Good Canal without Thinking

The canal was good to me today.

I am rereading Jonathan Hale's book, The Old Way of Seeing.  He quotes James Agee who writes "Goethe wrote that it is good to think, better to look and think, best to look without thinking."

Brooklyn Street Drawing

An 11x14 charcoal and pastel drawing of a street in Brooklyn, late afternoon or early evening, whatever one would call sixish.

Bergen and Grand

A different view of the corner at Bergen and Grand: a 9x12 charcoal and pastel drawing.  When I don't have much time, I draw.

An 18x24 oil of the corner at Bergen and Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn.  I did a drawing of this scene recently, and thought it might work.  There are actually two corners (or six corners!).

D&R Canal Near Trimmer

Another 8x10 pastel in the try-to-keep-it simple series.

Castle Point Carriageway

An 8x10 pastel of some point on the Castle Point Carriageway in Minnewaska State Park near New Paltz, N.Y.  I'd like to do a series of simple, colorful, small landscape pastels.  Let's see what happens.  The carriageway goes to the left.  To the right is a cliff.

Ferry Street

A 9x12 oil on mdf panel looking down Ferry Street in Lambertville, NJ.

Another Bond and First with the First Encounter with Elstir

A 12x9 charcoal and pastel drawing of the corner of Bond and First in Brooklyn.

I have finally reached the encounter between Marcel and the famous painter Elstir.  Here's what Marcel writes about Elstir:

"Naturally enough, what he had in his studio were almost  all seascapes done here, at Balbec.  But I was able to discern from these that the charm of each of them lay in a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented in it, analogous to what in poetry we call metaphor, and that if God the Father had created things by naming them, it was by taking away their names or giving them other names that Elstir created them anew.  The names which denote things correspond invariably to an intellectual notion, alien to our true impressions, and compelling us to eliminate from them everything that is not in keeping with itself."

In a November 2, 2008 article in the N.Y. Times, Randy Kennedy wrote:

"Proust's character Elstir, a Zen-like Impressionist thought to be made up of pieces of Whistler, Monet, Gustave Moreau, Edouard Vuillard and others, is important not only in terms of plot...but in terms of ideas.
Elstir can come off at times as Proust's caricature of the beret-draped Romantic, rushing to the beach at night, naked model in tow, to capture a certain quality of moonlight.  But Elstir's artistic ideal, to perceive things innocently--or as Becket describes it, to represent 'what he sees, and not what he knows he ought to see'--is profound.  And it goes to the heart of one of Proust's main themes: that we are held prisoner by preconceptions, by habit and by the normal machinery of memory, which provides only a pale, distorted record of experiences."

Betty Edwards, in her Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain, has admirably exploited this "profound" ideal.

Lambertville Street

An 11x14 charcoal and pastel drawing of a street in Lambertville, NJ.  I am also working on a painting of this one.  I like its combination of flatness and depth.

Fifth and Bergen

An 11x14 drawing in charcoal and pastel.  I am working on a larger painting.

One has to stay focused and humble.

Lambertville Drawing

A 9x12 charcoal and pastel drawing of South Union Street in Lambertville, NJ.

Every now and then I have to remind myself why I am doing all this.  Sometimes I forget.  I will elaborate later.

2nd Near Fifth

This 11x14 oil I did a couple weeks ago.  One could call it another variation upon "X".

I haven't been reading any straight "art" books lately.  I keep plugging away at Proust.  I am "Within a Budding Grove" anticipating the painter Elstir.  I have been reading Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life by Evan Hughes, a great book, but no painters.

Two Pastels

If all mornings could only be like this one: two 8x10 pastels of the canal.

Sidewalk Corner

An 18x24 oil version of the corner of Nevins and President in Brooklyn.

Painting

For the last couple days I have been painting, some on canvas, but most on interior walls.  However, I did get out today and do two drawings.  Of course, I don't know what day it is, so dated the tree trunk drawing with yesterday's date.  I'm now trying a range of graphite pencils to reduce the amount of stuff I have to carry when I go out to draw.