You may miss the changes in Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 during your first quick glance at today's reproduction of the painting. They may appear minor because of the small size of the reproduction. But, again, they are surprisingly important. Zoom in (its in HD!). In the left panel you will see the changes in the feet and legs of the woman, and in the right hand of the man. Mostly I worked on the woman's feet and legs. Her back leg moved forward, and her toes became defined. Her legs, one after the other, generate a vertical plane which produces a spatial corridor between the man and the woman. It is important compositionally, and emotionally!
For the last two days my studio time has been divided like this: First, Experimental drawing. Second: Enhancing minor elements of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Yesterday I spent two-thirds of my time on the drawing. It is difficult to believe, but the decision making on the woman's feet and legs took well over an hour. Basically. I think I can sustain this daily rhythm of working for at least another week. As you know, I very much want to move onto the next painting, but I feel this is as important to me as "Joy of Life" was to Matisse and "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was to Picasso (both reproduced below my work). 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. It is difficult for me to go through the ups and downs of internal, physical, intellectual, and consequently, creative energy. The last few days feel creatively low. But, who am I to judge? I am just the guy making the stuff. In any case, right now I feel today will be the day I return to full creativeness. Yesterday was a typical day of energy seeping back in, a day of returning to the way I prefer to feel. Yesterday's middle drawing is the best, so I show it first. My interest in surface it apparent in drawings #2 and #3. These exhibit my great interest in the emotional subtlety that minor forms emote within the overall form of the human face. Knowing this, I looked back at the works of Lucian Freud, which is a relevant comparison (see an image of a work by Lucian Freud after my work).
This drawing is all I have from yesterday. It seems to be a celebration and exploration of drawing skills. I have little to say because I don't feel great emotional attachment to this drawing. It was pleasurably analytical in the making.
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 am returning to those things for which I have affection and humor. Two days ago I made this drawing. Both of the figures are well coifed. I will be back in the studio today.
This past week I have been doing a couple of things in earnest. First, and mostly, I have been drawing, using it to reassess the quality of my image-making and my form-making. Secondly, I have begun stretching the three canvases required for my next painting, a large triptych (side panels: 50X38 inches, central panel: 60X50 inches). Yesterday's drawing is rather unique in my oeuvre. It is a classical facade with strong volumes. I also believe there is a somewhat subdued, but very present, resurgence of a sense of humor that was present in much of my earliest figurative work.
The one thing yesterday's drawings have in common is their origination via a compositional bias. In the drawing above I began with an L-shape, and in the drawing below below I began with a U-shape. From there both drawings took off on their own. I believe these drawings are preparatory works for my next painting. That next painting is planned as a triptych. The compositional solution will be built around the problem of animating three panels. The two side panels will be smaller than the middle panel. I am imagining the smaller, left and right panels, will have single figures (male and female), while the central panel will contain interaction between the two figures. It is the problem of interactivity, between the two figures, that is behind the inquiry seen in yesterday's drawings. These drawings are studies in a means to instigate the interaction. In addition, I have always enjoyed inventing abstract three-dimensional forms. Yesterday's drawings marry my recent interest in human figures with my old love of robustly three-dimensional objects. Here, these two intense interests come together. The vigorous third-dimension created by the objects (the initial "L" and "U") carried over into the human figures. This outcome is very rewarding.
I have been working and re-woring the man's head in the left panel. You would have thought I had gotten it right already. It isn't just the head! It's the body as well. His right leg (on viewer's left) has to be extended. His right shoulder has to enlarge in reaction to the size of his head. And yes, his jaw line has to be tweaked, giving it less of a simple curve. And, with the latter alteration, his ear may have to be lifted! And so it goes. My biggest hope is the lessons I have learned in making this painting, extended as they have been over 35 re-visits to this painting, will be intuitively internalized and my way through paintings to come will be quicker and easier. BTW: when I extend the man's right knee and leg, and enlarge his right shoulder, the composition will substantially improve.
(Note about reproduction: the image of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 in relatively high resolution. This allows you to zoom-in for a better view of this nearly completed painting. It looks better in a larger format than the one which initially appears on your screen). Yesterday was an abundant and interesting day of drawing. It began with me examining closely a man's head looking right (this, of course relates to the man's head I wrote so much about in today's first paragraph). Then on to a study of a woman's head and neck, à la Modigliani. And finally a robust drawing with both the man and the woman. I finally found a the head for the man on the right. Like everything else in the painting, Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014, that man's head went through a myriad of appearances until I found one I could accept as true.
Yesterday's drawing returned me to my occasional play with relative sizes. In this case, man versus woman. It is also further investigation into the space created when an object hits a wall (revisiting a similar inquiry seen in the drawing reproduced in yesterday's post). Consequently the shadow defines space between itself, the wall, and the floor. There is a third piece of research. It is the complex invention that is the woman's body. Distorted, as it is, in order to animate the spatial composition. Her crisscrossed limps and torso are severely foreshorten. Her complexity of form, and her relatively large size, are juxtaposed against the comparatively simple upright form, and small size, of the man. |
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May 2024
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