8:26 AM: today i’ll be continuing work on the new 5/19/22 oil/collage, which i started yesterday.
in the mean time, we’re expecting a storm, starting as rain about 3pm and turning to snow later this evening into tonight and tomorrow. here’s what the eastern sky looked like at sunrise, with gusty winds continuing to blow from the S/SE.
5/19/22 oil/collage as it looked towards the end of my painting day today
2:45 PM: I found myself getting a little tired of the 16x20” format and fantasizing making a larger painting. so I started work on a 38x40” piece of as yet un-stretched, triple primed portrait linen. at the moment it’s composition merges various elements: our creeks, ancient mosaics , japanese 18th c. master taiga & van gogh, to name a few. there are currently 2 collaged elements: one, top left is a piece of wrapping paper from our last trip to greece & the other, in the lower right is a piece of a u.s. map including detroit.
DETAIL
anschutz from above 2 as it looked moments ago. this is #2 in a series, so far, of 3, all 16x20” oil on linen
2:45 PM:i took anschutz from above 2 back to the house yesterday afternoon. after gazing at it for a time, I decided it needed more work. so this morning I went over the whole painting with a thin wash of off-white oil color, scraped it and then worked into what was left of the previous image. I was in a very useful WTF frame of mind, which helped in walking that thin line between abstraction and representation.
as i’ve said many times before, pure abstraction isn’t my thing, nor is pure realism. I love the painterly, as is obvious in this detail of what I did this morning.
BELOW: all three paintings in the series. you can see how the one i’ve been working on today is more tortured than the other two. but seen together they make sense, it seems to me. all three are, it could be said, a hymn to the painterly.
this is a quote form a diebenkorn catalogue i’ve been perusing: “the ocean park works were never abstract landscapes of his surroundings; they were a far more personal synthesis of his own decisions, attitudes and process within a particular microcosm to which he was sensitive.”
that about sums it up, i’d say.
5-16-22 anschutz interior 3 as it looked moments ago
1PM: i’ve been working on this one most of the day and so far here’s where it’s at.
the seated female figure is now less identifiable, less specific,more integrated into the whole composition and more a part of the architectural scaffolding, which creates triangular shapes, allowing the viewer to construct their own interpretations. light and shadow play across the surface.
it may be time to stretch another 16x20'“ canvas and allow this one time to breathe.
this morning i’m continuing work on 5-16-22 anschutz interior 3. i’ll post updates as they become available.
quote of the day, from richard diebenkorn: now, the idea is to get everything right…it’s not just color or form or space or line…it’s everything all at once.
5-16-22 anschutz interior 3, stage 1
3pm: I started 5-16-22 anschutz interior 3 this afternoon. it’s inspired by the same series of photos from above I used for 1 & 2. so this is an early stage, and 1&2 are not necessarily resolved.
5-13-22 anschutz interior 1 following todays modifications
1:38 PM: flooring the modifications I made to 5-14-22 anschutz interior 2, I boldly tackled 5-13-22 anschutz interior 1; not an easy decision, since there was a beautiful simplicity to it. however, descriptive figurative painting is not really where i’m currently at. composition, space, painterly marks unexpected harmonies, that’s where i’m at. a collaged map was added on the right, and the architectural elements served as a jumping off point for the spatial play of line & color. the central orange/red and yellow serve as anchors for the blues and pinks.
BELOW: before & after todays modifications
5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 following todays changes
10:42 AM: this morning, thanks to mikela’s early departure for one of the schools she’s working with, I arrived early at my studio.
my intention was to turn 5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 to the wall and let it sit for a few days before deciding where to go with it. but I couldn’t wait, so I worked into it, letting go of any attachments I may have had to the details of the composition, which was inspired by photos from above I shot at anschutz medical center recently.
I find the result refreshing. BELOW: before & after
5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 as it looked at the end of my painting day today
3:07 PM: I unexpectedly continued work on 5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 . I say unexpectedly because at the end of the day yesterday, I thought it was complete. but when I entered my studio this morning, , there were a few things that bothered me. i’m still feeling so so about it, so i’ll wait to see how it strikes me in the morning.
BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left. I worked a bit on the seated figure on the right, removing his blue mask & giving more definition to his jacket. the entire lower half of the painting has been made darker, in my attempt to distinguish it from the architectural element that crosses the composition diagonally, which has also been more clearly defined.. but it may have gotten too dark; we’ll see tomorrow. as well, a bit more yellow has entered the composition on the left, where a ray of sun is falling.
5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 as it looked moments ago, at the end of my painting day today
2:41 PM: I did a bit more to 5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 and am stopping for the day. had a good talk with my grandson philip in greece, who I studying for exams, which start may 24.
an important part of the architectural details of this building are some thin wires going form top to bottom, but i’ll have to wait till the oil paint dries so that the white shows up. right now you can sort of see them, but they’ll be more obvious when I can make them in pure white.
the patient sitting in the middle is wearing a blue mask and holding a red thermos between his legs. the woman to his right is bending over looking at her phone.
I think the intention of whoever the architect was has been fulfilled, in that this is not at all what you might expect from a hospital setting! looks, on the contrary, celebratory!
my palette seems to have shifted with this new series: lighter, brighter…
1:35 PM: I started 5-14-22 anschutz interior 2 this morning. like the previous painting, this one is inspired by photos I shot from an upper floor at anschutz, where I go for my appointments with my eye surgeon. as I make these new paintings, all of which are 16x20,” i’m noticing how interesting the architectural design of the building is from any angle. it’s so cool that you can be standing on any floor and look down at the patients moving about in a space with constantly shifting light, against a backdrop of subtle lines and patterns playing off against each other.
5-13-22 anschutz interior 1
11:36 AM: I started…and completed a new one in this series. this one is inspired by photos I shot on our last visit to Anschutz medical center in denver. i shot from above, patients sitting and waiting for their appointments. i’l probably spend the rest of my day stretching more 16x20” primed portrait linen, which i’ll be using for this series. what I learned today is: 1) go with what really turns you on so there’s no space for thinking. and 2) know when to stop! like right now.
12:50 PM: this is where i’m stopping for the day. I tried talking it further, but I was in my head so I had to wipe it out. this composition wants to be just as you see it: few colors, lots of white space, all the action in the center, and the viewer does the rest.
10:55 AM: my intention, when I gathered my recent photos of the interior of a friend’s home with 2 cello players playing for us, was to stretch some small canvasses and make a series of paintings.
this morning I broke out my trusty collapsable wooden easel; one of the few things I brought back with me when I returned from my 15 years in greece, in 1978-9. I had purchased it in Paris in the early ‘70’s and used it extensively when I painted plain air, mostly on the cycladic island of andros.
I haven’t used it in a while, so it was in my newly built storage space. I started painting about an hour ago, and will continue as long as I have juice.
7:49 AM: here’s the link to the video clip of my “I fly” exhibition talk, which you can watch starting tomorrow: https://youtu.be/sWm_ypkBjuQ
1:10 PM: I rolled up the canvas i’ve been working on & put it in my storage room. I didn’t like where it was going, and didn’t see a viable future for it.
this morning i spent time reviewing recent photos i’ve shot, and discovered that, unconsciously perhaps, I’ve been documenting intimate scenes from our everyday life that could lead to a series of paintings. i’m excited at the prospect, and decided to assemble some 16x20” stretcher bars that I ordered months ago, who knows why, which have been sitting in their cardboard boxes ever since. i’m hoping I have time today to assemble them all and then start stretching canvases for this new project. if my intuition about these photos is correct, this project could last for quite some time.
assembling the 16x20” stretcher bars today
still image from my may 6th talk at spce gallery. the video will be available starting tomottow: https://youtu.be/sWm_ypkBjuQ
