Happy New Year! and... welcome to a year that will be one of transition. Transition is the one thing that is assured. There is an old saying, "Change is the one constant." Well here it is. Yesterday's drawing is an announcement of change, but not the first. If you have been a consistent reader of my blog, you will have seen this coming in the last blog post of 2014. Strange it feels that despite my dedication to figurative art I am very excited about this newly embraced abstract direction. Philip Guston once said to me that I was a painter who enjoyed making objects. Back then I felt I'd rather make human figures. In actuality, I believe I prefer inventing expressive forms more than making human figures. Yesterday's drawing is strangely about both, mixing the human element with abstracted forms. It is obvious that this new path is a long one, upon which I have taken an initial step. More than anything, I am trying to follow my intuition in making images. I am dedicating myself toward personal, expressive satisfaction. The human figure alone was not enough, or it was not correct. I felt it held me back. I so much dedicated myself to human references that I impeded my ability to express with color, form, light, and perspective. My desire to make three-dimensional forms in three-dimensional space is immense. It should not be restricted. Given this idea I am going to follow this path which is intuitively motivated. Hang on!
My recent work is telling: I have not been true to myself. I am not interested in the figure as a primary image. I believe it is a conduit to expression, but not the end-all of expression. The abstract power of composition, form, and color, are far more important. As example, my devotion to drawing human couples has been a distraction. Why? It has allowed me to acquire knowledge with little expressive satisfaction. In drawing such a mundane subject I have enhanced my technical abilities. I have enhanced my form making, graphic punctuation, and spatial expression. I accept these abstract qualities as my drops of candy. I enjoy them in the way we all enjoy eating incredibly, perfectly balanced, candies (excellent dark chocolates are my favorites). These satisfyingly sweet qualities are clues to the path I should follow. My repetitive return to the figure, in normal reductive space, has been my distraction. I have begun an effort to break myself of this habit so I may seek my candy. I want to follow the path of most pleasure. Example, I find the man's right leg in yesterday's second drawing extremely pleasureable (his left leg is on the viewer's right). The play of form is animated by the staccato of the toes ending an appendage which flows forward in space, as if hovering above ground. The forward thrust of space is partially created by simple punctuation of dark that mimics a shadow on a floor. Oh! This is so very satisfying to me!
What I need to do now is follow these clues. Follow them like stones laid down in a path. If I do this, I will follow new forms, new spaces, new compositions, and new colors, on my way to multiple satisfactions. I want to walk out of the studio satiated, not feeling as I have recently felt. I have been feeling too much like an explorer with no satisfactory discoveries. Not good. Getting there is never simple and the face of the man in the left panel of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 is example. Yesterday his body thinned a bit and his face now appears to me to be a bit bulbous. So, bit by bit, this gets done. Next move is to appropriately thin his face to make it work with everything in this triptych. That will increase the slightly tilted thrust of his body, which will play nicely against the counter thrusts of the two women. I think when that change occurs I could stop. But I won't! I will examine every form and color. This painting is a lesson in discipline.
Yesterday's drawing was a nice surprise! I have been trying to talk myself into the belief that Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is complete. But every time I touch the painting, it gets better. Yesterday I learned something important. I worked on the hands of the man in the right panel. I was startled by the importance of these hands, not just because of the emotional expression they add to the figure, but also compositionally. The fingers on his right hand (on viewer's left) act as a small plane which helps the viewer fall into the composition using its third-dimensional aspect. I am bolstered by this success. That right man's hands are not complete, but I will wait a day or two for the oil to dry before completing them. Today I will work on the woman's feet in the left panel. Tomorrow I will report to you my perception of this seemingly minor change. I thought the man's hands I changed yesterday to be a minor alteration. Perhaps defining the the woman's feet will be just as important as the man's hands. I really would like to move onto the next painting, but the knowledge I am absorbing as I continue to work on Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is just too important. What I learn now will stay with me forever.
I wrote in yesterday's post that I am accepting my total fascination with the surfaces of three-dimensional forms. You can see this in yesterday's drawing. Yesterday I reproduced a Lucian Freud etching in order to exhibit a common thread between him and I. Today I show you an early Matisse, where he, in his imitable way, plays with the color and light on the three-dimensional surface of the face and upper torso of a woman. The painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is very close to complete. Yesterday's entire studio session was devoted to it, obviously! It is time for final decisions about minutia. Let's think back to some of Henri Matisse's work between 1905 and 1910. Matisse made decisions not to over-detail things like limbs and extremities. In those works of Matisse, feet and hands often appear awkwardly drawn. The viewer is forced to look at those paintings in terms of color, composition, and surface (e.g. Dance of 1910 or Nymph and Satyr of 1909, shown below). As I return to complete Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 I will be making decisions about hands and facial elements (the minutia). This may not happen today. I think I need to step back and breathe a little before I proceed to finish it off.
I got too involved with the form of the man's pants in the left panel. I moved the color toward yellow ochre and didn't notice the color mismatch. It was not until I stepped back at the end of the studio session that this color problem hit me. It disturbs me greatly, mostly because I concentrated on form, and absentmindedly forgot to watch the entire painting. The yellow ochre does not play well with the woman's dress, nor does it reflect the man's pants in the fight panel (not the man in the right panel is the same man as the man in the left panel). In any case, this is a minor problem. All I see now are minor problems. This painting is almost complete, and this fact is the opposite of disturbing.
I like yesterday's drawing. I will not draw today. I will go straight to the painting. A note about reproduction: The painting is evenly lit. In the past, when photographing the painting, I have added lights to the normal overhead bank of lights used during painting. I noticed the extra lights caused areas of color to wash-out. Today's reproduction of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is not quite as vibrant as yesterday's, but overall it is more cohesive because of the even lighting. I continue to grapple with the white paper in reproducing of the drawing. It appears gray in today's reproduction. The choice is always made to exhibit the pencil line, and the consequent form, as best as possible. This does not mean the reproduction perfectly reflects the subtlety of the pencil's values. I will never be satisfied with reproduction. I uploaded a higher resolution reproduction of the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 today. This allows you to increase its size on your computer screen so details can be seen without breakup of its quality. The small step I took yesterday was on the man in the left panel, and surrounding him. On my screen the reproduction is, by default, 6 inches across. In this default reproduction his face appears too round and his chin line a bit too much in the shape of a simple curve. Zooming in you will see better. Of course, I want to make this painting work from all viewing distances. So despite me bragging about yesterday's successful small step, I will make his head work better today. If I appear elated to you, it is because I know the man in the left panel is now authentic. I am in the 34th state of this painting and it is finally in site of completion! For the first time in a long time I feel compelled to finish a painting completely. This does not mean extreme details, like pupils in the eyes, but cleanliness in the quality of the paint, forms, colors, and composition.
Yesterday's drawing is my evil twin. I don't like it much, but it was worthwhile practice. I experimented with shape versus form, and the variations in value required to create the nuances of minor expressive forms within the major form of the face. I really don't like the drawing I made yesterday, but I feel the changes to the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 are successful. The painting has moved in the right direction. As difficult as all these slow but steady alterations have been for me, they are educating me beyond intellectual measure. Yesterday's process, in altering the man's head (in the left panel), was more important than its outcome. Meaning, he isn't finished, but he is closer to completion because he has been felt more deeply. He has been felt as part of the entire painting. Today I will fix his chin, which appears here to be slumped and rounded, then move on to the girls and to finishing both canvases. The play of color and light in the left panel is now splendid. A note about process:Yesterday I approached solving the man's head as part of everything. I abandoned myself completely to feeling my way through his form, color, and position. I did this by sympathizing with his particular need for expression. This has often occurred in my drawing (that's why I enjoy drawing so very much), but this experience has not happened as easily in my painting. Yesterday I willed it to happen in my painting. I believe this has changed my life as a painter. I used my recent drawings to creep up to this ability to sympathize in everything I do. I watched myself draw. When I successfully found images that made expressive sense to me I took mental notes on process. I now know where I should be when painting or drawing. Because of my acceptance of this need to sympathize while in process, my painting, going forward, will be different. I will insist upon a process that makes expressive sense.
The painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 took a turn toward "rightness" with yesterday's changes to the man in the left panel. However, looking at the entire diptych, the man in the right panel needs revision. His stature (or lack of it) is important to the meaning of the painting, both compositionally and emotionally. After the corrections to the man in the left panel, the head of the man in the right panel appears too large. The work demanded by this complex painting is incredibly absorbing and demanding. I am not tired yet. I am dedicated to finishing this painting properly. Somehow I know this painting is a turning point in the acquisition of the knowledge I require to express myself.
Yesterday's drawing is one more study for the man in the left panel of the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Take it for what it is, but once again I have to tell you that the reproductions that appear here pale compared to the actual works. There is no way the subtle play of the pencil lines, and their value contrasts, can be reproduced properly. Even more difficult to reproduce is the complex color values and hues in a painting, especially one as large as Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Don't worry, I will give you some lead time before these works are shown in exhibition. I do not want to be an infinite futz. I liked the arms and hands in this painting's previous version (#6), but this one (#7) is better in a few ways. The new hand gestures are more subtle and have deeper meaning. The overall color scheme is better and more manageable. The colors make greater sense in terms of balance, contrast, light, and form. At last I can see this painting's completion coming. As to mindful art-making, I need to continue to question that. This painting took a rather rough ride to get where it is now. I would prefer to get there without the bumps. Also, the color correction of the heads definitely moved in the right direction. The red floor now plays well with the flesh tones and the table top hue.
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May 2024
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