The Artist in Her Studio

Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio, 24.8 x 31.7, oil on canvas

Me, Favorite Painting So Far, 16 x 20, oil on Ampersand Gessobord

I was never a fan of Rembrandt (I am now) until I saw Simon Schama's The Power of Art series and the segment on Rembrandt began with this painting. I loved it. This young artist, Rembrandt in his 20s, stands back from the power of a white canvas that radiates light; inspiration. I loved the idea that the empty canvas was not the "enemy" as the "white page" was portrayed by Hemingway ("Oh, poor me, I'm an artist") but as something really great, a "light bringer."

When I went to Italy in 2004, I spent a couple of nights in Munich. The first night after I arrived (in the morning) I literally fell asleep without knowing it. I woke up some time later the window was open and light from an Indian restaurant down the street was coming through the window into my otherwise dark room. I decided I wanted to paint the scene since I haven't tried any figures at all since I started this painting thing, except for the figures on the thangka I did FIRST in 2009.

As I painted on the Ampersand Gessobord I experimented with colors. I used Alizarin crimson because it's so beautiful, but it's also intense and transparent. I also used Indian Yellow, same reasons, and Ultramarine Blue, same reasons. I used a new kind of black that Gamblin has come up with, Chromatic Black, and liked it. It doesn't act like "black" and take over everything; it just wanted to join in and help, and did beautifully. I used Gamblin's Zinc white, for the most part, but then Titanium white for highlights.

Then in the midst of painting this I realized WHAT I was painting (besides wanting to play with colors and remember that moment and paint a figure). When I left Munich I was heading to Verona where I was looking for anything I could to help me imagine the world of one of the characters of Martin of Gfenn. I was going to study Italian, follow Goethe and look at paintings. I would say now (and I realized as I worked on this painting) I was looking for inspiration in the outside world.

As I painted I realized I was painting the opposite of Rembrandt's painting. He is in a studio, looking at a canvas. There are no visible windows and the light comes from the canvas. He's active, attentive. In my painting, the artist is konked out, one could say passive, but I'm not sure sleep this intense is passive. That was hard-core, give-it-all-you-got sleeping. Realizing I was painting inspiration, which was coming through the window from the outside world, I decided to use gold leaf on  the wall above the subject's head. Ultimately, I didn't. I used Gamblin's gold paint which worked better and looked better to me than the cheezey coppery fake gold leaf I had ordered. I can use it for something else. The Gamblin gold is bronze particles but mixes beautifully with the Indian yellow for a more intense "gold" and it's shiny.

Descanso Falls in December

18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Cornflowers

Cornflowers in My Garden

This is a small (8 x 10) oil on a deep-cradle (1 1/2 inch) Ampersand gesso board so it doesn't need to be framed. It was incredibly fun to paint. These are some of the few flowers in my garden that the gophers are not interested in! I was a bit worried about the colors as I was painting, but a bee came into the shed as I was working and hovered over the flowers in the painting. Risky for her, but solid confirmation for me!

Also impressionism is a combination of painting wet into wet paint and not wearing ones glasses. Impatience, color, myopia.

Thus It Was

 Gamblin Artist's Oils blends all their leftover paint together into a conglomeration of colors they call "Torrit Gray." They offer a challenge to artists to paint only in that gray, black and white. I gave it a shot this week. This is an illustration of a poem by Dag Hammarskjöld's poem, "Thus It Was."

If I get up the guts to enter the contest, and if I were to win, it would be a substantial amount of art material. This is 8 x 10 on Ampersand gesso board. 



Thus It Was 

I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.

Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.

The Three Graces

It's 8 x 10 water media in a silver frame and the colors are a LOT prettier in real life!

This is actually a painting of a little girl spinning around in the yard on a perfect summer day. I don't know where the idea came from but it was a persistent image so I sketched it some time ago and tried painting it today. I used Ampersand claybord but I am not sure I understand how this surface can be best used. I'll keep playing around with it.

Blood Oranges and Not

Indoor natural light with flash

Oranges, 5 x 7 Watercolor and Aquarelle Pencils on Ampersand Aquabord
Outdoor natural light

Try Again Another Day!

Interesting discovery today. I was attempting a watercolor of the mock crab blossoms currently in bloom. The painting did not work.

Last week I was attempting a watercolor of a planting of petunias. That didn't work.

These two paintings didn't work for the same reason. I realized today that when I photograph something I want to paint I use the lens to compose a painting, to fill a rectangle. When I paint from life, I paint exactly what I see in front of me because that's what painting from photo sketches has taught me to do. Today I was painting a life-size version of the mock crab blossoms in front of me; last week I was painting a life-size version of petunias. I made no effort to "compose" a painting used to having that work already accomplished when I start to paint -- THAT must be one of the challenges of "plein air" painting (god I find that term pretentious but I imagine it isn't). Fortunately, with the Ampersand aquabord, I can just wash failure right off the surface!