Art – Page 2 – Making Marks

The Balancing Act

Bare Tree and Pond Image — In progress pastel painting, “Bare Tree and Pond.”

I chose to use pastels during last month’s Yosemite Western Artists pleinair outing. It had been awhile since I’d worked with the medium and I committed to perform a pastel painting demo in June. I like to have a lot of new samples, in the medium I’ll be using, to display during demos, so it will be pastels from now until the June.

I spend most of my time painting in oils, but last year I painted in acrylics all year long in prep for a week of taking park visitors out to paint Yosemite, on behalf of the Yosemite Conservancy’s Art Center. They didn’t want me taking groups out to paint in oils for fear they’d irresponsibly dispose of their solvents.

I work in a wide variety of mediums, oils, acrylics, watercolors, pastels (haven’t dabbled in encaustics, yet), always have. I think I’ve discovered something useful to all artists in my experience doing this.

With great painting the elements in your subject matter determine application. You apply paint different when painting water than you do when painting trees or rocks, for example. Here’s where balance comes into play: whenever you become comfortable with any given medium (balance), you begin to take its application for granted. It becomes too easy to rely on past “pat” successful application approaches, instead of letting elements determine fresh methods of application.

When you work with a medium you haven’t touched for awhile, you have no choice but to work with the attributes particular to that medium, redetermining application approaches. You’re a bit out of balance for awhile. The attributes of pastels, for example, force different application solutions when painting water, trees or rocks, than working with oils does. Acrylics, another unique set of attributes, as is the case with watercolors or graphite pencils or encaustics, etc.

When you return to your original medium of choice, you do so with fresh eyes (having been away from it for a time) and possibly new application approaches. For me, anyway, this ongoing introduction of imbalance, through use of a variety of mediums has kept me moving forward and cut down on repetition. I highly recommend it!

Who’s Teaching Who?

(Image: Drawing from upside-down reference. (Left) Reference: Picasso’s Stravinsky, (Right) Student Drawing)

I’ve volunteered as a teaching artist in the Mariposa School System for the Mariposa County Arts Council this year. I’m teaching art to two 5th grade glasses, one hour a week, over twelve weeks. I’m a little more than halfway through the session right now.

I started them off with several right brain drawing exercises: the dual human profiles that create a vase in negative space, drawing a complex image, while viewing it upside down, contour drawing without looking at your paper, etc. (one of my high school art teachers, Betty Edwards, actually wrote the book on right brain drawing techniques). Enough for them to gain a glimpse of what it feels like to draw in the right brain zone, as a seasoned artist does. Few of them could stay in the zone long, so in a short time, during every session, the buzz of talking would rise and I’d have to focus them once again, reminding them that they couldn’t be working in the right brain and talking at the same time. The left brain handles all communication. The right brain is incapable of conversation.

We soon moved on to single point (vanishing point) perspective, discussions of the events and developments that triggered the transition from representational art to abstract art, systems utilized in abstract art, actual painting using these systems and last week, team work on a large collaborative painting (the most fun, so far).

Working with these individuals, about to transition into adolescence, has been a joy and eye opening. In these two classes of 24 to 30 students each, only a small percentage, 2 or 3 students per class, show a focused interest in art. I’m guessing this aligns with the percentage of our society, as a whole, that shares this level of interest. Naturally, these students of focused interest also show the most potential (also a likely reflection of society).

More than this, to some degree, the art exercises reveal the personalities and psychological states of the students. The whole class appears to truly enjoy learning about and participating in art, but a couple students have difficulty following instructions, others ignore the exercise and draw or paint what they want, one or two ask a lot questions, a couple are insecure about whether they are doing things properly, another seeks precision, there are a couple of clowns, one does not participate and another’s actions reveal them to be working out some problems.

I wonder if exercises in other subjects reveal similar things, if the same students exhibit the same behaviors consistently across all subjects or if students respond differently to each subject? Makes me wish I had more time with these kids. Would love to see who each of these individuals becomes in the future.

New Ground

Yosemite Falls from Sentinel Swinging Bridge Image — “Yosemite Falls from Sentinel Swinging Bridge,” 30″ x 40,” oil on canvas, framed, $4,250.

I just finished an abstraction of the view of Yosemite Falls from the Sentinel Swinging Bridge. I work with abstractions as often as I do with representational pieces (actually more), but this one was more challenging.

My abstract forms are usually developed through multiple viewpoint perspective (MVP). For those unfamiliar with MVP, it’s an approach where the artist considers their subject matter from, not just a single point of view, but, instead, from all sides, creating images that represent multiple perspectives of the subject at the same time in a single image. The approach was pioneered by Picasso and Braque through their explorations with cubism.

Anyway, MVP depends on the viewer’s knowing what the subject matter looks like in its original state, before it’s abstracted, in order to be able to appreciate how it’s been abstracted. In a scene like this one, completely comprised of natural organic elements, representing elements from all sides can go unrecognized, so I had to depend on other systems of abstraction. I leaned heavily on geometric, organic and reductive abstraction here to arrive at my final solution. These methods of abstraction are generally called upon, to some degree, in all my abstractions, but this subject required me to rely on them exclusively.

Being forced to work without MVP took me out of my comfort zone, making me more insecure, a good thing for an artist. An indication that you’re exploring new personal territory and not relying solely on solutions that have been successful for you in the past. I highly recommend it.

All Over But the Shouting

It was a busy week setting up my solo show, A Pair of Trowzers, at the new Gallery 5, in Oakhurst, CA. Many of my pieces are large and have to been transported from my studio to the gallery a couple at a time strapped to a contractors rack installed on my pick-up truck. I had to resign myself, early on, that not much new painting would be accomplished that week, as all waking hours would be needed to mount the exhibit. I’m pretty spoiled in that area, holding myself to at least 4 hours of dedicated painting time a day (from 4pm — 8pm). If other crisis prevent me from getting into the studio earlier in the day, I always at least have those 4 hours to hold onto. Not this week! Hey, getting a solo gig is always an accomplishment, so you’ve got to “roll wid it!”

We were successful in getting all artwork transported to the gallery before the rains hit that week, so, we had that going for us! Don’t know how many of you have been involved in the nuts and bolts of mounting a show, but there’s usually several days of moving the pieces around, leaning them against the walls to see how they work in the space and against each other. Well, I tried something new this time. When I discovered the gallery owner/curator, Jon Bock, had a floor plan available to me, I decided to build a quick a dirty 3D model of the space using Google Sketch Up and attempt a virtual organization of the exhibit. I feel having done so saved me a day or two in actually putting things together in the gallery. I only transported pieces I new I was going to use and I had plan for how it all fit together. I was CCO with several computer game companies from 1989 – 2011, so I’ve had a lot of exposure to 3D modeling and animation software. I wouldn’t recommend the uninitiated from sitting down and learning a 3D app just to accomplish this, but since the skills were in my toolbox, it was a no-brainer for me. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll stop by and view the show.

Here are the particulars:
A Pair of Trowzers
February 18 – March 26, 2017
11am-5pm Daily
Gallery 5
40982 Highway 41
Oakhurst, CA 93644
559 683-5551
Artist’s Reception, Saturday, March 18, 2017, 6pm-8pm

I’m back in the studio painting again now, my natural habitat.

Dead Tree & Shed Image — In progress demo by Trowzers Akimbo

Tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 1st, will be the second night of four in my Painting Workshop at the Artists’ Loft, in North Fork, CA. If you missed last weeks first class, but wanted to be part of this workshop, don’t worry, you can start with this weeks installment and we’ll catch you up. Last week I walked the group through my personal 3 stage indirect painting approach, with a demo, and got everyone started on their own paintings. This week will start the one on one discussions, providing attendees with answers and help on the specific issues they’re facing with their own individual pieces. The workshop is open to all experience levels and oil, acrylic, watercolor and soft pastel mediums are all welcome. The cost is $35 per student per week, with sessions starting at 6pm and continuing to 8pm (our end time is soft, as we stick around until all questions are answered).

The Artists’ Loft
6pm – 8pm
Wednesdays, Feb 22 – Mar 15, 2017
32870 Road 222
North Fork, CA 93643