Tag: sketch

Reds

We all carry in our heads the idea of ourselves, the self image. Desires and faults which we try to keep close to the vest aside, a componant to the truth lay outside of ourselves.

This is why often no one thinks their recorded voice sounds like them, as they think it is. The same goes for images. If the pose is not one set up as the subject imagines to be ideal, then it often seems “off” as it’s not inline with the self image.

I prefer to not work with professional models as the poses that they have worked so hard to learn have an artificiality to them which freeze dries the emotions which are the raison d’etre for all my work.

Often, I use same people over course of many pieces and years. As our history grows, a sense of trust develops. They know that, whether they like how some aspect of their visage is portrayed, it is the truth and the truth, an honesty, is always beautiful.

The trust allows for natural body language which helps facilitate emotions.

For this piece, I wanted a delicacy but also the sense of blood rushing and hot just below the skin.

This is only my third painting in my new studio. I was very pleased with results.

“Reds” 5.5×8.5 watercolor and paper

 

Reds

by Wayne Wolfson

Songs About Women:Song Three: Louise

Song Three: Louise:
Did art w/yarn & string while also serving as a sort of girl friday to a historical site/mini museum.

Wore her every emotion on her chest & felt everything w/a great intensity often tinged w/eroticism

While ramped up emotions can have their appeal, non stop becomes exhausting.

All her string art, the colored threads of yarn, I imagine her communing w/the fates. Or perhaps all those strings merely serve to hold her in place.

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

Boogie

Honey Child wanted me to touch her face, the lines of her body, memorization as a blind man might.

I took one of the rooms higher up as I felt it safer. The trade off was that unlike some of the better rooms, my one window did not look out into the courtyard.

At night when not actively pursuing anything, the Hyenas walked softly, their paws crunched on the sand as if it were snow.

This did not seem to bother anyone but myself. To my shame, when the  sun was at its most brilliant a pair of little boys would get the disregarded scraps of leather from the cobbler.  They would then almost completely bury them in the sand, leaving them there until the end of the day.

They would then go back and dig up their treasure. Over the course of the day the sand became hotter and hotter. Each grain burnt the leather so that it became dimpled like a more expensive version of itself.

While drinking mint tea these would then be made into wallets to sell to tourists at the medina.

I had my pen and paper to keep me company but sometimes that was not enough. I would play my records but not too much as i worried of some misfortune befalling the player for which i knew I would not be able to get parts easily.

Mostly I played James Johnson, Willie the Lion, Fatha Hines. Their looping frenzy seemed of another world to the locals.  No one ever complained as they were sure that it was part of some incantation similar to that of the men up in the mountains with their rams horn instruments.

“What do you call it?”

“Boogie.”

To them, the word had a deeper, primal,  meaning and i think it was better.

Fini

 

“Boogie” (1st painting new studio) 5×8 watercolor & paper

 

boogie1stnewstudio

by Wayne Wolfson

new Studio

Just moved studio after six (almost seven) years. During the whole process I could not paint as it was all packed. I did continue to draw.

My first night, even though waiting for few pieces furniture to show up, my long time companion-drawing table is here and ready to be of service. I knocked out few quick sketches using 2 mm lead clutch & usual suspects pencil.

It will be interesting to see what new colorations are added to my palette.

 

by Wayne Wolfson

End & Start

 

Every true artist first works not at becoming famous but rather to create their own distinctive voice. This is a never ending process as even once established, there are things which add to it.

One factor, whether permanent or temporary is location. How does ambient light effect a piece? The actual walls & structure of a place, what one sees out the window and even activities engaged in when not in the studio. (For the most part not anything so literal as “I am in Paris so I am painting the Eiffel Tower”)

I do not think location should be the main factor dictating the timber of a piece. The artist’s voice is first and foremost, with location being akin to one of many spices thrown in the stew that further adds to the flavor.

After six fruitful years I am changing one of my studios. I em excited by all the new possibilities, grateful for all I got out of the old place (and hopeful that the walls can’t talk).

I am eager to get into the swing of things and it will be interesting to see what is added to my work.

(Last painting in old studio “Kristen” 7×10 watercolor & Cotton Paper)

 

 

by Wayne Wolfson

Kirby Hulk

Entertaining a child at Starbucks.

“Put the tablet down a minute and check this out. Do you like comics?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like the Hulk?”

“Yeahhhhhh.”

I took out my lead clutch. I have just started experimenting with soft lead (2mm). A quick sketch, maybe it was ego but i thought there would be fascination for her to see an image appear out from under the lead.When she saw that it was not the Hulk from the movies, unimpressed and without saying another word her head bowed back into whatever the tablet had to offer.

The original Hulk is often talked about in relation to a type of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In truth he was, in his nascence closer to folklore Golem &  Frankenstein’s Monster.

A cursory glimpse of his history online and it seems like every decade he was interpreted  via that time’s problems & fears.

Originally he seemed to be feared because he was different and misunderstood. The revulsion he caused partially on account of physically bringing to the fore the part of ourselves kept tucked away out of sight.

I do not read comics but if in keeping with the trend of him representing aspects of each era, i would imagine that now he is loathed not out of fear but because he is a hindrance to some desire/ambition (“The Hulk is rampaging across the city, the airport is closed but I was supposed to go on my vacation!” “He is stomping on my new car!” “He got in way of perfect instagram moment i was about to create.” ) Or he could be the reality discordant with how someone/place/society envisions itself. (akin to when people use really old photos of themselves in some online function despite no longer resembling it. The ideal still what they see in mirror contrary to the truth otherwise visible.)

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Continue reading “Kirby Hulk”

by Wayne Wolfson

Me I

There is an age old tradition of the artist doing self portraits. Some consider the value of such a work as offering psychological insight into the artist via how they see themselves/how they are presenting themselves to the world.

Often, I am my own subject. With all my portraits I go for a sort of visual raw reportage, presenting the subject as they are for better or worse.

For this reason when I am my own subject, I might be sidestepping the issue entirely. Or the fact that, here I present myself as I am but with the batman mask of a hood could still be a revelation of its own.

 

Hooded 9×12 graphite & paper

hooded

by Wayne Wolfson

songs About Women:Song Two: To The Na

Second piece in ongoing series:

 

Song Two: To The Na:
She initially endeared herself to me when I discovered that if she or someone in her life were going on a trip (flying) she always said her goodbye as if it could be for the last time. The same mistrust of planes as I, acted upon.

She had a thing for feet which she insisted was not sexual, when I suggested it might be otherwise w/her male social media pals, she became incensed.
In short order, I was proven correct as most of us, especially on social media, are dogs.

In her anger & embarrassment, we didn’t talk for a year and a half.

Something about her eyes and the real estate around it reminds me of a Vasquez piece I once saw. Of course she is my kind of beautiful.

Halfway around the world, she popped into my head unexpectedly when late one night when Mar-Mar wanted to paint my toe nails. I said no and we all prowled the bars around Montparnasse ,eating olives and salted almonds out of tiny white dishes in between drinks, until becoming on the verge of queasy.
W.Wolfson ’18

 

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by Wayne Wolfson

Not Capri

“Calamari, some campari & soda. We will eat while listening to the surf smash against the rocks.”

She hoped the fishmonger still had some available as after a night of us all mixing drinks while throwing our arms around one another in song & passion she was getting a rather late start.

She would have asked me if I wanted to come with but there were things needing her attention as to mull over their true meaning. The added benefit was that she looked the better person for allowing me to work for several hours uninterrupted in my makeshift studio.

I noticed she put on the earrings she had been wearing last night, normally not worn except for on special occasions.
They were thick circles of shining gold that tightly hugged the bottom of her lobes the aesthetic for some reason making me think of long gone Romans.

It was a way to get an extra dig in to Gina who had not been invited last night and who had for years been refused the lone of the earrings regardless of the occasion.

There was every chance to believe that she would still be at the market, purposely waiting to run into her as to wrangle an invitation to whatever we had planned next.

Later we take a walk as she did not like the thought of me hunched over my drawing board all day.
“What do you call that flower, the pretty one with all the prickers on it?”
I tried to pronounce it several times, my tongue not complying with the dialect.
She laughed kissing my cheek.
The word was said again three times in quick succession.
“Ah, “friendship”.”

W.Wolfson’18

“Not Capri” 5×8 Watercolor & Paper

 

NotCapri

by Wayne Wolfson

What the Eye Sees

Where ever I am, I draw & sketch. Even more so if I do not have time/space to paint. My pencil musings are not all meant to be formal accomplishments ready to frame.

Sometimes they are just personal references to what I am doing or seeing, done in my 3×5 pocket pad.

After years of doing this, I find myself going to some of the same places which are now part of my life. It made it tricky in that, i can only sketch same rooftops etc so many times.

Without any forethought, I found a way to keep it fresh. I now sometimes indirectly record things.

I was in a little bar, the air thick with sausage smoke, that and Parisian sandwiches being their only fare. The owner had two cats which come and go as they please, all the regulars saying hello as they take over empty stools.

He had a penchant for playing Jacques Brel. The bar is located between my place and favorite record store so I found myself stopping in often on my way home. Either to celebrate a new purchase or to console myself for coming back empty handed.

Now when i hear Brel, for half a second I smell the fragrant sausage and regardless of lyrics, feel a mellow warmness.

W.Wolfson Paris ’18

brel

by Wayne Wolfson