Specific Drawings

Work in Progress

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A quick lookie-loo at the newest drawing.  This is a detail showing the face section of the self-portrait (which is drawn slightly larger-than-life).   This is approximately a 9 x 8 inch section; the entire drawing is 40 x 20 inches in size.

 

Thanks to summer break, I have had to adjust my studio time, which means that I am drawing late at night when the kiddies are asleep (it is a limited drawing time, but I do it every day, of course!).  I have a feeling that this drawing will not be done until October (so far about 40 hours spent on the piece, and only about 1/6 of the paper has been touched).
"Art is long, and time is fleeting..."    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Speaking of artsy funeral marches to the grave, isn't Harold & Maude the most perfect blend of film and song?  I need to track down a DVD copy (my old copy is a VHS, that is assuming I actually could find it...)

Currently listening to:  Cat Steven's Greatest Hits

War Paint 3

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Self-Portrait in War Paint 3

graphite on Arches paper

18 x 17 inches

This is the current state of the third War Paint drawing. It is not finished. Actually, none of the drawings in this triptych are finished, as I have not felt compelled to take them off their little drawing boards. Something is going to happen with them; somehow they will interrelate, come together, either with a connected compositional element or literally put together into one drawing. I am setting them aside for awhile and waiting until I know what will finalize the triptych.
Here are all three together as I have planned to arrange them:

Plus, some details of the War Paint 3 drawing:

 

The new drawing that I have started is very intense, both as an emotional undertaking and with subject matter: although not by any means offensive or particularly disturbing, it is acutely autobiographical. I think it is best not to post this one until it is further along or perhaps even finished: newly started drawings are a bit like newly-born foals on spindly, unsure legs - not quite ready to weather the outside world until fully stable. I will let the drawing out of the studio when the idea and composition are more decisively out of my head and formulated on the paper.
Art in process is not something that I take lightly; I protect my ideas in the earliest stages because, quite frankly, when I start a drawing I do not always think about what I am drawing and I do not want any external responses during this embryonic stage of the artwork. Rather, I intuit the work on a more subconscious level and then, as the drawing is coming into more of a defined and recognizable state, I will gradually allow the analytical parts of my brain to explain and articulate the narrative. Frequently negative space and even larger compositional elements are not even resolved until the drawing is well underway.
It is a rather risky affair for those without a deeply realized sense of their own creative self or confidence in their own skill to show their artwork to others during the germination of an idea. I learned this the hard way during graduate school – I allowed myself to get caught up into what a couple of my professors thought I was, or should be, pursuing. The most damaging guidance came from the professorial type who felt that too highly “tight” painters or drawers need to be broken and “loosen up”. That damage was only compounded by the professorial type who decided to take a total hands-off approach to “teaching” without offering guidance or to even acknowledge the more banal and lowly sides of art education, specifically craftsmanship and, heaven forbid, design and composition.
I took some hard turns, had some ridiculous run-arounds, got side-tracked and otherwise lost a couple of years of my own art. But, I eventually found my creative self again: it was not bruised or distorted, rather well-weathered and tolerant of criticism, intolerant of prevarications and misguidance.
Now my creative self is welcome to suggestions and useful, sincere, and constructive criticism. But I am only willing to act on suggestions that seem to viscerally resonate once I am alone with my work in the studio. Since my creative self is also protective, I also know when an idea is ready or not ready to emerge from the studio, and this new one must wait.

A new portrait drawing

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Just off the drawing board - a portrait of my youngest son, Gabriel.  It is similar in technique to the one I did of my son Wallace, however this piece has another layer of Arches paper attached to the surface of the drawing (the poppies painted in watercolor): 

Detail photos showing the graphite, the leaf, the attached paper:

(The poppies are actually a bit brighter, but the reflections from the gold leaf throw off the light meter in my little point-and-shoot digital camera.)

This drawing as well as many others will be on display at the SOMA Studio Tour this weekend.  (Still not sure about coming?  Local artist Nancy Tobin has outlined a visitor's guide to the tour in the NY Times Local).

Currently listening to:  Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse present Dark Night of the Soul with David Lynch

Better art pics & a side project

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I now have decent photos for two of my recent drawings:

The difference between the art photographer's TIFF files and my JPEGS is significant - I compared the two in an earlier blog, and unless I can scan a piece directly onto my scanner, I prefer to go to the pro with the really swell camera (since I am not going to invest in one).
Also, fresh from the art photographer is the first completed cat portrait from a side project that I started last year when my daughter (the cat fanatic) asked me if I would paint portraits of our cats.  I avoided the whole idea for a while because I was visualizing cute cartoon cats and I cannot do cute, until I was looking at paintings by Jean and François Clouet and Hans Holbein the Younger in my art history texts for a portrait assignment I was teaching and a thought flitted through my head: "gee I love those, wouldn't it be fun to paint in that style".  Cat + Fancy Portrait merged and one thing led to another, and I found myself with several highly gessoed and sanded canvases.  After a go at acrylic, then a subsequent 8-month avoidance of painting because of my extreme dislike of acrylic, and then a suggestion to try water soluble oils by another artist who understood my concerns about the risks of toxic painting mediums in a house that also contains children, I finally finished this piece:
The Lady Lucy
(The copyright is tacky, I know, but this is the first piece that I have done that I could visualize on a coffee mug and although I am not above putting the cat portraits on coffee mugs, I don't want someone else stealing my image for that purpose).
Which brings me to the dilemma that I have with my cat portrait side project: what to do with paintings that are completely incongruous with my drawings. 
My solution is a partitian of sorts - I am signing these with an overt nom de plume:  Lucian Parrish (should that be nom de brosse?  I do not speak French).   From his fictitious artist bio:  "Lucian Parrish lives with a bevy of cats in a fancy, old, wrought-iron covered house in Charleston.  Lucian has recently decided to spend his Sunday afternoons in a quaint attic studio painting portraits of his cats (he does not do commissions, by the way - just his own cats).  He states that although it is a slow process and perhaps he will only paint one cat portrait a year, the feeling of moving paint on canvas is a nice way to pass the time."  

On a related side note - to my amusement, this is the first artwork that I have shown around that has garnered a nearly universal response: ohh, are you making prints?!?   The answer is yes: giclées for The Lady Lucy will be available in my studio during the SOMA Studio Tour on June 6th.