3:15 PM: this afternoon i unexpectedly began a small, 20x18" oil on portrait linen inspired by one of the photos i shot a few days ago at the aspen art fair. what grabbed me was the cool juxtaposition of the landscape in the background, with it's gorgeously patterned hills, and the art fair itself, with it's white tents and colorfully dressed attendees. i soon ran out of steam, since this is our first day back and we did a lot of driving yesterday. so i'll resume tomorrow morning.
coming tomorrow or tuesday: my review of the current aspen art museum exhibition /
an hour ago we visited a stellar exhibition at the aspen art museum: , Wade Guyton Peter Fischli David Weiss, up through november 26.
i'll write the review, accompanied by photos of the show, once we're back in crestone/baca tomorrow.
returning to oil interior 4 /
3 PM: so far, this is where i'm at with revisions, BELOW right is an hour ago, left: 7/15. in general, there are fewer whites that are pure white, the ferns in the upper left seemed to be an unnecessary distraction, the bottom figure's blouse is more of a pinkish color, and the area surrounding her is mottled rather than a flat color and the table top has a few reflections from the throw draped over the sofa.
if you look at the revised version in quadrants and compare it in that way, you'll see the impact on the eye of the changes i made. especially, i think, the lower and upper left areas.
oil interior 4 before todays intervention
10:24 AM: after reworking oil interior 3 yesterday, i reviewed oil interior 4 and decided it too needs some work; too many white areas, which end up confusing the eye rather than contributing to a coherent whole picture surface.
re-visiting oil interior 3 /
DETAIL of oil interior 3 an hour ago
3:45 PM: after being away from my studio for 48 hours, i came in this morning & cast a critical eye at oil interior 3, which i had considered to be resolved. my fist hit was that the white triangular areas mimicking the spaces left in the photo collage i was working from, were too bright and were attracting too much attention, to the detriment of the composition as a while. so i began working on them, as well as a few other areas like the patterned vase of flowers on the left. i think it's improved. BELOW are side by side comparisons of the 7/11 (right) version & todays.
oil interior 4 after viewing in the house /
DETAIL of oil interior 4 at 2pm
2 pm: the minute i hung oil interior 4 on our east living room wall, where we can get back & view the painting from about 50 feet, i was clear that it needed more work. for one thing, the composition was divided in two because of some of the broken up bits i introduced as a way of riffing on those qualities that are part of the original photo collage. the figure in the foreground also had a triangular spike of white running through it from top to bottom. this is a good example of something not working because it came from my head rather than my gut. it's a lot closer, but may not be there yet. it's good that i'll be away from the studio for 2 days, which will give me a fresh perspective when we return form denver.
BELOW: yesterday, left and today, right.
oil interior 4 completed / or not! /
5:55 PM: i hung it on the east living room wall and it didn't pass the test ! so i'll be back at the easel tomorrow morning.
1:13 PM: about an hour ago i felt the painting was resolved, so i stopped. i'll take it over to the house this afternoon for the acid test & hang it on out east living room wall, where we can get back 40 feet & see how it carries.i think i've taken my experiment with breaking up the image based on the breaks occurring in the photo collage i'm working from. i've taken it a bit further in oil interior 4, but i think both 3 & 4 are exciting paintings.
more work on oil interior 4 /
oil interior 4, 32x32" at the end of my painting day today
3 PM: i did more work today on oil interior4. it still hasn't sung, but it's certainly closer. i'm making discoveries, both coloristic and spatial, as i go, and feeling some of the delights involved in breaking up form.
right now we're in the midst of a raging thunderstorm, which is giving us some much needed precip and will go a long way towards erasing our deficit for the year. this is the period when we get the most rain in our arid environment, due to the seasonal monsoon, which brings moisture up form mexico.
oil interior 4 /
3 PM: stopping here for the day. oil interior 4 has progressed and is in a state of flux. the eye jumps about looking for a place to rest and there is not yet an overall coherence. there are however some beautiful passages. i'm being careful that my idea of breaking up the space based on the breaks created by the photo collage, where the photos don't quite match up or are mounted at an angle to create a continuity in the image, does not overwhelm the art.
it's an interesting idea, which i think works in the previous painting: oil interior 3. but in painting as in any other art form, it's easy to be taken over by an idea and forget essence. the trick for me is to always let the drawing or painting go where it needs to and allow that to draw on my knowledge, skills and passion to shepherd it along the way. there is no recipe, no formula. as far as i'm concerned, while formulas can create very interesting, even compelling results, it produces a lifeless result, devoid of chi.
DETAIL of oil interior 4 moments ago
noon: i'm resuming work on oil interior 4 following our early morning trail walk. the work is progressing intentionally slowly to give the painting time to absorb what i've done & choose it's next move. does that make you think i'm speaking crestonian? well, perhaps so. when you live here long enough, that's what you speak. i'll post more pics as work progresses...
work on OIL INTERIOR 3 continues / starting oil interior 4 /
DETAIL of todays work on oil interior 4
i'm considering oil interior 3 resolved, although i won't know that for sure for a few days. so i began work on oil interior 4, which is based upon the same photo collage of the interior of a renovated firehouse on 23rd st. in manhattan.
i'll continue working on this one after our morning trail walk tomorrow. this time, the breaks in the image, following the naturally occurring breaks from photo to photo in the photo collage, are being introduced beforehand rather than being painted in white on top of the existing image.
at noon, i'm continuing work on il interior 3, digesting yesterdays break up of the space, refining the white shapes i introduced mimicking the shapes created by the juxtaposed photos in the collage i'm working from and cutting down the sheer white of those shapes to a cream, so they integrate better into the composition. i changed & reduced the shape of the white space above her head, and on the left of the carpet, which you can see better if you make the images full screen & toggle back & forth.
getting some ideas by looking at early cubist images of works by picasso & braque, who were at the time living in the same floating studio.
BELOW: yesterdays version on the left; todays right
breaking it up /
DETAIL of oil interior 3 showing the breaks in the image
2:01 PM: we walked up the trail this morning, so i'm stopping early 'cause i hit my limit. about an hour into it, something felt off with oil interior 3. as i looked at the photo collage i'm using for this painting, i noticed the breaks in the image as a result of the collaging together of many individual photographs. i noticed that the resulting breaks in the entire image seemed completely natural to me. they didn't register as mistakes or flaws. on the contrary, they enlivened th image!
since this painting was beginning to feel like a re-hash of far more competent 19th prototypes, i decided to take a walk on the wild side and introduce breaks similar to those in the photo collage. so what you see when the photos don't match up in a white space, usually following the edge of the photograph and the jogging a bit one way or another, depending on the way they were mounted on the white surface.
there are some studies about how we see that suggest that this is actually closer to what the eye does when scanning a real life image; darting from one place to another very rapidly and composing the continuous, unbroken images we're used to seeing. more about this tomorrow; right now i'm wiped out & want to clean my brushes & get back to the house to lie down next to the love of my life!
BELOW: LEFT-the painting as it looked yesterday and RIGHT- as it looked moments ago.
