A Few of My Favorite Things

The ever so famous Anonymous left a comment on a recent post a few weeks ago. I started to write a response but naturally it got long and I decided I should just save it for a post. So this is the comment:

What is your favorite entity to paint - as in abstract, people, landscape, other - keep in mind that IDKS ;-)

Is painting (water color, acrylic) your favorite medium, or do you prefer, for example, charcoal drawing?

It seems relevant to talk about this a bit right now, since my work has been going through some pretty big shifts in the last year or so. I have had to really had to think about what to focus on and when, whereas previously I just allowed the art to just burst right out of me without too much thought and planning. I think that was a reaction to not having had the chance to paint for so long.

Anyhoo. Favorite subject matter. Back in college, and even before that, I liked painting a variety of things; still lifes and other objects, portraits, cityscapes. I think the subject matter that I logged the most hours on though, was the figure, both clothed and unclothed. I would say that the figure was my most favorite and least favorite.

Interestingly, the images that I NEVER worked on before 2003, was abstract or landscapes, and definitely no barns. I was a city girl through and through in college and ick! barns? No way!

But life happens, I moved away from the city, and I grew and changed as a person (I hope) and when we moved to the country I finally relaxed my ridiculous mindset and began painting landscapes AND barns. And while that work has thus far been my most successful work, and I feel at peace while creating it, I couldn't help but wonder if I would be able to get to those feelings with subject matter that I felt that I was better at. So a thousand landscapes later and circling burn out on them, I decided to try some new things, which were actually the old things mostly. Tried to do some still lifes, but found no real connection there, did a few cityscapes and although the results there were better, I just felt kinda bleh about them. Kept meaning to go back and do more but just didn't have the interest. All of this was just going around what is probably my favorite subject (to finally answer Anonymous's first question).

The figure.

And like in college, it has been something that I feel like I have to do, I love to do but it also just kills me, it's so hard. So still, it is my favorite, but kinda my least favorite too.

I am not sure where the abstracts fall. I am enjoying them, they are fun and challenging and I am learning to see things differently and I appreciate being able to do that. I don't see where they are headed, but I plan to keep going with them. And right now I think I envision them as the calm between the storms of painting figures and portraits.

Favorite medium? My favorite medium is oil, hands down, no question. It used to be acrylic until I tried oils in college and I have been in love with oils ever since. I despise watercolor, mostly because I am not good with it. Heh. For drawing, nothing beats a good graphite stick and eraser. And I love/hate charcoal. I love what I can do with it, but I hate the feel of charcoal in my hands, scratching on the paper which seriously gets my sensory issues going. And not in a good way either. I have dabbled in other mediums like pastel (sensory issues here again), collage, guoache, but none of them stuck. I am hoping to work with encaustics someday, but am holding off until I can really focus on them since I have a feeling that they will completely envelope me;)

So there you go. I would like to add that I have finally learned that nothing is written in stone anymore. Twenty years ago if someone had told me I would be making a living (sort of) by painting landscapes and barns, I would have smirked and referenced flying pigs. So I guess it is entirely possible that in twenty more years I could be painting the still life in watercolor with maybe a few pigs thrown in as well.

Ya just never know.

I Need Different Directions

Orange House with Hedge, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 6x12

So in the last six years or so, I have done over a thousand paintings (that does NOT include the clunkers, and there were more than a few of those!). My technique is to work fast so actually painting that many isn't such a big deal to me, the big deal is coming up with that many images. I often paint the same subject matter, to make another interpretation of it or to explore it further but yes, also because it is a constant struggle to find new imagery that I respond to enough to want to paint it. And when I look back at the progression of paintings I can see my growth as a painter, all the shifts and changes in palette. I am proud of what I have accomplished in these last several years.

But holy cow, am I ever burned out on this subject matter!!! Once I get started on a painting and get into it, it's fine but lately I have been struggling with the getting started part. I am just not as enthusiastic about the landscapes and barns as I once was and even though I can still do work that I am proud of, I don't like not having the same enthusiasm. Kinda sucks all the fun out the whole painting thing, ya know? I know that I have a few more landscapes, barns and other structures in me, and I will keep painting them, but not to the extent that I have been for the last six years.

As most of you know, I have been fooling around a bit with portraits and while those ARE really exciting to me, they also completely slay me too! They are intense and I can't paint them at the pace that I prefer to paint and plus, up until recently, I have had no venue for them. So whenever I have something else going on, they immediately get put on hold. However, my two galleries have expressed an interest in trying them out and so next month (after the kids are in school and I get my days back;)) I will get to work on them again.
Aunt Bettie Looks Like Margaret Thatcher

However, in the last few months, in between summer activities and shuttling the kids around etc, I have been working on a series of paintings that I am really excited about. Work that is inspired by the landscape but is much more abstract. Again, both of my galleries have expressed an interest in trying them out, and in early September, I will be visiting both to show the work in person.
Still Untitled!, 2009 Oil on Birch Panel, 6x12

Well, this this post has gotten a bit long, and since I have to take one of my daughters shopping at the mall today, I think I will save the rest of the story and images of the new work for next time. And yes, I am purposely not saying that will be tomorrow because clearly I am not able to post on consecutive days anymore. Bleh!

Memory Lane (Part 1)

Well, I managed to get out to the barn this weekend to retrieve my portfolios of the work that I did in college. Actually I got Doug to trudge through the three foot high snow drifts, shovel out in front of the door and then poke around in our junk filled barn, but whatever. I was busy in the hen house and had my own issues with the snow and cold.

He brought in two portfolios and after going through them I realized that there is still another batch of work somewhere, so perhaps another trip out there is in order. I am pretty sure that I stored quite a bit of work in an old brown suitcase. Awesome storage, I know. Heh.

Actually most of the work is in pretty good shape all things considered. I have moved about 9 times since college and everything has been stored in basements, or attics and now it's been in a barn for almost five years. Many of the pieces are only scuffed because they were not protected by a covering and were rubbing against the back of another piece, but the paint itself looks good, no cracking or peeling. And since it has rarely seen the light of day, the colors have not faded.

Ok, now that I have reminded you all about how NOT to store your art, we can move on. I was an illustration major in college so much of my work seems a bit out of context now. We did a lot of portraits, both from live models and from photographs (I wrote a bit about that here). We also had to put images together, make visual statements for potential editorial assignments (not my thing, but I tried) and we did a ton of figure drawing. Most of the work I am putting up today are portraits, which seems appropriate considering what I have been working on lately.

So here are a few:
Painted from a live model, and it was obviously during the 1980's. I had more than a few jumbo disc earrings like that myself!

From a photo of course, and it looks like I did some scumbling to prepare to make some changes on his chin and in the background. Yet again, left unfinished.

Graphite on Gesso drawing from a photograph. Looks like it might have been for a toothpaste ad. heh.

These were done sometime around 1986, maybe 1987. I had learned how to glaze over an underpainting, in a class with Phyllis Purves-Smith, using traditional methods and I worked in that manner for quite awhile. Struggled is more like it. What I see now is that working so precisely and realistically was totally not right for me. I recall that I enjoyed doing the monochromatic underpaintings but clearly the rest of it wasn't me and I often gave up and left the work unfinished. Same goes for the graphite drawing. It is interesting to note now that I paint in a very loose manner, yet there are places where I can utilize the more exacting side of me too. It's like I solved the puzzle of me. Well, temporarily, anyway; I am sure there will be more shifts in the future.

Anyway, the assignment here:
was to paint a romance novel cover. Our illustration class lugged our supplies to one of the historical buildings in Philadelphia and the models posed in various ridiculous dramatic situations. I was very unhappy with this piece, the figures are SO stiff! BUT it was also kind of a breakthrough for me-I was really excited about how the background looked and how the more simple glazes worked over the underpainting and textured surface (gesso).

That painting led to more work like this: where I was playing around with textures, and more dramatic lights and darks. And for some strange reason I was also perfecting the art of making paint crack by coating a layer of oil paint with matte medium. Eventually the matte medium cracked and then I rubbed burnt umber oil paint into it which gave it sort of an old wood like look. Now you can buy a product that does something similar, but back in the old days I had to find other ways to get the effects I wanted.

This portrait:was done soon after I painted Bette Davis and is directly related to what I am doing today. I got a shiver when I saw it again. I was still using paintbrushes (now I just use a cloth to rub off the paint) and probably turpentine too, so it's a bit tight, but I remember understanding that I wanted to figure out how to add color. I never got to it back then, but it has nagged at me ever since I began painting again and now finally I am beginning to solve that puzzle too.

I have tons of drawings that were done directly from the model, but this is one of my favorites:
The model was a guy who I got to know a bit at the bars, he was a nice guy, AND he had great hair, which is always a plus when it comes to a model! I always wanted to give him this drawing because it actually looks quite a bit like him but he moved away before I was able to and of course I haven't the vaguest memory of his name.

Another interesting thing about looking at all of this old stuff is how bad it is! My perception has always been that the work I did in college was mostly really good, especially this work, the work I chose to save and lug around with me for 20+ years. However, I am less than impressed with it now. I guess that means that I have grown as an artist, since it is usually a good sign when old work is cringe-worthy, but still. Kind of a bummer, you know? Also, clearly I have since developed a very different color sense. The old work sure does look pretty dreary next to what I am doing now and I think that might be a huge understatement.

Anyway, more to come!