The Seer

Masquing Removed from Screen Door Watercolor

A genius is one who can see.  The others can often “draw” remarkably well.  Their kind of drawing, however, is not very difficult.  They can change about.  They can make their sight fit the easiest way for their drawing.  As their seeing is not particular it does not matter.  With the seer it is different.  Nothing will do but the most precise statement.  He must not only end technique to his will, but he must invent technique that will especially fit his need.  

Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Art, to me, is seeing.  I think you have got to use your eyes as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn’t work.  That’s my art.

Andrew Wyeth

Before I go to work on redrawing the screen wire mesh over the light areas, and toning down the stark white masqued areas of the screen wire over the dark areas, I decided to go ahead and post the “raw” picture of the watercolor with the masquing stripped off.  There is a ton of work to do now on the screen, and I’m tired already, just thinking about it!  I’m going to have to spend a good deal of time just looking at the composition now, and how much it’s radically changed from the way it looked just a few minutes ago.  I’ve been “tagged” by my reading today, loving this idea of artist as “seer”.  During my graduate school years, I did quite a bit of reading and researching over the Hebrew prophets, the concept of Nabi, and the sense of vision.  I love the way it translates now into art.

More later.  Thanks for reading.

Another Crack at the Screen Door in Watercolor

Beginning a more serious study of the screen door in watercolor

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual–become clairvoyant.  We reach then into reality.  Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.  Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.  

Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

I consider myself most fortunate to have this three-day weekend without appointments, without deadlines, without tasks.  The leisure time spent lingering over the words of artistic muses (this weekend has included Robert Henri, Robert Motherwell, Annie Dillard, Andrew Wyeth, Wallace Stevens and Ernest Hemingway) has left me more refreshed than a good night’s sleep.  The Man Cave environment has been perfect, the DVDs, VHS tapes and CDs have provided the best music, the best documentaries that any painter would have craved.

Now I am getting down to work on a more serious study of a screen door, and main door behind it.  I have already finished the preliminary sketch, all the masqued screen wire and the first few coats of wash.  Now I am trying to get serious about the drawing, dry brush and texturing that bristles all over this composition.  The last attempt went by quite fast–just a couple or three days, I lose track.  Lately I have been shocked (though pleased) that my work is running from start to completion quite fast.  Now I wonder if I’m truly putting everything I can into a composition, am I quitting too fast.  Probably all of us wonder over those things.  At any rate, my intention is to linger longer and more studiously over this one, to see if I can actually make the work better over time, by adding more layers, more textures.  I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Thanks for reading.  This is going to be fun.

I paint in order to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

Objects Embodying the Stuff of Revelation

The Screen Door and Coffee Still-Life, Unmasked and Stained

Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands?  Because it is up to you.  There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain.  It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin.  You were made and set here to give voice to this,your own astonishment.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

William Carlos Williams, the poet/physician, daily drove the streets of Rutherford, New Jersey, household to household, making his calls, and gathering images and ideas for his poems.  He was always engaged, always interpreting and re-interpreting his life.  Andrew Wyeth wandered the rolling hills of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, his eye taking in the images of his surroundings and the village life of Little Africa, all the while his romantic nature extracting meaning from the objects he found in everyday households.  Neither of these artists made apologies for the enthusiasm they felt as memories associated with the everyday mundane warmed their hearts.

Several blog readers have posted to me their warm memories of the slapping screen door from childhood, and the amusement they gained from annoying their elders with that irreverent pop.  All day long at school today, I could think only of getting back into the Cave and resuming work (play) on this screen door and coffee tin.   My mind drifted over all those popping screen doors (at both grandparents’ farms, Marlin’s general store in the grandparent’s vicinity, the wonderful old general store in Pine, Colorado where I stopped for provisions after a hot day of fly fishing at Cheeseman Canyon, feeling like Ernest Hemingway).  I cannot explain my fascination as a child with that screen door, and later as an artist when I looked more closely at its features–blistered painted wood, a hook that left its arc carved in the wood from its years of swinging back and forth, the cut of the spring into the wood, leaving its rust stains over the years, the sloppy paint job that left white paint around the perimeter of the screens–all those things excite me for reasons I can never put into words.  I guess I’m more of a painter than a writer.  These things I just cannot explain.

I removed the masquing first thing this afternoon.  Since then I have been re-staining the screen wire to get rid of the stark white left by the successful masquing.  It’s not going away willingly.  I still have more staining, more darkening to do.  I haven’t yet decided how to re-draw the screen wire over the white label of the coffee tin–I’ll have to experiment with that on separate paper.  I’m thinking about a hard-led pencil, perhaps even a mechanical pencil.  Perhaps a Prismacolor Verithin pencil which features a pretty decent hardness.  Again, since I’ve never done this before, I’ll have to experiment.

I have really enjoyed roughing up the wood and blistering the paint textures on the screen door frame.  I finally worked up the nerve to paint in the hanging spring and gouge the rusty imprints it left along the horizontal frame.  In all of this I am finding pure joy.  For years and years I have gazed upon the Andrew Wyeth drybrush renderings of whitewashed sidings of houses and window sashes blistered by the sun and weather, and always wanted to give it a try, using watercolor, pencil, fingerprints, smudges–anything that would simulate that weathered appearance.  Finally I am getting into it and absolutely loving it.

Yesterday afternoon, the Texas temperatures climbed to 83 degrees and I had to have a box fan running in the Cave to survive working out here.  Now it is 42 degrees with arctic winds howling outside the garage door, and I am wearing a heavy pullover sweater and drinking hot coffee to stay in the Cave.  But I love it.  The Cave environment has been welcoming, quiet, affirming.  I’m thrilled to enter a three-day weekend (no school tomorrow) and hope to have long, uninterrupted hours painting and reading in the cave.

I’m going to post a picture below of the painting after I removed the masquing, for anyone curious about this process.  When I apply the masquing to the untreated, white watercolor paper, it bonds well and does its job, but once it comes off, the stark whiteness is unacceptable.  I always know it’s going to happen, so I no longer feel those “uh-oh” moments when it comes off–I just know that there is plenty of work still ahead, staining the white areas, toning them down, getting them where you want them.  And that part does not come easily for me.  I have to keep applying more layers of wash, continue rubbing with my fingers, getting rid of that stark white.

Thanks for reading.

I paint in order to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

The painting unmasqued, before re-staining and re-working

The Man Cave Studio as I work Tonight

Why the Abstract Expressionists Matter to Me

Screen Door Study Coming Along Slowly

I have this conversation with my high school students so much, that I cannot remain silent about it on the blog.  Especially when we come to the end of the year in art history and my students, knowing the kind of work I do, ask me if I truly enjoy studying and teaching about the Abstract Expressionists.  I tell them that they are among my favorite artists and muses.  I have read major biographies on Rothko, De Kooning and Pollock, and have read The Collected Works of Robert Motherwell.  Of course it goes without saying that I have read biographies of Wyeth, Hopper and Homer and have studied their works extensively over the years.

But I draw much inspiration from the lives of the Abstract Expressionists (New York School) and have learned a great deal, studying their works.  For two weeks I have been poring over Willem De Kooning’s works, and the textures I saw in his painting “Excavation” made me decide I wanted to try a close-up study of this paint-peeled, abused screen door.  As I’ve worked on scuffing, scumbling, scribbling and texturing the wood on this door, I’m reminded of techniques I’ve seen from De Kooning, Motherwell, and Cy Twombly.  Many of the techniques that contribute to the overall paint quality of De Kooning’s paintings I have tried to put into this watercolor.  And for years, I have joked with plein air painters that I copy just as much from Jackson Pollock as Winslow Homer when attempting to render tree foliage.

Robert Motherwell is a kindred spirit, because he was a scholar of art history and philosophy and a lover of literature.  He was also a splendid writer.  I haven’t found too many “published” artists that I’ve enjoyed reading more than him.  I understand that he was perpetually conflicted between studio time and reflective, scholarly time in his lifestyle.  I love that conflict, and love reading that a man was successful, not having to choose one over the other.  That is one reason why I’m choosing to leave the studio for the night (unless the creative bug bites me again, or the muse whispers in my ear).

The other reason I am backing out of this painting is the need to look at it from a distance, study what is going on, and decide on what exactly to do next with it.  Again, I find that Willem De Kooning was often ridiculed for that.  He would look at a painting for thirty minutes, pick up the brush, stare a little longer, add one or two strokes, and then sit back again for another thirty minutes, looking, contemplating, deciding.  Sometimes, at the end of the day, he scraped every bit of the painting off the canvas and onto the floor, completely obliterating his day’s efforts (I don’t plan to do that with this watercolor).

So, I plan to spend the rest of this evening, reading, journaling, contemplating, looking at this watercolor, and deciding my next move. I’m very happy with what has happened so far, and hope it continues, tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Mad Scientist in the Watercolor Studio, Part 2

Second Day on the Screen Door Experiment

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the world if you paint or dance or write.  The world can probably get by without the product of your efforts.  But that is not the point.  The point is what the inner process of following your creative impulses will do, to you.  It is clearly about process.  Love the work, love the process.  our fascination will pull our attention forward.

Ian Roberts, Creative Authenticity

I could not agree more strongly with Mr. Roberts on this point.  I get far more joy in the studio, in the midst of a painting in progress, than I do sitting back looking at it on display, or sitting in a festival booth, waiting to find out if patrons like the work or not.  The joy is in the doing.

Today, I took my Art History classes through the legacy of Andrew Wyeth and his drybrush watercolor studies from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.  And the whole time we looked at and discussed his work, all I wanted was to be in this Cave proceeding with my latest “mad” experiment.  But alas, I had a list longer than my arm, of details I had to chase down after school, and heavy lesson plans for tomorrow’s class load, and couldn’t get into the studio for nearly five hours since the close of my last class.  It was total despair.

Finally, I got to get in a few strokes, working only on the coffee can and the left border of the composition.  The door frame will be white, so I had to lay in a left-hand darkened border.  I’m already wishing I could remove the masquing and take a peek at what is happening, but that cannot happen for a long time still.  My only anxiety now is to get this looking the way I really like it, only to find a disaster when the masquing comes off.  But . . . I cannot think of that right now.

I am still a little tired from Saturday and Sunday’s output, but really feared that if I took a little time off to rest, that I would find myself already into the next weekend, that a day off would turn into a week off, and the momentum would have stalled.  Several years back, I attended a workshop led by J. Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.  He had just flown into DFW airport and was holding a session at an area hotel in Dallas.  The session, for me, turned out to be life changing.  The only question he had for the artists assembled that day was “How prolific are you?”  I sat there in shame, realizing that I had used my full-time job as an excuse for turning out an average of ten watercolors a year.  I left that class, determined by year’s end to have at least thirty completed.  I completed nearly a hundred, and have completed at least a hundred a year since then, though many of them are small watercolor “sketches” or “vignettes”, I nevertheless can say for the first time in my life that I am “prolific” as an artist, and thanks to the blog, feel a compulsion to keep cranking them out.  So many good things have happened as a result, but the greatest is that I have rediscovered a joy in the learning process that I had not known for years.

Urge and urge and urge,

Always the procreant urge of the world.

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Thanks for reading.

I paint in order to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

Finishing an Antique Door, and Thinking About Andrew Wyeth

Finishing a Small Antique Door Watercolor in the Man Cave

Finished Dry Brush Study of Antique Door Knob and Screen Door

Great painting is like Bach’s music, in texture closely woven, subdued like early tapestries, no emphasis, no climaxes, no beginnings or endings, merely resumptions and transitions, a design so sustained that there is no effort in starting and every casual statement is equally great.

N. C. Wyeth’s last letter to his son Andrew, Feb 16, 1944

As I bring today’s “cave activities” to a close, I feel a touch of sadness.  I’ve been playing and replaying a DVD of Andrew Wyeth’s work: Self-Portrait: Snow Hill.  I still remember January 16, 2009, the day I stood at my school computer, and saw on the day’s news that Andrew Wyeth had passed away.  It was not unexpected, he was aged and in poor health.  I had known that.  But my eyes filled with tears, as they still do when I listen to this DVD play, and realize that there will be no more work coming from his hand.  He has been the life-force of my art throughout most of my life, and yet I didn’t venture into a drybrush still life until four years after his passing.  Now, I cannot seem to let it go, I am so absorbed in the dynamics that play when eyeing an object in light and shadow, and trying to reproduce it on a white rectangle before me.

This has been quite an explosive day in the Man Cave.   I’m not used to plowing through so many watercolors, attempting to bring them to conclusions.  But it’s been quite a ride, and I’m glad I did it.  Tomorrow starts another weary round of school, and it is time to change gears, to pay my dues.

Thanks for reading.  And thanks especially to all of you who have been following me throughout this day, posting your “likes” and “comments”.  I appreciate every encouraging word and gesture.

I paint in order to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

Trying to Capture the Late Night Shadows in a Watercolor

Painting in the Man Cave Late Friday Night

 

Detailing the Door and Darkening the Surrounding Shadows

If a painting is good, it will be mostly memory.

Andrew Wyeth

I spent much of this evening, listening to Andrew Wyeth documentaries on VHS and DVD, as the shadows gathered in the Man Cave.  As I look at Wyeth’s drybrush and watercolor sketches, I am mesmerized at his dark, dim interiors.  The D’Arches paper I use makes me think I am painting on snow–it is so white and reflective.  I apply countless glazes of pigment, trying to darken the areas around this pale blue bucket and capture the essence of the dim interior of a garage, work shed or barn.  One of these days, perhaps I’ll figure it out.

I did enjoy “scarifying” the door in the background.  My Man Cave has nine aged doors that I keep moving around and studying for their varying textures and colors.  I really want to master abused wood textures and colors in watercolor.  This has been a fascinating study for me.  I have combined watercolor, x-acto knife scrapes, colored pencil, watercolor pencil, graphite and fingerprints to build up layers of door grime.  I just love getting into this.

I’m still not sure how to get the blue pail to “pop.”  The blues I have been pouring on it have not really worked to my liking, yet.  I have worked transparently, layering wash after wash.  There is still plenty of paper surface shining up through the layers of pigment, but I’m still not getting the luminosity I want.  I’m not sure how to solve this issue yet.

The overturned Coca-Cola crate has surprised me.  I’ve barely touched it, and I feel that it is about “there”, if not “there” already.  I had this same issue twice before when painting a cast-iron skillet in my two large still-lifes back in January.  The skillet only required minimal work and was done.  I was disappointed!  I wanted to work it, re-work it, and re-work it, applying layers and textures, and building up pigments, but it seemed to shape itself rather quickly.  That is what has happened to the Coca-Cola crate–I had all kinds of plans for it, and it looked “finished” before I even got into it.  Oh well.  Maybe the next time it will be more obdurate.

Well, it’s getting late.  I have a plein air invitation pending for tomorrow, and I’m seriously considering participating in the event.  So I guess I’ll turn out the lights and give this painting a rest.  Tomorrow in the daylight I can see if I like what’s happening.

Thanks always for reading.

I paint to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

 

Striving After an Andrew-Wyeth Kind of Drybrush Watercolor

Working on a Wyeth-style Still Life in the Man Cave

Trying to Emulate Andrew Wyeth with a Watercolor Still Life

I paint so I’ll have something to look at.

Barnett Newman

Since high school, I have loved looking at Andrew Wyeth’s drybrush watercolor sketches and pencil drawings of a World War I German helmet inverted and filled with pine cones.  Some years back, I purchased this pail from a friend who deals in antiques, filled it with pine cones, and tried two small watercolors of it at the foot of a tree.  Neither painting satisfied me (apparently not the buyers either–I still have both of them).  But since I’ve set up the studio in garage and started spending more time in it, I have gazed at this pail of cones sitting in front of this dark door, and often wondered why I was not trying to paint it more seriously.

Last night I sketched it out and laid down a few basic washes, but was too sleepy to go any further.  Coming home from school this afternoon, I had more energy and went after it with more focus  I did much more drawing, and tried to put some detail into the pine cones as well as deepen and layer the washes on the door behind.  I still have a long way to go, but at least I feel that I have this one underway now.

Thanks for reading.

I paint to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

Stretching My Watercolor into a New Direction

Beginning a New Still Life

You know, the real world, this so-called real world is just something you put up with, like everybody else.  I’m in my element when I’m a little bit out of this world; then I’m in the real world–I’m on the beam.  Because when I’m falling, I’m doing all right; when I’m slipping, I say: “Hey, this is interesting!”  It’s when I’m standing upright that bothers me: I’m not doing so good, I’m stiff.  As a matter of fact, I’m really slipping most of the time, into that glimpse.   I’m like a slipping glimpser.

It seems that you have to be rather innocent; if you are too advanced or learned, you won’t be able to paint.  I mean, didn’t Baudelaire say you have to be a little stupid to sit around writing poetry all the time, no?

Willem De Kooning

I was fortunate to spend four hours in a TAKS testing room today, followed by three afternoon classes.  Again, I came home, wiped out.  But I’ve been poring over some Andrew Wyeth books filled with drybrush illustrations.  Taking the De Kooning dictum seriously, I decided that I wanted to launch into another direction, and I broke my own rule about not painting when fatigued.  I at least set up another still life in my Man Cave, drew out the composition, and laid down some broad washes to get a sense of what I want to do next. I want to go after another Andrew Wyeth “look” of a dramatically darkened composition with something catching the light in the midst. I have had this antique pail of pine cones sitting at my feet for over a year, and have painted them twice outdoors, beneath the trunk of a tree, but now I wish to place them at the bottom of a darkened door, and see if I can make something attractive out of them.

I am barely underway.  Once again, I’m having trouble darkening this bright white D’Arches watercolor paper.  It’s going to require some working and re-working.

I’m exhausted to the bone and need to retire to bed early so I can be somewhat fresh to go after another horrid testing day tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

In the Sick Room, Pondering Andrew Wyeth and Ernest Hemingway

In the Sick Room with Thoughts of Wyeth and Hemingway

Underlying the sense of truth, I think, is the notion of authenticity, that somehow or other the artist rather than being a skilled craftsman is someone instead who is inspired, is a kind of seer.

Jack Flam, art historian (interview)

I worked in the Man Cave until about 2:00 a.m., unable to shut down my motor, I was loving the experience of watercoloring so much.  When I finally retired to bed, I set this painting on a stand at the foot of the bed, so I could go to sleep, gazing at it.  I woke up to it, sick.  That darned upper-respiratory infection that I catch every year around January-February, while all my students are busy sharing their flu viruses.  There is no escape.  I wondered this year if I would get through, usually I get it by mid-January.  Oh well.  I’m down for the count.  But I can sit up in bed and read until the weekend clinic opens.  And I can look at my painting.

I want to take a moment and record my deepest, heart-felt satisfaction over what is happening in my recent work.  In response to the Jack Flam quote posted above, I don’t mind mentioning that for years I have wanted to go beyond craftsmanship and feel that I am truly an artist.  I have wanted to get past the stage of feeling that I was a mere illustrator and feel that I was a legitimate watercolorist.  And then, I was liberated several years ago, thanks to Richard Meryman’s Andrew Wyeth: A Quiet Life and Gail Levin’s Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography.  In reading those works, I discovered that these great artists struggled throughout their careers, labeled by some critics as illustrators and mere technnicians.  Before reading those works,I always groused, thinking that someone would view one of my watercolors and think “Oh what great detail, what talent,” instead of feeling the sentiments that I always feel when looking at a Hopper or Wyeth.  When I look at their works, I feel the loneliness, the calm, the alienation, the quiet–and don’t obsess over their details and craftsmanship.  So, for years, I would wonder, “How does one get past the issues of craftsmanship and go about painting ‘mood’?  How does one express feelings in a painting?”  Turning to my own work, I tended to discount it as merely decent craftsmanship, but not true artistic expression.  Perhaps, following Emerson’s vein, I just rejected my own work, because it was mine!

Today, as I calmly look at this watercolor nearing its completion, I can testify that I am feeling very good about its “look”, that what is on display is not mere craftsmanship, but an actual painting, with a particular dynamic, a mood, a feeling.  And the reason it changed (for me) from being a work of craftsmanship to an actual work of art is because for the first time, I actually looked at the painting (yesterday morning) with a concrete issue to fix–the problem of lightness and not enough darkness.

For anyone following this blog, you already know that I only recently turned to still-life subjects, having engaged in plein air landscape painting for a number of years.  I had always been too intimidated to try my hand at still-life, feeling that the objects were too close and personal, too unforgiving when mistakes arise from inadequate drawing skills.  But I finally took the cold plunge, practicing on a number of 8 x 10″ watercolor sketches (all published on this blog) before moving to large 28 x 22″ compositions.  Once I made the transition to the larger size, I immediately realized that I had an issue with lighting.  all my large watercolors are light, there is so much bright white surface to cover, and landscape painting generally lends itself well to that light, to that sense of atmosphere.  But my favorite still-life arrangements from art history are those which feature dramatic, dark settings, and Andrew Wyeth’s watercolors of dark interiors have inspired me the most.

So, yesterday I decided to go for broke.  Realizing that my current painting was just as light and airy as the earlier large still life I had painted weeks earlier, I concluded that this one needed some serious darkening.  Naturally, I was anxious about such a bold and drastic move, knowing that I could not stop with merely darkening the background.  Everything in the picture would change with a darkened background, and therefore would need adjusting.  And beyond all that, I knew the risk that the entire painting could collapse in ruin, after nearly a week of carefully constructing it and getting personally attached to it.

Nevertheless, I set to work, blending Winsor Violet with Transparent Yellow, then stirring in Permanent Rose, Winsor Green and Alizarin Crimson as needed, to create the dark values.  My heroes of the dim indoor compositions include Andrew Wyeth, Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Vermeer.  I have always loved their deep sepia tones, but never knew how to mix that kind of hue myself.  I think I am finding something with the combination of colors mentioned above.

I hope you will pardon this rambling blog entry which began early this morning, and now, by 10:36 p.m. is still under construction.  I awoke around 4:00 a.m. with a severely irritated throat.  By the time I rose at 7:00, I knew I was going to be visiting the weekend Family Healthcare clinic which opens at noon.  I did, along with 450,000 other patients from Tarrant County.  Two-and-a-half hours later, a doctor finally examined me and discovered that I had strep throat.  So, since then I have returned home, taken antibiotics, sat up in bed reading, dozed, blogged, but mostly sat staring at this painting at the foot of my bed, which is about the only positive thing that happened under this roof all day.

I am pleased, because the watercolor is actually beginning to emulate (not imitate) Andrew Wyeth and his 28 x 22″ drybrush watercolor interiors.  His painting “Alvaro and Christina” was the work that inspired my last large still life, and this one.  But with this one, I finally found a way to deepen the shadows and give a darker overall look to the composition.  And I am very happy with that step.

It’s very easy to spend your old life swishing old tea around in your cup thinking it’s great stuff because you’ve never really tried anything new.

Robert Pirsig, Lila

I am pleased to be trying several things new–still-life, large compositions, dramatic light and darkness.  There is so much still out there to explore, and I am grateful to have strength and time to do that.

Thanks for reading.