Shortly to be hitting the road again to gather photographic raw material for my Cinefield® work. Aside from doing that I will also be drawing (woodshedding) or course and adding to my body of fine art & commercial photography. Since what i need to have on me while bopping about the cities of the world has once again changed, i have a new snazzy bag, this trip being it’s maiden voyage.
This piece is done on my trusty pocket pad 4×4 inches.
Pop Shivers 4×4
I got what i would almost label as a toy camera for a gift. This is not a totally accurate though as for some people it is their main instrument and they do wonderful work with it. The low-def aspect of it intentionally is to make it look like the non-professional cameras people used to have pre-digital age. It doesn’t use filter to do this which is good as that always looks inorganic. If one knows the voice of the camera and its limitations, it is great fun and you can get some worth while shots. While i would never have this be my main thing, i do plan on using it often. These are the first shots I did with it. Like everything else, the more i do it the better i am sure i will get.
My latest two paintings. When I first started painting, as I worked on each piece I would feel my way towards the finish (completion). After many years of drawing, painting, the whole ten thousand hour theory, one day I started seeing the pieces finished in my head before starting. This makes them the complete antithesis from my CINEFIELD® work which starts with a design idea but is 100 in the moment improvised.
This effect/gift call it what you will, is something I had given no thought to before it occurred. It was not a skill that i was working towards or even, one i had read about. Being one hundred percent self-taught, I have no idea if there is a better articulation to how I see painting or what it is like for other painters.
For Legs which is 9×12 French Cotton paper, I eschewed my normal volume and mass effect on the skin. I enjoyed doing something different and it seemed correct for the piece. I think in all my paintings I have done portraits this way3-4 times at the most. I am very pleased with the piece and enjoyed the challenge of creating emotions without relying upon the goonieness of flesh effect.
C.C is in my trusty 4×4 pocket pad. I am still adapting to being used to when best times to paint are wit h the change of ambient sunlight.
I’ve continued on with my exploration of pastels. Really enjoy the medium. I have almost finished the bit of paper which I used for my first foray, which means I can explore some more brands.
Both pieces are 5×7 inches & soft oil pastels.
Selfie
Reclined
Quickly taken photos by me (I do serious fine art ones often)
My painting output has been going at a steady tempo which is both pleasing and a little surprising given all else I am in the middle of doing.
In chaotic times it is important that artists regardless of medium do their work. It offers up a reminder that there are things which unite us all and which we can aspire to. Great works of art transcend and outlast the times in which they were made allowing each successive generation to reassert their humanity. All of those seemingly grandiose ideas aside, at the very least they can serve as a brief respite from the daily grind.
MD 5×5 watercolor & paper
AD my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
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
As I continue to edit my novel I have been able to go back to painting. As has always been the case, I like to mix it up a little as to avoid stagnation. This is achieved by giving myself little challenges, different types and sizes of paper and in this case for the second and third painting, only using paint left in the palettes.
Myself 5×8 cold pressed watercolor paper with my normal studio paint set up
Truth or Dare I used my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
Sandy I used my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
Duke Ellington famously said that there are only two types of music, good and bad. Now more than any other time it is easy to explore. This is a freedom more should take advantage of as there could be something out there waiting for you that is currently lazily being written off as “Nah not my thing” .
Although seemingly far removed from what people know as my musical taste, i do enjoy Robin Trower. He mixes virtuosity with an emotional cadence. While this is not the first thing I reach for nor remotely indictive of my taste, when in the mood it hits the spot.
I used my at home watercolor set up & Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
Always looking for subjects to draw paint, email me for details
Just back from a trip where I was able to take photos to serve as fuel for my next Cinefield®. I lucked out and was able to get so much raw material it will allow me to do two which will lead me right up until next spring ( I won’t work on them back to back, taking a well needed break between which accounts for some of time frame)
While working on my Cinefield®, of course I will still draw every day and do my water soluble graphite work in pocket pads but this will be last painting for a while as my studio will become dominated by tiny confetti like pieces of paper laid out on sheets.
For this piece I wanted to try something a little different. I made the flesh appear without the volume and mass letting the lines tell that story of the body. I was very pleased with the results and enjoyed the challenge of going against my usual preference. That is one way for an artist to avoid falling back on pet-licks for a piece.
Unfortunately with my last trip, I did not get any photos which would serve as the raw material for my Cinefield® work. I legitimately miss working on them, which lasts until I am two weeks into one and I start to see little pieces of paper confetti in my dreams.
I continue on with painting. This piece is 9×12 Rembrandt paper which was given to me by Royal Talens. It is professional grade cold pressed 100% cotton. I have often used French cotton paper and that absorbs pigment quicker which makes it less forgiving in regards to blending or correcting a spot. As with all professional grade equipment, it becomes less which is better and more a matter of personal preferences.
