Hemingway, Wintertime and Thoughts of Fly Fishing

Vintage Still Life

Quality studio time has been scarce this week, with the school semester winding down and Christmas vacation rapidly approaching.  Nevertheless, I have been burying myself in Hemingway, though I don’t teach any of his writings.  Thoughts of his “Big Two-Hearted River” story reminded me of a vintage bamboo fly rod from the 1940’s that was given me by a big-hearted equestrian teacher from Colorado several years back.  I retrieved it from my display area, along with his Pflueger reel, and placed it over this antique Pepsi crate and thought “Why not?”  I’ve had an obsession for the past month for still life studies, and have no idea where this inspiration originated.  As stated in earlier posts, tenth grade was the first and only time I ever attempted a watercolor still life.

Texas waters are already being stocked with rainbow trout, one of the locations only 30 minutes from where I live.  I can’t wait to free up some time to travel there and see if I can have some success with my fly rod.  I may just take this bamboo one and see how it works.  It’s been too long since I’ve stalked rainbows with a fly rod.

I feel that I have a theory taking shape that combines still life aesthetics with what I have been gleaning from Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound and Andrew Wyeth of late.  I dare not put it into words just yet for fear that I’ll sound just as obtuse as Hemingway did when explaining his theories that combined Cezanne’s paintings with his style of writing:

I was learning something from the painting of Cezanne that made writing simple true sentences far from enough to make the stories have the dimensions that I was trying to put in them.  I was learning very much from him but I was not articulate enough to explain it to anyone.

No, there is no typo above.  That is what Hemingway actually wrote in A Moveable Feast.

I do think I have something cooking that combines literary Imagism with Andrew Wyeth’s Regionalism and my own storehouse of Proustian memories.  I’m exploring it as best I can during these crowded-schedule days.

Thanks for reading.

 

Thinking About Closure

I’m seriously considering placing an 8 x 10″ matte on this and declaring it “finished.”  I only have about an hour invested in it, maybe 90 minutes.  I didn’t time myself this time.  I won’t be able to work on it the rest of this week, because I leave for school before daylight, and return when it’s almost dark.  I was depending on the natural light outdoors, rather than studio lamps.  I liked the clean, northern light that was on the door as I sketched it.

I have looked at a number of Andrew Wyeth drybrush “vignettes” and have often been just as fascinated with all the empty void throughout the composition as I have his tightly detailed focus areas.  So, I think I might just call this a “drybrush sketch” and be done with it.  That way, I can start fresh on a new one of this same subject, and perhaps push the details further on it.

It’s been a great day.  Thanks for sharing it with me.

Watercoloring in the “Cave” as Temperatures Fall

As the Arlington, Texas temperatures dip to 53 degrees, I feel more excitement in the air.  I love the coming of winter, and one of the many reasons for my painting old dilapidated doors and doorknobs is that they remind me of the kind of doors I saw as a child when I stayed with grandparents, particularly during the winter holidays.  Just seeing these old doorknobs reminds me of their cold, clammy farmhouses and the odors of kerosene heaters burning throughout the winter.  We would bundle in patchwork quilts, snuggle into sofas and watch TV, passing the cold, dark Southeast Missouri winter days.  I like reliving those memories when I paint subjects such as this.

Pretty soon, I’m going to have to close my garage door, though I must admit I’ve really enjoyed the view of my quiet neighborhood during this Sunday.  People are staying indoors, and very few cars have passed by this way.

Thanks for reading.

In the Garage with Andrew Wyeth

Ernest Hemingway lifted me again this morning.  Looking up at a set of doors at the neglected end of my garage, I noticed how the the morning overcast light was creating interesting patterns on the abused wooden surface.  I got out my tools and removed a knob and locking plate from one other doors and fastened it to this one, and then set to work sketching it out on an 8 x 10″ 300 lb. cold-pressed watercolor surface.  I’m barely in to it, but very interested at this point.  I’m going to do the “Hemingway thing” and lay it aside while I’m “hot” for it, knowing I’ll return to it gladly.  Several chores await my tending, so I walk away, satisfied that I have a fun art task awaiting me.

Thanks for reading.  What a splendid day, and it’s not even noon yet!

Don Williams in the Kitchen

The exhaustion from last night’s show sent me to bed by 11:00.  What a surprise to awaken in the predawn, doze and ponder awhile, then rise at 6:37 a.m. on a Sunday.  Though the morning temperature recorded 65 degrees, I knew that a cold front was promised later, so I decided to rise and wait for it.  I’m not sure why I put on the Don Williams Gold CD–I don’t consider myself a country & western devotee, but I was in the mood for it this morning.  Perhaps it was because of a song I listened to performed by my guitar buddy and long-time confidant Jim Farmer the other night.  I just wanted to hear the words again to “Good Ole Boys Like Me.”  As those words filled my kitchen, I went to work on coffee, fried potatoes & onions, sausages and biscuits (I’ve gotten on that kick recently).  The Don Williams song I replayed, again and again.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I’ll probably put those words at the end of this post.

I took my breakfast into the garage, raised the door, and enjoyed the neighborhood quiet a little after 7:00.  My awakened mind was all over the map, but above all, I hung onto some words I read last night from Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (during a lull in the art event).  This continues the idea from my last post:

When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written, to keep my mind from going on with the story I was working on.  If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. . . . afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again.  I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing; but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

That was a timely oracle for me.  For years, I have had the practice of keeping several watercolors in progress at once, so I would never come to the end of one and have nothing left, and have to begin at the very beginning of a new piece.  Well, now I find myself in that spot I have successfully avoided for so long–no watercolors in progress.  What to do now?  Well, I read some more Hemingway, write in my journal, think, and eventually some kind of image will bubble to the surface charged with all the emotions that compel me once again to pick up the brush.

In the meantime, I have been playing with autumn leaves, and this morning, I took a few more stabs at them, not sure about what I was doing.  And I made another sketch of a vintage doorknob and locking plate attached to a damaged door.  Perhaps one of these will “take hold” and be ready for me to resume tomorrow after lunch.  We’ll see.

Well, here is yet another smoke signal, message in a bottle, or whatever you call these blog endeavors.  They have become my life blood, and I thank all of you who read them and respond.  I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

Thanks for reading, and I close with those words from Don Williams that warmed my kitchen this morning:

When I was a kid Uncle Remus he put me to bed
With a picture of Stonewall Jackson above my head
Then daddy came in to kiss his little man
With gin on his breath and a Bible in his hand
He talked about honor and things I should know
Then he’d stagger a little as he went out the door

CHORUS:
I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees
And those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me—
Hank and Tennessee!
I guess we’re all gonna be what we’re gonna be
So what do you do with good ole boys like me

Nothing makes a sound in the night like the wind does
But you ain’t afraid if you’re washed in the blood like I was
The smell of cape jasmine thru the window screen
John R. and the Wolfman kept me company
By the light of the radio by my bed
With Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head

[CHORUS]

When I was in school I ran with the kid down the street
But I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed
But I was smarter than most and I could choose
Learned to talk like the man on the six o’clock news
When I was eighteen, Lord, I hit the road
But it really doesn’t matter how far I go

[CHORUS]

Artistic Inspiration from Ernest Hemingway

Interior of my Man Cave

This is a delicious moment on a quiet Texas Saturday afternoon.  I’m sitting in my Man Cave with the garage door open, watching the occasional dead leaf flutter in and out of the waning sunlight across the neighbor’s yard.  The afternoon was a flurry of activity as I prepared more cards and matted additional prints to take to an art event that begins at 6:00 this evening (hopefully) my final art show of the year.

I arrived about half an hour early this morning for the event load-in.  I had no idea what kind of Gift awaited me in that space of thirty minutes.  Taking a seat outside the barn of the K Star Ranch in Mansfield, Texas, I looked out across the sprawling land and saw the makings of a winter landscape beneath those overcast skies.  The rolling countryside could just as well have been Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and I could just barely visualize the image of an aged Andrew Wyeth hobbling gingerly along the distant fence line.  Wyeth was on my mind, because I had spent some time early this morning watching a documentary about his life while enjoying a country breakfast of fried potatoes & onions, sausage, cheese and coffee.  The cool, crisp morning that greeted me felt like winter already, though the official day is still a couple of weeks away.  I had to pull the comforter a little tighter about my face as I dozed in the pre-dawn, and noticed that the cat was sleeping closer to me than usual as well.  The house was quite chilly.  And then later, as I sat at the ranch, I noted the muted colors of the winter landscape and the heaviness of the dark sky.

While waiting for the load-in time to arrive, I mused about my recent work and wondered what kind of painting I should pursue next.  I wasn’t sure at that point.  I then resumed my reading of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, which fortunately I had brought along with me.  And these were the words that greeted me:

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next.  That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made.  I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry.  You have always written before and you will write now.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.”  So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

What a relief swept over me!  How splendid when a writer delivers an oracle fitting for a visual artist.  Though at the moment I was unsure of what to pursue next in watercolor, I felt that reassurance–I have always painted before and I will paint again.  All I need is to lay down one true stroke with the pencil or the watercolor brush, and then go on from there, as I have done thousands of times before.  So simple, yet so penetrating.  I felt a genuine gratitude to Hemingway for speaking to me in the quiet of the morning the way he did.

One of my philosophy students yesterday shared a journal entry of a sign she had seen in a bookstore window in Paris–The fact is, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are more real to me than my next-door neighbors.

Well, I feel that way this afternoon about Hemingway and Wyeth.

Thanks for reading.

Finished the Trinidad, Colorado Watercolor

Savoy Coffee, Trinidad, Colorado

It felt good this evening, signing off on this large 22 x 28″ watercolor of downtown Trinidad, Colorado.  This piece was started a couple of months ago, with great enthusiasm, then the excitement melted away as the painting took on a dullness that I found discouraging.  Yesterday, finally, I managed to sharpen the contrast in the composition, deepen the reds, and get more aggressive with the tree shadows.  Today I spent my time mostly cleaning up details of lamp posts, shadows cast off of various objects, laying in the sidewalk, and then finally tonight, working on the brick textures in the street.  I enjoyed the brickwork so much that I feel I could have done that for several more hours, but I worry about overworking a watercolor, as I have done time and time again.  I hope it didn’t happen this time.  I’ll know within the next several days, I suppose.

Thanks for reading, and thanks also for all the times you logged on and viewed this painting as it went through its long gestation period.

Resuming the Watercolor of Trinidad, Colorado

Savoy Coffee Shop in downtown Trinidad, Colorado

For about two months, I have been of a mind to throw this watercolor away, nothing was going the way I wanted it to.  After letting it lay dormant for weeks, I took it to school today and decided after my classes were finished to see if I could salvage it.  Fortunately, the painting turned itself around today, and I am very pleased with the direction it is taking.  I darkened the shadows in many areas, and intensified the reds in several other places.  Finally, I laid in the basic wash for the street and put down the yellow striping.

Sitting and staring at it from across the classroom, I recorded eight more observations of things that need to be done with the picture, so I am still a good ways from finishing it.  But I am much happier with it today than I have been in a long, long time.

The watercolor measures 22 x 28″ and I must say I was lost in it for a good while.  That is why I laid it aside.  I was exhausted by the process and unhappy with the results, until this afternoon.  I have locked the painting away in my classroom, and for the time being, have decided only to work on it during the afternoons following classes.  I’ll tend other important matters at home in the evenings.

I have all my art work on display and for sale in my classroom (Room 114) at Arlington Martin High School until December 21 when we go home for the Christmas holidays.  This is something I have done every December for a number of years now.  It is nice to see all the work out in front of me, not only while I’m teaching (it’s in the back of the classroom, in my line of sight, over the students’ heads) and in the afternoons while I’m enjoying coffee and working on my big Trinidad watercolor.

Thanks for reading.

 

Fort Worth Stockyards Cattle Drive Watercolor Delivered to the Gallery

I am pleased to report that I have finished this cattle drive painting, and delivered it to the Weiler House Fine Art Gallery this afternoon (http://www.weilerhousefineart.com).

Today was one of the best Sundays I have known in a long time.  I awoke shortly after 8:00 (without an alarm).  I felt rested and refreshed.  Turning on my computer, I was gratified to find a number of posts on this blog and on Facebook, affirming what I had posted the day before, and giving me plenty of encouragement in my watercolor pursuits.  I was pleased to enter the Man Cave early, and not only finish this painting, but sign off on a number of other pieces: my Lucky Strike still life watercolor, and a pair of antique door knob renderings.  I then set to work on some watercolor renderings of autumn leaves, and really like the beginning of the work.

Aside from watercoloring, I managed to get in some fabulous reading from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau.  He really touched me with the following words, written on June 22, 1840:

He is the true artist whose life is his material; every stroke of the chisel must enter his own flesh and bone and not grate dully on marble.

Tonight found me enjoying the outdoors as I sat outside the University Park Barnes & Noble Store and enjoyed more words from Thoreau, and some excellent comments from the catalogue of the Wyeth exhibit at Tyler Art Gallery (a good artist friend surprised me with the catalogue as a gift yesterday as we toured the collection).  Above all, I felt gratitude for a good, positive day.

Thanks for reading.

Final Decisions on the Cattle Drive Watercolor

Longhorn Cattle Drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards

Returning from the Tyler Art Museum today (viewed the Wyeth exhibit), I entered my Man Cave with renewed inspiration to wrap up some unfinished work.  I completed the Lucky Strike cigarette tin watercolor (already posted to the blog), and then turned my attention to this large piece.  I worked further on the central and right cowboy riders, then worked further on the right-hand side of the composition, particularly the longhorns that had been barely “washed” in.  Then I set the painting up on my drafting table, focused some lights on it, and sat back in a chair for a long period of time, staring at the piece and trying to decide whether or not it is finished.  I still don’t know.

Man Cave Drafting Table with Cattle Drive Watercolor

There are several factors at work contributing to my indecision: 1. the studio lights at night are never as good as the daylight. 2. my watercolor has considerably less contrast than the photos that I took on site at the Stockyards.  3. the hot, triple-digit temperatures on that day in August are still vivid in my memory of this moment.  Therefore, I don’t know whether to leave the watercolor as it is–light, somewhat atmospheric and suggesting dust rising off the streets–or deepen the contrast of shadows and highlights.  I didn’t think it wise to make this decision at night in the studio, feeling the fatigue of today’s 5-hour round trip.  So I chose instead to put the painting to bed and come to Fort Worth to my favorite site for a time of reflection, reading, journaling and enjoying warm coffee.  I’ll make a decision tomorrow on this painting (and hopefully, God, hopefully!) finish it.

Thanks for reading, dear friends.