Mark and Remark

Weekend's Work

2012-01-30T21:06:00.003-05:00

This weekend I did one drawing and one painting that are posted above. Actually I did more, but I have to save some stuff for later. I have become enamored of the Hopper view from Sloan Road.

I am halfway through the De Kooning biography. Ca. 1950: He's incredibly poor, partly by choice, and has just created some of his best works. Heroic dedication. Like a saint, except he wasn't a saint.

Small Canals

2012-01-26T21:25:00.005-05:00

The 5x12 pencil drawing is one of two from this morning's walk'n draw. The above is a 5x7 pastel worked in a similar fashion to the earlier see-if-it-sticks pastels.

In the De Kooning biography, there's mention of the drawing "Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brother." I always thought De Kooning was the older brother, but the writers indicate that he is the younger brother. What they say makes sense, but I was surprised at how easy it is to make assumptions. But after looking at the drawing again, maybe De Kooning is both brothers. The biography is wonderful, by the way. More to come as I progress through the book.

Full Barn View

2012-01-25T20:51:00.002-05:00

This is a full view of the abandoned barn. 12 x 24 oil.

I have started reading the biography of Willem De Kooning by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. I didn't realize he was sort of like the Yogi Berra of painting. He made the following comments: "In da beginning was da void." and "[Water] reflects while you are reflecting." and "You must change to stay in the same place." I'll try to make a compilation.

Morning Canal

2012-01-23T20:57:00.001-05:00

The canal images are mostly morning views because that's when I get out and walk along the canal. 8x10 pastel. Another thrown against the wall picture.

Early Canal

2012-01-21T10:07:00.002-05:00

This is another pastel I tossed against the wall, quickly done, experimenting with different methods for underpainting, just to see if it sticks. I have been doing these on older pastels that I have washed off, so there already is an underpainting of sorts. Sometimes, the washed off pastel looks better than what I had before I washed it off.

Winter Hopper

2012-01-20T21:12:00.002-05:00

This view is from a bit lower down Sloan Road facing the Hopper than where I usually hang out. Greylock is at the upper right. 12 x 24 oil.

Another Sticker

2012-01-19T19:53:00.001-05:00

This is another that I tossed against the wall. 8x10 pastel.

Delaware River Sticker

2012-01-18T21:12:00.003-05:00

This one I threw against the wall to see if it would stick. 8x10 pastel.

Regarding John Berger, he can write insightfully about his own experience painting and drawing, and then he can write about art history, and art as property, and the end of landscape painting etc. , in a way the contradicts his own experience. Here's what he says about landscape painting: "Certainly there are no great modern landscapes comparable to those of the past...Cubism when it broke painting broke the landscape too." Fortunately, there's no inevitability about what one can paint. I know more because of what has preceded me, but that doesn't mean I can do less.

Here's what he says about his experience of drawing: "To draw is to look, examining the structure of appearances. A drawing of a tree shows, not a tree, but a tree-being-looked at. Whereas the sight of a tree is registered almost instantaneously, the examination of the sight of a tree (a tree-being-looked-at) not only takes minutes or hours instead of a fraction of a second, it also involves, derives from, and refers back to, much previous experience of looking. Within the instant of the sight of the tree is established a life-experience. This is how the act of drawing refuses the process of disappearances and proposes the simultaneity of a multitude of moments." This passage suggests the constant renewal and possibility of creativity, no matter what has already happened.

Marks of a Landscape

2012-01-16T20:27:00.004-05:00

John Berger wrote an essay titled "Painting a Landscape." Though he wrote that "landscape painting" is dead, painting a landscape can be a "starting point" for painting. He wrote, "As I work I am faithful to what I see in front of me, because only being faithful, by constantly checking, correcting, analysing what I can see and how it changes as the day progresses, can I discover forms and structures too complex and varied to be invented out of my head or reconstructed from vague memories." Also, "The marks on the canvas must have a life of their own." Again, "The thing interpreted becomes the interpretation." Further, "However short-lived, there are moments of triumph, incomparable in my experience to moments achieved in any other activity. They are short-lived because they depend upon a correspondence existing between the totality of relations between the marks on the canvas and those deducible in the landscape..." And finally, "...it is the consequent sense of the near impossibility of the task which allows me to take pleasure in the little that I have temporarily achieved."

Snow Barn

2012-01-15T21:09:00.001-05:00

The abandoned barn yesterday in the snow. 9x12 oil.

Reaching Tree

2012-01-11T22:11:00.003-05:00

Another tree in the park. 8x10 pastel on pastelmat. I used a combination of dry and wet pastel. Why do I feel sometimes like the trees are watching me?

Crazy Tree

2012-01-10T22:39:00.008-05:00

8x10 pastel on pastelmat paper.

Vincent died in his brother's arms, but he was a lonely man. The new biography tears down the romantic image of Van Gogh as a misunderstood, persecuted artistic genius, only in that the authors emphasize that his personality was a major factor in how he was treated by the world. He couldn't maintain a relationship with anyone. He would eventually argue with and offend everyone. He easily took offense. He neglected his appearance and his health. The authors even suggest that he didn't die at his own hands, which seems like the last blow to his romantic image.

But the art survived, at least most of it. Vincent was not a facile draughtsman. It's easy to see how his contemporaries thought he was a crude painter if we try to ignore all the art that was created after Van Gogh. Few of his contemporaries had the eyes and temperament to appreciate his art.

Yesterday, I mentioned the Saint-Remy Starry Night at MoMA. Unlike the earlier Arles Starry Night, this painting was done during the day because he was not allowed to leave his room at night. Despite the many obstacles in his life, Van Gogh travelled a great distance in a short number of years.

Late Day Canal

2012-01-09T20:27:00.006-05:00

I have been recycling some older, less successful pastels using a combination of pastel and pastel wash. 8x10 on uart paper.

In the Van Gogh book, I am beyond Arles and Saint-Remy with Vincent now on his way to Auvers. The people in Arles treated Van Gogh miserably, though he didn't help much. I visited Arles in June. The hospital where Van Gogh spent many weeks, some of it strapped to his bed, is now a big gift shop specializing in Van Gogh reproductions.

Van Gogh probably had some kind of epilepsy, though his personality disorder seems to go back to when he was a youngster. His father died thinking his oldest son was not normal. His mother blamed him for his father's death. In the last two years of his life he went into periods of blackness losing his mind. When he would come out of these periods he would paint feverishly. In one stretch in 1889 in Saint-Remy, he averaged a painting every other day for eight months, according to the authors.

This weekend I visited MoMA to see the fantastic De Kooning exhibition, which ended today. I also saw Starry Night by Van Gogh. He thought the painting was a failure.

Early in 1890, an art critic named Aurier created a sensation with an article identifying Van Gogh as a great artist, and Vincent sold his first painting. I am near the end of the book. He has six months to live.

Park Road

2012-01-06T21:20:00.002-05:00

Back to pastel. 8x10 on Uart paper. Uphill walk.

Van Gogh is now in Arles. Gauguin just arrived. I feel like I am watching a movie. I keep yelling at the main character, "Don't do it. Don't do it." But he can't hear me.

A Paintable Landscape

2012-01-06T18:54:00.003-05:00

This is another view of the Hopper from Sloan Road in a 12 x 24 inch oil.

John Berger in a fascinating essay, titled "A Story for Aesop," discusses paintable and unpaintable landscapes. The Spanish landscape is "unpaintable," he writes. "A landscape is never unpaintable for purely descriptive reasons; it is always because its sense, its meaning, is not visible, or else lies elsewhere... Paintable landscapes are those in which what is visible enhances man--in which natural appearances make sense. We see such landscapes around every city in Italian Renaissance painting. In such a context there is no distinction between appearance and essence--such is the classic ideal."

He adds, "The scale of the Spanish interior is of a kind which offers no possibility of any focal centre. This means that it does not lend itself to being looked at. Or, to put it differently, there is no place to look at it from... A landscape that has no focal point is like a silence. It constitutes simply a solitude that has turned its back on you."

The only landscape like this that I have encountered is usually the site of a natural disaster in a forest area. Or the shattering descriptions of nature that Thoreau recounts in his trip to Mt. Katahdin in Maine.

Moonscape Swamp

2012-01-04T21:29:00.003-05:00

This is the same moonscape swamp with the thin sheet of ice.

Van Gogh has arrived in Paris. When his brother suggested he come, he was really hoping he wouldn't.

Moonscape and Van Gogh Update

2012-01-03T21:25:00.003-05:00

What looks like a desert or moonscape is a barely frozen swamp at Field Farm.

In the Van Gogh biography I have reached 1885. Theo is urging his brother to move to Paris, to take heed of the Impressionists, and to do landscapes. Vincent wants to stay in Holland, thinks the Impressionists are facile and shallow, and wants to do figure paintings in brown and black.

Far Seen Hopper

2012-01-02T20:55:00.001-05:00

The 9x12 oil painting of the Hopper looking east down Sloan Road.

Foreseeing

2012-01-01T20:57:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year! The bottom drawing is one of my walk'ndraws from this morning. It's a view looking north on Stratton Road. I was standing in the field. The top drawing is a study of the Hopper from Sloan Road in preparation for a painting. The painting is completed, and I will post it later.

I visit the Northshire bookstore in Manchester, Vt. frequently. This last time I found a copy of a book by John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous. In an essay, titled, "drawing on paper," Berger writes about three kinds of drawing: "those which study and question the visible, those which put down and communicate ideas, and those done from memory." He goes on: "In the first kind of drawing...the lines on the paper are traces left behind by the artist's gaze, which is ceaselessly leaving, going out, interrogating the strangeness, the enigma, of what is before his eyes, however ordinary and everyday this may be. The sum total of the lines on the paper narrate a sort of optical emigration by which the artist, following his own gaze, settles on the person or tree or animal or mountain being drawn. And if the drawing succeeds, he stays there for ever..."

"In the second category of drawings the traffic, the transport, goes in the opposite direction. It is now a question of bringing to the paper what is already in the mind's eye. Delivery rather than emigration. Often such drawings were sketches or working drawings for paintings... Such meagre drawings still possess an artisanal interest..., but they do not speak directly to us. For this to happen the space created within the drawing has to seem as large as the earth's or the sky's space. Then we can feel the breath of life... To create such an immense space with ink marks on a sheet of paper one has to know oneself to be very small..."

"In a few great drawings...everything appears to exist in space, the complexity of everything vibrates--yet what one is looking at is only a project on paper. Reality and project become inseparable. One finds oneself on the threshold before the creation of the world. Such drawings, using the Future Tense, foresee, forever."

Late December Canals and Van Gogh

2011-12-28T17:16:00.003-05:00

Completed today, two views of the same stretch of the canal, the first 12 x 24 in oil, and the top 9x12 in pastel.

Lately, I have been reading the new biography of Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. One reviewer claimed it read like a novel, but if you have held a romantic view of Van Gogh, read his letters and saw the movie Lust for Life as a teenager, then you may find this biography tough going. Not because the book's not well done, but because it may challenge your view of Van Gogh. He must have had a personality disorder of some kind hindering his ability to behave normally. Of course, if he had been a normal person, we would not have the great art that he created in the last four years of his life. He really did suffer enormously. I am only up to year 1881 so far. He was fluent in English and French (self-taught) besides his native Dutch. Multi-lingual people are usually highly-gifted.

Simple Canal II

2011-12-27T21:34:00.003-05:00

This is the oil version of the simple canal. Mid-morning. Breezy. 12 x 24.

River Drive

2011-12-27T21:17:00.001-05:00

This is River Drive early in the morning. 9x12 pastel.

Washington's Beach

2011-12-25T17:46:00.001-05:00

One last visit to the usually desolate beach visited once a year by "George Washington" and his 18th century supporters.

Washington Crosses

2011-12-25T15:17:00.006-05:00

Merry Christmas. In the first photo the re-enactors gather on the Pennsylvania side earlier today. The next photo shows the first boat landing at "my" beach. It ended up a bit further north than planned, so the crowd was thin at this point. In the next photo, everybody moved over. The last photo shows the fourth and last boat landing again at the same beach. Washington is visible in the center. Once a year on Christmas day the usually deserted Delaware beach is mobbed with people.

Simple Canal

2011-12-22T21:38:00.001-05:00

A simple rendition of the canal in the morning facing south near Washington's Crossing. 9x12 pastel.

Beaching

2011-12-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

I may be done with this beach for a while. Who knows?

Early Delaware Beach

2011-12-20T21:17:00.001-05:00

This morning was overcast and darkish at the river's edge. This is just about the spot where "Washington" disembarks from the boat when he reaches the New Jersey side during the re-enactment. Usually there's nobody there.

Soft Spot

2011-12-19T20:55:00.005-05:00

You may think the soft spot is in my head, but I have a soft spot for this soft spot on the Delaware river. If I do it about a dozen times, maybe I will learn one thing or two. This view is also early morning (this morning), but earlier than the first painting.

Cooler Beach

2011-12-18T16:01:00.003-05:00

This is a view of the same place this morning. I almost fell down in the mud (more mud!) at the edge of the river. Much colder.

Delaware at Washington's Crossing

2011-12-17T15:07:00.003-05:00

Early morning at Washington's Crossing at the edge of the Delaware River looking north on the New Jersey side. Sandy beach from the flooding. 8x10 pastel on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch paper.

Edge

2011-12-17T11:37:00.002-05:00

This view is from the edge of a corn field looking north into Vermont. It's an 11x14 oil like the previous painting.

Looking Beyond the Corn Field

2011-12-16T19:06:00.003-05:00

In the book The Old Way of Seeing, Jonathan Hale writes, "I am walking in the country, thinking about lunch and the bad thing someone said, or the good thing I will do, tramping along, when I stop for a moment...and suddenly it all comes in: yellow trees, fields, shadows--the country is full of shadows. The sensation is a kind of visual listening. In this state, perception is more vivid, colors are deeper, the world looks at once more real and more magical."

Two Barn Monte

2011-12-15T21:56:00.002-05:00

Again, I extended a 12 x 12 barn into a 12 x 28 barn. Only because I didn't like the 12 x 12 barn. Not so sure about the 12 x 28 yet either.

Cold Drawing and No Lion

2011-12-13T21:15:00.003-05:00

This morning I worked this one quite quickly since my fingers were cold. There are some paintings coming along but they are not yet ready. This past weekend I went looking for the mountain lion since there was snow on the ground. No footsteps were to be seen near the barn.

Unsegmented Corn Field

2011-12-08T22:05:00.002-05:00

This oil painting is one piece 12 x 24. A familiar view of the late cornfield, now mud site.

Four Canals

2011-12-04T17:46:00.007-05:00

This weekend I couldn't paint because of other obligations, but I did get a chance to walk 'n draw on the canal. Of the numerous drawings I did, these four are representative. Drawing does lead to new ideas. I have been using an unusually shaped Strathmore sketch pad that measures 5 x 12".

Obsession and Landscape

2011-12-01T22:12:00.005-05:00

This is a 7x14 pencil drawing in preparation for a slightly larger painting. I often think of the "archetypal landscape" of Anselm Kiefer when I do these tiny landscapes, and because they are so small, they are like his huge landscapes in opposition, if that makes any sense. But I don't have the rawness, the woundedness he displays, because I am not quite pursuing his interests, or maybe being pursued by them. Mark Rosenthal in a 1987 Kiefer catalog states that his paintings have "...the blackened, scorched earth [as] his central motif, his Mont Sainte Victoire, as it were, showing the province of the landscape to be human suffering, not the glory of nature." His obsession is the soil burned and soaked in blood. Cezanne's late obsession was the unobtainable mountain (like Moby Dick). Nevertheless, any repeated landscape motifs acquire some hint, some flavor, some meaning of previous, obsessed-over landscapes, even if they don't deny the "glory of nature".

Extended Barn

2011-11-30T20:41:00.005-05:00

First I did the square oil painting of the barn, but then I thought it needed to be extended, so I added the rest of the barn. The size is 12x28 overall. I do have plans to do a series of large horizontal paintings. They will be seamless.

Muddy Landscapes and No Flowers

2011-11-27T20:32:00.005-05:00

Someone whose opinion I value said to me that nobody wants landscapes of muddy cornfields. People want flowers, color, paintings that bring comfort. Oh, well.

Not Yet

2011-11-21T19:57:00.004-05:00

This morning I went out in the darkness and raindrops, and made the above sketch of the full canal. But I have discovered that I am not yet done with Sunken Canal after all. The top image is a 12x9 pastel started last night, and completed tonight. When thinking of the Sunken Canal I thought of a beautiful piece of music I heard a couple years ago, Old and Lost Rivers by Tobias Picker. The canal is now found and risen, but I still remember the Sunken Canal.

Bright Sunken Canal

2011-11-18T21:51:00.001-05:00

Now that the canal is full again, I think I will switch away from the sunken canal series.

Sunken Canal and Thomas Hardy

2011-11-15T21:18:00.004-05:00

Another 12 x 9 for the series of Sunken Canal pastels.

I have been reading a biography of Thomas Hardy by Ralph Pite. Hardy was taken by the Impressionists. He wrote, according to Pite, "The 'principle' of Impressionism...is: 'that what you carry away with you from a scene is the true feature to grasp; or in other words, what appeals to your own individual eye and heart in particular amid much that does not appeal, and which you therefore omit to record.' Hardy did not want any longer to see 'scenic paintings' of landscapes but instead 'the deeper reality underlying the scenic.'"

That approach may seem trite or obvious today, but, if so, we forget what a revelation it once was, and maybe one needs to recapture that revelation.

Full Canal

2011-11-15T21:14:00.001-05:00

This is a drawing from this morning's walk'n-sketch. The canal is completely full to its normal level. I won't take it for granted anymore. I also didn't realize how wide it really is.

Two Corn Fields and a Mountain Lion

2011-11-14T20:24:00.003-05:00

This weekend I wandered around the corn fields. One day I wore my boots, and it was a good thing since my sneakers would not have survived the mud and water. Of course, I knew it would be wet where I was going. I visited the abandoned barn again, which is surrounded by corn fields. I saw some big footprints in the mud, like from a large dog, but it wasn't a dog. The prints were in the vicinity of a lot of deer tracks. Strange that I have never seen a deer in that area, though I see deer almost daily in New Jersey.

The next day I met up with the farmer, and asked him about the barn. He told me many things, one of which is that a mountain lion has been seen around the barn, supposedly lives in the barn. Hmm... That might explain why sometimes I feel that I am being observed, not to mention the footprints.

The two paintings above are 9x12 oils.

Tractor Path

2011-11-10T19:42:00.004-05:00

The farmer uses a tractor or a four-wheeled vehicle to move everywhere and anywhere. Since the edges of the field where he drives most of the time are mud, there are ruts in the mud. Fortunately, there are mountains in the background, and corn stalks remnants, and bright skies (sometimes). This is a 9x12 oil, or should I say, a 9x12 mud, but I hope not in the bad sense that oil paint can become like mud.

Looking Up the Canal or Canal Looking Up

2011-11-08T21:22:00.003-05:00

While I work on a painting, I can only offer a walk'nsketch from this morning. The good news is that the canal water rose several feet last night, and it didn't rain. Somebody must be letting in more water. The drawing is 8x6 with graphite pencil.

Back to Mud with Charcoal

2011-11-07T22:10:00.006-05:00

Back to muddy corn fields. I want to continue the muddy field series, but act out some drawings first before each painting to learn the lay of the land. This will look better in color. The charcoal drawing is 9x12.

Tall Canal

2011-11-06T20:54:00.005-05:00

Another view from the Grant Street Bridge facing south. I could put together an exhibition consisting of paintings of just this view, and they are all different. The stretch of canal that I usually paint only extends about a half mile or so. 12x9 pastel on colorfix suede.

Canal Bending

2011-11-05T22:36:00.004-04:00

This morning was sunny and I walked along the canal, stopping occasionally to sketch. Since I have an extra hour tonight, I kept on working. The canal is filling up slowly. Workmen have been scooping out tree trunks and sand banks out of the canal, so presumably the rest of the water will be allowed back in soon. The sketch is only 8x6, while the pastel is 12x9 on colorfix suede paper.

Reflections on a Canal

2011-11-03T21:09:00.005-04:00

There is now more water in the canal than visible here, presumably from the recent snow melt. What strikes me about this view is how the water disappears in the reflections. Actually, one cannot see water except through its reflections, right?

This is 12x9 pastel on colourfix suede. The colourfix suede leads to a slightly rougher finish than the two previous verticals on pastelmat paper.

Mud Memories

2011-11-02T19:26:00.005-04:00

Today I talked to another artist about how I viewed muddy, harvested corn fields as battle sites, still fresh from the turmoil and disaster. A muddy field is like a drawing tipped aslant, the lines and scratches in perspective, instead of upright and flat. Evidence of tragedy lies everywhere. Wounds still raw from scraping and rubbing, but new life is just beneath the surface, or even on the surface. Maybe I am being overdramatic.

The top is 8x10, the bottom 9x12, both oils.

Stix Fields

2011-11-01T20:56:00.006-04:00

Two drawings with Art Stix that I did this weekend but couldn't post until now, since I didn't have any electricity for the last three days. There are also two oils that I will post later. They all represent the muddy fields before the foot of snow fell on Saturday night. I had to walk carefully to avoid stepping in the softer mud, and slipping. But it was worth it. The fields look like natural paintings on the earth. Muddy fields have a lot of different thematic meanings, and levels of visual complexity.

More Low Canal

2011-10-26T21:19:00.002-04:00

On the bridge next to Faherty's restaurant, but looking north, you will see this view of the sunken canal. 12x9 pastel on pastelmat.

Sunken Canal on a Bright Day

2011-10-24T21:20:00.002-04:00

Not much is happening with the canal these days. Still looks kinda low. It's even worse when the sun is not shining. 12x9 pastel on pastelmat.

Low Canal

2011-10-18T21:25:00.003-04:00

A 12x9 graphite pencil drawing of the low canal from the Church Street bridge. Almost all my work has been horizontal, as if you hadn't notice, but I will try a few verticals. This is the preparatory drawing for the pastel painting.

Home of the Heron

2011-10-17T19:45:00.004-04:00

Years ago I worked in the Art Museum at Princeton University which owns an Inness "Home of the Heron" painting. I used to view it frequently, and could not help but notice that Inness, in this painting and the more famous one in the Art Institute of Chicago, despite the title, or maybe because of the title, obscures the heron. Well, I could not miss this heron. Since the canal has sunk so low, the herons are less skittish, and don't fly away if you stand there looking at them. They just look back, or keep going about their business. I saw a heron recently that speared a fish, tossed it up, and swallowed it in one, flowing movement. Since it was a large fish, I could see the lump move down it's thin neck.

This is a 9x12 pastel on pastelmat paper. I focused on some areas, and left others fairly sketchy.

New Home of the Heron

2011-10-15T13:14:00.002-04:00

For some time I have wanted to paint some canal scenes that depict what it looks at the moment, a big, long ditch. It's ugly but visual interesting at the same time. I did the charcoal drawing to organize the above image before starting the painting. It shows the bridge from which I have done several paintings in the past. This morning the heron was indeed there. Several herons and egrets have been fishing out this section of the canal.

Looking West

2011-10-14T22:23:00.001-04:00

A view looking west from a field at Field Farm. 8x10 pastel on uart paper.

Down the Hill

2011-10-13T22:29:00.002-04:00

This is one of those rehearsals tried a second time in pastel. 8x10 on uart paper. Again set up first with brush, water and pastel.

Corn Field Remnant

2011-10-11T21:50:00.003-04:00

Not much happening here, except some corn stalks, a muddy track where the tractors went, and sunlight. It's actually behind the abandoned farm house and barn. Not quite abandoned when one encounters the signs of harvesting.

This is an 8x10 on uart paper, which I roughed in with pastel, brush and water, let dry, and then added more pastel.

Rehearsals

2011-10-09T22:30:00.005-04:00

This weekend I made a large number of these 'rehearsals' with Art Stix. Above is a small selection. I hope to turn them into more serious performances.

I love to walk. My wife dropped me off at Five Corners, and I walked back along Route 43. There isn't much of a shoulder, but many things to see that are not visible just driving by in a car. I saw a painter with his French easel in a field near a stream. I thought I would hop the fence like he did, and see how he was doing. Probably the last thing he would expect is a curious gawker in that location. But, I put myself in his place, and decided not to, though I would have loved to talk to him about painting landscapes.

Side Ways

2011-10-05T21:49:00.002-04:00

This could have been done more tightly, but that's not what I am after. Just a quick glance down a side street on a sunny day. No traffic. Little noise. Everyone is somewhere else. 9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

Alleyway

2011-10-02T17:24:00.002-04:00

Another view down a side street in a small town in Provence. They are to me more dreamscape than cityscape. 9x12 pastel on colourfix suede.

Street and Houses

2011-10-01T16:53:00.006-04:00

Sometimes it's good to do some non-natural images. This is a side street in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, a small town in Provence. I was there in June. I think I will do a series of these views. 9x12 pastel on colourfix suede.

Last Pond

2011-09-28T22:22:00.000-04:00

Another 9x12 pastel pond reflection on colourfix suede.

Wet Surface

2011-09-25T17:08:00.003-04:00

Another pastel of the pond at Field Farm. 9x12 on colourfix suede.

Turn to Mud

2011-09-23T21:22:00.003-04:00

To take a break from reflecting pond surfaces, I turned to mud (not literally) in a newly cut corn field. It makes me realize that, though I admire the beauty of a corn field, I have no idea what the farmer sees and is doing there. Another 9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

I have been using water with pastel on the pastelmat paper. The results are interesting enough to keep pursuing. I remember reading somewhere that Degas used water and pastel. The soaked and brushed pastel behaves like watercolor. Drying time is necessary before reapplying dry pastel.

More Pond

2011-09-21T22:19:00.003-04:00

Another Field Farm pond view, this time looking east toward Greylock. 9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

Pondering

2011-09-20T22:38:00.002-04:00

Another view of the pond at Field Farm with the Taconics in the background, and the foreground. For the last two, I have used pastel and water for the underpainting, and let it dry before applying more pastel. Similar to watercolor on this ground. 9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

Pond at Field Farm

2011-09-19T22:13:00.002-04:00

When the sun is shining, and the sky is blue, and the pond is full of water, the results are better than a drained canal on a cloudy day. 9x12 pastel on pastelmat.

Drained Canal Sketches

2011-09-18T20:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I did these two 9x12 oil sketches of the canal in its present state. It doesn't look like a Monet any more.

Canal Ditch

2011-09-14T21:03:00.002-04:00

The canal actually lost more water overnight. It's only about a foot deep, and in some places a foot wide. I will do some paintings this weekend. The mud contrasts nicely with the green grass and trees. The snapping turtles must have all scattered to the river. Fish? What fish?

Not a Pretty Picture

2011-09-13T21:16:00.003-04:00

This evening I walked along the canal, which is now nearly empty. In some places you can see the bottom. The first drawing is from my walk 'n draw sketchbook. The top drawing I did in the studio to provide a sense of how the canal is presently just a deep ditch. It needs to be in black and white.

Not too much junk at the bottom, at least in my area, though there are two computer towers at the bottom at the bridge from which location the top drawing originates. I am assuming that the water has been released to enable repairs to the berm. But it is grim.

Eye of the Barn

2011-09-12T20:35:00.003-04:00

Through the doorway, through the window, to the distance, the eye of the barn. 9x12 pastel.

Up and Down

2011-09-10T21:10:00.002-04:00

All I have today is another walk 'n draw page from the sketchbook. I have a couple paintings started, but I am slower at the moment. The canal did fill up quickly from the week's rain, so much so that some water was let out, and then a weak point developed up canal, and more water was let out last night. The result is that the canal is down about three to four feet. An up and down week for the canal.

The Mystery of Two Barns

2011-09-08T20:10:00.004-04:00

OK. That's enough for now. I think I will do a few pastels.

Here's something I read the other night from a book of interviews with the poet Galway Kinnell, Walking Down the Stairs:

"If the things and creatures that live on earth don't possess mystery, then there isn't any. To touch this mystery requires, I think, love of the things and creatures that surround us: the capacity to go out to them so that they enter us, so that they are transformed within us, and so that our own inner life finds expression through them. The use of the term 'inner life' means that one is not quite whole, that one has an inner life and an outer life, and they don't quite come together. In the purest poem the inner and outer meet."

Substitute "artwork" for "poem" above.

Rain, Canal, Water, Walk and Draw

2011-09-07T21:51:00.004-04:00

While I wait for a couple paintings to complete themselves, I went for a walk 'n draw this evening along the canal in between rain spells. The above is from my current sketchbook. We have had so much rain lately that the river is actually above where it was last week from Irene. And the canal is filling up. It's now only about three feet below normal levels. The image above is best viewed while squinting.

Sunken Canal

2011-09-06T21:39:00.002-04:00

One of the terrible outcomes of Irene's appearance was a huge break in the berm separating the canal from the river near Lambertville. The canal, which normally flows south started flowing north as it emptied out into the river. The break has been fixed now, but the canal is still missing about six to eight feet of water from across its top. This painting depicts a sunny day last week before the canal lost another four feet of water.

Barns and Something You Cannot Possibly Do

2011-09-05T17:28:00.009-04:00

If you look at the barn images, you probably have enough information to draw an architectural rendering by now. The barn sometimes feels like a brick on my head. The partial barn images I find more interesting. When standing close to the barn, it assumes different personalities.

This weekend I read Life Work by Donald Hall (appropriate for Labor Day weekend). He writes about how easy it is to deceive one's self about one's work:

"...while I am writing at the desk...I am utterly happy, utterly unself-conscious. Then I remember--sagging suddenly, heavy as mud, black, and hopeless--all the times I have felt this way, writing poems especially but occasionally essays, when I have come later to realize that the words I wrote with such excitement were nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and my excitement (my certainty!) merely a function of blood chemistry. One disease of working alone--the way writers mostly work--is dependence on mood. Mood is no measure and flips from highest to lowest in a millisecond."

These words apply to painters too. You can't wish a painting to be good despite your best intentions. Just move on, and keep working. Maybe on the same idea.

But here is Donald Hall quoting the sculptor Henry Moore:

"The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is--it must be something you cannot possibly do!"

So if you think, maybe, you deceive yourself, be consoled if you pursue "something you cannot possibly do!"

Another Variation

2011-08-27T14:45:00.001-04:00

Another variation on the barn. I thought I better post this while I still can. Irene is coming.

Variation on a Barn

2011-08-26T20:39:00.001-04:00

Variation on a Barn sounds like a Charles Ives piece of music. This is the missing corner, as I work my way around the barn.

Crossing

2011-08-24T20:00:00.003-04:00

Washington crossed the Delaware at this site. On the left is the bridge that he used to get over the river. 12 x 18 oil.

Path to the Footbridge

2011-08-21T20:15:00.006-04:00

This is the path in the park to the footbridge that crosses Route 29 early in the morning yesterday.

Turning the Corner

2011-08-19T22:37:00.002-04:00

A 12x12 barn corner. I think I understand how this barn worked in terms of where the cows were situated. Presumably this is a cow entrance, but I have to talk to one of the farmers, who probably know all about this place.

Pencil Me in

2011-08-18T22:10:00.004-04:00

These three drawings were done with different pencils ranging in hardness from 2H to 9B. I don't have the patience to sharpen and shave the points and lay marks side by side, as is sometimes recommended, but the different pencils used together still give a nice effect. Using a range of pencils is better than using one pencil and varying the pressure for lighter or darker lines. One drawback with pencil is the shiny surface in the dark areas. The top drawing is done with woodless graphite pencils, which I think gives the best results for the way I draw, without the shine.

Of course, if one are doing a walk and draw outside, one cannot carry and use five or six pencils. I don't have enough hands and can't tell the pencils apart easily. Outside I use one pencil, but again have discovered that a soft woodless graphite pencil is a good choice, because I can get sharp lines, and use the side for broad lines.

Sunday's Painting

2011-08-17T20:58:00.002-04:00

This is the painting from last Sunday, another 8x10 oil. These are exercises in limited palettes and color mixing. I just have to avoid getting confused.

Saturday's Painting

2011-08-16T21:24:00.002-04:00

A view of the entire barn from the northwest. Another 8x10 oil. It's not really a barn, but an enormous still life.

Friday's Barn

2011-08-15T22:12:00.001-04:00

This is the barn view that I did last Friday. The place was not so abandoned since there were men and tractors working the fields nearby.

Old Barn with Openings

2011-08-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

Another painted version of a previous drawing. 12x12 oil.

Two Barns and Gruppe's Advice

2011-08-09T20:08:00.003-04:00

Two 12 x 12 oil paintings, one slightly revised from an earlier posting, and the other from a drawing previously posted.

The following quote is from Emile Gruppe's Brushwork: A Guide to Expressive Brushwork for Oil Painting: "...my closing advice to you is to paint what you like--don't worry if anyone else likes it or not. And study nature carefully, so you know what you're trying to do. Maybe you'll eventually agree with me: if there's a heaven, it must be here on earth. The world is so beautiful! Everyone subconsciously appreciates this beauty. But the painter's appreciation is more conscious--and he spends his life trying to communicate his feelings to others."

The Old Barn, Another Side

2011-08-08T21:37:00.003-04:00

I have completed two oil paintings of the barn, but here's another drawing in preparation for a third painting. You may think they are similar in composition, and they are. It's a big barn. I will eventually do the entire barn also. I will post the paintings in a couple days. You may have noticed they are all square. It's a series.

Old Barn Side

2011-08-05T22:21:00.002-04:00

There's a second barn that has collapsed in the background. I have started a couple paintings from these drawings. Nothing more to add yet on old painters and pain. A poet might point out that the word pain is contained in the word paint and painter.

Hole in Barn and Pain

2011-08-04T21:14:00.003-04:00

The old barn from the other side.

Regarding older artists, Madeleine L'Engle writes in Walking on Water, "It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not had to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there's no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with deafness. Could Milton have seen all that he sees in Paradise Lost if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain."

The Old Barn and the Old Artists

2011-08-03T19:24:00.006-04:00

The Old Barn. Before painting another image, I think I might do a few more drawings.

Here's an interesting passage from Kenneth Clark's Landscape into Art. I read the book as an undergraduate, which might explain to me why I don't remember much of it. It's actually quite brilliant, I think. The part about artists in old age is appealing. He does reclaim Monet who revived in his old age.

"I have said that impressionism was the painting of happiness. This, although one of its charms for us, is also one of its limitations, for the impressionists were thereby cut off from the deepest intuitions of the human spirit, and in particular from those which great artists achieve in the last years of their lives. There used to be a comfortable belief that great artists grew old in a kind of haze of benevolence, but a theory which does not apply to Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Tolstoi, Beethoven, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, is not really of much value; and the history of art shows that the minds which have not simply given up the struggle end in a kind of sublime despair at the spectacle of human destiny. Now expressionist art is essentially tragic; it was a sense of the misery and wastefulness of existence which gave an expressionist character to the late work of Constable and Cezanne--even to some of the late drawings of Degas. But in 1880 Cezanne and Degas were still classic painters, and the impressionists were all sunshine. It was van Gogh who brought back the sense of tragedy into modern art; and, like Nietzsche and Ruskin, found in madness the only escape from the materialism of the nineteenth century."

Barn Side

2011-08-02T22:30:00.002-04:00

These images represent part of the old barn at the abandoned farm house. I will probably work a bit more on the painting, and at least make another photo of it. The oil is 12x12, the drawing 11x11.

New Path

2011-08-01T21:15:00.002-04:00

This is the view looking back on the path to the abandoned farmhouse, near the abandoned tractor.

Left Behind

2011-07-31T21:15:00.005-04:00

This weekend I visited the old, abandoned farm house again. I don't quite understand my fascination. Maybe it's like looking at a self-portrait. The barn is near the house, and in better shape. The paintings are oils, all 8x10.

Two Views

2011-07-27T20:24:00.003-04:00

Two views of the same thing, bottom one in oil and the top one in pastel.

Graphic Equivalents

2011-07-26T21:24:00.005-04:00

There are a couple paintings in the oven, which I am taking time with, but every day I walk, and I draw. Over the weekend, I reduced my pencil to a nub, by drawing, and sharpening, and drawing, in the field. I have a pencil extender which is quite useful.

In his book Landscape into Art, Kenneth Clark writes, "...Rembrandt...was one of the most sensitive and accurate observers of fact who has ever lived, and one who, as time went on, could immediately find a graphic equivalent for everything he saw. In his landscape drawings of the 1650s, every dot and scribble contributes to an effect of space and light..." Graphic equivalents. Dot and scribble. I like that.

Mountain Background

2011-07-23T22:16:00.002-04:00

When in doubt about what to do next, I took my own advice: draw some more. The mountain is visible in the background.