Art and Excellence

I am reading about painters from the Victorian era lately. Almost completely written off by the art establishment as overly sentimental and dismissed by the modern art movement these artists are being recognized and appreciated by serious representational painters today. (by representational art I mean paintings of recognizable things as opposed to abstraction, minimalism, colour field painting or installations.)
What impresses me about these artists beyond their obvious skill in all aspects of painting is an appreciation and execution of an element that is missing in most contemporary painting.

RESTRAINT.

We really don't see much restraint in painting today. With a few exceptions when you enter a commercial gallery these days you are bombarded with bombastic, intensely high-chroma, almost electric paintings. As a painter there seems to be an impulse to scream for attention within a choir of visual psychopaths .



This painting by William Bougoureau, "Just a Taste" is an example of what I'm on about. There are strong values, great composition and palpable emotion. This isn't about photo-realism as when it is viewed closely the paintings brushwork is readily apparent. It is about pulling the viewer into a mood or idea with sensitivity and some grace. You need to spend time with this art in order to see the nuances and beauty. The artist is not bombarding our senses with unrelenting colour and textural trickery.

Think about another artistic discipline, music. We'd be bored and dissappointed if the artist cranked his amp to the max and screamed full force for an entire concert. Even metal bands use variety and space to bridge between or build up to their climatic bits. For some reason visual artists, myself included and the public have been convinced that painting must be loud to be heard.

As an example I'll humbly present my recent painting, "Okanagan Tranquility". Even though I am trying to work with a more sophisticated and controlled palatte you can see I have a long way to go.




Colour excites the eyes but is a short-lived pleasure I think. I will try to gain a little control over my palatte in future work.

Until next time.

Portrait Process

Here's a sample of the portraiture that's happening in my studio these days. I had great fun painting Lynn on saturday. This young lady is an animated conversationalist and our discussion of some lofty and compelling topics did distract me from my real job of painting. When I find myself pushing the paint around without any thoughts about values, edges or composition it is time to stop everything and reflect before proceeding. That is where we pick up on this painting.

This is my initial block-in. I've established the basic value pattern.(squint down and you'll see it ). As usual I don't worry about exact detail or even likeness. I want to get some paint down so I have something to push around with my next strokes.

A little adjusting to the left eye, the mouth and cheeks and neck.
I decided to introduce Lynn's glasses at this stage. I sometimes leave glasses off until the end to eliminate the need to paint around them. Right or wrong, I tried it differently today. That's the joy of art, you do whatever you want.

More adjustments with a little work into the hair. Lynn had arrived with slightly damp hair but as it dried it became apparent that all those blond curls could easily take over the painting. We were set up with strong, natural light washing in from the left which when it reflected off the hair gave back an amazing almost white glow.

I introduced a knocked down greenish background wash here. The intention is to use a variety of alizarian and cadmium reds in some skin tones later. The complimentry background should make the main player, the face, really pop. We'll see.

More adjustments. I leaned the eyes a bit further towards green than they really are just to please my color goal. I feel comfortable enough with how the painting is hanging together now(and it's 9:00 in the evening and if I'm going to see my wife today I better start wrapping this up) so its time to loosen up and paint that hair.

A bit of blue and orange in the shaded hair and some very blistering high key values in the sun-lit side. Some thickly applied suggestion of bright red blouse and its time to step back and leave it alone. The Blogger platform isn't very high resolution so you would have to see the actual painting or you can trust me when I say the hair frames Lynn's face without taking over.

You could pick up some smaller brushes and use a variety of colour mixes to take this to a whole different place but for this project I have arbitrarily limited myself to a size and a time frame that results in an dynamic alla prima painting.

INVITATION

You are cordially invited to join me at our reception for the Tumbleweed Show this month.

I will be hand delivering invites locally but if I miss you please feel included in our event. You can see my work from this spring/summer. I hope you can join us. Just click invite above to enlarge.

Here's a little teaser, a detail of one of my recent landscapes.


I'm sending my chicken off in search of a new home. He will be at the Nk-mip Vineyards Resort along with a few others for the month of October. Our FCA group will be showing a variety of styles and subjects. If you haven't visited this winery in Osoyoos it is beautiful.

Have a great weekend and maybe I will see you on the 22nd.

Tree of Life

I've been visiting this tranquil place among old and forgotten fruit trees. It amazes me that these sun-blackened survivors, who co-exist with cacti and rattlesnakes produce fruit. An orchardist friend informed me that these ghost orchards persevere in our semi-arid desert climate by producing a crop every second year. I liken them to old people, while pacing themselves for survival, are very capable of offering up excellent fruit in the hardest of conditions.
I painted one of these characters seen here , "Tree of Life". It will be available at my Tumbleweed show September 22.