More About the Photos

Red Scarf Day, 2010, Oil on Panel, 18"x14"

Well, somehow January has almost completely flitted right by without me even once getting to my easel. I should be embarrassed to admit that, especially after I posted all my grand plans for the coming year, but somehow I'm not. I have a busy year coming up and I know that I will be completely swamped soon enough. Anyway, it's not like I have been doing nothing; I have been lining up a few new projects (will announce those as they become official), my girls have a crazy sports schedule and there has been a lot of driving and shoveling snow and attending basketball games. I have also taken some extra time each day to read more books, which I have really enjoyed.

I finally finished sorting the reference photos yesterday and that whole thing turned out to be SO overwhelming. First of all, I didn't realize just how many boxes of them I had collected, geez. I must have thousands of photographs! I should not be allowed to get obsessed with things. Heh, like THAT'S even possible. Secondly, sorting them turned out to affect me emotionally and I really could only work on them for brief periods before getting overwhelmed. I kept finding myself thinking about all these people and their lives, then moved on to think about how many stories and lives that there are in America and then in the whole world. Way overwhelming. Did I already say that?????

I also broke one of my rules of the 'People You Know' project. I had initially decided not to look for anybody whose pictures I found so that I could have to freedom to do whatever I wanted with the images. However, a few years ago I found a huge box of photos that traced the courtship, marriage and family life of one specific family. I have already used many of these photos for several of the portraits that I did last year in Vermont (see above) and as I began sorting I decided to keep the whole group of family pictures together. The photos are wonderful; they portray a classic 50's family filled with holidays, train sets, boys wearing cowboy hats, kids in the pool, in Boy Scouts, in the choir, the band and eventually posing with their prom dates and then graduating. As I looked through all of them I realized that I HAD to know what happened to the family, what they did, how the kids turned out, etc. I did some googling but the last name is rather common so didn't have much success with that. Finally though, I came across a Christmas letter written by the mother which gave me a few clues and I found the oldest son.

I debated for a few days about contacting him, because I knew doing so would change the whole direction of what I hoped to do with their photos, but finally I just couldn't stand it so I scanned one of the photos and sent 'D' an email. He responded rather quickly and we ended up talking on the phone. He was very nice, puzzled as to how I ended up with a big box of his family photos (I think that his mother had sent all these photos to her parents over the years and after they died, the box ended up in some sort of estate sale and then ended up for sale on ebay by an antiques dealer) and when it sounded like he didn't really have very many of his childhood photos, I ended up telling him that he really should have the photos, not me. I did ask him if I could scan some of them for use later on (he agreed to let me do that) and also described an idea I had about a project concerning his particular family images. D was actually very interested in that and after exchanging a few more emails, we decided to collaborate on the project over the coming year or so. He told me a little bit about his family members, just enough to keep me from completely busting open with curiosity and we decided that at some point in the spring we will get together in person so I can give him the box of photos and also to discuss the project further.

D should have the photos and I know that I did the right thing by offering to give them to him. And even though he is being VERY generous in allowing me to scan as many of them as I want, I still find myself feeling incredibly sad about not having the original photos. A combination of many reasons; how I like to have things, how I love to look through the actual photographs, feel the edges, the weight of the paper, the creases, read the notations on the back. It turns out that the tactile aspect of the photographs is a more important aspect of the "People You Know' project that I had originally thought.

So I was right about contact changing the direction of this series and while this is looking like it will be better and more fulfilling, I am not going to risk it again. I have two other family photo lots on hand, families that I am SO curious about but I am just going to put all that crazy-bursting-curiosity-energy into the paintings from now on.

Well, ok, I MIGHT do a little bit of googling but there will me NO actual contact!

Sorting It All Out

I have been collecting old family photos (other family's photos, not mine) as reference material for the 'People You Know' project for several years and now have a crazyville, hoarder-like pile of them sitting here in my studio. At first I tried organizing them at least into piles of yes, no and maybe, but I didn't really keep up with that and so they eventually ended up all mixed together in several boxes. That disorganization was very overwhelming to me and was one of the reasons I kept putting off getting back to the project last fall. I knew before I could do anything I would have to sort and prioritize the images, which in turn helps me determine the direction to take with the series.

So after quite a bit of procrastination (who me???) I finally began sorting them out yesterday. For some dumb, overly optimistic reason, I had assumed it would only take an afternoon or so to go through 5 million photographs, but now I see that it will take much longer. It took me at least an hour to decide HOW to sort them. At first I thought there only needed to be three piles; yes, no and maybe. Then I thought I should try to keep them together by family (I often get boxes of photos from one family) but they have gotten too scattered for that. Finally I decided that I should make piles based on the subject matter; couples, men, women, children, landscape/buildings. I started with those categories and promptly realized that I would have to add many more; adults WITH children, two people, three people, big groups of people, prom dates, cars, animals/pets, interiors (amazing how many people take pictures of their living rooms!), gardens, Christmas trees, people on horses, the aftermath of big snowstorms, sunbathers on the beach, vacation photos, people eating dinner, weddings, school photos, class photos, and parades.

Then things really got confusing. There was a lot of overlap and I spent entirely too much time stressing about where to place the photo of the car stuck in the snow on the country road or the wedding reception dinner on the beach or the girl holding a cat in front of a Christmas tree.
When I began to seriously consider another pile called 'trifecta' I decided I better chill out and just do the best I could.

The thing is though, it helps me to have them in categories. I like to work in series and am looking at several series within a series here. And even though I am pretty sure that I won't be painting images of little babies or even children in general, they are too cute and I don't do cute even thought this baby is SERIOUSLY cute: I have also learned that I should never say never; I will be keeping every photo no matter how improbable it seems to me now that it will ever be a useful reference to me. Like this one for example: I can't see using it as reference but omg, what a great bad photo! I always laugh when I see that couple dancing and can totally imagine how they must have been moving around the dance floor at this rockin' party. This photo stays and I might even frame it......

Once I get all the photos categorized I will go through each group and pick out a few for the 'yes, I must paint this right now' pile. Foursome is definitely one of those: Foursome

And while sorting them, I have also been obsessing about how to store them. I am good at multi-tasking! The super organized part of me that has been able to fit ten tons of junk into one room wants to go out and buy about 25 nice perfect stackable plastic bins, one for each category. However, the more practical solution is to put them into large ziploc bags and keep them in a file cabinet drawer. Easier to look through them that way, I think, and less expensive even though I do love those bins. heh.

Kmart Family Photos

I have been sorting through boxes of family photos lately and have come across some real gems. A handful of photographs from high school and of my graduation. Many pictures of both Minneapolis and Philadelphia that I took as reference for various school projects, and which are now fascinating microcosms of 80's fashion. A few images of Doug and I back when we actually took vacations to places like Cozumel and Montserrat. Many pictures of our two cats who are now in cat heaven. And of course, beginning in 1993 when our oldest son came to live with us, tons and tons of family photos.

I have boxes of photos of classic family photos: freshly birthed babies, babies breastfeeding, naked crawling babies, babies covered with food, sleeping babies and crying babies. Halloween costumes, Christmas, school program performances, birthday parties, vacations in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (including the buffalo that was right outside our hotel room window), visits with family, first day of school, LAST day of school, panoramic shots, picnics in the backyard, plastic swimming pools in the backyard, girls playing soccer, my son as a boy scout, endless, it's just endless.

Of course I have photo albums which is where all the really good photos are, but they badly need updating. I think the last time I added any new ones was in 2003. And now switching over to a digital camera has really messed up my system and I haven't figured out a new one yet. I miss having all those pictures (and negatives) in my hands, or at least in boxes, you know?

Anyway, I think some of my very favorites are these photo booth pictures. The Kmart in North Logan, Utah had a beautiful old black and white photo booth and a good evening's entertainment was to take the kids there and give them each a few minutes alone in the photo booth. The first time we did it was with our oldest son, who pretty much just sat there and drank his soda (top left), unconcerned and not understanding about posing for a picture, while sitting on a stool behind a curtain. Doug and I laughed for days about that. He finally got the hang of it a year or so later (top, second from left) and even smiled. My oldest daughter, did her crazy, poser smile in the first shot but it all kind of spiraled downhill after that and she looks pretty ticked off by the last one (below, middle). I see that we tossed the baby in with our four year old son (below, bottom) and then of course we always did one where we all piled into the booth and made silly faces. And/or tried to keep a wiggly kid in the shot (top right). Good times.

Alas, no photo booths within at least a few hours of where we live now, plus they all seem to be full color now anyway, which is somehow very disappointing to me. When the black and white photo booth was eventually replaced with a color booth at the Kmart in Logan, we considered making an offer on the old one, but of course having it in our living room would have taken all the novelty away. It probably would have turned into a clothes hanger or a toy bin. A big heavy toy bin with chemicals.

So I will settle for putting all of these strips into their own photo album as yet another lovely reminder of days gone by.

Wildflowers

So I did okay yesterday. It took me a little longer than it should have to get down to work, but I finally did. I worked on underpaintings of flowers based on photographs of my garden flowers that I took last summer. I struggled a bit so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, although it was a good start and I am not complaining. I did more yesterday than I did all last weeks. Super proud of THAT. heh.

In late July I took some photos (see above) of a patch of beautiful wildflowers at the side of the road and they have been at the back of my mind ever since. I actually think the images are too nice to use as reference as they have their own thing going on, but I have decided to try and paint them anyway. Usually I like to work from bad photos, that way I am not so tempted to capture the photographic beauty. If the photo is bad, or at least really simple and basic I must either find my own beauty in it or make it up.

If these paintings show up here next week, that means they turned out. If you never hear about them again it means they failed miserably and will immediately go to the sand down pile. Just so you know.

Coming Down

Morning Light on Red Barn, 2005, Oil on panel, 8x8

On Saturday, the kids and I were driving down the road to town and as we passed one of my favorite red barns, I noticed that there was some work going on. After a closer look it became obvious that the barn was carefully being taken down, probably so that the wood can be reclaimed. That part is good but I am devastated to lose another of our area's barns, one that I look at and enjoy every time that I go past it.

Of course I understand why barns come down, they become unstable, and can be VERY expensive to repair properly. Steel buildings can be built for a fraction of the cost and go up quickly and easily. Our beautiful 100 year old wood barn just sits, needing much work to make it useful again, but it will be quite some time before we can afford that. In the meantime we just hope the thing won't burn down or fall down. Anyway, this fellow did build a new barn, which is very nice even if it is lacking in character right now. I suppose it will have more as the years go by.

I have painted this barn quite a few times over the years and now it will be one of the first images I will do when (and if!) I ever get back to actually painting again. And I am going to photograph this barn as it is dismantled (maybe there is a project there?) then I will definitely take a few days to drive around central NY and take photos of more barns. I have wanted to do that for the last year or so but this event has really spurred me on to do it soon.




Route 26 Barn, 2004, Oil on panel, 6x6,

The Family Farm

Soft Sky Over Farm, 2008, Oil on Panel, 12x24

My mom's cousin Judy, who lives on the same farm in Ohio where my grandmother grew up, sent me a bunch of photographs of their beautiful barns. Since I have become intrigued lately with painting clusters of barns, I was immediately interested in using her photos as reference. Her photos were beautiful, great light, great composition, but it turns out that they were maybe too good. I found it to be very difficult to translate them, perhaps because they weren't my vision in the first place.

I had suspected this may be the case for quite awhile. Doug takes pictures and even they they are almost exactly the kind of landscape imagery (and sometimes he'll even take a shot of a barn that he thinks I might like) that I like to paint, I have not really felt interested in using his photos as reference. And I don't take great photos or anything, in fact the worse they are the better they are to work from. Guess the painting just works better when it's my view that I begin with. Thank goddess!:) It is all me after all.

But.

I really wanted to portray the family farm and because I like to think that I can transcend the reference if I have to, I decided to work from Judy's photos. The first few paintings I did crashed and burned, the third one was good and was included in a solo show, the next one was ok, and then the one pictured above worked out pretty well. It is my favorite so far. I struggled with the sky/treeline relationship, and after wiping off the paint a few times, I finally covered the whole area with green and then worked back into the sky with the blue. Normally I paint in sections but I liked changing it up and I am pleased with the soft and moody sky here.

I guess this painting represents quite a few lessons learned.

The Next Two Weeks

By the time my family came to visit me halfway through the month in Vermont, I was struggling. I had done two small pieces that were interesting to me but I had gotten such conflicting feedback about them that I was definitely confused. I had had a very irritating conversation with another resident, who didn't seem to understand what I was saying about the criticism I had received. She assumed I was upset that the feedback had been negative, even though I kept saying my confusion was the issue and that the mostly nonconstructive comments were not helpful. Then I had a great chat with Alice in her studio about all of this and she very firmly reminded me that I had to do what I felt, and to not let other's comments mess me up. After that conversation I stopped feeling like I wanted to cry, made an effort to avoid the other resident at mealtime (she meant well, I think I just didn't communicate with her very well and I liked her art a lot, by the way), and then went off to enjoy a few days with my family. Doug's feedback helped me get back on track, as well as the break and when I got back to my studio on Monday, I knew what to do.

I began more small portraits of people, again, based on the vintage photos. I decided to begin with a sanguine pastel pencil drawing on gessobord, red and orange glazes, and then full color glazes. Here are three of them at that stage:





Normally, at home I tend to do a whole batch of underpaintings on one day and then do the rest of the glazes over the course of a week or so. However, the drawings take longer, so I did one or two each day and the work on each piece was staggered over several days. Working like that took some getting used to, since working fast is so much a part of my process. My underpaintings are quickly done, simply and without much preparation, but with a lot of energy and a kind of urgency. Beginning with a nice, calm, detailed and deliberate drawing was a real change of pace and I wondered how that difference would affect the later stages of the paintings. So these are the pieces that I began the third week of the residency, they are somewhat in order as I worked on them, although I didn't really keep track:

5x7

Close-up

5x7

5x7

5x7

5x7

8x10

8x10

I was very excited about the first few, though none of them came easy; for example the girl in the chair bothered me and I am still not sure about that one at all.

At the same time that I was working on these, I was trying to finish up the large barn painting as well as the large tulips. Doing the other work helped me to not get too overwhelmed or obsessed with the figures and also let me step back a bit from them and take a breather. The other events that occurred that week were two studio visits by two visiting artists, one of whom loved the paintings BEFORE I applied the full color (I had a few up that only had the orange and red glazes over the drawing) and one hated the whole direction, saying that they would only ever be vignettes. I also decided that I wanted to try working from more contemporary figures and realized that I was beginning to look at other people differently, just the way I began to look at landscapes and barns differently once I began to paint them. So I nervously asked a few of the other residents if I could take a few shots of them to be used as reference for future paintings, in exchange for a small study (when I get to them, that is). Everyone I asked was actually really excited to do this and so I began to ask more people. I now have hundreds of reference photos and am itching to get to work on them after I am finished adjusting to the real world. In fact, I was so taken with the photos of Sierra, a writer from Seattle, that I began two paintings of her right away and managed to get the color on them during the last few days there. These are the paintings that I did on the last day that I could paint before leaving:

5x7

8x10

12x16

5x7

I would say that I need to go back into each of them a bit more, but basically I am pleased with them. I am also intrigued by the one with the three figures, although Doug says it's too dated, not as timeless as the others.

Scale: I decided to keep the scale small on these pieces for several reasons. First is that I wanted to get a lot of images going while I was still in Vermont and could focus on them. I knew I could work faster if they were smaller. Also, working small is not quite so intimidating. I went through this same process with the landscapes, beginning small (um, because I was afraid) and then gradually working larger. Thirdly, working out the issues on a smaller scale is easier and then finally, I knew I wanted to keep the details to a bare minimum and I knew if I worked larger, I would begin noodling and overworking, losing sight of the "big picture". So working small was my self-induced limitation, one that will soon change.

The faces and other details: Like my landscapes, capturing detail and even reality is not really my intent. In almost all of my work I am just trying to express what I am feeling about the image. I guess there is always a bit of logic involved, in that the objects are usually fairly representational, and a fairly real space is involved, but the details don't necessarily concern me at all. In the first small paintings that I did, the facial features were fairly distinct. While I think they worked ok, in the later pieces, I consciously decided to leave out much of the specific facial features, preferring to leave them open to the viewer's interpretation, including mine. I see something different in these people each time I look at them and I like that quality.

These are just a start. (Provided I have time to continue working on them) I intend to increase the scale, as well as begin to add more information into the backgrounds. And after getting home and coming across this painter's work, clearly I do need to make a bit of a shift in order to move away from what she is doing! Anyway, I am not worried about that, I am just at the beginning of the process here and despite the fact that my concept is similar to what she says in her artist statement, where I go will surely be different.

I didn't go to the figure drawing sessions quite as much, especially during the third week, while I was beginning the second batch of paintings. In the last week, I did a few small pencil drawings from the model, thinking I would do the glazes over them. But the drawings didn't really inspire me and do I erased them in order to use the panels again. And then on the last Tuesday, I did two more oil sketches, using a different color. The brand of paint was Old Holland and even though I liked the color, the paint itself was really hard to move around on the paper. It drove me crazy, but I did end up like the effect of not being about to cover the entire surface. Also I should add that while I was working on this first one it seemed right that the face was in shadow. Now I hate it and cringe a little bit when I see that part. However, I really like the rest of the drawing.

16x20

For the next one, I added a bit of Liquin to the paint, just so I could work with it a bit easier and I think this one is my favorite of all of the oil sketches I did while there.

16x20

I did all of these oil sketches during half hour poses, not too short but not long enough for me to overwork. Not usually anyway. Also during the course of the month, I could really see a huge difference in my drawing skills because of the live figure drawing sessions. Drawing the clothed figures to paint was so much easier than it probably would have been otherwise. A good reminder for me to keep up with the figure classes now that I am back home.

So there you go. I have a show (landscapes) in May to prepare for but I am hoping to carve out some time to keep working on the figurative work. I am still feeling enthusiasm for them and hope to keep that momentum. In addition, the break from landscapes was also valuable and I am feeling pretty excited about getting back to them.

And I am off to do just that right now. I did some underpaintings last Friday and they are ready for their color today.......

PS. I feel like I need to explain about the prom image. I liked certain aspects of the couple which is why I initially chose the image. But after I did the underpainting (drawing) I couldn't believe that I had gone ahead with it. I am the most un-promlike person you will ever know, the most un-formal event person you will ever know and this sentimental stuff is really not my thing. But I decided to go forward anyway, and I thought that maybe if I chose ugly colors it would be more satisfying. Heh. That didn't really work and somehow the pea green background that I intended looks more like gold (in person), the girl's dress looks romantic and luminous and the boy looks less dorky than I had intended. Despite all of that happy crap, I actually like the piece. Don't worry though, my feelings about proms have NOT changed.

The First Two Weeks of the Figure

First of all, I would like to apologize in advance to those of you with dial-up and/or slow computers. The next few posts will have A LOT of images and it may take awhile to load them up. Sorry.

This post will cover what I did with the figures during the first two weeks, and then I will discuss the the second two weeks in the next post. That separation is appropriate because it is punctuated by a teary eyed breakdown (common during these residencies, I hear) and the visit by my family, which served as a great distraction, even if I was a bit put out by the collision of my two worlds!

Ok, so on my first full day in Vermont I attended the figure drawing session and then later on in the afternoon, I began the first one of these small drawings based on a few of the vintage photographs that I had brought along. I did about five of them during the first few days, in between the figure drawing sessions, and I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it was to just sit and draw, without the nagging feeling of having other, more important and well, splashier things to do, like painting. I am very pleased with these and they were very useful in helping me decide where to start with the paintings.





Within a few days I decided to go ahead and jump into some large paintings on panel, based on these drawings. I wrote about that here. I was excited about the underpaintings and went on to add the color which was where things began to fall apart! I was not feeling good about what was happening with the color and what it was doing to the space and even the subject matter. And even worse, I was so disinterested in them that I only partially completed three of them and couldn't even muster the energy to work on the fourth at all. That should have been my first clue. If I am not enjoying or am excited by the challenge then it is not working for me and it's time to change the direction. But which way? At this point I had had a lot of feedback by other residents as well as by two of the four visiting artists and I admit to being completely flustered by all of the different opinions and suggestions. So by the end of the first week I was floundering. I didn't know what to do. I did some small still lifes just so I could keep working. I stapled two large pieces of canvas to the wall and did large paintings of some tulips, from life. None of those things were amazing or maybe not even particularly successful, but they were fun and I really enjoyed the process of working on all of them. I'll put some of those images up in a later post.

Finally though, after a good night's sleep (always helpful for decision making and clarity) I realized that I had to strip away all of the details and extra information just like I had done when I began painting the landscape. When I started the landscapes and barns, after first including too much information, most of it was removed until I found what I had to say, and I have been gradually adding back details ever since.

Even though I did not like any of the first four paintings, each of them contained something valuable that I could take and move forward with. Painting #1 really drove it home for me that I needed to really simplify things, especially now. In cropping the image, I began to see what direction I wanted to go in.
#1, 16x20


#2 showed me that maybe plunking down a figure into one of my usual landscapes wasn't what I should be doing at this point, even though it is a relatively successful painting. It just doesn't seem right to me.
#2, 12x12

#3 gave me some real encouragement that I would be able to render clothing and the volume of the body underneath. And despite many positive remarks from the visiting artists, two of whom liked it exactly the way it is, this is also not something that is working for me.
#3, 18x24


And from painting #4 I learned that I needed to begin differently, that part of the problem was the underpaintings done in oil. Just technically it was very difficult to get the kind of information that I wanted into the underpainting (that is why the faces were blank at that stage-it was impossible to establish them) so I realized that I would have to begin a painting in a different way. Holy cow! Been awhile since I haven't started a painting without oil paint and a piece of a t-shirt!
#4, 20x24

Since the pencil drawings had been intriguing to me (but not to too many others, based upon feedback by visitors and even by Doug), I thought that would be a good thing to pursue. First I did a pencil drawing of a girl on sized paper. I then worried that the graphite drawing underneath would "deaden" the color of the subsequent glazes so I bought some sanguine colored pastel pencils at The Studio Store and I then did a drawing of a small figure on gessoboard with the pencils. I added a lot of detail, more than I thought I would paint, but I really wanted to be able to either use the info later, or to not, based on how I felt when I got there. I then coated both drawings with matte medium, then an orange glaze and then a red glaze, to approximate the colors that I usually begin a painting with. Here is one of them at this point (I didn't get a shot of the other one) and the color is awful by the way, it is actually much more red at this stage:


After the glazes dried, I made a first pass with color and was very happy with the results. And here they are finished:
5x7
7.5x9

Even though I again received wildly varying comments from others about them, I really could see something in these two pieces. And so I kept going and began several more. And those I will include in the next post, along with more discussion about the features and scale.

Also, a word about the colors of the glazes here. I considered changing up the first glazes but I was feeling the time pass and I really felt that I wanted to make some progress concerning other issues. Working with a different underpainting color really deserves its own month in Vermont!

Oh and also, during the first two weeks I did several charcoal drawings, and four oil sketches at the figure sessions. I didn't go every day (usually skipped the days with the boy model, sorry, no offense to the model, he was great). The oil sketches are on Daley-Rowney double primed oil painting paper, taped to a drawing board. I used oil paint, straight from the tube, no solvent or medium and used a cotton rag to wipe of the lights. They take at least a few days to dry, depending on the brand of paint or color, and are also very difficult to photograph.
12x16

16x20
16x20
16x20



Stayed tuned:there are oh so many more figures to come!