Painting is Team Work

Coffee and a bagel from Jake's is how I start my day. Some mornings I have them at Jake's and bug other patrons with my stare, trying to see if they will spark a possible painting. Other mornings I have my coffee in my studio at my computer checking out the art people post. Butter all over my key board, I type in comments and press the "like" button a few times, and when I really like something I hit the "share" button. 

Every so othen something will cause me to pause and really think. The other day it was a painting in which the artist did not consider how people might see his painting. His painting was obviously done from a good photo, what he missed were the hands in the photo and how they were in bad positions to translate into a great painting. People accept things in a photo because people believe everything in a photo to be true. Where a figure appears to have only three fingers on each hand in the photo, they know the missing fingers are hidden somehow and accept the photos as being perfect. An artist has to realize people look at a painting differently, so that great photo may require some serious thinking.

Too many artist are slaves to photos. I use photos, but I have learned to be the master of my photos. My last painting took twenty-some photos that I actually used, planning for this painting I took hundreds of photos. It began with an image in my head then a photo session with models. I let each model contribute to the painting with how they hold their hands, how their hair falls on the ground, how the dress clings to their hips how theirs eyes connect to each other. One model may be perfect while the other is off just slightly. I need my art on the walls in my galleries to continue telling the stories I want to tell, and to keep those walls, I push  paintings beyond what they can be to what they have to be.  I push my models to push back with challenges, joining in on the creative side.

Painting is team work for me. My mind has to be in the right place. My hands have to be in tune with my mind and the colors on my palette have to speak the language I am working in. Each subject, each still-life, figure, landscape - each have their own language. Painting takes over an artists body, mind and soul. There is an unbelievable peace for me when my paintings smile at me. I thank all my models when I finish, they may not be present but I believe they hear me when they see themselves in my work.  

A God Creating For Our Enjoyment

Forty tubs of paint, four dozen brushes, mineral spirits, paper towels, trash bag, extra large diet coke, one 12x16 canvas, one 20x24 canvas, one umbrella, one kitchen step stool, can of Deep Woods OFF - I think I have everything I need. Oh yes, my Julian French easel and my Molly, my protector from passerby's.  Nothing like a good barking dog hiding under my easel to keep people moving. I wonder, could carrying all that for twenty years be the cause of my bad hip? Over the years I never eliminated one of those items for going out painting, not even when I knew I would be hauling it all up and down hills through the woods and over streams. Knowing the reward of coming home with a good painting gave me the energy to carry it all out there. Heaven help those I ran into on the way back if I failed to get a good painting. On a nice day my foot was my answer to those non-painters. 

Can't  imagine what people thought who saw me out painting, not many people know what a french easel is and setting up in a steam might be a  sight for some. I had farmers stop and ask if I were OK when I set up on the side of a hill covered in ice and snow. Crashed into a big old dead tree that day when the ice cover gave way and my french easel and myself took a ride down to that dead tree I was attempting to capture on canvas. To keep the swelling down I laid in the snow for an hour before packing it in. First case of black leg that evening. Second case came when I discovered my friend Gary couldn't steer a toboggan, again the tree won. 

Those first trips out painting were to get paintings done, but then those trips out turned into study sessions. Seeing and capturing the colors of a stream was the reason for sitting in the middle of it with my easel and my paints. I wanted exact color - not a color close to what I was seeing, so I had my emerald green there to mix a touch of yellow ochre to get that one lone rock at the bottom of that stream. Seeing the array of colors out in nature was my goal for going out. A friend happened upon the same spot I'd painted the week before, with his painting he showed me the beauty of nature, but he did not prove to me there is a God. When I look at what is out there or at a face in my studio I see the work of God.

I am not religious but the only way to explain it is with God. The dead tree in my friend's painting I recognized right away and I could see he'd put the grey trunk in very actuate. What he missed were the subtle variations of grey and violets that were there. Where one needed a  Quinacridone or a cobalt rose to get the grey in the trunk of this tree, he used a simple cad red.

For me painting out on the spot is seeing all the incredible colors out there and wanting to capture them, not just the fact there are dead trees that can make for a nice painting but that there is a God creating for our enjoyment. If a limited palette is your choice why not stay in the studio?