Flying Angles in the Suburbs

Earlier this year I did the drawing of a suburban backyard, and yesterday had the first opportunity to paint the same view.  The obvious appeal to me are all the flying angles and wedges.  12x9 oil on panel.

The Lure of Plein Air

A painting that I did on Monday while sitting under some pine trees in a suburban backyard.  This is a better photo of it than what I posted earlier on Instagram.   The lure of plein air is to look and respond with a paint brush.  9x12 oil on panel.

Painting Anywhere

Recently I started a series of suburban backyard paintings, because I would have access to a particular backyard a number of times this year, and I wanted to show that one can paint anywhere.  It's fun trying to develop interesting compositions in the backyard, even though  I may not be making very sellable paintings.  But you never know.  This one I did on Monday morning this week in the backyard, with a couple touches later.  12x16 oil on panel.

Scout Drawings

Two pencil drawings done last week in the suburban backyard.  I was scouting these views and compositions for the time when I return in the next week or so.  Hopefully the weather will allow me to paint some variation of them.

Backyard Support

 

If you are a landscape painter, and it rains all the time, a day without rain is a welcome gift. I was able to paint outside in the backyard again yesterday.  It's amusing how one can use sheds compositionally in a picture to support a mass of trees and foliage, while when you are physically in the backyard, this aspect is easily overlooked (pun intended).  12x9 oil on aluminum panel.

That Diagonal Shadow

The suburban backyard series:  the same shed from the position of the seat behind the tree seen in a previous posting.  It's that diagonal shadow going in the opposite direction of the leaping pine tree that I found appealing.  Approximately 12 x 9 inches.  Pencil on paper.

Lots of Lines

The suburban backyard series also includes drawings.  This one is approximately 12 x 9 inches.

In the biography of the Polish painter Josef Czapski by Eric Karpeles, one encounters the story of Degas and the poet Mallarme.  Degas complained that he had too many ideas for a sonnet he was working on.  Mallarme replied: "But Degas, it's not with ideas that you make verses, but with words."  Czapski, upon hearing this story again, responded with the famous words that Ingres urged upon Degas: "Make lines, lots of lines!"

The World of the Painter

A suburban backyard painting for which I don't have an easel in situ image.  10x8 oil on panel.

A poem by Zbigniew Herbert called "In a Studio" has the following lines:

when the Lord built the world
he furrowed his brow
calculated calculated calculated
that is why the world is perfect
and uninhabitable

instead
the world of the painter
is good
and full of mistakes

The poem is an interesting take on the problem of evil, and creativity.  I'm happy to live in the world of the painter.

Backyard Series

A painting from the suburban backyard series (that I just started).  10x8 oil on panel.

The Stimulating Backyard

This drawing is an experiment.  When I made it this morning sitting on a deck looking at a typical backyard in a suburban neighborhood in Framingham, MA, I liked what I saw, the white house, garage, and shed, bright in the sunlight, trees, gray, in early April without leaves, a large pine, a dark screen of black branches, etc.  It might look better in color, but all I had was a pencil and a sketchbook.  The experiment is testing my view that art is where you find it, and make it, in response to what you see, especially to the mundane.  I do love visiting exotic places (like Nice) but most of us don't live there, and Nice is probably not exotic to most people who have lived there all their lives.  I think an ordinary backyard can be visually exciting, whether in Nice or Framingham.  Maybe I haven't convinced you with this drawing.  But it's something I think about all the time.