12:31 pm: i didn't get a good nights sleep and i knew when i woke up that it would actually work to my advantage. i needed fuzzy edges to do what i ended up doing today. i scrabbled it,; scrapped it; sucker-punched it just when it thought it knew what's what; forgot i was making a painting inspired by vermeer and remembered....oh yeah, i'm making marks.
taking grey 3/the lacemaker further /
2 pm: today i decided to take grey 3/the lacemaker further, based on the work i've done over the past week on 2 other vermeer inspired paintings. this one was the first time i introduced vermeer imagery into my grey series. the entire series has been painted over pre-existing collages. at first, perhaps as a gesture of relief at having painted the ano kato series non stop for over a year, they were all strictly abstract plays on the theme of grey.
when vermeer entered the picture, i found his imagery irresistible. having looked lovingly at his paintings in museums around the world for most of my adult life, i'm intimately familiar with them, as well as the work of his dutch 17th c. contemporaries de hooch, et al. the key word here is intimate. the dutch 17th c. genre painters, as they are known, were all about every day, often intimate moments in the lives of their subjects.
if you take a look at my story page, you will learn that this passion of mine for dutch 17th c. genre painting was brought to life by the work of my former mother-in-law, the late niki karagatsi of athens. she and i went together to hat makers shops, shoe makers, 3rd rate eastern european circuses, athens coffee shops.....where we found subjects to paint.
so this is definitely a coming together of many phases of my life as an artist. what's new here is the integration and inclusion of abstract elements. some harken back to my student days in new york, before leaving for my 15 year greek adventure. there i was exposed, for the year i spent at the school of visual arts, to the tail end of the abstract expressionist movement. i met some of those painters, such as franz kline, and was deeply impacted by their work. i had to take a big detour, which turned out to be perfect timing, through the rich cultural environment of the athens of the '60's-'70's in order to come full circle and begin to integrate the explosive energy of the abstract expressionist movement.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE CURRENT STATE OF THE GREY SERIES
stage 3: grey 1/the lacemaker /
3:10 pm: here's the current state of the painting. i'm taking it slow; the tonal balance is very delicate. gotta run into town for food shopping; more later.
today I worked more on "grey 1/the lacemaker." i'm taking it slow; there's a delicate tonal balance I want to maintain, while being loose and gestural with my brush work. at the same time, i'm gaining a deeper feel for vermeer's genius. he's a painter's painter, and I've studied my entire life. in a way I feel I'm seeing him for the very first time. i could feel his excitement when he painted those red threads. without that bit of curled hair hanging to the left of her face, the composition of the lacemaker would fall apart.
grey 1/the lacemaker /
today i began painting over grey 1. the emerging image is, of course, based upon vermeer's the lacemaker, which hangs in the louvre. i say emerging because the underlying collage, in mixed media on canvas, serves, with it's abstract marks, as a fertile breeding ground for this iconic image.
as well, the abstracted grey 1 was painted over an earlier abstract collage which was one of a series i painted in 2014, and can be viewed by clicking on diverse works/recent collages in the drop down menu bar above.
STAGE 1: grey 1/the lacemaker 38x38"
additional work on grey 5/woman with the pearl earings /
2:27 PM: i did more work on this painting today, in spite of the poor light as a result of some heavy snow that moved in.
traces of the abstract collage i painted over can be detected. swirls of gestural marks, faint contours from the curved shapes of paper i had glued to the canvas....
it has, for the first time today, a real presence. a mystery.
this painting represents a coming together of my decades of realist work, my recent forays into abstraction, my study of 10th c. chinese calligraphy and my lifelong passion for indigenous art.
after a couple of inches of snow fell within an hour, the sun broke through at sunset.
continued work on "grey 5/vermeer"...with trepidation...and casper the friendly ghost! /
1:53 pm: we had friends to dinner last night. they liked grey 5/the lady with the pearl necklace a lot and when i said i was going to do more work on it cautioned me not to do too much. in the mean time, our friend chris, director of gremillion & co. fine art in houston, wrote about the detail you see on the right, which has since disappeared. he found it very distracting in an otherwise excellent painting. now, i hadn't noticed it but, i must admit, the passage he pointed out does, when you think about it, bring to mind casper the friendly ghost!
so it was with some trepidation that i entered my studio today to continue work on this painting. as part of the process of taking it further, casper was painted over, and only shows up if you really look for him. but i do feel i had a good day, and grey 5/the lady with the pearl necklace improved significantly.
here are the two side by side; compare them and see if you agree.
don't look away too long; you might miss something! /
2:40 pm: this has happened with another painting in the grey series: grey 3/the lacemaker. this time, i had an irresistible urge to translate vermeer's woman with a pearl necklace. so grey 5 has now become grey 5/woman with a pearl necklace. i may be done painting for the day; if so, i'll resume in the morning. to view the entire grey series, click on the link below.
the wandjinas; how they relate to "grey 5" /
3:02 pm: i was dissatisfied with grey 5 when i saw it this morning. so you can forget about the wandjinas i spoke of (BELOW) . here's the current state:
9:23 am: one of the books i always have close by and look through regularly is burnum burnum's aboriginal australia. one of the chapters that always captures my attention is called the wandjinas. it's about ancient aboriginal rock paintings, with ghostly spirit figures called wandjinas.
i have put grey 5 beside one of the wandjina paintings to show a possible subconscious connection between grey 5 and the wandjinas.
ON THE RIGHT: a detail of grey 5. here's an excerpt from burum:
"Characteristic of Wandjina figures are their large, mouthless heads surrounded by hair which may also be seen as a cloud. and feather-like strokes which are both feathers worn by these beings and the lightning they control."
BELOW: the first page of this chapter, where the story of these ancient aboriginal rock paintings is told.
more work on "grey 5" /
6:03 pm: i just now flipped the image 180, and i think it's vastly improved.
4:37 pm: once again, i can see more work is needed on this one. after such a long absence from my studio, i need to get my groove back. now that i've completed my actionlab editing, i'll be going to the studio earlier, and have more time to paint. i'm also thinking about continuing my ano kato series. i should have a clear stretch of time through the first week in january, and then again starting mid-january.
if you check out the details of grey 5, below, you may agree that there are some interesting passages. but as a whole, it doesn't yet hang together.
2:43 pm: it's an indescribable delight being back at work in my studio. indescribable. i did more work on grey 5, 38x38" which i'm painting over a pre existing collage.
BELOW: 3 details
AND, YES, i did begin painting again today /
6:05 pm: i didn't have to wait till tomorrow.i think it's interesting, but needs work. which means it will likely look very different by tomorrow afternoon. nice try philip, and it's not that bad for my first day back. i need to go deeper.
2:58 pm: if felt odd squeezing my colors onto the palette and starting to paint after all this time!
check out yesterday's post to view the collage i'm working over/into. this painting, now titled grey 5, is 38x38" mixed media on canvas. we'll see tomorrow morning whether it feels resolved or i do more.