Monthly Studio Update - October, 2007
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Studio Update: This September 14-16 I gave a pastel workshop in New York's Central Park. Drawing outside there was fantastic. I had worried that we might feel a little on exhibition, like trained seals or something, but, even crowded as it was, we felt totally concentrated on the work at hand. Here are some images:
Thanks to Elaine for the pics. The artists made about 3 drawings each day. The middle day was rained out and we drew a still life in my studio, and then had a fun dinner there. Here are some of the pastels from the workshop:
----- I won't show you pic of Venus, though she is very close. Often with my principal works there is a stage where it seems that for every 100 steps, I take 49 backwards and 51 forwards--a huge amount of time to get two steps ahead! That is what I have been doing for the last couple of months. ----- I have only been painting plein air for 3 years. I love my best of them, but I have kept several stacked or facing the wall. I have noticed other artists' plein air paintings have a similar look to them. It makes sense, quick oil paintings from nature can look like quick oil paintings from nature. I have been puzzled on how to give them my unique stamp of style. So a took two days off from Venus, and made thumbnail pastel sketches of a few of my plein paintings. Then, I used the thumbnails to edit the paintings themselves. I think I am on the right track.
These are the thumbnails, about 2x3" each. Pastel on dark blue paper.
---- Some of my recent tutorials have been on the anatomy of light and shadow. And I thought it would be a cool idea to have a model playing with their shadow as if it were another entity. This drawing is still a work in progress. But if it turns out as well as I think it will, I would like to do a small series, 5/6 drawings on the shadow theme.
---- Really, I am not very political. And I am usually very circumspect with my political opinions, mainly because I don't have the interest to devote for fact finding and political and historic research. Last week I watched a couple of Michael Wood's documentaries on the Conquistadors. I was shocked that some 200 men could topple a naive civilization of millions, with nothing more than lying guile, religious certainty, and a handful of advanced weapons. Watching these documentaries coincided with Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University. I noticed that the commentators thought little of Ahmadinejad' s evasive answers, or his religious certainty. Yet, he reminded me of the Conquistadors--I think he was testing the waters. Btw, the Conquistadors also visited the sacred monuments and offered their reverence while simultaneously calling the Indians' gods devils. Ahmadinejad' s request to lay a wreath at the Twin Tower site has ominously similar connotations. Anyway, after all that stuff I thought it was a good idea to revise my Terrorism and Postmodern Art article, which I originally wrote a month after 9/11. Its my belief that the more one understands Postmodernism, the more one is less naive about, and less vulnerable to people who want to tear down hard won human values. Once I revised that article I did some looking around to see what was happening at museums of contemporary art. My good buddy, philosopher Stephen Hicks, his book Explaining Postmodernism is in, like, the 7th printing. He wrote an excellent article, Post-Postmodern Art, which doubled as a lead in to my manifesto. See the video version. ---- And I have two new tutorials up: one on my underpainting method, and seeing some developments of light through historical works.
---- Lastly. Brett Holverstott created an online map tracking where Newberrys are located. It's neat. If you own one of my works, please let him know which works and in what city you are in. Michael Newberry
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