A Smaller Paradise

Small-scale work was the beginning for me, mostly landscapes painted outdoors. Over the years, my paintings have gotten larger (especially the studio canvases) and they seem to take everything I’ve got. In smaller work, I feel less pressure and greater control. Color becomes central. Form, and the forms of intent that manifest it, play a secondary part.

"Blue Structures"- acrylic on wood, 8" x 10"

 

The setting for figures can be a reinterpretation of the observed background. Alternately, the setting  can be a mood that acts like three-point perspective, moving the eye forward to the primary image.

"In Orange"-acrylic on paper, 11  1/2" x 9  1/2"

 

Figure and ground can also work as a unified architectural rhythm. In “Doreen, Yellow Chair,” my  main concern was to make the background emphasize the falling verticals that shape the figure.

"Doreen, Yellow Chair"-acrylic on wood, 7  1/4" x 6  3/4"

 

Painting outside is a constant education. The tilt of hills, the reversal of water as sky, and a thousand other incidents combine to demonstrate unity, not as a force, but as a language.

"Lagoon, Yellow Hillside"-acrylic on wood, 10" x 10"

After you accustom yourself to a small format, there's plenty of room in a 10-inch square for character and detail, without having to resort to tight rendering.  In “Doreen, Pleather Chair,” I tried to make the figure as solid as possible and still be non-photographic.

"Doreen, Pleather Chair"- acrylic on wood, 10" x 10"

In the painting “In White,” I was less concerned with contour than transparency. I wanted that watery quality  to carry  through skin, foliage and even the furniture. “In Orange,” the darkness shifts forward; here the light pushes toward the surface, helped by the original under-painting.

"In White"-acrylic on paper, 13" x 11"

With “Cowgirl,” the attitude evident in the clothes and posture is ( I hope) softened by the patterning of the background.  Again, the under-painted color is used to try to break down the barrier between the inside and outside of the forms.

"Cowgirl"-acrylic on paper, 9  3/4" x 6"

“Small Paradise” is an idyll that uses a combination of observed and remembered poses.  Sometimes painting is a fact and sometimes it’s a means of transportation. Here the intention is simple: whatever you see and remember can also be reconstructed as a paradise.

"Small Paradise"-acrylic on panel, 10" x 10"

The Road To Simplify

 

This is the second in a pair of male bathers, both of which began from photographs and drawings.  It shows an older man, seen from above, with fragments of secondary figures extending off the canvas. The cropping and aerial view came from a photograph, but after the initial session, drawings became the central source for the painting. ( If you scroll down, the drawings can be seen in last month’s post).

Older Bathers #2-1

  In version 5, the paint-handling remains fairly loose, but the structure of the painting is beginning to tighten-up.

Older Bathers #2-5

 

By version 10, some interesting sections of the painting had been built up, but it still felt like a collection of fragments. What little connection there was between the parts was achieved by alternating color in the contour lines.

Older Bathers #2-10

 

In spite of some pleasing flourishes, version 13 pushed the mechanistic feeling of the painting to the limit. It had become stylized to the point of losing any human connection.

Older Bathers #2-13

 The alternatives seemed pretty clear. I could abandon it and start over from scratch, or scrape it back  and lose a lot of  “good-looking” painting. After I decided these good-looking areas were mostly flash,  I opted to scrape it back.  

Older Bathers #2-17

Painters tell themselves to be ready to sacrifice any part of the image in order to make the painting stronger as a whole. It isn't an easy guideline to follow, but through the rest of the process, that was my policy.

 

A return to a more humanized form was clear by version 22. I had pared down the painting and at the same time gained back some emotional content. Still, the balance of color and value wasn’t what I wanted, so the search went on.

Older Bathers #2-22

  After more than two dozen variations, this one felt right. Though it wasn't an easy painting (they almost never are), I was finally rewarded by something in the work.  

 

"Older Bathers #2"-oil on canvas, 54" x 48"

SOMETIMES/THE MYSTERIES

 

Writers are often advised to write what they know. We painters make self-portraits and use local light, but even so, we’re most often painting the mysteries.

"Island & Treatment Plant"-acrylic on paper, 8" x 6"

 

The misdirection of perception is a resource for the search. Is that one house or two in the distance? Is that water surrounding skin or skin capturing water— just what does reflection reflect?

"Older Bathers #1"-oil on canvas, 54" x 48"

"Older Bathers #2 (first study)"-colored pencil on paper, 10" x 8"

"Older Bathers #2 (second study)"- pencil on paper, 5" x 4"

 As the poet and painter Blake knew, optics are not enough. What he “saw” were figures lit from inside, and this became his way into (and out of) observational painting.

"After The Conversation"-colored pencil on paper, 10" x8"

"Doreen With Her Cup"-colored pencil on paper, 10" x 8"

 

There may  be nothing more laudable than getting the hands right, but sometimes misshapen forms and false color ring true, beyond the limits of skill.

Sometimes.

"Doreen In Mark's Garden"-acrylic on wood, 10" x 8"

"Beach Figure"

 

I had two sources for this painting: a drawing from the model and a photograph of the pose; the drawing was far and away the more useful. There were a dozen different versions of the painting, which is actually quick work for me. I usually need twice that many sessions to finish a project of this scale. The first painted image was a bare contour, and the linear focus continued throughout the process.

Beach Figure-1

The composition and color were basically set by the third version. Unfortunately, the result was more like a book or magazine illustration than a painting, especially in the flat treatment of the surface.

Beach Figure-3

With a few minor modifications, version 4 could have been a finished painting, but it seemed like a collection of separate shapes rather than a unified whole.

Beach Figure-4

In version 5, there’s a ghostly smile I still take pleasure in, but it was so far away from the feeling of the original pose, I couldn’t let it stand. There are a lot of elements in a painting that I’m happy to change, but I try not to tamper with the emotional foundation.

Beach Figure-5

 
This one was another almost-completed image. I like the contrast between the left and right sides of the face, from clearly delineated features to blurred illegibility.

Beach Figure-8

The final version catches the moody, skeptical quality of the model in the original pose, though the setting is invented and details of the figure have been changed.  The painting also serves as an entry point to summer. 

Since finishing "Beach Figure", I’ve begun working a little differently, concentrating on what I’d call intertwined rather than contrasting color. The results probably won’t look that unfamiliar to anyone who has seen my past paintings. Different times can carry the same sense of light.

"Beach Figure"--oil on canvas,  40" x 40"

Air Brush

"Doreen:White Skirt" acrylic on paper, 13" x 9"

Regardless of the subject matter, I keep trying to paint the same thing: the air between me and the image.

"Doreen: Ochre & Vermilion" acrylic on canvas, 10" x 8"

I don’t want to reduce the distance, I want to make it thicken, to increase the density from the object all the way to my eye---

"Doreen: Chair Pose" acrylic on paper. 13" x 9"

"Mark & Eduardo Paint The Lagoon" acrylic on paper, 13" x 9"

  wherever it resides.

"Doreen: Sun Hat" acrylic on paper, 13" x 9"

"Doreen: Purple Blouse" acrylic on paper,  13" x 9"

 

It isn’t only in my head, it’s also in my hands.

"Searching The Water"-oil on canvas, 36" x 48"

SELF CAMERA

This painting began from a photograph in a mirror. The plant exists, but the room is just a collapsed hybrid of mental and physical space. The only atmosphere here is in the boiling black & red of the wall and the out-of-register light of the face.

In the first version, my goal was to bring each form out of the red background. The basic posture was taken from the photograph, but I did enjoy the dopey English Country Gentleman feeling in the clothes and inclination of the head.

Self Camera-1

By version 2, most of the basic furniture was in place. I did eventually eliminate the window  (an element I tend to overuse). The slanted floor-light, which seemed to call too much attention to itself, was also later replaced.

Self Camera-2

Version 5 was a linear fiesta. The clashing horizontals overpowered the composition and drew the eye away from the figure. The rough comic book rendition of the face did achieve a likeness, but one that felt drawn on the surface instead of formed from the head.

Self Camera-5

Even though I turned down the contrast in version 6, it was still too stiff and rectilinear. By this point, I knew that the rendering wasn’t working. It may have looked like me, but it didn’t feel like me.

Self Camera-6

Version 9 was the key to the final painting. Blurring the mirror image helped me get to a stronger visual equivalent. Clearing away the window centered the focus on the figure. It was a stripped-down composition, but one that was starting to work.

Self Camera-9

Any screen or lens can misrepresent, even the lens of self-image. But a painting like this, based on equal parts experience and invention, is not simply an isolated object. In fact, it’s closer to instrumental music. It’s another extension of continuous time.

"Self Camera"- oil on canvas, 40" x 40"

The Triangle Pose

 

This painting started with a drawing from the model. During that session photographs were taken, and a second drawing was made from one of them . With these sources in hand, I began the work in paint.

Version 2 is not much more than a crude contour. By version 4, the weight of the pose is clearer as is the emotional distance of the figure. Even so, the color and surface of the painting remain rudimentary.

Triangle Pose-2

Triangle Pose-4

 

In version 6, most of the compositional elements of the painting are in place. I generally start with a strong color, either in gesso or oil, but this one began with a standard white canvas. For a while I thought I might keep the white dress, but I found it difficult to develop the rest of the color. I was drawn to the bluish-purple here as a better counterpoint to the skin tones.

Triangle Pose-6

 

Version 13  went as far as I could travel into the Land of the Decal. At this point the flatness became claustrophobic.  The surface quality, though actually thicker than it appears in the digital image, seemed slippery-slick. The eye doesn’t find a place to rest in this one and the movement isn’t circular; it’s side-to-side, top-to-bottom and off the edge.

Triangle Pose-13

In order to go forward, an important step back was taken in version 15. I had to undo many of the complicated and unsatisfying solutions I’d come to in #13 and lose what I could have called a finished painting. Some paintings don’t seem to need this kind of sharp U- turn, but here it turned out to be the right choice. 

Triangle Pose-15

  

The final painting includes evidence of all the wrong moves that led up to it. If I did manage to develop a depth of space, it’s in the simplified but still coalescing face. For me, it’s like a sculpture of smoke-- which, as energy-forms, we just might be.

"Triangle Pose"-oil on canvas, 48" x 48"