Plywood Fence

One more drawing from the corner of Sullivan Place and Washington Avenue in Brooklyn (no. 66).   One can find fences made with painted and graffitied plywood surrounding empty lots and construction sites all over Brooklyn.  I have noticed that some of these fences are up so long that they get repainted or replaced.

Jambalaya

This is an 8x10 drawing of the Brooklyn corner of Lefferts Avenue and Washington Avenue with Flatbush Avenue in the background.   The jumble of color appealed to me.  In this drawing I've started using a brush and ink, as well as a pen, along with pastel, charcoal, and water.

There is no snow in Brooklyn

My daily routine didn't work out in the last couple days.  But here's a Brooklyn drawing that I completed a while back (number 64) when there was still snow on the ground in Brooklyn.  I can attest that there is no more snow on the sidewalks of Brooklyn.  This 8x10 drawing is predominantly charcoal with some ink and pastel, and shows another aspect of Franklin Avenue.

Uphill

The next day, Wednesday, I returned to try again, this time painting the barn from the other end looking up the enormous Sheep Hill.  The snow is mostly gone now.  This is a 9x12 oil on panel.  I can't make any claims for the painting, but it's a composition that I will return to later this year.

It Was Still There

Just because it's spring in the calendar doesn't make it spring where you walk and breathe.  So I was reminded by Leslie at Sheep Hill, where I went to paint on Tuesday.  Though it was warm enough to paint outside, snow has made a reappearance in the posted painting because it was still there on the ground.  The painting is a 9x12 oil on panel.

Missing Green, Pun Intended

Another 12x12 oil on canvas depicting another spring day, to remind us of what we are still missing.  It's a view of a field on the edge of the Field Farm south path.

In the Turner biography by Anthony Bailey, the author notes Turner's desire to improve the status of landscape painting to the same level as history and portrait painting.  Bailey writes, "...there were those who shared the alleged opinion of the French painter Francois Boucher... that nature was 'too green and badly lit.'"  If Boucher did say that, it's funny coming from someone whose paintings I once heard described as 'they look like someone's house where the lights are on, but nobody's home.'  This gives us an idea of the opposition Turner faced regarding landscape painting, and how far we have come.  But Boucher's words are funny also because, unfortunately, they are too often true about landscape.  However, I do miss some of the green right now.

Springing Ahead

This morning is bright and sunny, but extremely cold with snow still on the ground.  Spring is slow in arriving.  So I've decided to paint my own spring.  This 12x12 oil on canvas painting depicts the large barn on Blair Road on a warmer spring day.

City Sidewalk

A bright view of Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn: 8x10 pen and ink with pastel and charcoal drawing.  I guess they call them sidewalks because they are on the side... of buildings and streets.

Spring Street Corner

I keep plugging away trying to turn the corner, to get away from the oppression of winter.  This is a view of Tunnel City Coffee on Spring Street from last year in the fall.  The blue is more blue gray in the original.

Drawing Another Story

This is a view looking north on Franklin Avenue in the guise of an 8x10 pen and ink drawing.

I've been reading the classic book on 19th century American landscape painting by Barbara Novak,  Nature and Culture.  She cites another writer about the ambivalence American landscapists had about introducing the railroad train into their landscapes.  The train didn't fit the Claude Lorrain system that many artists had imposed upon the American landscape, even though the train made the landscape available and usually was there.  "In art we have a fascinating history of technological inventions presenting art conventions with no options but to exclude them.  The automobile in twentieth-century art provided one such example.  There were few effective ways of including it within an existing realist convention until the appearance of American pop art."  In my drawings and paintings of Brooklyn and other urban places, I include all the cars.  When I first started doing urban scenes, I looked for places without cars, but I quickly realized that I couldn't find anyplace where cars were not present.  They function as my stand-ins for people.  Why I don't include people?  That's another story.

Distinctly No Snow

Not a snow scene: a 12x12 oil on canvas of Spring Street in the fall, and early in the morning.

After seeing the movie Mr. Turner, I started reading about him.  There's a story that a particular landscape did not sell for a long time, and the eventual buyer said that it was "indistinct."  Turner either said in response, "Indistinctness is my fault," or "Indistinctness is my forte."  I love it that indistinctness underlies his indistinctness.

Last Looking Up

One last winter painting, another view of the side of the mountain, a 12x12 oil on canvas.  I encountered this view going down a logging road towards the sun while the mountain to my left went up steeply.  The next few paintings that I will post will not be winter paintings.  I can write this since I have already completed two of them.

Snow Experience

Winter is still here: a 12x12 oil on canvas to suggest the snow experience on the side of the mountain.  Fortunately, it was a sunny day.  The snow on the mountain remains in place much longer, but looks better than the piles at the mall parking lot.

Specificity

A line of parked cars on Sullivan Place between McKeever Place and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn is the content of this 8x10 pen and ink drawing.  You might have noticed that instead of generic places, I prefer specific places in my artwork.  There's too much reality already in existence to make up one's own, and risk becoming 'clicheish'.  The painter Lois Dodd said that she makes her paintings from what she sees and finds in the world.  If she concludes that what she is looking at won't work in a painting she moves to a different position, or moves on to another place.  That has always been my approach as well.  There's plenty of room for being as abstract or realistic as you might want within the specificity of reality.  This is number 61.

A Quick Look

A quick look down Union Street from Bedford Avenue just after having crossed Eastern Parkway.  The sun is hitting some things and putting others in shade.  This is number 60, an 8x10 pen & ink drawing with charcoal and pastel.