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| 2007 |
From the point of view of the development of the work, a very positive year. Began working with the putty system, had a good round of new colorscape paintings, made the best work outside to date over the summer at Button Bay, kept developing the putty system all along in both loose and tight variations. With a few early exceptions, all work this year was made without resin, which made for a blissfully solvent-free studio.
More problematic in the sales department. After an unprecedentedly halcyon year in 2006, sales went into the sub-basement in 2007 and stayed there like Eeyore in his Gloomy Place. Dealing with this crops up now and then.
Also, the usual interminable round of complaints about it being too hot or too cold, definite sense of strain in April before the arrival of Spring, more than a few sentences I'd love to have back. On the other hand, each year, looking back on it, I seem to be slightly less of a fool.
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| december 31 |
Another
good day putting layers on landscapes, above, first layer of color on a
larger version of a favorite theme: keeping it cold, let the darks go
down a little, might pay for that, we'll see. The process really seems
to have stabilized around this most recent system. After almost five
years of looking for answers this is kind of a relief. What's starting
to happen now is a round of smaller adjustments: broke out some of my
Sacred Montana Sun Oil today and added a drop to the darks along with
their usual drop of amber: possibly a good idea, we'll see. Something's
happened with the colors too, I'm using the same ones over and over:
yellow ochre, trans yellow oxide, venetian red, viridian, a mixed blue
I make, burnt siena dark, trans maroon oxide, and vine black. So, all
this means a little more confidence is building up in the way I handle
the paint. I'd like to see more of that, and some larger paintings
again in the year to come.
Interesting year,
the best ever in financial terms of my life, done without a gallery,
teaching, or advertising other than this website. Even as a painter, it
proved easy for the system to begin to rule my life in a way that
became too negative in the long run: the big lesson of 2005. But the
system is simply individuals, a kind of meme that has acceptance
without any actual truth. And it turned out that, to my surprise and
great relief, if you paint it they will come. (Well, you have to frame
it too...) But, nonetheless, a pretty amazing discovery. So, thanks
very much to all you brave and wise folks out there who don't need the
Gallery Experience to know what art is: I'm very happy to try to figure
all this out but can't do it without your enlightened support. My sense
is that the large part of the research is over and that now I'll be
able to concentrate again on making work. In terms of efficiency, this
will be a huge shift. The materials search had its hard moments, stuck,
lost, frazzled, sometimes felt like giving up. Its especially
interesting when people condescend to you -- from the left or the
right, I get both -- who don't have a prayer about what you're trying
to accomplish: had a few of those moments this year, very glad for that
early Quaker training. And perhaps, with luck, what I've been trying to
accomplish will be much clearer in another year. My thanks again to
those who have seen it and supported this project early on.
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| january 2 |
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Might
be a little premature, but looks like I've survived the holidays. And I
try pretty hard to minimize them: don't know how everybody else
manages. Back to work today, I'm getting a little momentum with my
system: I've used the same medium and pigments now for almost a week,
that's definitely a record for the past five years. When the system
becomes natural, more paint can happen, and when more paint can happen,
more momentum can happen...you see where this leads. Several layers
today, above is the second on another Higby Road image, small, about
9x18, good size for a study, I seem to need to do them small to see how
to make them big, if that makes any sense. Then the bigger one is much
faster. Seems like I'm getting a little more traction with the
intelligent use of black, this thrills me, it was such a puzzle for so
long. There have been painters, mostly earlier but also someone like
Corot, who used black as a color: you never see anything that looks
chalky or "gray", its always integrated seamlessly. This does something
very interesting to the way in which the white is perceived as well:
logical of course, but another
surprise.
Gave some work away today to
someone very deserving, my landlady, who has put up with me being next
door now for two years! Its unpredictable, can cause diverse reactions,
but this time it was positive for both parties. Continue to feel
there's more to this than trying to make more money, not sure how that
can be effectively manifested but that already feels like a focus for
the coming year.
Started re-reading my
favorite book, Anthony Powell's "At Lady Molly's". It totally cracks me
up but no one I've recommended it to has seemed to find it more than
marginal. He has an amazing way of giving you the unvarnished humanity
of characters for better and worse -- usually worse -- and this
particular book has a marvelous secret theme which I never realized
before of couples reacting very differently to the arrival of a third
party. Unfortunately I read about a third of it last night. There are
other great books in his long novel, "Dance to the Music of Time", and
there are certainly better passages in the later books and perhaps "The
Military Philosophers" is better all in all, but there's something
about this one, the fourth in a series of twelve: its frothy on the
surface but with shadows lengthening in many ways for the cast. Dare I
recommend this sparkling, bone-dry book?
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| january 4 |
Two
relatively warm and sunny days in a row. Managed to get out this
morning, down to the town beach, except there's not much beach, the
water level is so high. This could get interesting in April, maybe
March at this rate. Did a painting of the Adirondacks, lake and sky,
lots of paint, very blue overall with some strange orange creamsicle
clouds on the horizon. Sort of transitional, not locked too well as a
composition but got the right colors going in the sky and just kept
hurling paint at it as it changed, palette knife, gobs of white over
cobalt. Great to get out and look again, it was a good subject for this
time of year, lots of opalescent color, lots of changes as the sun came
and went, might be better down at Button Bay, not sure if there's a
strong enough composition where I was today. This aspect of outside
stuff is tricky: sometimes I just see it, sometimes it kind of happens,
sometimes its not really right regardless. But a positive step in the
process if not an outright winner. Got some more walnut oil at the
store, I put it in a small crockpot for two days before making paint
with it, my version of the "slightly heat-bodied" oil the National
Gallery conservators find a lot in their analyses. The oil is still
pretty thin, but the rheology of the paint is very different. Did a
little more work this afternoon, trying to develop the landscapes
without having them lock up, spending much more time developing the sky
(background) before putting any detail into the land (foreground).
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| january 5 |
Well,
I'm kind of mad at myself. Had a very good experiment going and ruined
it by being too impatient. Well, I didn't ruin it exactly, and in a way
its great because I know it will work really well once I do it right,
but if I had just left well enough alone instread of trying to hasten
things a bit, then another bit, then thrown in an innovation which
worked a little too well, I wouldn't have had to spend the morning
cleaning everything up that went so suddenly and spectacularly awry,
and would have a lot of very high quality something instead of just a
little high quality something. So, much chastened, will take several
days to set this up again, but of course, learned a lot, much more than
I would have by being patient! Didn't get much done otherwise, an
underpainting for a very tricky image, Snake Mountain in rain and mist,
a morning I painted outside so the whole hour and a half is etched on
my retina. Let it start very chaotically in relation to the morning
itself, made several subtle but key compositional changes, lots of work
with a rag: this is something I'm learning more about with landscape:
to build an underpainting out of the minimal number of forms, to let
the beginning be more graphic and essentialized, to make believable
changes in the composition. Then ground down the large jellyroll to
prepare it for a final layer or two after a highly polite inquiring
e-mail from its owner-to-be. If you want to get me moving, just ask
nicely, obliquely even, works like a charm. Then again, having had a
few debacles trying to finish things for clients who weren't that
serious, I do like to make sure someone's really interested. As in many
things, its a fine line.
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| january 6 |
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Strange,
warm, changeable day. Did layers on several large paintings which have
prospective buyers today, felt honorable, I either seem to avoid this
or get a little too into it, maybe this round I'll find a balance
point. Ground down the jellyroll last night, put a thin layer on it
today designed to correct a few things, think I made it better. The
next layer will be rollicking, lots of goopiness, and will hopefully
finish it. That seems to be a good method for me: a layer that's
cautious followed by a layer that's not. Its 27x36 inches, a really
pleasant size to work with. People seem to see all kinds of strange
things in this painting, I'm continually surprised if not shocked. Of
course there are times when objects take on a little extra-curricular
meaning, but you know, sometimes a jellyroll is just a
jellyroll.
Getting a few new ideas for
pursuing landscapes, want to continue with the ghostly black and white
underpainting idea, but keep moving the scale up and the amount of
detail or focus down. Got my next version of the experiment that went
awry yesterday underway, what a moron I am but in a week I'll be a very
happy moron if I can just keep my foot off the accelerator!
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| january 7 |
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Sunny,
warm, at least for today. Another set of layers on images in progress
with potential buyers, two went forward, one went kind of sideways but
at least I figured out why. The painting above progressed, still has
problems but they're getting solved. Its 32x48 inches, of blueberry
bushes on Schoodic point in October, I kind of walked into a Sierra
Club calendar, an amazing spot. The big question is whether to try to
keep all the values or let them blend a little more so that the image
acquires a little more quality of memory or dream. Not sure, its kind of
stark but becoming less so as I go along. Did a bit on newer work too,
its easier, sort of a relief after several layers on large older iamges
with relentless built-in issues. My experiment is going well, slowly
but surely.
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| january 8 |
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Rain,
dark, felt unusually gloomy this morning: think the election results
got my unconscious hopes up, but its clear sanity is not around the
corner for my deluded, benighted country. Tried to work but couldn't,
too dark to really see, gave up for a bit and dithered about the place
but then it began to clear early in the afternoon and I started in
again. Did layers on still life in progress, this is always soothing
when it wants to happen as I know how to do this better than the
landscapes, and it helps me understand how I make traps for myself with
the landscape work. So, did two and was getting a sense of purpose and
dignity back, then started in on a cheese that's almost done, photo
above. Put on the couch, very thin, then had an intuition to use some
thickened leaded oil to create impasto: not big impasto, little
impasto, detail impasto. The leaded oil I make becomes kind of like
taffy as it sits in the open; doesn't skin over, but gets quite long or
stretchy and thicker throughout. But when I looked at my little lid of
this oil, it had thickened too much, wasn't dry but was barely mobile.
But I messed around with it with the knife for a while, stirring it,
and then thought of thinning it again with some fresh leaded oil. I've
done this before, but never quite at this nearly-solid stage. And this
turned out to be different and very interesting. The result was a lot
like a gel medium in the way it performed in the paint: the newer oil
allowed the paint to move, but the tighter oil held it in place firmly.
Because the thicker oil was so cut up by the new oil, it was no longer
elastic but still had great body. This stuff allowed lots of very
spontaneous un-fussy detailing because I knew I could move it, remove
it, layer it, etc. The paint was crisp as when using a resin medium but
just using oil: potentially an interesting piece in the great 17th
century medium puzzle. But the thing I liked most about it was that the
procedure was logical and followed the principle of supreme economy
which has proven to be such a big part of older painting technique:
instead of giving up on a material, figure out how to transform it into
something useful again. So now, for a real challenge, maybe I should
try to apply that to my attitude towards America.
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| january 9 |
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Quiet
day of layers exploring the possibilities of my new oil paste medium,
it seems to be able to do the sort of detail I've been trying to get
at. Above is a salvage job from the summer, an image I like but with
many elements of compositional subtlety that needed to be learned. This
is a strangely compelling spot near the lake that I've been told was
used extensively by Native Americans. Are some places more sacred than
others? It has seemed so here. Also once in a redwood forest, on top of
Mauna Kea, and as a kid seeing the wild ponies on Chincoteague.
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| january 11 |
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Cold,
somehow helpful, day of layers on still life work. Several years ago I
did a flurry of small alla prima paintings on gessoed masonite and just
stuck them in a pile when they were done, the idea being to just learn
how to see flowers. The best ones of these are long gone but there are
a few that I didn't quite get the first time that have always wanted to
be painted again. Did this peony today over a black-white-red earth
underpainting, added a bit of thickened oil to the paint and used the
truly stellar combination of sun oil, amber (not much) and ground
leaded glass for impasto: made it up the night before, it was like a
small blob of contact cement in the morning, very fun to work with,
will make slightly raised hairline detail. Have been using the same
palette now for almost two weeks, but wasn't sure I could get this with
just Trans Mars Maroon -- a warm crimson manufactured iron oxide -- so
added some of my sacred Anthraquinone Crimson to the palette. Don't
know why this isn't more readily available, a very clean cool crimson
without the giddiness of Quinacradone. Still, too vivid, got into
trouble. But got out of most of it. Had a nice e-mail today from New
Zealand which talked at one point about Constable's use of the palette
knife. Mostly I've used the knife on abstract work but I've got an
elegant small steel spatula from Holbein that I love, and that seemed
to work well to move things around within the flower later in the day,
the impasto is quite low, but the sense of movment, that great peony
fluffiness, seemed to come much more into play. I've never been able to
get quite so far with a subject like this in one sitting, mostly
concentrated on the flowers, might also be able to work this layer
tomorrow, we'll see. The original was made during an approaching
thunderstorm, I can still remember it, very flat cool light for
summer.
My thanks to the brave souls who
took a look at Living Craft, the consensus seems to be: 1) that it is
trying to do something that has never been done, and, 2) that it needs
more work. So I've taken down the link for now.
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| january 12 |
Dark
and drear. Did some more work on the peony below, was able to take the
central blossom further. Tried an alla prima still life but it kind of
turned into therapy, scarey but necessary now and then. Then did a big
update of the Formulas page using the practical material from the
defunct Living Craft project. Realized that the most important thing is
just to document the development of the materials for painters who are
interested, not try to explain the whole thing in relation to five
centuries of oil painting practice. Enough already.
Nearing the end of my year, birthday at the
end of the month. I always seem to get a new puzzle to solve and the
energy to begin it at that time. So things are a little slow now,
generally finishing up the old rather than starting the new. I
alternate between feeling okay with this and struggling for just a
little bit more. The big cycle that's ending is the cycle of technical
research that began in 2002, I actually like how the work looks, just
need to develop more technical facility, more manipulative
savoir-faire. Glad I went through it, feel confident about the way its
shaping up for the future. There are people who know more, of course,
but I like the system that fell into place in the last few weeks enough
to stop the search here. Its sort of like being a vintner: the grapes
that grow in my soil produce a certain wine. And it sure isn't
Bougeureau-Noveau!
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| january 15 |
Some
snow yesterday, a little more today before freezing rain, dark early,
urgh. Did layers today on older landscapes, not sure anything exactly
went forward, but I often encounter stiff resistance at about
three-quarters finished, getting used to just working with it. At least
there aren't too many of these left to solve: the newer ones are
proving easier. Last quarter of the moon, an iffy time for painting as
a rule but I'll push it if possible, might be better now to make
materials and start gearing up for the next new moon. Several new ideas
looming, but nothing clear yet. I think after a certain point of
practice its easy to come up with new ideas, the question is, which one
is real? Always seems to be beyond me, then it arrives. Its been
interesting to stay with the same set of materials for a few weeks now:
instead of developing new systems, the new system's been developing.
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| january 16 |
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Very
cold, sunny later, lovely brief afternoon epiphany in the sky. Worked
on a few still life layers after doing the small peony study above,
9x12. I like the direction of this but, true to the waning moon, a lot
of things zigged which might better have zagged: mostly in terms of
choices I made about what to switch to when in terms of mediums. But,
was able to put a dark glaze over wet white paint, meaning the form
could be sculpted from both light and dark in the layers. I'll do a
clean up pass on it tomorrow, it'll be a bit drier, possible to get
things crisper. Learned a lot from this, will do more with this concept.
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| january 17 |
Freezing
but gorgeous, re-worked the peony of yesterday -- image below is day
two -- and then did errands. This might prove to be an interesting way
to work: one quite intense and thick opening layer, followed by a
calmer tidying up of paint that's set but still wet. At least, seemed
to see it much more clearly this morning. But, limited in size if not
scope, can't imagine being able to handle anything too large this way.
New linen arrived, I'll probably make panels for the next few days.
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| january 18 |
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Very
bright, then overcast, not as cold, its always funny how 30 becomes
balmy after 5. Last day of the moon, put linen on about a dozen panels
in the morning, would be noble but I felt like a zombie anyway. Then
made the 9x12 study above, hillside with an olive grove gone wild in
the Mugello, one of my happy places. This is exactly the type of
graphic image that has always given me problems, set up the paint to
allow a maximum amount of development, made it all quite stiff, pushed,
pulled, added, removed. Not done, but has a feeling of the day I like.
These small studies are the way to go, very freeing, can evolve quickly
this way into the next phase with the materials: dexterity.
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| january 19 |
Snow,
quiet: did an underpainting in black, white, and earth red from life
and finished fifteen small panels. Felt the usual antsiness of the new
moon, sometimes this results in lots of activity in several directions,
today was more static: threw out some old work and generally looked
around the studio with jaundiced eye. An uncomfortable process, but it
always seems to precede a shift that makes me feel better. I'm sold on
the look of the new system, just need to continue to explore its
technical possibilities.
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| january 20 |
Bright,
windy, frigid. Lost the Formulas page the other night, never sure how
this happens, always interesting to open to a blank page. Spent time
last night and this morning putting it back together, added and revised
a great deal: seemed like the time! Like it better, may be inching
towards a way of talking about the older aspects of the craft that's
more generally comprehensible. This is the most popular page on the
site, makes me kind of proud actually. Otherwise, too tired to work:
tried to go into the studio anyway, was summarily ejected. Under those
circumstances, best to give it a rest.
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| january 22 |
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Rocky
few days, after five years I still experience difficulty out of the
blue concerning the death of my parents. Long story, would like to put
this experience finally behind me, but there seems to still be some
stuff to go through first. Did something I liked today, alla prima,
more paint than ever, handled a bit better: based it on a hunch I've
had for a while, the more I work with the oil the more I'm learning.
Interesting to paint through a sense of crisis, put the perennial
crisis of the painting itself into perspective. About 11x14, oil on
linen over panel, an old farm in the Mugello, a place for which I had a
strong sense of co-identity. Don't know how to say it: maybe I was born
there, just not this time around.
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| january 24 |
Life
has been muddying up the process in the last few days, but a relief to
see some friends. Had to get my license renewed, the Department of
Motor Vehicles is always full of local theater. Like the look of the
painting below as it settles, was able to put endless layers on it
using one last permutation of my final ingredients. This put it over
the top, I now have no excuses. I feel like the ultimate anachronism:
an apprentice 17th century painter in rural Vermont in 2007. Don't
mind, but it makes me wonder at a fundamental level about the efficacy
or wisdom of continuing down this road. That is, having found sanity
and some more tangible lost secrets besides, maybe the best thing is to
count myself lucky, find a blue ox and run for cover. Then again,
although humanity doesn't really love the self-propelled eccentric, the
universe seems to have a soft spot for followers of inner impetus. This
is focal because opportunity knocked today. Can't provide details but
it was very flattering. But also very tricky. Hermeticism might be of
more genuine service.
Started "The Judgement
of Paris" by Ross King, a book about contrasting trends in 19th century
French painting. Not that well written, what has happened to prose, but
a great concept: the war of the conservative and progressive in
painting. This has been going on for a long time, I can remember being
very interested at college in Mi Fu, a 9th century Song Dynasty painter
who made blunt evocative monochrome impressionism to the outrage and
dismay of the academic court painters. On and on it goes, we'll clobber
one another for opinion's sake till our last breath.
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| january 26 |
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noneFrigid
the last couple days, squeaky snow. Did the above today, 12x16, gessoed
linen on panel, felt like a development, seems to have a better handle
on the chromatic use of black and white. A great deal of paint, got the
beginning a bit too mobile and the linen was finer but will be able to
clean it up tomorrow when the paint is still wet but much more viscous.
Tried a few slight changes, all in all the paint went too far in the
direction of movement but that made it a little more
harrowing/interesting than the landscape below, which was in control
all the way and looks it. Learned something too about the lootwit type
white I make: anything I use in the way of resin makes it seize.
Thought it was just amber or copal, but fir -- Olio d'Abezzo --turns it
into a solid as well.
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| january 27 |
More
cold. Re-did the image below a bit, concentrated on the flowers, had to
start with a huge RAW image to get something reasonable for here,
still, the original is way more subtle. Needs more work but I like the
feeling that was built in through the first layer: most important part.
Did a few layers on older still life: a little discouraging but nice to
see how far I've come in a year.
I'm reading
The Judgement of Paris, by Ross King. Really well researched: don't
love his prose but the story is fascinating: a look at the myriad
social, poitical and aesthetic issues that went into the Salon for ten
years starting in 1863. Focus is on Manet on the left, and Meissonier
on the right, with loads of quality period detail. What a cast of
characters, and, as always, things are more complex than the standard
story.
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| january 28 |
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Cold
and bright, started the image above, Snake Mountain from Dead Creek in
Addison County, about 11x24, oil on linen over panel. Did this using
the new system, first Vermont blue-and-green image attempted this way.
Tried to simply complete it, didn't succeed but don't feel this will
take that much more in terms of effort, the feeling of the day is
there, the rest will just be paint. These need to be done bigger: at
least, say, three feet across, but I've wanted to get more comfortable
with winging it before increasing the scale. So, getting closer to
that: the few I've done at that scale were easier to work on for being
larger.
Some interesting information in the
Ross King book about the dawn of new painting in Paris from about 1863
to 1873: After many ups and downs, Manet had one real smash hit
painting at the Salon, a portrait of a happy, corpulent fellow called
Le Bon Bock that pays homage to Dutch genre painting and Frans Hals in
particular. The thing that struck me was that, according to the book,
the model sat for the painting eighty times.
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| january 29 |
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Overthought,
made an error putting together the medium for this: it was too sticky,
couldn't really build anything in the way of layers. So, had to keep
moving the same layer around, developing it. Lots of fusion and
essentialization happens with this method, a certain savoir faire. So,
learned something interesting, will try to finish it next time.
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| january 30 |
|
 Did
the above this morning, first layer, tried it a slightly different way,
like the look of the flower on the left. Not sure which I like better,
this approach or the all paint at all costs approach. Then my friend
Jill arrived, she liked the painting of the 26th, below. But I'm not
sure still about all this alla prima vs. layers stuff, there are
trade-offs, no hard and fast answer, so I go back and forth and new
things happen in both methods. Then after much bundling we went out
painting. It was bright and cold. But we went down to the lake so it
would be really bright and really cold. The sparkle and glory of
winter, however, is not that easy to capture. My homemade paint got too
hard to use so I had to borrow some of Jill's. My medium congealed too.
Still not sure how to deal with the information in this spot: when we
arrived, there was a great angel wing cloud thing going on, but that
didn't last long and by the end of an hour there were some very gray
bands as well as the constant changing refulgent stuff everywhere. So,
I put as much paint on as possible, a lot considering the consistency
of the paint. The lake hasn't frozen, there were some ducks foraging
calmly in the shallows, hard to believe. I love painting outside, hope
this will be the year when it all falls into place using the new -- old
-- materials.
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| january 31 |
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Interesting
day. My cosmic birthday present was a little late, arrived around five
in the morning, just before the train whistle. Don't know why I'm
always up then, but I'm getting used to it, very free time. Thought
about a different couch recipe, then, making it later in the morning,
realized it might be a good way to begin a painting: not too much paint
but lots of development. Above is the third one I did, the one where
the potential of the material began to make sense. Black, transparent
red earth, transparent yellow earth, lots of work with a rag and a
stylus. This will be dry enough to work on tomorrow, wonder what will
happen then. Feels like a good development: working in a spontaneous
way but not trying to do it all in the first sitting.
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Most of the news text for February was lost, images below, things I remember in brackets.
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Drat,
tried to do too much at once and lost the news. Ah well, as soon as I
get confident and think I've got the e-touch, disaster. Working away on
the new resinless system, made a new batch of the calcite putty last
night, made it less dense and with a little less in the way of thick
oil. A major improvement, very fun to work with, did layers on several
paintings in progress today, simple and fun. Image above is something
I've been trying to get for several years in different forms, this one
is larger at about 16x34 inches and that helps. I'd like to get a
handle on the joyous landscape, it's harder, makes even one's least
intellectual supporters nervous, but isn't joy really fundamental to
our relationship with the land? Earlier did another mini-layer on the
image below, it's still a bit tacky, this was interesting once I got
used to it, was able to again put on broad passes of uncut white and
then moderate them with thinner straight paint. Like this system, this
has been three thin layers, still without much paint. Made a white last
night that's half marble dust, as expected it's like mortar, but quite
mobile mortar, was able to do some proto-elegant things today: it's a
matter of introducing just enough thinner oil to allow the sense of
effortless movement given the brush involved. It's good to feel that
all this research wasn't a snipe hunt after all even if I went from A
to B via Z.
|
| february 27 |
|
|
Went
out this morning with my friend Jill, above is the semi-frozen lake
down the road from where I live, made with my most recent materials
although once again they stiffened too much to function about half way
through. About 11x14, oil on linen. Very exciting to get out again,
although the sun became so bright on this painting I couldn't see it
and I became kind of crabby hoisting the easel around in a couple feet
of snow trying to get an angle where I could work. Opted for managanese
blue, which helped a lot but is frightening straight out of the tube.
An amazing morning, not that cold and very colorful sky, odd pink and
then almost green mist on the Adirondacks. The painting is somewhat
synthetic, hard to explain but since it was all one big horozontal band
below I selected what seemed to work best across a stretch of several
miles of shoreline to go with the diagonal above, which changed but was
more predictable. Still, the best image of this type so far. I'd like
nothing better than to be able to do good work consistently outside,
this feels like a step in the right direction. Later worked more on the
larger peony, below. I'm intrigued with this image, trying to
understand more about a new white paint I'm working with. Still working
on the large bright Schoodic Point landscape, it's gotten a little too
dotty, need to figure out a way to get out of that. Otherwise, on its
way, as far as color and composition. Have done more on the field below
as well. Otherwise, hard to be as patient as I need to be but that's
nothing new.
|
| febraury 28 |
|
|
Mostly
worked today on an alla prima study of three onions using the resinless
gel system in its most pastose and abandoned manner. About five hours
on an 11x14 panel, yikes. Intense combination of fun and hard. Might
have an image tomorrow, the worst is behind me, never thought that
paint without resin could make endless push-pull impasto but such seems
to be the case. So now I know what I'm going to be learning for the
rest of this year, at the very least.
Did
another layer on the epiphany field, above, this is the same paint but
used a bit more sedately. Getting a feeling for what needs to happen
here, need to go slowly with this having made a hash of two smaller
studies already. This painting is not possible to photograph well, do
not know why yet. Too lyrical?
There are
eight peony paintings in progress but I could only find six without
conniptions, kind of explains what my workspace is like now: dense. An
image like this is a good illustration of what intrigues me about the
process: they are all in some ways the same, they are all, in other
ways, different. The biggest issue I've encountered in terms of
completion is the way each image seems to need a style of its own. I'm
excited that these are all different -- logically, meaningfully
different -- but that somehow, this just happened naturally. Maybe Zeno
would approve.
|
| march 2 |
Wet
snow today, really pretty. Gave the onions another go but have to let
it rest, I got two out of three so far but its still inchoate, gunky.
Have been doing more layers, but today got a strong urge to start some
new images as well. Went back to a light burnt sienna underpainting for
these, interesting to visit it again after many changes in the system.
Also used a panel today that had a white lead ground that must be about
three years old: slightly nice to work on, yikes, maybe I should make a
stockpile of these again. Beginning is always an interesting process,
there are so many ideas floating around, when will a specific one take
form and how? The energy today just felt kind of primal, not careful,
and new beginnings seemed right for it: happening with that great sense
of right effort. Still working on the resinless system, now getting
easier as it's quite logical within a certain set of parameters. Made a
new white yesterday based on the information from the various National
Gallery publications with which I've been co-habiting. Interesting
behavior, it thickens via friction to a dense mass. Which makes it,
like chocolate, a non-Newtonian substance. Perhaps this accounts for
the pronounced feeling of euphoria it gave me as well. Thought it would
be worth making but this is unique, once again giving the lie to the
limitations of oil to produce "complex pastose paint structures". The
limitations appear to be, um, elsewhere. It's exciting to get a
functional group of materials together that have no resin anywhere near
them: it'll take a while still to grok this system fully and work with
it naturally. But it makes sense that older painters would want to
develop a technique that they had as much basic control over as
possible, buy as few materials manufactured elsewhere as possible.
|
| march 3 |
|
Did
the above today with the resinless system. Small, about 11.5x13 inches,
same proportions as a larger panel I've made at 36x40. Felt I might be
able to get this composition to work but it needed some changes, always
best to take on something like this in a smaller format. For a first
pass I like everything about this BUT the composition, not sure yet
what to alter, might be able to tell in the morning. An interesting
palette: cool cobalt and ultramarine, no green, earth colors and plenty
of black. Also, the first appearance in the arena of yesterday's
non-Newtonian white. Still more to learn about the system, this moved
well and I'll be able to clean it up quickly but could also have made
the first passes even more adhesive. So, room for improvement but was
nice to compare this to some former images of the same day which lacked
the proto-gravitas of this. It's surprising how much paint is really
necessary to get at what I want, and at the same time how little color.
An olive grove on a hillside outside Volterra, diminished by glare and
shrinking for here.
Otherwise, seem to be
trying to come to grips with finishing things, thought about that the
last few days: the role of process, the role of product, the balance,
the tension. In the past I've often noticed that visitors will respond
to an idea, whereas I want a painting. This is sometimes hard to
explain in the 21st century: no, I want MORE than the idea. I know how
to do this with a still life, the peonies below are all marching slowly
towards their small place in the great scheme of things. But the
tension in landscape between abstraction, atmosphere, and detail still
has me often puzzled about what constitutes complete, let alone the
blue sky issue. But there are a few smaller ones like this that are
helping me to see something further. It's hard to explain, goes back to
people like Corot and Boudin, the transparent eyeball in psychic Arcady.
|
| march 4 |
 Worked
on cleaning up yesterday's resinless study, it was almost dry, slight
surprise, could only do certain things. Was able to move it forward,
put up the new version below. There's something about this that's
right, or better, as an approach, beyond the palette change. More
emphasis on atmosphere and abstraction maybe. Not sure about the
composition, might look at one that's less square for a larger version,
more weight on the left. Anyway, felt positive and so took on an old
nemesis, above. The same day, the same image in fact, just more of it
and rotated correctly. A hopeless favorite, I've really batted this one
around, the second or third study that's stalled due to my conflicting
interest in mood and detail. But, using the ideas from the study below,
and generous amounts of prehensile non-Newtonian white, was able to get
a layer on that made me feel better. Not done, a little gunky at the
moment but on-track. Then did the same to a few more smaller landscape
studies which had stalled, this palette seems to have solved my green
issue after...well, never mind how long. What makes me feel good about
this new system from the historical point of view is that the paint
wants to go on thickly, it almost has to, so there's a great deal of
movement and spontaneity built into how it's applied. My goal with all
of this is to create a system that can be applied to two things:
outdoor studies, about 11x14 to 12x16 in scale, and larger studio
paintings, say, 18x36 inches or so. There are a few of the latter so
far, but it seems this system could make work with even more abandon
than what I've done so far. And that would be fun. Process is great,
but I'd like to get to the point where some serious production could
happen. Hey, what's so funny?
|
| march 5 |
|
Cold
again, feeling the inevitable discontent. Dug deep into the landscape
bone pile today, good for the soul but hard on the ego. Put layers on a
number of paintings but at the end of the day had to wonder if anything
had gone forward. Might have been the white, tried another idea and it
was very smooth, easy to think in, but perhaps too smooth grasshopper.
But the mid-life of a painting is always tricky: early enthusiasm has
ended, all the things that are wrong are only too apparent: who thought
this was any good? So it could just be that. Also, my sense of what
constitutes "good" will sometimes take an unnerving quantum leap, a
warning would be nice but then I'd just freeze like a deer in
headlights. In the afternoon did a near to end layer on a still life
that came forward nicely, felt relieved to finally do something right.
Not sure how to work with the landscape stuff now: the best ones are
the newest and largest done with the most recent resinless system.
Might be best just to start more of the same. But I figured out how to
make the still life work by not giving up on them, so there's that
aspect too. I'll probably do both: something hard, something easy. So
it takes years to finish a painting. Don't the art historians love
stuff like that?
I'm trying to figure out a
way of drawing with a reed pen as another way of working on landscape.
This is another activity I'd love to be able to do outside with
consistency. The paper I like for this is Somerset, which is awfully
soft, but looks right. It's kind of a struggle, even with a layer of
glue applied. I kind of like the fact of the fight, but think there's
something I don't get yet about the pen. Like the ink, something I made
years ago with bister and trans red oxide. Image above is outside a
small town in the Apennines above Lucca, now one of my favorite
internal escape hatches. Tiny, about 4x6 inches.
|
| march 8 |
|
|
|
Still
really cold, minus twenty the other night, my car seems to have
something interesting going on, hopefully this will resolve itself when
it's warmer tomorrow. Worked on the still life above a few days ago, seems
close to done, like this stage though, each layer creates more of a
sense of reality/unreality. The new system plus a couch made with some
Silver Fir. Otherwise, have put two thin layers on a new larger
landscape and that's about it. The ability to be psyched and functional
is waning as the winter continues, just have to be patient, last year
around this time I became quite crabby to no end. Got another National
Gallery Bulletin, in each one there are some good pieces of the puzzle:
this one detailed the type of bonds that form in the oil when it's heat
bodied and why they create an oil less likely to yellow over time.
Always nice to have science on your side. Have seen some friends in the
last few days, very helpful, as the winter progresses it's hard to
realize how much the cold is isolating.
|
| march 9 |
|
Did
a few layers, almost have a couple new things ready for the big time
here, developments using the resinless system. It's odd, I'm really
tired, this last cold snap kind of did something to me, but I can do
some work, not a lot. Dishes, no. Laundry, no. But a little work. The
thing I'm most excited about is I think I'm finally onto the answer to
the thing which has puzzled me the most about older painting. It's been
clear that the slightly heat-bodied oil approach is right from the
point of view of the way the paint looks and acts, but leave it to
National Gallery Technical Bulletin 15 (1994) to explain why. Okay,
subsequent major geekological excursion alert.
There are two ways which oil can begin to dry: by oxidation, forming
carbon-oxygen bonds, or by being heat-bodied, forming carbon-carbon
bonds. The carbon-carbon bonds are much less likely to yellow over
time. Which is the first big piece of answer. But what I still want to
know is: 1) Does a heat-bodied oil continue to dry by making
carbon-carbon bonds, even after cooling, i.e. in the paint film? Is it
patterned, or seeded, and will continue to dry the same way it started?
And: 2) Do the carbon-carbon bonds resist subsequent oxidation much
more than the carbon-oxygen bonds, making heat-bodied oil much less
likely to deteriorate over time? Also: 3) What is the lower range of
temperature at which the carbon-carbon bonding takes place? Also: 4)
Does the carbon-carbon bonding create a situation where the oil does
not make lead white more transparent over time? Or is this a function
of changing the pH of the oil through the use of calcium carbonate in
the white or through the use of an alkalyzing agent in processing the
oil?
The point being that it feels more and
more like there is some unifying factor to all the Dutch work of the
seventeenth century, from which all the individual systems depend: as I
work with this oil-only system both rough and fine styles present
themselves, many subtle permutations of texture and handling. I don't
have great hands, it's just there. So I wonder if the crux, the point
of departure, is that they were sure that their basic oil was safe on
all levels: that it wouldn't yellow, run, wrinkle, or degrade the
white. Then, the changes in style come to support the individual method
as a function of the secondary oil
medium.
Anyway, on and on. I didn't
understand this yesterday. Progress? Or more smoke and mirrors, gnostic
incantations on the battered alter of Chronos? When I was a kid I read
a lot of Auden: "Time will say nothing but I told you so/ If I could
tell you I would let you know."
|
| march 10 |
|
Did
some research today online on the chemistry of linseed oil and its
oxidation, had an e-consultation with Mike Strauss, wise and patient
chemistry professor semi-emeritus at UVM. Did you know that the
chemistry of any organic oil is slightly complex? As in, beyond
incredible? I love the extraordinary detailing of the universe, makes
me very happy, leads right to the immanent Creator. But I realized into
my second convoluted PhD dissertation today that it's not going to come
from the research quarter because, brilliant as these folks are, they
aren't painters: the "science" I need is simply what I'm doing, asking
within the context of the craft what was and can be done. It would be
nice to have a more modern or hard edged explanation for it but not
sure that's necessary, or, after my brief encounter with the discreet
cosmic mania that is oil chemistry, possible. And today's experience
also makes me wonder if my rheological discoveries so far are simply be
the tip of the iceberg.
Image above is the
same resinless system as many of the more interpretive or painterly
images, just handled a bit differently. Four thin layers in four cold
days, lots of removal, very conscious effort to keep the darks up so
they'll be transparent in the end, some carving away of edges each
morning. This is a type of realism I did many years ago, but left
behind because I couldn't develop it optically or chromatically enough
with the then most woeful level of technique. The interesting thing
about the current system is the quality of drag that occurs with the
paint. Each day, the previous layer is dry. But not dry-dry. That is,
there's a tack. But not a resinous tack. Oh no, not a resinous tack.
Gentler, more ephemeral. Hard to describe: the product of an incredibly
long molecular chain dancing silently all night. The paint does not
glide. Glide, schmide. But it will move. Easily. So, it can be blended
or left in discreet pieces, or in many combinations of the two. This is
most apparent at the edges, and it's becoming clear how the famous
edgeless edge was accomplished: via successive thin layers of paint
which were dry but not dry. A meditative and peaceful way of working,
sort of addictive. This little painting is not even remotely close to
done, all I've gotten so far is the sense of potential movement on the
part of the squash, the "Exit Stage Right" of Snagglepuss. Technically,
this is about exploring my sense of the Amsterdam-Delft connection,
that there was one fundamental system with lots of individual
variations. The question now is whether to advance a step further into
doing this with historical accuracy and work with linseed oil. Oh,
sure, it's fine for the researchers, they haven't watched their
paintings darken through the use of lousy commercial oil. Grouse
grouse. But it's just possible that I might be able to process linseed
oil now in a way that would take advantage of what is has to offer
while minimizing the potential difficulties. Sigh: I should just make
paintings. But unfortunately I need an auxiliary form of therapy as
well. Oh, blessed puzzle. Long may you reign.
|
| march 11 |
|
Did
the above this morning from life, a necessary excursion into humor,
pathos, therapy, goop, I don't know what. Used the resinless system in
the looser manner, not quite done, but if this one is dry tomorrow I'll
truly be surprised: lots of paint, also lots of glare in the photo,
sorry. Interesting gestation: I've done this subject before -- they're
surprisingly popular -- and knew I had a good new set of them. Also,
had a small panel with a study of onions where I'd scraped the onions
off. The old me would have just thrown that panel in the bone pile to
have new linen put on it at some point. But with the new paint, and
having read the National Gallery Rembrandt book and seen some of the
things he not only did, but got away with in terms of the paintings
being fine over centuries, just decided to put another painting on top.
Usually I go through serious Morandi-esque conniptions setting
something like this up, but this is just how I put the tubes down,
which seemed appropriate. What I wanted from this technically was to
extract more color from this relatively monochrome situation, to
consciously use brighter and less broken color in developing it and
allow the "correct" tones to happen naturally: very Amsterdam. Made
some relatively mousse-like paint and hit a good, slightly softer
consistency with the white, on the whole this paint acted very much as
though it were made with a mastic gel: could be ploughed into with a
bristle brush, or color could be laid on top with a softer brush,
either light or dark. I exaggerated the warm tones in the shadows in
the manner of a portrait, highly entertaining. But the best thing about
this was that I finally saw something that I'd read about again
recently which had been bugging me: the famous cool half tone. What
cool half-tone? But, sure enough, there was a band after the highlight
and before the beginning of the darker, warmer shadow band, that was
cooler, bluer. So that was good. I like to learn. Did some more layers
on landscapes in the afternoon but felt like this was sort of a
breakthrough technically -- which is different than being good. I'll
clean it up in the morning: given the way the system works, there may
well be a way to make it better while it's still in this
layer.
Started a batch of painting oil this
morning with a new wrinkle, a guess based on yesterday's mini-bout of
research online, we'll see how that comes out. Surprised at how much
versatility and development there still is in the resinless system, all
the result of the rheological potential of the oil. How woefully did I
misunderstand this! But would it seem valuable or purposeful if it had
been easy? The greatest value is probably how dumb it has made me feel
for so long.
|
| march 12 |
|
Warm,
did a clean-up pass on yesterday's painting, new image below, still saw
the famous cool half tone, which was reassuring. This is teaching me a
lot, might keep going with it from life. Had to work on my car, got it
started but think it might need a new head gasket. As in, I hope that's
all it needs. Don't know much about cars but I like working with tools,
had a job once helping to do exhibits in a small museum, the work with
tools was fun, looking forward to being able to set up the tablesaw
again outside. Did more layers again in the afternoon, am getting a
feeling for the next level with this paint but it's capable of
subtleties that are still far beyond me. Many possible densities and
rheologies with the white, how this is made sets up generally what will
happen in terms of texture, but it's also possible to give the other
colors more or less body or resilience.
|
| march 13 |
Waning
moon, the trenches. Complicated morning, had to get my car towed in,
always hard to make the call I know will end up with a large bill at
the end of it. The transition in and out of the world is always
strange, takes time. When all that was done, the rolls were just a
little too wet to work on again, so did a layer on the epiphanyfield
illustrated below. I've got the field itself going well, and the trees
are getting better, but the sky kind of slid around, feel like I've got
to back off and re-think it, too much color, value, and light all at
once: something has to give: perhaps less color. Not sure how to
approach the progress of the landscape work -- as usual -- especially
the blue sky ones. Something moody, okay, but something happy, a
problem. Like the rolls below very much as a development, lots of
paint, lots of muted detailing, a comical hidden portrait reference:
need somehow to translate this maturity to the landscapes. I get them
eventually, but it would be nice to have less struggle involved, less
inventing of a new style for every image. The interesting thing about
the resinless system is that it encourages much more care and
development in a layer. I'm just beginning to explore what it can do,
so there's the aspect of being a happy beginner yet also wanting more
facility with the style. But this system is already making the older
system look sort of clodhopperish. It's clear that all this wants to
happen, that I'm being taken to a specific place with this work for a
reason. Where and why remains a mystery, but that's okay. I figure, if
you can't make progress with the work, you make progress with the
patience. Win/win.
Got one of the big mail
order art catalogues in the mail today. I always look at them,
sometimes there's an interesting thought development among the really
astonishingly outright lies. And I love to look at the brushes: that
one that's made for grass, the comb, always makes me feel young. And
this time there was something new and fun. Watercolor mops were/are
traditionally made from squirrel tail hair set in a quill. So now
there's a synthetic brush designed the same way: Squirelle. For some
reason that really helped my day. I went around repeating it to myself
for quite a while, using it in various sentences.
|
| march 14 |
|
Took
on more dregs from the bonepile today, moved them forward with a
thicker version of the resinless system, more stone putty. Always
interesting when an image escapes from a place where it's been
marooned, did that today with something that's been kicking around for
several years now -- the usual, actually -- but felt good to have real
hands-on evidence of how much I've learned. Girding my loins for
another foray into the landscapes, feel like realistically there's
nothing wrong: the new system just made me think things could happen
faster. Seems the images now have to be dry to photograph without
heinous reflections, so above is the peony that started it all this
winter, about layer five or six, from yesterday. 12x16 inches, oil on
linen over panel, done in the no-blue palette. This one was done in
relative alla prima, where I try to finish it even though I know it's
hopeless. Anyway, very close to finished now, in spite of its
chunkiness and even clunkiness compared to some of the peonies that are
following, I still like the feeling. This is the good thing about the
robust way of beginning, it locks in more oomph. The exchange is that
this is usually at the expense of accuracy. Not sure how much this
matters in the long run, especially to anyone else, but it seems
important to keep developing and refining one's perception of what's
really there. At this point I almost have a firm conceptual grasp of
what goes on chromatically within a white -- well, sort of white --
flower. Some days are better than others. But if you're not going to
copy it, you need to comprehend it so that it can be remade
convincingly. This is how I define art, what goes on at the interface
between the personal and the universal. A place to learn, a place to
grow. I know it's kind of corny but I think it was set up that way on
purpose: the truth is never cool or hip, it's just the truth, it's own
reward.
For a while I've been corresponding
with a painter in London named Mike Lang. He's started a fun and very
well-written blog of his
agitivities. I visit often, busman's holiday.
|
| march 15 |
|
Rain,
near flooding, have to admit I like water, maybe not in my living room.
Did layers, many resurrecting layers, everybody came alive a bit thanks
to making the white even thicker, you could plaster the ceiling with
this stuff. No resin. Have I mentioned that. Took a ranging shot a a
couple of blue sky landscapes, one from a few months ago that looked
suddenly very primitive and was fun to develop: it's all about
opposites, all about moderation. Image above is a cheese that ran afoul
of a slightly finer approach with resin that wasn't quite right. What a
liar, this is really all about the paint, admit it, you're secretly a
modernist! Managed to get a more substantive layer on it today that
should have it back on track, but this contains errors that would not
be possible in the current system. Will be very glad when I'm through
the slightly bumpy ride of this older work but feel it's always wise to
be able/willing to attempt
resurrection.
Okay, Mike Lang is really
writing some great stuff about the painting process, check out his very
real
agitivities.
|
| march 16 |
|
Tail-end
of the moon, a bit grim, new one on Monday: usually chaos but fun if I
just go with it. Snow storm coming, might get two feet, progressively
colder today. Still no word on my car, not a good sign although
sometimes they get backed up. Did some layers today on finer work, made
an adjustment in the medium for this that worked, more body. Then
needed to do something bolder with my latest prehensile white. It had
turned into a solid mass overnight, yet another rheological puzzle but
I'll take it. I've been thinking a lot about the typical Rembrandt
paint density and manner of underpainting in bold white on a warm,
midtone ground. So, picked a small panel that hadn't worked out, made
the densest paint I could and did the above in the afternoon, about
11x13, earth colors and ultramarine. No drawing, just lots of paint
over a tulip that was composed too badly to fix. A little mixing on the
palette, but mostly straight color mixed on the painting. At first it
seemed too chaotic and gunky but I kept adjusting edges and adding
paint until it came into a kind of Cro-Magnon focus. Then got out a
finer brush, soft hair, and began the same process. Also
removed/smoothed often with a large fine hair flat. This was different
as a way of painting from anything else I've ever done, led to lots of
life at the edges, playing with the whole thing as a plastic mass. Will
clean it up in the morning, fix the can and table-line, develop a
little more form. A good development for an alla prima process this
summer, outside possibly but inside definitely. Interesting sense of
elation in simply burying what hadn't worked out, beginning anew. This
option seems more viable with the denser, chalk-enhanced paint.
Hopefully this will begin to translate into renewal in other areas as
well.
|
| march 17 |
|
About
eight inches of snow, pretty cold, have some shovelling to do. Did
another layer on yesterday's peonies, it was almost dry so the new
paint did some interesting things. Then did the above, 11x14, sort of
the cumulative result of all the alla prima studies so far, I just did
one thing that wasn't quite right but, being the first thing I did, it
impacted the ability to take this further. It's especially apparent in
the jar, where the white couldn't be used as much to tighten things up.
Still, happy with the general level of development, certainly the
furthest I've ever gotten in one sitting, happy with the palette, very
happy with the development possible using the white as in the big
peony. To do this from life would truly be sublime, a good reason to
hang on until June. Finally figured out a system of reds to use for
these, added just a small amount of modern crimson to mars red for the
brightest one, the others are earth colors. Do the same thing now to
get a brighter yellow, add some modern yellows in pigment form to
yellow ochre. Oh, AND, this painting features the debut of a new stone
putty medium, featuring the inert trio of marble dust, chalk, and
cristoballite. Not a big deal, just a little more prehensile.
Otherwise, hoping my car isn't too big a disaster, trying to keep my
expectations Stoic: spring here is still a ways away.
|
|
| march 18 |
|
Did
another layer on yesterday's peony, above, left the first one up so you
can see what happens in the clean-up pass. Like this in general but
it's a little tame. Not sure whether to continue down the quiet road or
put more broken paint into it next time. Then did the painting
above,12x16, based on some heirloom roses that my painter friend Nancy
gave me years ago. I've got issues with roses, am more of a peony man,
but this one seemed ripe for painting. Did an underpainting in black
and white, was able to do something there I've tried to do in the past
but couldn't: create a sense of dimension by manipulating the
percentage of white in the grays. Paint-wise, this was a real slugfest,
was very surprised by how grippy the underpainting was, got too much of
the wrong color on the background, had to fiddle a lot with that. But
like the general feeling of this one better as a beginning than
yesterday. Even thicker white to begin, like mortar, but then -- oh the
secrets I reveal! -- thin white on top. The central rose is the issue,
I need it to look like one of those Manet women. Not done but I began
to see the cool midtone here as well. Perils of being self-taught, but
it was the only way. Still can't just throw all the paint on unmixed in
the free-wheeling Amsterdam manner but am doing more of that. I've got
a red now that I really like, you can see it in the warm jar shadow,
took a cue from the Rembrandt research and mixed some transparent
crimson with a red earth. This jumps just the right amount for doing
the shadows with a little more color, a little less value. Not done,
perhaps a bit smarmy, can't resist that tightrope. But further down
this damn the torpedoes road than I've ever gotten. And, did I mention
that there are no resins in this painting? Just the fantastically
complex rheological possibilities of humble and inscrutable walnut oil?
The interesting thing about the technical process I went through is
that once I stopped believing the wrong things I could see the right
things outlined by them, sort of a figure-ground image.
|
| march 19 |
New
moon. This is beginning to remind me of when Opus studies astrology and
ends up hiding under the bed. Did a little work on yesterday's image,
going to take a bit but I'm interested. That is, it's on the way to
something possibly new and better, but on a Class 4 road as yet. Then
got my car... You know, there are some days when you wake up with a
strange premonition that you are going to haemorrage cash in
unspeakable quantities. From multiple orifici. And then there are some
days when the bill just hits you from behind like the Cornish Express.
Creating a similarly vivid effect but in a more spontaneous manner.
Well, without getting into the unspeakably gory details, today partook
more of the latter than the former. It seems that, at least
temporarily, my champagne and caviar lifestyle has been curtailed. In
fact, back to spuds and Buds. Metaphorically, of course, I love the
cuisines of poverty. But, at least I could pay for it, wrote the check
like a true Stoic, Marcus would have been proud. And to have Darren
tell me that my 89 Volvo was really a good call when he had in fact
wanted me to get a much newer Subaru...well, it was all he could
decently do under the circumstances, wasn't
it?
Then got some linseed oil. For the first
time in many years. Had some difficult experiences with linseed oil
yellowing earlier on in all this. Had taken against it, you might say.
But might be on the verge of understanding it a bit better. There seems
to be incontravertable evidence that it was used without the usual
modern commercial issues by the earlier Dutch painters. (Flemish?
Netherlandish?) Anyway, this oil is organic and cold-pressed from B.C.
which is good, northern oil is different and better. It was also on
sale, which made it only ruinously expensive, but all things are
relative, see car repair bill above. But I thought an edible, health
food store oil might be close to an OM oil without actually pressing
the seeds myself. So, this was my kind of treat. Worth a shot. Set it
up with some sand and water, shook it, it was dark yellow but turned
the color of an organic egg yolk when the oil and water became an
emulsion. Then set it on a low source of heat -- thanks, Mrs Merrifield
-- and it cleared quickly, all kinds of gunk in the water. Only the
beginning, this will take weeks but seems the way to go. That is, I'm
only doing what wants to be done. Will probably get lots more linseed
oil, make many preposterous linseed oil cleansing experiments in the
next six months. But will learn more! Mua-ha-ha!
Tried to go back into the studio a couple
times, but in that department today was a day off. Odd afternoon, it's
very hard for me to do nothing, but pretty firmly beat. Made my
favorite thing for dinner, Ribollita, the big cavolo
nero soup of Tuscany. Of cpurse, it's only Bollita at this
point. Now all I need is a large, tumbledown farmhouse in the
Garfagnana. What is it about old stones? Perhaps someday I'll get to
investigate this in detail. But, all in all, it seems like I've made it
through something, not sure what. Winter? No, too soon. But hopefully
its hopelessness.
|
| march 20 |
Day
of calm but somehow unnerving chaos. Woke up around 4, had major ponder
time, then tea and an underpainting around 7 in just tones of black, no
white even. Worked it a lot with a rag, like this approach, builds in
the development thinly, lots of struggle with almost no paint. Then
read an e-mail from my friend Jill about painting outside and gave her
a call but she was out. Had a teaching appointment at 10, thought I
arrived very early but was actually very late because of the time
change. This year I fulfilled a personal challenge of being detached
enough from mainstream media so that I didn't know who was in the
Superbowel. But this was perhaps taking hermeticism too far. In the
past my computer has saved me but I think my last round of tweaks
turned off more than I thought. Anyway, my student was very polite
about it, so polite that I didn't quite get that I was late even though
the clock said I was. So, after a bit of slippage and confusion was
able to move the hope of enlightened perception along a bit in
Burlington. Having started out just looking at things with no training
or theory is actually helpful in this type of situation, it's easy to
gauge from the work and the verbal accompaniment just what needs to be
said. The principle issue in this case was an overdeveloped value scale
in the underpainting, causing the darks to lock, and a need for better
understanding of the way to make the 3D illusion. These were
straightforward to address, sort of fun since I haven't taught in ages
and working one-on-one is so much simpler. Came home and had a note
from my friend Jill on the door: 12:25. MEET ME AT TOWN BEACH. What
could this mean? Since, by my clock, it was just 11:30, I began to
sense a bit less dimly that something was wrong. The words, "Spring
forward" came to mind. Also, that scourge of my youth by Chicago: "Does
anybody really know what time it is?/ Does anybody really care?" So,
after changing into Clothes to Freeze In, gathered easel and bag and
went out to the town beach. Jill was there, caught her painting while
listening to an Ipod. This gave me back a certain sense of the moral
high ground. But she was working on a big canvas propped up on the
rocks which once again evened the field. And she did confirm that I was
in fact an hour behind. It wasn't too cold on the road but the lake had
frozen solid -- all the way to New York -- and there was quite a wind,
a two hat wind, but I only brought one. In addition, it was blindingly
brilliant as there had been new snow overnight. So, after considering
going home and just settling down to changing my clocks, I made the
most incredibly bad painting I've ever made outside. Oh, it had moments
of promise. In fact, I actually liked the palette a lot: manganese blue
is slightly deranged but I'm getting the hang of it and it certainly
went with the tone of the day at all levels. But, between having been
up eight or nine hours at that point and being blasted with arctic air
on a regular basis -- to the point of getting dinged in the face at one
point by a corner of the panel as it flew off the easel -- no amount of
intentional "painterliness" could save it in spite of dipping rather
deeply into this particular well. Usually, something like this would
put me in a less than ideal temper but conditions were just so
comically at the edge of control it didn't matter. It reminded me of a
wonderful drawing by Millais which illustrates with loving precision
everything going awry for an outdoor painter all at once. So, in spite
of making something so horrendous that I simply scraped it all off on
coming home, I had fun. Furthered the cause of philosophy-on-the-fly.
In looking at what might have worked better, just trying to do a sketch
of the scene in transparent black comes to mind. That is, when faced
with a less than ideal situation outside -- often, the Blessed Campagna
this isn't -- just back off to something more simplified. The act of
looking is still there. Home, I wrote an e-apology to my student and
decided that a nap was overdue. Now, more Ribollita. And tomorrow,
Spring!
|
| march 21 |
|
|
Below
zero last night, brilliantly cold and sunny today. A quiet day, did
lots of layers, mostly peonies. Above is the one I started in just
black yesterday. Decided to just let it sit with one layer and develop
that layer, feel like this is a step forward, continuing to maintain
the soft edges and painterliness, same palette but put removed cold
blue and put back my mixed green, this does something nice
chromatically with the reds. I'm getting a little more of the hang of
the system: the tones go from warm shadows to a cool midtone to warm
highs to cool brights. This has been my problem for ages, never saw or
understood the cool midtone, got something to look right by sheer force
of personality: slightly wearying. The image below is one of the
earlier ones in this series, you can see how much more literal it is
although I moved it a bit more in the right direction today. There are
about a dozen of these florals now. So, progress and longer days, more
cannot be asked. Well, it could be, and often is, but hey, I said I
wanted to paint.
Found cheap organic
Swedish oil, ordered a bunch. My small oil purifying experiment is
coming along, gunk is seperating. Made another form of heat bodied oil
today, higher heat, less time.
|
| march 22 |
Warm,
major thaw, sun and clouds in and out all day. At the easel a sixes and
sevens kind of day, perhaps more like fours and fives. Did lots of
layers but didn't have much in the way of oomph or pizazz: if April is
crueler than this I'm in trouble. Took on several images that have been
eclipsed by the latest developments. They moved forward a millimeter or
so but yesterday's painting seems far more evolved: whoever did that --
could not be me, I bumbled egregiously all day long -- had their finger
on the omniversal pulse. So, the same old issue of how to back-seed
innovation effectively. Urgh, why does it feel like this is my
co-pilot? The answer is of course a return to the Amsterdam Vivacity,
the confident, seamless hail of new paint that vanquishes the
netherlayer without a trace. Today I nibbled politely. To less avail.
Alas, but not alack.
The organic Swedish
linseed oil arrived, smelled sublime, almost floral. Started some
experiments in taking the impurities out of it based on various older
sources. It's interesting: I'm okay with it taking a month, but not two
or three months. Really, it doesn't matter, but I'm trying some older
procedures other than the standard water and sand.
|
| march 23 |
Warm
and sunny, had a meeting this morning with living alembic Mike Strauss,
chem prof at UVM, the only person I know who can draw an oil molecule
from memory with a certain purposeful glee. Not ghee, glee. Mike
answered a crucial question about the process of oil oxidation and the
cross-linking of double carbon bonds but I forgot to ask about the
results of excluding the oxygen. What a detailed universe. I think
about this, fishing a little bug out of my glass of post car repair
cheap Spanish red, watching it wobble around on my fingernail for a bit
before getting its bearings again. A bug full of detail. A bug with a
mission of its own that's unfathomable to me. Perhaps not really a bug
at all, but a feature...
Every year, there's
a day when I get a sudden organic realization that winter is in fact
over, that I've survived another one. After Mike left I had to get out
and do errands, it was just too nice, and just coming over a certain
rise, seeing the land spread out again instead of a blanket of snow was
suddenly really emotional. Here we go again into the six months when
too much is always happening. But that's exciting right now, a
blessing.
Set up more oil purification
experiments, ordered some big glassware for big of same, ordered more
oil, yikes this is serious, made tubes of warm and cool blue:
ultramarine really likes my oil, this paint has great body. Painting
itself needed a rest, so it received one. Sometimes it's good to just
stop a bit in order to look at it with different eyes. This allows it
to change. Making everything new again. Seneca said that people paint
for three reasons: fame, fortune, or truth. Nice use of the word "or"
there. And quite succinct for Seneca. But what about just painting for
change itself? To observe and document universal conceptual movement as
it occurs, surf the mobile truth. Might be worth attempting if someone
had nothing better to do.
|
| march 24 |
|
This
brush was one of the leftovers after the painters finished the front of
the house this summer. Finally I picked it up, have been thinking about
how to do it for months. Made a new version of my heat-bodied white
this morning, tried to make it as thick as humanly possible, then
gelled the whole batch, then put it in a tube. Easy! Had a little of
this dense but slippery paint leftover and thought maybe the time for
this image had come. Did this with yet another version of the resinless
system, this time it's much closer to being right. Panel was older, had
a slightly absorbent ground, this screwed things up temporarily in the
background but that will be easily fixed tomorrow. The white performed
very well, put it through several types of brushes, some scratching,
all fun although it'll be easier to detail tomorrow. Went for mood and
reasonable accuracy in the object, the rest can be cleaned up easily.
Did three hours in the morning and two after lunch. After that much
time at something like this I don't see some things well, like the
table line. I get more concerned with throwing around those last few
color notes before I drop. Not done, but I like its immanence, the
balance of comedy and tragedy. About 12x14 inches, oil on linen over
panel.
The linseed oil purification rites
are going well, untold quantities of gunk are issuing from the oil each
time it settles out. This will take a month or so, then the oil has to
be bleached in the sun and/or thickened. Hopefully by the fall I'll
have an all linseed oil system in place.
|
| march 25 |
|
Did
a bit of clean up on yesterday's image, was able to develop the brush
but left the background alone, new image below. This painting is the
closest I've come yet to something I like in the neo-Amsterdam manner,
lots of encrusted paint and little mixing on the palette, second day
smoothing and carving of paint that's set but not dry. I also started
to put in some optical stuff that felt comfortable: a thin sliver of a
complement at the rear edge of a shadow, it gives a certain Cro-Magnon
trompe l'oeil quality to the brush. Then did layers on ten different
paintings in progress, started with the dregs of the bone pile and
moved forward in time to some work started last year. Using the method
I've been working with, and some grinding beforehand with oil and
sandpaper, was able to make most of these paintings better or at least
off the critical list, resting comfortably. That was a lot of work to
take on, but I suddenly felt more comfortable with the system,
something there has clicked in terms of working speed. Found myself
adding the famous cool midtone to many of these older paintings.
Really, I never saw it before. And it makes a big difference. This
leads inevitably to the question of what else is out there that's just
out of my ability to visualize. The mind boggles, it thought it knew
what was going on. But I need to get much more comfortable with the
cool midtone before anything new can happen. I like these crunchy
studies from life but objects of this degree of charisma and relevance
are rare, kind of have to wait till they find me. Went for a walk up
Mt. Philo late in the afternoon, a big hill, pretty slushy from halfway
up but great to get out again.
|
| march 26 |
|
It
was supposed to be in the 50s today. According to yesterday's weather
report. So I met Jill in the morning after she dropped off her kids and
we went to the Lemon Fair River near her house, much enlarged by melt.
But it wasn't in the 50s, nor even close, and it just got colder and
windier. We are on quite a roll with the weather, it has a comical
quality now. But it was nothing compared to the last time we painted
outside and I kept thinking how interesting it was that this degree of
cold and wind was exactly on the edge of what I could tolerate and
still think. I did notice myself congealing bit by bit, becoming a
quiescently frozen human. All this makes for much banter, and is fun up
to a point, but it would be so nice to finally feel in control of
something outside again. This is a great time for colors, incredibly
moody, very different than anything else, so in a way it's good to just
get out and get a feeling for it. Above is the image, much worked over
after I got home because I couldn't stand how close and far it was at
once. First image done with the full new system outside, including the
white, was able to move it around endlessly. Don't love this one, but I
did finally get the feeling of the day, and learned a lot about the
potential of the paint. Which is extensive. At some point in the next
few months I'll make something outside with this system that will
eclipse everything done outside so far, the paint is very close to
right at long last.
|
| march 27 |
|
Did
layers in the morning, then Jill arrived around lunch time before
teaching her class. We had fried eggs and went down to the lake. There
were lots of waterfowl, buffleheads, other ducks, a heron. Jill worked
on her giant painting and I did this study, cleaned up for a few
minutes inside, had to soften the emerging peaks in the distance, but
nothing like yesterday. Better, but sort of unresolved on several
levels, had to move a lot around to try to get a composition. A little
mushy too, need to make something denser. Don't want to use resin but
Constable used everything but the kitchen sink outside, we'll see
there. Was able to concentrate although after about an hour and a half
an amazing wet chill began to come in off the lake. The largest problem
now is my immense excitement at being there, having the opportunity.
It's too special, as a certain four year old I once knew used to
announce in dire agony. So, I don't plan it as well as I could,
especially if, as today, one arrives into a dreamworld. Quacking is
actually beneficial under the circumstances, grounding. But this method
will resolve itself a bit more as time goes on. The paint will do
anything, have to just let it tell me how to proceed. I'm pleased that
this has not turned out to be a snipe hunt, that, five long years after
abandoning a style that worked more often than not outside but had
severe limitations, I've got a legitimate toehold with something vastly
superior. This time of year is wild, not spring -- ha, ho, hee -- not
even mud season or flood season yet. Winter bowing out with an
unexpected grace. Seeing the orange light form over the mountains and
then become strong enough to actually be reflected in the slush was
pretty sublime. I put in a couple ducks, but took them out.
|
| march 28 |
|
Started
something small this morning using an interesting underpainting
technique, low-chroma triad used very thinly with white, lots of wiping
and softening. It's pretty developed but looks like it's made out of
tissue paper. Then went back at the bonepile. The combination of the
new paint and the famous cool midtone seems to mean no more excuses.
This is something started from life a few years ago, I may actually
finish it in the next layer. I'd like to do more with this stark
Spanish look and palette, but it did seem best to figure the first mess
out before beginning others. 8x16 inches, oil on gessoed panel.
Painting, life-long student of.
|
| march 30 |
|
Went
out this morning and met Jill at Dead Creek in Addison, a large stretch
of marshland/waterfowl habitat near the lake. It started out warmer,
sunny, almost balmy, a great relief. The clouds were wild, something
I've never seen before, nested elongated lentils in stark contrast,
with some very fine moire detailing in places. Gave the overall
impression of a huge abstract gull wing. "Oh, great! Easy!" But as I
set up and found a composition it began to change, and just kept on
changing for the two hours we were there. It also got much colder and
moodier as we lost the sun. We've done a lot of work in shifting
weather: like freezing, it's sort of a signature of ours. But this was
truly the nuttiest sky so far. It was lovely and intense to follow all
its changes but after about an hour and a half I realized that the
painting was too much like a weather report and began to simplify it.
This process continued in the sky when I got home. Painting above,
10.5x14.5 oil on gessoed paper. A bit gloopy still and of all the work,
these lose the most by shrinking for here. But close to a development,
a mix of dutiful recording and something slightly more abstract or
graphic. Went through a great deal, had some promising moments: the
system is better than the executant at this point. Photo below, the sky
behind us that made Jill say "Oh my God!" We said that a lot today as
the sun went in and out. So: had fun, slouched towards something
different, and learned more about the potential of the
system.
Oil cleaning continues, this is slow
but somehow satisfying, more development in terms of the white, good
because my last set of guesses about how to make it denser proved
correct.
There have been some positive
comments lately about the site containing the words "should" and
"book". Very flattering, thanks to those who have taken the time to
penetrate the less than ideal way this material has grown here. My hope
is to begin something along that line once I understand more about the
foundation of the resinless system, the oil itself. While most people
won't be going that deeply into the process, perhaps a more enlightened
manufacturer will begin to make paint which is finally based on the
older principles once they are explained outside the more cerebral
context of the technical research. I mean, if I can make it, they
can...
March has proven to be a record month
for the site, my sincere thanks to all who peruse and correspond.
|
|
| march 31 |
|
Got
up and went down to West Road. Sometimes I don't know where I'm going
but this morning I did. West Road is a Class 4 road through
hardscrabble farming and was washed out, so I walked in. Did the above
on linen, about 12x15 inches, Adirondacks in the background across the
lake. Pretty chilly but brilliant morning. Switching back to linen was
helpful in one way, more grippy by far, but this also impedes the
process and produces a certain locked quality at the edges. Did a small
drawing first and a drawing on the canvas. So, this was in control for
a change, but perhaps too much. Felt like I saw the colors well, made
some intuitional leaps with color that worked based on the indoor
developments, was able to put in more than was there. A bit more
successful than yesterday's painting, workman-like but not inspired,
didn't see how to put it over the top at the end. Perhaps in terms of
the paint handling the answer is between yesterday and today.
Definitely want to be outside, definitely want to paint what I see,
perhaps may need to abandon my homeage to the 19th century style of
composition for something that plays more to the paintness of the
paint. That might be an interesting experiment. In any event, want to
get this this year, really work on it. It's too fun to be out there, I
can't believe how happy it makes me. George who? If I felt more
confidence in the results I'd go to other places in the winter for a
while. Something which, as this winter finally begins to draw to a
close, seems less of a luxury and more of a necessity. Part of a larger
plan to just get happier.
|
| april 1 |
Went
out this morning and took some photos of a spot near me that I'd like
to work more with, got a few with sun before the clouds arrived. Looked
consciously for a mode of composing that was a little more
contemporary, found one or two. But worked one of the more traditional
photos up and did an indoor study of it, with the idea of just
finishing it, learning more about a system to use outside. The newer
linen I make is probably better for this than the older stuff, which is
much grippier, to the extent that it really slows things down. This is
fine for a layered technique but need to use a paint-ground combination
for this that allows a little more motion. So, learned that! Did two
sessions on a 9x18 painting, about four hours all told. It had a
tremendous amount of paint on it which is quite tarry and finely
cut-up, got going with the system of throwing unmixed paint around a
little better. It's easier with the current colors, lots of simple
red-yellow-blue. But as a result the photo was just terrible, even
unshrunk. Want to try to finish it tomorrow, it's a step towards
something both observed and painterly. It also seems like these smaller
studies are a good way out of the trap of relying on a photo for a
larger painting. At a smaller scale, it's easier for me to see where
the art is. Recently began a larger version of a smaller one that took
quite a while, we'll see how that works out. Full moon tomorrow, might
be a good day.
|
| april 2 |
Oops.
I'm having a crisis. This happened last spring and led to the gallery
of colorscape paintings. This particular crisis started when I was
outside working the other day, an experience which made me very happy,
but which later produced an unexpectedly strong reaction against pretty
much eveything else: an Old Testament style desire to tear down the
edifice as so far constructed. But I weathered that and am getting a
little clarity here, bit by bit. Believe that another layer of my
precious camoflage needs to be removed. Don't think the answer is
specifically in being outside or painting outside but in being me and
painting me. Maybe "more" is the operative word there, I need to take
it deeper. So, spent today cleaning up and waiting for the crisis to
ripen, which it did around the middle of the afternoon. Something
arrived then, or was born, or I finally felt it correctly. Very
emotional, Mr. Full Moon! So now I sort of have the beginnings of a new
direction or new way. Hard to explain. But it suddenly appears that I
have not yet begun to paint.
|
| april 3 |
|
Worked
on a few different things today, still feel a little funny but seems
like the only thing to do is paint through it. Not sure what this is
about besides the pressing need to go deeper. Might be giving realistic
work a rest for a bit, this happened about this time last year, taught
myself a lot of freedom through the color oriented work then slowly
lost it again to the relentless grind. Did a few tests today of those
waters using the resinless system, different but fine. Not sure how to
balance this stuff correctly, or if that's even possible, probably just
a matter of doing what keeps it fresh, in motion. Had visitors today,
also phone calls, helpful in putting work crisis in perspective. All
stuff I've been through before, stuff at one point I went through
weekly. But this time it kind of snuck up on me and then hit quite
hard. Effective method.
|
| april 4 |
|
Rainy,
dark, some snow forecast, pretty typical April stuff for here. Still
not sure what I'm doing except that I need to do it. Painting from
yesterday is below, today's above. They're both about 10x20 inches, oil
on gessoed paper. Yesterday's is simpler, finished, today I got into
more evolved forms of application but more complexity as well, it
stalled much more but it's close. I'm more resourceful at this now,
which is fun, but the same problem exists of needing to let of of pet
places in order to move the whole thing forward. There seems to be a
lot here as far as core energy, possibly a vein not a pocket. Many
differences already from last year: willing to go slower and build it
in thinner layers, these use brushes as much as the knife, more used
this year to remove than add. I'm able to do pretty much the same
things with the chalk putty as with the resin medium of last year, not
as much overt glazing, not the comedic plastic, lollipop kind of shine,
but more choice of textural mood by far. Used some gold leaf shards
today, legacy from one of my grandfather's many nutty projects. Erratic
to apply but visually fetching. There's more ability to keep the
surface alive this time, or maybe more awareness of that need: I've
realized how much the knife and the resin sacrificed that element to
speed and charisma. Want to work a little more with curves, build in
more in the beginning, try to keep away from adding tiles as long as
possible. I like the slightly goony geometry, this is something I
always loved about the Diebenkorn smaller works on paper, seem to be
able to play with it more now. They don't need to have this much in
them, be this busy, but as always, simplicity is the fruit of
experience. May try inverting this scheme and doing a few with more
soft blue tones, soothing. Fascinating how compelled the color is by
something beyond me. Did many of these last year based on an
organic-Matisse triad of magenta, blue green, and warm yellow: colors
which are just out of the question right now. Would like to see how one
of these looked using the Perugino colors, that scheme has always
fascinated me. So, I guess I'll be doing some color work for a while,
see where it leads this year. Those Muses. Tough, but fair.
|
| april 5 |
|
Snow.
Quiet, sort of moody day, fighting a sense of winter returning
endlessly. Did the above in the morning, same size, 10x20.5 inches, oil
on gessoed paper. Did another one in the afternoon in more muted and
slightly more organic colors but couldn't put it over the top. As the
light was failing, I was flailing. But feel a little wiser in this, a
little more able to head-off a log jam before it gets too tight. Also
noticed again how important it is for these to breathe. The surface
needs to be broken up, areas need to be skinned until the ground shows.
Last year's surfaces seem sophmoric compared to what's happening here.
Or, maybe just more pop. I like this composition, think I stopped at a
good level of tightness and scale, and I like the tension between flat
and space. Certainly best use of scale yet. It has a few rougher
places, a few outright oddities: I used to try to eliminate those but
now I think they can be helpful, add to the dictionary, keep things
from locking in the all too familiar way. There's something to explore
here visually, something to puzzle out. Right? Interesting to use
ultramarine as a color: a pigment in every art room in every elementary
school in America. But it can still be made alive by the way it's
handled. Lots of the chalk putty in this, lots of initial glazing with
it and some thicker oil. I'd still like to figure out something
simpler, more cosmic and refined -- like me! -- but maybe this
goofiness is a part that needs to come out.
|
| april 6 |
|
Complex
day, started out working on the large Schoodic Point slugfest I've been
trying to finish, turned the technique inside out, made the paint
really move and blend, this gave it new life. Almost gave up,
envisioned taking the linen off, reclaiming the panel for something
less maddening. Sometimes movement in this direction -- finality,
destruction, no more making me crabby -- creates an atmosphere in which
the old dumb idea can finally be released. So, might be able to finish
this after all in year three, Fates and Furies willing. The moral of
this story is not to wing it in oil on twelve square feet with a
realistic image no matter how good a mood you happen to be in that
day.
Then, after round of interrruptions
one, made the above in two passes, including round of interruptions
two. There are days when I just know it's going to be like this. I
don't mind, it's an interesting challenge to drop the inner world and
then pick it up again. This painting began a little differently than
yesterday's, used something less dense or tacky to start. That was an
error, but not a bad one. It simply resulted in an image that was more
goopy. Not sure how I feel about this one, there was a stage when it
really looked like it was going somewhere new, but I couldn't take it
there. The price of a busy day. It has an element of complexity, a
little more attempted than yesterday, but yesterday I remembered the
curves, and got the scale, a high point of this type of work. More
facility with color in these this time around, don't feel like I'll get
into color jams anymore. But the real need is to keep developing the
way they are composed. What I'm involved in here seems to be how to
compose on the fly. Want to avoid the usual careful color field series
where an idea is done in many subtle variations of color and graphic
nuance. Want, for now, something with a live, improvisational quality.
|
| april 7 |
|
Cold,
still some snow around. Very weary, got up late, contemplated the
looming nightmare of taxes. Then did the above this morning in about
three hours, well, maybe four. Had a very slow beginning, I'm trying to
understand where these go awry and it's somewhere after the initial
compositional lay in which I always like enough to continue on with
color. But at some point they get too complicated or too tesselated or
travel down a more patchwork path than I want. So tried to be vigilant
with this in its midlife crisis. Very little white here, have a new
white that's only 20 percent lead carbonate, this is ideal for the
midlife as development can occur without losing too much in the way of
color. The point being to set up a system which takes into account all
the dumb things I usually do, tries to balance them: convinced at this
point that I'll always do them. This one had many issues in transit but
sometimes that's good. Keeps it alive for a long time, malleable,
unlocked. Was able to plow through via removal but also -- more
importantly to the progress of this idea as a whole -- by not getting
hung up on a given area on the other: there's no more perfect place in
this one, or area where I felt the famous sacred dread. Still doesn't
attain the insouciant goofiness of the April 5 painting, but has
something of its own, better than yesterday. Which is surprising
because I'm very tired. Was able to make use of that I think, but won't
push this further for now. Need to stop and re-group, do taxes, do a
round of getting the front room a bit in order for the coming season.
Figured out a way to make more space, but it naturally involves moving
almost everything.
|
| april 9 |
We're
in that strange, grim season here where winter threatens daily to
return for good, it snowed yesterday, the sky today in strong stripes
of gelid creamsicle and mackerel blue. Worked on clean-up and fix-up
today in the downstairs gallery. Which is also the kitchen, the storage
area, the paint making area, and the dining room. So, it's small but
has further goofy possibilities. Visitors seem to enjoy its sense of
incipient calamity. Also began major work on my taxes today, as
mentioned earlier had my best year ever in 2006 but alas, it looks like
this was not a such good idea: I'm firmly ensconced in the vast tar-pit
between survival and actual economic progress. Now digging deep into my
bag of philosophical bones so I can throw myself one to gnaw in a
contemplative and stoical fashion. Waning moon, might not be able to
work for the next few days, lots to process about what would really
work here since strenuous effort has proved less than ideal yet again.
Need to make a lot of fundamental changes this year. My time can't be
solely about making art first, this hasn't worked. It has to somehow
become about making life and art together. I don't know where to turn
in this latter matter, there's no sense of where or how to apply: all
avenues seem irrevocably blocked. There will be an answer eventually
because I've finally framed the question, but feel patience is
paramount here, no pseudo-creative rage. Believe also that change will
come about through internal rather than external developments.
Something is holding up progress, need to get in and understand better
what it is. (Had no idea I was going to write this. Back to the usual
techno-banter soon I hope.)
|
| april 10 |
Continued
into the valley of the shadow last night and in the end met the dark
side mano a mano. Wouldn't say I was triumphant but around dawn I
realized that the most important thing is just to keep going no matter
what, that the ability to keep the process alive and growing is more
important than anything. Not sure what triggered all the black bile,
perhaps the sense of breakthrough in the work coupled with the
certainty that it doesn't change anything. There is a tremendous amount
of fury around this, creating lots of lead to turn into gold. So, took
a look at the big new shiny pile this morning and decided no time like
the present. Cleaned the studio out, threw out bags of gunk and junk.
Then took the fabric off a set of older panels. This is very
therapeutic: out with the bad painting, in with the good. One of them
was larger, 3x4 feet, this took some doing but that kind of put me in a
better mood, was out in the driveway with snow flurries pulling on this
thing with all my might, then it would give and skin my knuckles on the
dried glue beneath. Almost as much fun as car repair! But at least the
system worked, it was on, could be taken off. Started preparing more
paper, figure I'll do another series of smaller color studies to get
more compositional chops going but also set up some larger panels,
around 22x48 inches. Not sure if this size will have the required
intimacy though, so I'll do some panels at 11x24 inches too. If this is
like last year the color work will last a few months, then I'll drop
back into realistic work again. But it might be different this time,
have more mobility in the new system and more understanding of what
makes one of these color paintings come alive. I'd love the two ideas
to seamlessly blend into something altogether unexpected, but this
process seems to have ideas of its own.
|
| april 11 |
| More
cleaning and preparing. Gessoed seven pieces of Tiepolo today, I love
this paper. Tried a little something different in the gesso, some very
fine glass, gave it a somewhat rougher feel within the overall context
of its smoothness. That made sense, didn't it? These things get complex
to describe, I like the illusion of smoothness in a ground with lots of
hidden character, this happens if you keep brushing the gesso as it
sets, and is augmented by inert particulate additions like marble dust
or ground glass. Then girded my loins and went to Home Depot for some
hollow core doors. It wasn't snowing and the sun was out, so everyone
was in a good mood: sometimes at Home Depot you can cut the inertia
with a knife. Began priming the doors in the afternoon, these will be
for the gallery. Which is actually shaping up, I'm getting a little
psyched about it. Gessoed some other panels off and on in the course of
the day. Beginning to get new eyes, something that seems to happen
naturally in a fallow period. A lot of the work from the winter looks
like it was done by someone on their last legs, which, surprise, it
was. Not bad work exactly, but spiritually weary, minimal elan. Need to
devise a plan for winter that's more evolved than holding on for dear
life. Great to be outside today in the sun, th | |
Nobody expects the pastoral resistance.