As I get closer to the release of my next story/essay collection I have continued to explore pastels. I have done about nine of them in-between my painting and drawing. I enjoy the medium and each one is better than the last. I am still in my naissance and so have not even begun to explore the different types of papers & pastel companies yet.
I will be systematic about it first using up what I have then furthering my explorations.
I am about a week or two away from my next short story collection coming out. As usual I continued to paint and now, further delving into pastel medium.
For my paintings, I usually do them in twos and one always in my trusty pocket pad.
Chloe 5×7
Not Shy II 4×4 pocket pad
Fourth of July Prayer
Thomas Paine, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Alan Poe, Jelly Roll Morton, Lois Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Bourbon, Rye, Jazz, Stetson Hats, Skyscrapers, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Bill Finger, Zippo Lighters, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Kodak, Coca Cola, Baseball, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Muhamad Ali, Rap, Hip-hop, New School of Journalism, Chuck Berry, Bo Didley, Fats Domino, Blue Jeans, The Automat, Bob Dylan, Noir films, Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, Edward R Murrow, Gene kelly, Fred Astaire, Harley Davidson, Maverick Directors of the 1970’s, Patti Smith, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, New York School of Painters, Andrew Wyeth, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, Edward Hopper, Hedy Lamar, Louise Brooks, Carole Lombard, John Lewis, MLK, Rosa Parks, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Golden Age comics, Robert Williams, Blue Note Records, Pinball Machines, Judy Blume, Fred Rogers, Life Magazine,
Our differences are our strengths. Until we drop the pervading tribalism and fear from being prime motivations for our actions, we will continue to be a shadow of what we had been and what we can still be. This limitless potential is another strength.
It is up to all of us. And, this is perhaps the one remaining aspect, for now, of our former Greatness.
I just finished reading Jean Paul Sartre’s essay on Baudelaire. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, it was very enjoyable. Baudelaire very much lived a solipsistic life. As I am not a huge fan of his work and knowing history of France during his era, I think to some extent his attitude was to the determent of his art.
It definitely can be no fun, you go to a concert and in-between songs as you wait to hear a favorite the singer starts preaching or having the work in service of specific message for an artist’s entire oeuvre.
However, it is also weird to be living through turbulent times and make no comment upon them ever. Like most important things in life, there is a delicate balance.
Previously, I have made comments, so and my mission is humanistic not political. I will only say now that I hope my work serves as a brief respite from all daily troubles and bleak news we all must deal with.
Edie Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
I had been talking to someone about what appears in my works. More often than not it is someone from my inner circle or a thing from my life not staged but as is (a shirt hanging off the back of a chair, a demi tasse with its dregs offering up a fortune-tell). What had made the impressionists radical more than the naturalism of how they portrayed color/shadow/light was their portrayal of people and things.
In lieu of the typical historical and mythological subject matter were people from their lives and every day objects. Back then, this was more radical than it seems now.
There is a weird dichotomy with painting now though. We accept the everyday as subject matter but also because of movies & television, expect things connected with painting whether it is a work’s creation or the painter having a chop bump up to be dramatic, moviesque.
Half-pan watercolors at least for me with the exception of the few colors I use in every piece, last me. Often I would finish a piece and have paint left in my palettes. I started doing smaller pocket pad pieces with what was left. There were few motives behind this.
It is sort of pagan, my way of honoring/offering up thanks to the process I will spend my life happily serving. This (at least in my mind) is akin to when Romans would offer sacrifice before or after a journey or successful battle. I have the money and it’s not cost prohibitive to just dump what little paint is left each time out, although cumulatively it would add up. This is my version of the great chefs who have the “use every part of the animal” philosophy.
I have my methodology down, I do pencil for both paintings, the start to work on the larger first. With these two, I had only done the smaller as I had been in middle of final edits for my next story collection. I finished, very pleased, and then realized that I had given no thought to the second painting.
With the luxury of no deadline nor expectations I decided to experiment and do second piece radically different in every way. I used bigger paper which I randomly grabbed out of a tabouret, I worked on it in completely different way. These challenges created by leaving the comfort zone of the established are a way to foster growth & chops.
When I first started doing the water soluble graphite works, it added to my painting and then it ping-ponged where that medium was added to by painting. I recently took up pastels and although I am still very new to that, I see some added technique to my painting. That and this spontaneous challenge have definitely added to my painting even if not necessarily apparent to the viewer.
“Not Shy” Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
David Hockney just passed away. He had works which I admired but he also had things which by general opinion didn’t hit the mark. That is fine, it doesn’t detract from the powerful works. Regardless of medium, one of components of what makes an artist great is growth/evolution and the willingness to continue to explore and take chances.
In the age of social media the personal goal of an artist has now become “fame”, to have a high number count on social media. Regardless of era and medium the true first goal of an artist is to create an individualized voice which emanates from their work.
I want a voice, a style but to never lapse into mere mannerism. One way to avoid this is to constantly challenge myself, using different paper, different pens different sizes of paper and even switching between mediums. To some extent always be one part student, one part explorer
Randomly, I decided to try my hand at soft oil pastels. Like everything I do, i am self taught. I enjoyed the medium and right out of the gate got some of the effects which I had in mind. In two days I did five pieces, all 5×5 or 5×7 inches.
For any work, an artist’s voice i s ever present but medium does to some extent dictate the cadence. Miles had certain horns which he only used for ballads. I always see a piece done in specific medium before even starting. The pastels gave me an expressionistic density different from my painting and different from my lyra works. i like all the mediums and will continue to switch between them as to continue to evolve. I was pleased with the results but am also sure as I continue to use the pastels I will get even better.
Tolstoy (I am paraphrasing) said something along the lines of how in our joy we are all alike and only in grief does the individual emerge. One of the great things about art is that it serves as a reminder that we are all linked by our needs, dreams and faults, the human experience. All cultural things contain within the enjoyment that they offer a reminder that there is something greater than the “I” . This is a connection and a thing which will outlast us and the time we live in.
In these dark times, let some art or culture makes us all joyfully alike again, even if only briefly through the pleasure of appreciation. It is the duty of every artist to do their thing and for those who don’t create to take a beat and have a look.
I hope my works at the very least offer a quick break from the viewer’s troubles.
“Brown Couch” for D.H Dowling 11×17 Tan paper & Watercolor
I went through some of the tabourets in my studio, not that they were in any sort of major disarray. It was more a tightening up of the organization and despite how much I shake things up as to remain limber in using different types of paper I knew there were some pads which lay in the drawers forgotten about.
After the brief time it took to reorganize, randomly I grabbed a pad. A 9×12 which is not a size I often use and which looked squatter than its measurements. Foer both pieces I used my usual studio set up of half pan paints.
NH 9×12 Watercolor & Paper
Mumbai. (She was also from Mumbai but did not merely play at being a DJ & good person.) Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
Advice to artists you prob. don’t want to hear:
Any artist, especially one just starting out on their journey wants validation. To have someone who is not a friend nor family accept a work provides sort of boost. It assuages the doubt that one will be able to “make it” as an artist and also provides a safety barrier from the naysayers.
However, there are a lot of online journals and blogs out there which simply look terrible. Artists still place their works on them as it is a sort of validation. This always surprises me. An online journal/blog which looks terrible is akin to going into a restaurant which has a bad smell.
An insult to injury is the new trend of a lot of these wanting a submissions fee or asking to “buy me a koffi”. You would be better served just doing your own thing under your own power. Often the fee is explained as you are paying for the venues bandwidth or maybe the editor’s time in choosing who will appear. The reality of this is you are paying for validation, the venue’s money is made from the fees collected. You are paying for the “honor” of temporarily working for the venue.
Do your own thing. It may not feel as good or exciting for the ego but most of these online journals no one has heard of anyways and the decisions makers behind them often have no or little foundation.
There are some good journals to be found out there still, they are not all crap just dont depend upon them for validation.
Furious Pure is good, editors who are articulate and serious and diverse talent too. (disclaimer I was featured in issue 8 but I will continue to read each new issue)
There was an article recently about the two most influential modern artists. It got me thinking about the nature of art’s current influence. Art has become specialized. People still flock to museums but the casual viewer is there because of the totem they have made of any given artist, the mythos as it applies to them.
Picasso was important to his peers because of how he freed them up to pursue their own North Stars. The appeal now? He has become a sort of shorthand for being able to do whatever you want, seemingly effortlessly and make money, scribble on a napkin to pay for a roomful of people’s dinner at a four star restaurant, grab a collector/gallerist or peer’s wife by the breast and have everyone laugh and clap. It holds great appeal for people who aspire to become famous from nothing more than becoming an influencer or reality television star.
Picasso was an ass for sure. But credit where credit is due, he spent the majority of his day working in front of an easel and when not directly applying brush to canvas it was one of the things foremost on his mind.
People now admire Picasso not for what he did, nor what he freed up in others but because in their minds he was sort of proto reality start/influencer. They think of all they could do if they could be Picasso-like, not realizing that you can’t wish to be sui generis and still live the life you live now as you live it. That is the wish though and artists have become a totem divorced from what their reality was.
Painting has suffered the same divorce from reality. People have grown used to looking at art online often the artist’s hand/brushstroke is not as apparent and sometimes digitally smoothed out. A.I has made it worse, images made to look “real” quoting if not outright reproducing famous paintings & images do not even attempt to appear made by human hands.
These factors combined with the fact that everyone has a cellphone with which to photograph the minutia of their lives and how to look at and enjoy a painting is forgotten.
The casual viewer does not want to see the artist’s hand, they want machine like perfection as seen on their screens or phones. A painting is judged “good” now by how close to hyper realism it is. If a painting of a face can’t be mistaken for a photo then it is not good. (to me 99% of the hyper realism stuff is all technique and no soul. You forget it a soon as it it not in front of your face).
The only exception to all this seems to be some of the well known paintings, Van Gough, Monet’s waterlilies et al. With those though appeal is artificial story the viewer has told that they insert themselves into.
I was at a museum in Paris looking at one of these well known paintings and a twenty something woman stood next to me with the corners of her mouth turned down. I had to ask what was wrong. She showed me the image of the painting we stood before on her phone. She looked down at it then up. She showed me the image on the phone then waved her hand as if swatting away an insect at the painting;
“What’s all that?”
It was the impasto strokes of the brush on canvas.
For my works, I want my pieces to look like the subject but to also capture the truth of the moment before me. I am not afraid for a painting or drawing to look like painting or drawing. This is simple but important advice I would give any painter.
Spaghetti Night 9×12 inches Rembrandt cold pressed fine grain
Tongue my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
I am still in the midst of working on my Cinefield® and editing my novel. I have managed to work on my paintings, albeit in a very different way. As I do not have space on my painting table, I use my writing table. Since I can not have this taken over by paint palettes, I did one small thing which involved mixing only one color at a time (i.e base coat for hair, background et al) This way when I was done with the session, I could set the painting aside and not be unable to use my table. Most importantly, I was not wasting paint either.
In creating my Cinefield® works, butcher paper is rolled out onto my painting table to protect it from the glue. Every few days I have to change the paper as snow drifts of dried glue accumulate. On the days that I did this, before laying down more paper I took the morning off from Cini work and did the parts for the paintings where I had to have full palettes of paint (the skin, creating volume and mass for the flesh).
It has always been important to me to have a discernable style while avoiding lapsing into mere mannerisms. To prevent this, I present myself with challenges to keep things fresh.
Neck is 5×8 White Canson Paper. It handles very different from all the papers I have been using for a while and is also a different size. I enjoyed the challenge and was pleased with the results.
Flapper I used my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
Paper Life Painting 