I am well underway with work on my latest Cinefield®. When I first finish a piece, I definitely need to take a break as I reach the point of seeing tiny pieces of cut out paper in my sleep. After a certain amount of time, my batteries recharged, I feel ready to do another.
Upon the start of a piece I am immediately reminded of how labor intensive the work is, and how much space it takes up.
I can’t do paintings at same time as a Cinefield®. The Lyra medium allows me to keep up my painting chops but takes up no more space than my nightly drawing woodshedding.
Getting the painterly (although monochrome) effects with Lyra sticks makes it “easier” to achieve when using my regular paints.
I do view this medium with equal seriousness and enthusiasm as painting. Never a second class citizen, here are some quick pieces while I work on current project.
Always looking for interesting things to draw, email me if you think you have something which might be of interest. Worst case scenario, I politely pass.
Back from the road. I finally had success in getting raw fuel for my next CINEFIELD® pieces. The amount of time it takes to do them combined with all other things I also work on means that I am now fully booked as far as they go until December.
It sound weird to say this in the tail end of August but it’s matter of time to actually creating plus all other things I will work on concurrently. It does not bother me.
With social media and the internet in general, whether its work being seen or responses, it’s easy to get instant gratification. My work would have grown stronger quicker back in the day had I actually gone slower.
I know this seems counterintuitive and definitely hard to do with the temptation of all those eyes available to check out a work immediately upon completion. My advice to anyone up and coming, let the process come first, let the process add to the chops then start to really worry about site numbers etc. Long run your work will be stronger and you will be able make longer term schedule which lends to work growing organically (chops too).
Even though I can now start a CINEFIELD® it will be a bit before its ready. This space will show what I am doing concurrent to that work.
Well, still have not been able to take photos to serve as raw fuel for my Cinefield® work. Ironically, I have managed to do my fine art photo work, but that’s a different animal.
I am fortunate though, I have enough other mediums to work in as to stay out of trouble. I have been doing paintings, switching styles of paper. The loose knit theme behind the pieces is the portrayal of flesh.
This piece is white * French Cotton paper 5×7 inches.
* I had a buddy in Paris who worked at one of my favorite art stores. I am lucky that right around my place are many, each one has different purpose for me: “my pencil place” et al. We would chat & he would give me employ discount, sometimes even more than that. I would load up on equipment.
I was reorganizing one of the tabouret in my studio. This block of white cotton paper he gave me had been hidden under yellow legal pad on which I had written an idea for a sculpture.
I realized that it had been many, many years ago he had thrown a bunch of landscape sketchpads into a backpack and pursued a boho girl to Ibiza. A few postcards and then even people he had worked with for years stopped hearing from him. I don’t know if he ever got the girl but I still haven’t used up all the stuff he gave me.
Still in painting mode. I am literally hours away from short trip which in theory will provide me with photographs to use as raw material for my Cinefield® work. Having had an enforced break, initially I chafed, since I was not controlling the tempo. I now see a positive in having had wait what feels like a long time before creating my next one.
The wait has allowed me to have some new ideas and allowed me to approach my Cinefield® work feeling refreshed.
It will be interesting to see what next one is like as photos dictate the flavor of the piece.
In the interim, here is new painting.
Reflex 11×17 inches Watercolor & Tan Paper. I did a study for this which I don’t do with all my paintings.
Annnnnnnnnnnd I am off. Always looking for interesting things to draw & paint email me if you think you have something to offer.
I was reading an article by a modern thinker or what some would label as a philosopher. He pointed out that in modern society happiness has now become largely defined in North America as when things go 100% one’s way. Everything coming up roses with zero effort, resistance or work required is not what one should aspire to. The rare if not impossible occurrence of such a state existing aside, a little bit of tension, setbacks, challenges, these things foster evolution. Grit creates pearls and pressure diamonds and to avoid these aspects of life is to miss out.
The weather has still not been on my side for traveling and getting new photos for my Cinefield® work. I continue to use the time I would have spent creating my next Cini to paint and do various experiments with water soluble graphite.
I was initially a little annoyed at having to back-burner working on my next Cinefield® but it has allowed me to add to my painterly technique. It turned into an opportunity even though I had not initially viewed it as such.
In about two weeks I will be on the road and hopefully getting some photos to utilize.
Here is latest painting. It’s 11×17 Watercolor & tan paper.
I want an audience not customers. Social media platforms more and more force artists into being merchants or coming across as attention starved with “the numbers game” of chasing likes views et al. I have been getting emails asking what pieces I have for sale which is nice as it’s not info that i bombard people with. For anyone interested:
I was supposed to do a short trip as to take photos for my next Cinefield®, but circumstances beyond my control pushed it back. With no raw fuel for next Cinefield® I have spent some of my time painting.
As to keep things fresh, I keep changing the size and type of paper but also the subject matter. With so much time before I can get my shots, were I to just keep doing portraits it would start to become mechanical or feel akin to putting together Ikea furniture.
My last painting was a traditional portrait with straight up compositional balance. When mulling over what to do next I decided I wanted to do something beautiful but sort of off-putting too. I was very pleased with the results.
I dedicated this to Laurie Lipton. I have been into her works for about a year. What makes her special aside from her massive chops is that in her oeuvre the medium of pencil is the star. It is not second class citizen nor merely something to train with between painting.
Although nowhere near her level, viewing her works has made me up my shading game (which definitely improved).
Often her pieces have a mordant bent to them but you have to do a double take on some of them before this is apparent. Existentially tortured housewives and queues of skeletons conjured up by her hand are beautiful but also induce a sort of dread.
My piece is not an image taken directly from her body of work. Laurie’s work was starting point for me, the inspiration for having dichotomy of terrible but beautifully done.
Terrible Beauty is 7×10 watercolor on French cotton paper.
Ever present cell phones have allowed all to capture the minutia of their lives via pics and Shakey-hand movies. on occasion marvelous things have been captured. The more present negative is that people have forgotten how to look at paintings.
A “good” painting now must be in the real/hyper real style, being comparable to photos. It is not desirable to see the artist’s hand via brush strokes et al in a work.
I was in a museum which was having a Magritte show. There were the by now all overly familiar images on display. People would walk up to the best works, striding off muttering in disappointment that they liked it more when they had seen it on a computer screen or postcard, in person it looked “too homemade” i.e. brushstrokes etc.
I am not afraid of having one of my drawings look like a drawing or a painting. With Matisse for example, no one is going to study anatomy off of one of his works. However, when he portrays a woman reclining on a couch, you know what you are looking at. Had you been alive at that time and in the neighborhood you might even recognize the woman. Most importantly, even after all these decades, the captured emotion still radiates out of the works.
I prefer to not use professional models. There’s often an artificiality to their poses. My main thing is emotion, this is what I want to give the viewer even more than admiring technique.
More often than not, I use people whom i know and that trust me. This allows for a realness which is beautiful. The realness of my paintings is not the technique but the natural poses and emotions.
With everyone having phones now the ability to capture amazing scenes is always just a pocket away. When something is too easy though, it starts to loose power. Phone-cams went from being at the ready in case something fantastically dramatic should occur to being merely the facilitator of the mostly mundane minutia of people’s live being on a non-stop social media scroll.
One of the biggest and most far reaching negatives of this is how it effects people being in the stream of life. I travel, often. An overly familiar sight now is people rushing around a famous museum or well known area (Luxembourg Garden et al) stopping to raise their phone slightly above themselves while duck billing, snap a pic, then rushing off. Their justification is that they are capturing memories. So preoccupied are they in getting the perfect pics to post that they are not in the moment, not in the stream of life.
Once back home they can show you them standing by some landmark, some great work of art but there can be no description which makes you feel as if there. Even for them, this is the case and they had actually been there.
The adage that travel broadens the mind is not merely about ticking off things on a list of what to see, where to go. It is absorbing a place with all its ambient characteristics which hopefully in some way add to you long after the trip is over.
I am not anti-photo, I take some myself wherever I am. But see and capture with your eyes first. I always have a 3×5 pad in my pocket. I will do small sketches when on the road and take notes. Not always dramatic, sometimes it’s just a room service tray with the leftover bones of a hastily eaten meal or my book bag hanging off the back of a chair.
Not everyone can draw, but you should still keep a little pad on you. Use it to take notes. In doing this you will actually be more present in the moment if you slow your roll and take a beat to describe what you are seeing. As you are doing this just for yourself, even if you can’t draw, why not try anyways?
That is another negative of social media, everything seems to be motivated now towards getting views/likes. The recently departed Paul Auster said “Do a thing simply for the beauty of doing it.” To live this way, you may not garner as many likes etc but you will create true memories.
I am finally temporarily done with being a road-dog and the weather has turned beautiful and spring like. Starting a new Cinefield®.
While busy with everything else going on, I have continued to draw every day. It is part of who I am. I also hope that it offers brief break from the mundane and the pressures for all those who take a minute to look.
My Cinefield® work is labor intensive, but I will still draw a little at the end of every day.
Paper Life Painting 