinking cheap Cincinnati Burger Beer and smoking a cigar. Elements of her refined taste are infringing on his panel, while eventually the smoke from his cigar will waft through hers.

It is sort of an odd couple thing going on. His side being a bit more messy, and not as fancy.
I really had to stretch here, as I could not really work from experience. Both my wife and I are very fancy and refined.

Anyway, I thought I would post a few of the paintings to show the progression through out the week. The first is a bit of a mess, as I did this as a demonstration lay in for my Iowa workshop. It was not my best since I was talking too. It is difficult to do both well. I tried to show the girls that in the beginning it is about getting the likeness in color and value, keeping it loose so that drawing can happen later.

While it is a pair, I only laid in one of the panels for the group. This was done in about an hour.



Day two I laid in the second panel, and cleaned up the first panel.




Here it is next to the setup.



Day 3- an interesting note on this one- I wanted a lipstick print on the wine glass to do more than hint toward the feminine. No one else was around to do this for me, so I did it. I do not regularly wear lipstick, so it took me a while to get it on and then get a nice print on the glass. I think it turned out well, and while I am not proud about wearing ladies makeup, I am proud of how I painted it on the canvas.




As of today after 4 days. I will post the finished painting next. (hopefully I can get photos that are not blurry like these)

Go Big or Go Home!

To be truthful, I am kind of an old curmudgeon. My mother claims I was born that way. I came out of the womb and immediately had issues with most of what was going on around me. Being the old bastard that I am, I was a bit nervous about doing a workshop with a bunch of teenagers. I did not really get along with teenagers when I was one myself.

Despite all of that, I just had a great time teaching a class with seven high school kids from Iowa. Mrs. Bereskin is a wonderful art teacher that works very hard at making sure they see a wide variety of art, have lots of opportunity to visit museums and even organizes trips abroad.
She decided to organize a 4 day workshop on traditional methods of drawing and painting with me, and they drove all the way in from Iowa to do it. I didn't know much about Iowa other than that it is a mystical land to the West- and they grow corn. From this experience I discovered they are a clever and hardy people.

I have been asked a few times, "How in the heck is it you came to be teaching a class for a group from Iowa?"

Well, as it turns out, I am huge in Iowa! They freakin' love me there. I am a house hold name practically-
at least in 7 or so houses.

I did my best to introduce them to traditional methods and some bigger ideas concerning drawing and painting. The first thing was to define and explain some basic terms.
Now, of course it is crazy to believe anything life changing is going to come out of such a short class- other than the fact that it will introduce them to a more traditional way of working not available in most college situations. I treat a workshop like this as if it is a CliffsNotes version of full time training. Little more than just a quick overview of something that takes years to learn.



What are some of the major ideas I bombarded them with over the 4 days?

First I defined drawing as 'the interpretation of form'. We are often told that drawing is 'mark making', or something touchy feely having to do with self expression. While that can be true, it is basically about representing the 3D on a 2D surface. By that logic, if you are not interpreting form, you are not drawing.
A monkey with a crayon is not drawing. Squealing your tires at a stop sign is not drawing. It's mark making, but not drawing.
Again, teaching someone to faithfully interpret form can not be taught in 4 days. It probably takes closer to a year of full time study under someone that has already mastered this skill.

"Drawing is the interpretation of form." - Degas

We discussed the idea of light and shadow. Objects are made visible to us by light. If an object is lit well from a single light source, we can see that there is a definable light and dark side. There is a shadow line, that separates those two sides. We must first understand that concept. The light side is for interpreting form. Form is not for the shadow side, but is left for showing atmosphere, which we do by keeping the shadows flat. Look at the shadows, not into them. The dark is scary, stay out of there.

Squint! By closing one eye and blurring or squinting with the other, we simplify the scene down to the essentials.

Drawing and painting is really all about relationships. These relationships are discovered by looking, comparing and questioning. This way one determine proportions, values, colors, shape and edges. By being ever critical, you can learn your subject with every stroke. "Is it lighter or darker?" "Does it need more red, yellow, or blue?" "Is it warmer or cooler?"

I explained the novel idea of making sure your image will fit on the page by starting with the largest of measurements first- Top and Bottom. If you have ever been in a figure drawing class you will occasionally hear someone say they ran out of room for the feet or that they can't fit the head. If that every happens to you in the future, you have my permission to smack them in the back of the head with your sketchbook. Your main job when working is to at least make sure you can fit the subject in the square of the page. That is basic composition- arranging in a square. Always work big to small. Details are not as important as everyone thinks. Adding detail to a bad drawing will not make it better. Putting the features on a misshapen head will not make it look more life-like. Get the big stuff right-the big proportions-the big look, and the rest will fall into place. You will see that detail is not as important as the poetic beauty of the big impression. You will also find that there is more harmony in the 'whole' and you will save yourself a lot of wasted work. Leave detail to cameras and photorealists, both of whom are just dumb machines.

"Genius lies in seeing the thing as a whole." - Joshua Reynolds

Did I mention the squinting thing?

Most of the girls had a lot of natural ability and ended up doing some nice work for the short amount of time they had to complete it.
I explained that my job in the class was not to be the host of a group Hug Fest celebrating art.
First off that would be creepy, and secondly it is just not helpful. I just stood behind them and pointed to the things that were most off in their paintings from nature. I made sure they knew their job was basically to make "this look like that". They handled it pretty well, though a few seemed to have issue with me painting on their work, but I think that is the easiest way to demonstrate a point. We are taught from an early age that anything creative we do is special and awesome, and while it may occasionally be the former, it is rarely the later. It all went pretty well and I made it the whole class without making anyone cry despite my best efforts.

The title of this post is in reference to a rally cry the girls came up with for the week- "Go Big or Go Home!"
I was so proud.
I almost cried a bit myself.



I laid in a painting for them as a demonstration, I will do a post on that painting next.

Drinking coffee, lots of coffee

I got another group of tiny frames from my gallery. There is not a lot of room to play with in a 3 x 5 frame, so I did pretty much the same thing I did the last time- painted a few espresso cups. Of course one of the reasons was that the last three I did sold almost immediately. It is fun trying to create interesting designs and abstractions in such a tiny space. I use the table cloth the cup, the spoon and the resulting shadows to make something that feels good in the space.
I often glue linen canvas to a board for something this small. This time I just used shellac on cherry plywood. This seals the wood from the oil paint and gives a smooth surface to paint on. It gave me a pretty warm background to paint onto. I figured as much, but I was not too fond of the surface as I found it too slick, and pretty frustrating to paint on. I will probably go back to canvas in the future. The time spent on these varied pretty widely. The green one was completed in an hour and a half. The blue one gave me fits, and took quite a bit longer.



Espresso with Blue, 5x3, oil on wood



Espresso with Pink, 5x3, oil on wood



Espresso with Green, 5x3, oil on wood

They are all available at Rottinghaus Gallery in O'Bryonville. You can't miss it as there is an awesome painting of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the window. If you go in and mention my name to the gallery owner when you buy one of my paintings, they will make you an acutal sandwich. Supplies are limited.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged!

So I judged a show!
What are you going to do about it? Judge me!

I dare you!
Seriously, I dare you.

A simple way to explain how art is created is through a discussion of critical judgment- Visual judgment. Proportions are determined by relational comparisons- "Is that bigger than that?" "Is this too wide for it's height?" You can do the same for everything in a picture, including color, value, edges, and so on. Criticism is how good work is made, it is how the artist is made, it is how we get better. I can't think of a more loving thing to do than to spend the time offering your views on someones work. So, when I criticize, I do it because I love.

Group Hug!

Anyway, my wife still made sure to tell me to be nice before I left the house the morning of this show. I did my best.

This is an action shot of me in full on judging action.

I thought I would talk a bit about my experience judging a show in Hillsboro, Ohio last weekend for the Brush and Palette Guild. This is my home town, it is out in the country, and my Grade School art teacher is a member of the Guild. So it was like a home coming of sorts.
It was an interesting show, with a wide range of abilities and talent. Over all the show was very good for such a small group. Some work there that every bit as good as that seen in some city galleries and large studio buildings of full of "artists". It helps that they are a lovely group of people, interested in art, struggling to produce and supportive of each other.

I was a bit surprised by the shear number of awards given, but I have to admit it made my job easier. This was more of a show to demonstrate what the group is doing and to cheer them on to do more. So there were 30 something artists, around 300 pieces of art, and I gave out over 200 awards. It was very much divided up into categories- I had 6 pages or so of them listed with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for each of them.
So, I imagine, or at least I hope, everyone got some sort of prize. It was tough as there were occasionally 10 pieces in a category, where the top 4 were by the same artist.
I wanted to use this opportunity to discuss how I judged the show and the trends I saw or problems that I most often saw in the work.
The show, luckily was representational so I did not have to worry about being biased towards realism, as I obviously am very biased. So I only had to look at the quality and intent of the pieces.
As I had to judge 300 works in 3 hours, and give out a wheel barrow of ribbons, I had to work fast. Composition and power of the piece from a distance was my first point of consideration, next was color, next was drawing ability, finally was whether I just plain like the piece for what ever reason, including subject matter.
I am sure that some of my choices may have left a few scratching their heads, as small, comfortable, simple pictures with weaker drawing occasionally won out over large flashy painting that were more photographic.

After judging the show, and after lunch, I was to walk around with the artists, and discuss and critique my choices. First off, this was amazingly fun and a great exercise for me. The group was a lot of fun and pretty receptive to my ripping their art to shreds.
The crazy thing was that I got paid to do it. I was handed a Judges Guildlines sheet, that I suppose I was suppose to read. I was to critic the work from 1:00 to 2:30. I did it from 1:30 to about 5.

My comments on their art was probably not very different from comments I might make on most art done today.
So, what were the over riding issues and problems with the work?
1) Lack of Design and a strong center.
A drawing or painting has to first and foremost work in design. This is one of the hardest things to teach, to learn and to explain. It is obviously one of the hardest to do as I see some wonderful painters working today, that are just not designing- at all. Many very talented figure painters seem to believe that a painting is designed if you get the pretty, nude girls butt close to the center. While that is part of it, there is a lot more do creating a good abstraction.
One could write a series of books on the subject, so I will do little more here than mention these things, and suggest that you read on the topic. Also, make sure you look at good pictures. No, let me rephrase that- Great pictures.
The tendency to work from photos is a big part of the problem. A photo rarely is good design. It maybe an accurate representation, people usually get the subject roughly in the center of the viewfinder, but that is not necessarily a reason to paint from it. A photo can be a good tool, but nature does not design for us, we design from nature. I also feel this trend of a "painting a day", which is a good exercise in painting, for effect, quickly, often has completely neglected design. A pear in the middle of a color field canvas is not a good design unless you are painting a bulls eye for an archery club. A line of pears is also not a good design if they are all treated equally haphazardly lined up. Maybe if you are painting a pattern for a wall paper border, but I still think that design is not considered as much as it should be.
Some books on the topic: Pictorial Composition by Arthur Dow, Figure Composition by R. G. Hatton, and Composition by Cyril Pearce. Most good art books have a chapter or discussion on composition. Make sure the artist writing the book either has had great training, is a great artist themselves, and I suggest that they probably should have been dead for a long time. Some are out of print, but check your library or if it is posted online for free somewhere.

I will discuss more of the issues in later posts. Just to get you ready, these issues will include Lack of Light effect, Silhouette, Rhythm, and some discussion of presentation and framing.

Tuesday night Sketch Group goes digital

I have posted my attempts at using new technology for art. I have Nintendo DS which is normally used for playing mind numbing, time wasting games- a few of which I enjoy. It can be enabled to be used as a digital sketchbook. There is a little pen that you can use to draw on the screen, and a free program that can be downloaded which is like a small version of Photoshop. I have posted some of my attempts in the past, and here are some newer ones. Keep in mind these are not life changing art. They are just little sketches done on a 2" x 3" screen that are fun exersizes.


Digital painting that I never quite finished of the bathroom light.


A coffee cup. I drink too much coffee.


This is a sketch of a thermos. My wife feels that these thermoses have changed her life forever, for the better. Life before this was a lonely and thirsty existence. We own 3 of them and she has even given them out as gifts. While I enjoy a thermos as much as the next guy, my excitement is probably not what she would like it to be- it rarely is. Anyway, I drew a picture of it to display my affection for the thermos and to impress her. Plus it is always fun drawing shinny things.

In a desperate display of one upsmanship, my friend Joe showed up to our sketch group with something much more impressive than my little Nintendo.
There is a group of us that meet every Tuesday night to draw from a figure model. Last night, one of the regular memebers brought a full size digital sketchbook to draw on. It is basically a laptop without a keyboard that has a screen you can draw on like a normal digital tablet. He works digitally most so it is nice to have a rig to work on in the field or you can even look cool and sit in a coffee shop and work on your art work.
Here are some photos of Joe working from the model. I was intrigued, but as you know, new things frighten me, so I will stick to charcoal and pencil for now.

Just too funny

If you read this blog, you know I have a few opinions. I like to discuss the art world, which while it is free and open allowing for one to communicate anything they like to an audience, this has swung wide the door to free thought all the way to complete nonsense- or even lack of any thought. This freedom had removed any responsibility the "artists" has to the public.


Cy Twombly, Sensations of the Moment. MUMOK Ausstellungsansicht / exhibition view. Foto: MUMOK, Lisa Rastl © MUMOK
"You have to admire his consistency."

If you don't get the gibberish they are speaking, it is blamed on the ignorance of the viewer- not the inadequacies of the "artist". Having been to "art school" I am well versed in the complete Bull S%#* that is spilled liberally in those institutions, during critiques and in classes of art history.
We have set up a whole industry around it. Museums and galleries do their best to push and explain it with fancy words, stepping on anyone that is not in on the sham.

"I really like how the squiggly things looks against the jaggedy thing."

I get daily emails from ArtDaily.com, a site that hosts news, events and discusses trends in the art world. Occasionally they have photos heading their stories that I find absolutely hilarious. They are not supposed to be, but I usually save the image for my own amusement. I thought I would share a few of them. There really is not much to say here. I thought about adding little thought bubbles above the gallery audience that is deep in thought in front of these modern works, but I thought that would be over kill. They are pretty funny all on their own.
Enjoy.
-Sorry, I couldn't resist-I decided it wasn't overkill and added my own quotes.


After his close examination he was heard to exclaim, "oh, I get it?! Yellow!"

I plan on discussing this further in relation to public art. Again, any responsibility to the public and the role as a visual communicator has been removed. It is more an exercise in selfish expression. There is a public sculpture near my studio that is a perfect example of what I find a failing system.