Monthly Studio Update - March, 2004

Studio Update:

 

Glass Jar with Chocolate Boxes, 2004, 12 x 16", acrylic on canvas board.

 

Last week I finished the still life, Glass Jar with Chocolate Boxes. In the last studio update I mentioned I was a day or two away from finishing it, not the case, it took another four weeks of every waking hour to complete. It is available, $3,500.

For artists there is always the danger of having too much influence from your favorite painters and consequently losing your voice. One great way to solve that problem is to paint directly from life. There is also a ton of other benefits from direct perception like picking up the sensuality of the color and light vibrations...that does it for me every time.

I thought it might be interesting if I write about some of my influences and how I work with them.

 

Here is a Zurbaran, Spanish 17th Century, Still Life with Pottery Jars.

 

I like the lights, darks, and realism in this piece. And I like the human and sincere quality of the simple objects. But, there are two things my modern eye doesn't like in this piece: the horizontal line of the table a few inches up from the bottom and the emptiness of the upper third of the painting.

In composing a still life I do everything I can NOT to have a horizontal edge of the table running along the bottom of the painting. The problem is that it is too easy to do and there have been millions of still life painters that that do exactly that, i.e. they measure up two inches, get a straight edge and zap it across. Argh! Look for that when you go on your next gallery tour.

OK, so you can see that in Chocolate Boxes I don't do that.

 

A big influence of mine is Picasso.

If you get past the lack of realism look at the rhythms of the triangular silvers...I love the way he breaks up and arranges a composition. In Boxes there are two triangular silvers of the white section of the boxes, in shadow. No I was not conscious of the connection with Picasso but I love those silvers and how they are balanced against each other and their placement on the picture plane.

 

I have always liked Cezanne's still lives...the richness of the textures, colors, and the fabric motifs. You can see here how he far away he is from the simple horizontal line of the table.

 

 

 

In many of Rembrandt's paintings textures are wonderfully detailed and combined with his superlative light; those two things have been a big influence in my art...and I think you can sense the light and textural touches in Boxes.

 

 

Vermeer's Girl with the Red Hat is one of my all-time favorite paintings. In the foreground notice that the chair's carved lion's head on the left is the same general color as the background and it is framed by her dark blue cloak. In Boxes in the bottom foreground in the shadow notice the light flower motif of the fabric. Their light color is almost identical with the background color...the flower motifs only look light because they are silhouetted by the fabric's black/blue ground.

 

Last point: the first thing that startled me looking at the set up for Boxes was the lamp light reflected on the surface of the water in the jar...I have never seen that painted before. There could of course be contemporary examples that I am unfamiliar with but I thought it would be very exciting to attempt to do such a difficult thing and make it look believable.

 

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For a few hours a couple of times a week I have been painting this portrait from life.

 

 

Today I spent an hour just on the nostrils...kinda complicated but the nose and the "V" of the collar are the closest things to us. I want to get the nose just right and then move my way back through space to the background. One thing that is wild about this set up is that the background is brown leather and I want its texture to be obvious when the painting is done.

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Non-Studio Update:

On the 10th I will post the date and time I am speaking at Rockford College.

That's it.