You Never Stop Learning

"You never stop learning.” Mr Van told me this on the last day of art school. I took it to mean I'd be learning more about art and how to paint, how colors not on my palette worked and whether or not I needed them. Over the fifty-plus years I have been working as an artist I've learned a lot, not all having to do with art, but all from doing my art. 

Sitting in a field of wheat in Massachusetts painting the scene before me I discovered how much life there was in the small space I occupied for the time it took me to do a little painting, like mice, so small they could climb a shaft of wheat without it bending over. Finding fun bits of nature was aways a treat painting out on the spot. A different learning came from the models I worked with in my studio. Lionel, my first model as a professional artist, was a student at Columbia College in New York City. He was an activist, a protester, a preacher. Lionel was one of the students who occupied the Dean's office in a protest over the college's involvement with the Vietnam War. Whether I wanted it or not I got a lesson in government and why President Kennedy took us into a war the French abandoned years before. Lionel took me through the history of Southeast Asia and why President Johnson was keeping us there. My reading turned from novels to Time and Newsweek and the New Yorker Magazine after a few sessions with Lionel. 

Quiet Cathy was my second model. Cathy was a ballet student who just wanted rest and the few bucks that I paid back in my early day. It was fun drawing Cathy, listening to classical music and hearing a bit about her crazy Russian dance teacher. Lizette, an exchange student, took me through her classes and, by chance, I added a bit more knowledge about my own country from this French young lady. With Lizette, I visited nursing homes and pushed wheelchairs with the elderly residents telling me who they were when young. It was agreed that I should not sing and just stick to pushing… 

I found I took greater care with painting when models took me into their worlds. Portraits of Lionel were among my best works. My Chicago gallery always asked for more drawings of Cathy, and my paintings of Lizette never hung in the gallery for long. It was more work to get a landscape done and often they were returned. My figures never came back, I think it was due to my connections to the models. 

It is the same today, picking up bit of the law from Sylvia, and teachings of Christ from Kim. Business practices from Jordan, and understanding homelessness from Chenoa. Raising autistic kids on nearly nothing. Learning line dancing from Sharon, and how to put new brakes on. Never done that and never will, but now I can stand behind a mechanic and convince him I understand what he is doing. Artist’s models are all different and all the same, and all good people. 

Musings on Preparing For a Painting

Many many years ago I decided to try my hand at doing western scenes, mostly cowboys and Indians. Back then the term “Indians” was okay. Now I always make an effort to use the term Native Americans. My preparation was to first read up on them, the different tribes and cultures. Read every book on Native Americans in the Aurora Public Library, and then some. Then matched each tribe with the landscape they lived.  I was just about ready to begin my Western painting when a local artist told me about the horses they rode. I knew nothing about horses and the only pictures of horses I found were of thoroughbreds standing erect in profile. So I began hunting for riding stables to draw regular, every day horses and ponies. This was so I could paint a horse in any position. I began studying great Western paintings and found the master’s paintings had horses running, jumping, stumbling and almost flying. I settled for grazing in a grassy field and so began my series of local landscapes with an occasional horse or cow, adding a bit of life. My idea of painting cowboys and Indians fell to the wayside as I grew into doing on the spot landscapes. My purpose evolved.

My way of preparing for subjects now developed from those days of preparing for doing Western paintings. Now I am known best for my relaxing female figures. Drawing from life was a great way for me to develop my figurative work . Drawing both clothed figures and nudes helped in getting the right feel into my figures. It helps knowing why there were certain folds in skirts. Convincing the viewer there was a human form beneath a blanket was my reason for going to a sketch group on a cold winter night and sketching a less than “traditionally ideal” perfect figure. Tall, thin, portly - all were important to me. Drawing the other artists was important too.

Hot summer days I sat in my car sketching people in parks, on the street, men working, and kids playing were all part of being the artist I wanted to be. Studied bicyclist to see how legs were when feet were on pedals. Studied girls relaxing on lunch breaks, some modest, while others didn't care how much leg was showing. These drawing sessions all came to mind when dreaming up the next painting. Jordan, Kim, Chenoa and other models were recruited into poses I'd had in my sketch books - sketches drawn in my car at parks up and down the river. Some sketches were good enough to develop into a rough painting, without calling a model in to pose. Some paintings came about when models relaxed from the pose I had them in. More than once a second figure showed up in a painting when the model's break pose fit in. Models would kid me by asking for a real break… forcing me to use photos when I had to.