Tomorrow, I return to work after this delicious two-week Christmas/New Year vacation. I took out last night’s watercolor sketch and looked at it with rested eyes, and decided it needed some “finish” work. Now it is signed, sleeved at 5 x 7″ in an 8 x 10″ white mat and for sale. $50. Im ready for the next experiment.
Thanks for reading.
After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art. Art is a result. It is the trace of those who have led their lives. It is interesting to us because we read of the struggle and the degree of success the man made in his struggle to live.
Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
Thanksgiving break could not have come at a better time for me–time to rest up, get stronger from this lingering sinus infection, and devote some quality time to reading and watercoloring. Going back over my computer files, I’m glad I dug up this photo of an abandoned tire shop somewhere in Atoka County, Oklahoma. Whoever owns this wretched piece of real estate has no idea that someone drove by, turned his head, continued to think about what he saw in passing, and turned his vehicle around on the highway to return to the spot, get out and photograph it from multiple angles while nearby a pair of deer hunters dressed in camouflage smoked cigarettes and stretched their legs, walking around their parked vehicle. I have now completed two small watercolors of the site in two days. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tack on a third. Every square foot of this structure seems to narrate a story to me.
Thanks for reading.
I paint in order to remember.
I journal when I feel alone.
I blog to remind myself I am not alone.
Cotter Cabin Deja Vu
If you have been following my post, you may have read that I “froze up” on my first large painting of this historic cabin in Cotter, Arkansas. So, I began a second one, and once the juices began flowing, I went back to the original and finished it. Now I’ve decided to bring closure to this one (though it appears I won’t finish tonight, as much as I wish I could!). Right now, I’m up-to-my-elbows in it, and very interested.
Today was quite a day. I rose shortly after sunrise, went to the historic Handley neighborhood and took some digital photos that I think will yield some good watercolor compositions. By the time 7:30 arrived, I decided to go on into downtown Fort Worth to see how Sundance Square looks in the low-angle morning sunlight. Choosing to avoid Loop 820 and Interstate 30, I chose to stay on Lancaster, finding it smooth sailing, relatively free of traffic, and conducive therefore for a speed trap. Yep. Ticketed for speeding.
Once I got to Sundance Square, I found exquisite yellow sunlight all over the downtown architecture, and focused mostly on Haltom Jewelers, taking about 40 more photos from all angles. Then I settled into Starbuck’s on Sundance (hadn’t yet had my coffee-fix), opened Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and found myself lost in a swoon. I cannot get enough of this guy! The more he spoke of primal sensations taking us back to childhood memories, the more I thought of the Cotter Cabin with its look, its smells, and its reminders of my parents’ roots in Southeast Missouri near the Mississippi River. The smell of the damp, rotting wood stuck in my throat, even though I was in modern upscale downtown Fort Worth. I didn’t want to leave. I don’t know how long I lingered there, reading, writing in my journal, and gazing across scores of years into my primal past. I couldn’t wait to get back to the house and resume this painting.
So, yesterday it was William Carlos Williams with his Imagism. Today it was Proust and his “recollections” (Ha Ha–I call my company Recollections 54) as well as William Wordsworth and his “child is father to the man” mantra. It’s been a fabulous day, traffic ticket notwithstanding.
Thanks for reading. Maybe I’ll finish this Cotter Cabin Deja Vu tomorrow.
1903 Arkansas Cabin
Good afternoon! After a long weary drive, Sandi and I are relaxing at a Mount Vernon, Texas Rest Area along Interstate 30. We still have a couple of hours’ driving time before we get home. However, I found that there was wireless Internet service here, so I thought “Why Not?”
On the final morning of the Plein Air on the White River event (Saturday), Bill Barksdale drove me to this site to see (I believe) the third home built for the railroad boom town of Cotter, Arkansas. The date (I believe) is 1903. When we pulled up to this cabin around 6:30 a.m., I could not believe my eyes. The longer I gazed at this structure, the more “Andrew Wyeth drybrush” details I saw all over it. I wanted to spend the entire day just rendering it in pencil. But, plein air you know! So I sketched it as quickly as possible, got out the water and brushes, and went to work on it. We only had about 90 minutes to work, so I did what I could. Hopefully I’ll post the watercolor sketch after I get home tonight. But for now, this is my easel, and in front of it you can see the fabulous setting that I had exclusive access to during that delicious early Saturday morning.
Ready to head the rest of the way home. Thanks for reading. Today and tomorrow I will try to post to the blog all the rest of the final details of this fabulous event (including my surrealist Emergency Room visit).
Aged Desoto on a Farm in Cotter, Arkansas
Thunderstorms and heavy rains are predicted to arrive this afternoon. I wanted to get out in front of the weather, so I rose at 6:00 with my friend Bill Barksdale (he and Sandy are providing wonderful lodging for Sandi and me) and we drove to a farm outside of Cotter, Arkansas, owned by Helen Lacefield. She graciously allowed us access onto the property, and I was delighted to find this aged Desoto sitting in the weeds out in a pasture. Mrs. Lacefield shared the information that her husband arrived in this vehicle to pick her up on their first date! I could not stop thinking about that as I worked on this composition, admiring the beautiful morning light of a rising sun that played all over the surface of this vehicle. I got lost in the golds, reds, lavenders, and the patina of rust that was slowly taking possession of the car. The more I looked at it, the more I felt it looking back at me in the morning silence! From my early childhood, I looked at the fronts of cars as faces, with the headlights being the eyes and the grill being the mouth, and the logo plate on the front resembling the nose. I always thought Desotos and Buicks and Oldsmobiles had the most interesting countenances in the early fifties.
I will probably re-post this later in the day. Bill is a professional photographer, and he took many shots while he was on the scene. This photo unfortunately had to be lifted from my BlackBerry as I forgot to pack the cable that connects my digital Nikon camera to this laptop. After shooting for quite awhile, Bill had to move on to assist some other artists in finding the locations they wished to paint today. I remained on the scene, and had this small watercolor sketch finished in about 90 minutes.
Thanks for reading.
Smaller Antique Store from Winfield, Missouri
This is my fifth and final post today of the five framed watercolors I picked up from the Weiler House Gallery (http://www.weilerhousefineart.com). Bill Ryan, the proprietor of the gallery, does a spectacular job framing, and is helping me get the paintings presentable for my first One-Man Show this September. Those of you following my blog may recall this painting from January of 2010. Recently I completed the same composition on a full-size sheet of watercolor paper. That large painting has also been framed and posted on today’s blog.
Thank you for reading.
Winfield, Missouri store along Highway 79
Mercy, mercy me! I cannot shake loose to find quality time to paint! Just finished my last college lectures and am preparing to give finals, and high school has a way of accelerating in the final weeks. I worked on this painting a little last night, this morning, and again this afternoon. I am covered up with high school preparations for tomorrow’s classes, have fallen behind on grading, yet this painting is no longer whispering from the corner of the studio, but shouting, indeed shrieking for my attention. And it’s all I want to look at now. I suppose the only positive thing that I can say is–it appears Icould be finished with this by the weekend. I would truly like to have it signed and delivered by then. That is my goal.
The painting is large by my usual standards (about 22 x 28″), and I seem to get lost every time I get involved in rendering the shadows under the awning, or the depths of the interior seen through the windows, or even the wood grains on the carpentry that graces the front of this dying structure. This morning, I began laying in the lines for brickwork along the left side of the composition, and believe me, I will get lost once I begin the brick rendering. I love this part of a painting–when I know I am more than half-way to the finish. That is when the quality of my breathing changes, my pulse slows, and I feel that I have entered another world.
O.K., back to the school work. Maybe I’ll be privileged enough to return to this tonight.
Thank you for reading.
Winfield, Missouri Antique Store in Progress
I am starting to repair some of the bad beginnings to this painting. It started out as a poured watercolor, and much of the pouring of the foliage in the background got away from me. Thanks to the brush, and some patience, the foliage is starting to look a little better. I had also exerted considerable clumsiness in rendering this store facade in pencil. Today, thanks to the eraser and a good triangle, I “re-plumbed” the structure and now it actually appears to be standing upright as it should. Some of the faulty perspective lines of the siding have also been repaired. The building looks more “correct” now.
I had the rare privilege of spending the good part of today in my studio. The past week of school was vomitous, with state-mandated tests taking up all the mornings, and then entire “regular” day scheduled classes crushed into the afternoon hours–felt like 15-hour workdays and I came home every evening exhausted and disgusted. Glad that is behind me now. Today was a much better day.
Winfield, Missouri is a sleepy Mississippi River town on Highway 79 northwest of St. Louis. I traveled this road frequently during my university years as the highway connected my home with my campus five hours away. Two summers ago, while on vacation, I decided to follow this old river highway once more to see if there were any sites worth capturing in watercolor. I passed this establishment just as the sun was coming up. I have already painted it twice (smaller compositions that you can see on my website http://www.recollections54.com) but now have decided to go for some size and detail.
Thanks for reading.
Union, Missouri
This watercolor means a great deal to me. It was the first work I ever sold through a gallery. The buyer was returning to her native Germany, and told the gallery director that the house reminded her of farm homes in the “Old Country.” I photographed the old house when I was returning to Texas from a visit with family in St. Louis. As I stood on the property, assuming the place was abandoned, I heard a dog suddenly bark in the distance, then I heard a door slam, and immediately an old pickup truck emerged from behind the house. Fearing I was about to be chased off the property, I left in a hurry.
This was one of my first serious attempts at Andrew Wyeth’s drybrush technique. I still remember how painstaking I was, when I tried to render the wood grains on the old siding of the house. The tall weeds were also filling me with anxiety as I attempted to render them. The siding and the weeds were first attempts.
Watercolor nearing finish in studio
(Painting now finished, on sale at the Weiler House Fine Arts Gallery–$400)
It’s terrific, having this Saturday free to return to watercolor, I’ve missed it so. This work in progress was posted a few weeks ago. Though it might not be readily apparent, much detail has been added throughout this day. I know, the Devil is in the details, but I just love it so, whittling away at small areas that few viewers are going to see–blistered paint on wood, decaying wood grains, lichen on the concrete, subtle changes in the shadow colors. I just get lost in all of that.
This abandoned store is in the town of Winfield, Missouri, a Mississippi riverfront town on Highway 79 northwest of St. Louis. I was following this winding road back to my old college stomping grounds, in Kirksville, Missouri. It had been decades since I last traveled this route. I wasn’t disappointed. Ghosts of memories past drifted across my conscious, Proust-like, as the day unrolled. I photographed this store just an hour or so after the sun rose, and really wished to stop on the spot to do some watercolor sketches, but I decided instead to trust my digital camera, and my own interest to return to the subject later. After all, Kirksville was still over 200 miles away via meandering state highways through farm country. I knew I would be driving most of the day, because of the constant stoppages for photographing potential watercolor sites–and I did get out of the Jeep twice to do sketchbook work rapidly in pencil. All the while, my tension between lingering and moving on echoed the words of Robert Frost–“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.”
I really hope I can get this painting finished by tonight. I have several others waiting, and I’m interested in all of them at the same time–so scatter-brained this day!
Recollections 54 The Art of David Tripp 