Landscape With Figures # 2 & 3

In one of James Elkins’s books, there’s a chapter called “The Studio As Psychosis.” Even outdoor painters can suffer from this. Whether or not you pay rent on it, the studio is mostly in your head.

My struggle with and commitment to oil painting is deepening. Results are mixed, but the work has certainly become more challenging—and exhausting. These large-scale drawings are an attempt to offset the angst of oils and find some pleasure in the art-making process. The subject matter is mostly cornball, complete with seagulls and sailboats.

The limited color and concern with line make these drawings rather than paintings for me, even though they’re on unstretched canvas. I’m using a combination of tinted and non-tinted gesso and acrylic paint. The tarps themselves are 6’x 9’,  most often with a  5’x 8’ image-area to allow for later stretching, but right now they look just fine stapled to the wall. 

These pictures could undoubtedly be improved by continued work, but I’ve limited myself to two or three sessions to retain some of the immediacy and clear touch of a gesture drawing.

"LWF #2" (First Version)

"LWF #2  (Second Version)

"LWF #2: In Eduardo's Garden" (Final Version), 6'x8', mixed media on unstretched canvas




 

"LWF #3" (First Version)

"LWF #3: Bahia de Paraiso" (Final Version),  5' x 8', mixed media on unstretched canvas

The Double Portrait

"Artist & Model "-version 2

 

This painting took it’s own sweet time. I sweated and swore my way through four months of it. At most turns in the road, it was perfect--until I tried to make it perfect. There were 34 distinct variations before I got to the final image. I was mesmerized by  the most egregious gaffes and couldn’t see them for days. The mistakes that remain in the final version have all been thought through. They now seem integral to the work.

The painting process was pretty evenly split between intention and discovery. I had a lot of high-flying ideas about the subject matter, most of which had to be cleared away to find the actual painting. For a while it turned into a kind of hi-octane Garden of Eden; both the artist and model were naked, glaring out at the viewer, that devil just beyond the canvas. Thankfully, I managed to find my way out of paradise and the painting got a little less feverish.

I set this one aside so many times; I gave up on it, over and over again—or so I thought—but it never completely gave up on me.

"Artist & Model "-version 4

"Artist & Model "-version 15

"Artist & Model -Double Portrait," oil on canvas,  36"x36"

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A Large-Scale Drawing, Revised

Here’s a revision of the 6’x9’ canvas I used in last month’s post. Some of the figures have been redrawn, the couch has turned into a garden bench and there are a number of value-shifts. My favorite additions are the seagulls, or bats, or giant wing-nuts in the sky.

"Figures In A Landscape #1-If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now," acrylic & tinted gesso on unstretched canvas, 6'x9'

 

MARCH ENTRIES

"Seated Child"

I’ve spent most of the past few months on one failed oil painting, which I finally forced myself to set aside. During this time, drawing turned out to be the consolation prize. “Figures In A Landscape” is a 6’ x 8’ mixed-media drawing on canvas, and it’s a work in progress. The other entries are sketchbook-size images done on the street, in cafes or in formal life-drawing sessions. I hope you enjoy them.

"Woman With A Scarf"

"Bench Philosopher"

"String Band"

"Woman With A Striped Top"

"Figures In A Landscape" mixed media on canvas, 6'x9'

Large-Scale Drawing

 (All Photos: Barbara Downs)

Along with my friends, Claire Thorson and Barbara Downs, I took part in a brief but worthwhile experiment in large-scale drawing last month. I thought I’d share my results here, even though I’m not sure the piece is done. It’s hard to classify. Painted with umber-tinted gesso and black & white acrylic, it remains more of a drawing than a painting. I sometimes think of it as a draping--a hanging drawing-- not meant to be exhibited on conventional stretchers, but shown informally and left at that.

Initial Drawing

There’s a stiffness to the composition and a pretty conventional left-to-right read , but what interests me is what’s happening at the edges and at the center, the fluctuation of the figures from artists to models and back again. There are very few magic words, but it seems to me that one of them must be “again.”

 

" Artist & Models #1" -stage 1

This continues the theme of painting as work, with the studio world as a workplace. The drawing is unintentionally clumsy in many places, but I’ve left it that way to get a feeling I might not have reached with a purely critical eye. Still, I may end up revising parts of it, and I certainly want to have another go at this format. At six by nine feet, it’s the largest canvas I’ve ever worked on. It’s a scale that’s often associated with high-energy gesture painting, but for me it elicits something much quieter, with stillness framing the music.

"Artists & Models #1" 6 x 9 feet, gesso & acrylic on canvas

OPEN LETTER & RECENT DRAWINGS

      

It’s the end of  my the first year with this site and I wanted to let you know what a very good connection it’s been for me. Your comments and personal emails have been thoughtful and useful. Painters, writers and everyone else doing the real work in art know how difficult it can be to just keep going, to stay committed in spite of the ups and downs of  the enterprise. I hope you have enjoyed the ideas & images presented here. I certainly have enjoyed sharing them with you. The entries will continue in the new year, and  for as long as I can manage to find something worthwhile to send to you.  If there’s anything you want to see more of in future postings, please let me know. I’m more than willing to address any thing connected to drawing and painting that may  be of interest to you. If you know of anyone else who might be interested in the site, please send me their contact information or  pass along a link to them.

Cheers,

Tom Maderos

RECENT DRAWINGS:

The first two images are studies for one of the figure paintings in a series I’m currently at work on. The rest are smaller sketchbook drawings. I hope to have one or more of the “Artist & Model” paintings ready for display in January.

"Artist & Model -Black & White" oil & chalk on canvas, 36"x36"

"Artist & Model -Study "  (acrylic on paper)

"In Thought"

"Man On A Bench"

"Spinner"

"At The Abbey"

Abbey Figures1

Abbey Figures 2

Abbey  Figures 3

Abbey Figures 4

Abbey Figures 5

"At The Abbey" oil on canvas 30"x 30"

 This coffeehouse painting was constructed in the studio, using fragments from on-the spot  drawings to help guide the final composition. It satisfied a desire to work with multiple figures to form a simple narrative.  I also wanted to contrast the sense of public space with the portable privacy of laptop users. I’ve included several drawings, only a few of which are directly related to the finished painting, though all of them were done in the same setting.

"THE YELLOW BED"

“Time is not love’s bedchamber.”—Catullus

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These days, whatever I think I know about painting has to be destroyed and rebuilt before I can complete anything.  The process feels simultaneously centrifugal and centripetal. It’s exhausting. It takes time --and then time bends back on itself.

"The Yellow Bed " 1

Version 1  of “The Yellow Bed” was the very rough framework I started with two years ago and left until early August of this year. Version 3 kept something of the original pose, but it also introduced the crucial elements of the window and bed. It had the most convincing and conventional composition, it was easy to read, but it felt slack and the color lacked any real commitment. (Apologies for the poor quality of a few of these images).

Version 3

   

Version 4 veered off in several directions. The color was strengthened, but the approach to the figure became confusing. Though the head gained detail and definition, the rest of the figure was invaded by cubist hieroglyphics, which failed to unify the painting structurally or emotionally. Before I got to Version 9, I’d made even more false starts.

Version 4

There can be a point when a painting settles into itself; it isn’t done, but the basic character is set.  After that, whatever might be added or taken away has to be considered within the painting’s own laws of physics. Decisions might not be easier, but choices can be clear. Version 9 was just such a set-point in the process.

Version 9

Here's the final painting, another 36”  x 36” canvas. I see that the palette is changing, and there are other things that I probably couldn’t see even if they were pointed out to me. The room and the perspective are not naturalistic, nor were they intended to be. ( If I'd wanted to go that route, I would have continued along the lines suggested by Version 3). Instead, there's  tension between the flat geometry of  the room and the modeling of the figure. This, I hope, gives the painting its energy.

"The Yellow Bed" (Final Version)

I  still want to go farther with the figure: out into the landscape, and into that narrative realm where more than one figure can find its place.

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Eduardo Izquierdo’s Paintings at “Nourish”—Highly Recommended!

This month you have the opportunity to see the fine work of artist Eduardo Izquierdo, whose figure and landscape paintings are now showing at “Nourish,” 130 Walnut Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. As you can tell from this image, these are paintings of great grace and strength. Do not miss this show!

"Green Wall - Maria" by Eduardo Izquierdo