On the Easel: Morgan Falls Reservoir

Morgan Falls Reservoir No. 6

Morgan Falls Reservoir No. 5

MFR No.1

MFR No.2

MFR No.3

I had a preconceived notion of the Chattahoochee river, completely formed by one really bad country song. Little did I know that as the river snakes through the hills in Georgia, it is called by different names. The section closest to Avery's apartment is known as Morgan Falls and there's a dam and a little park there. I spent a few afternoons last week painting at Morgan Falls Reservoir. While my first drawings were akin to the images below (yes, I played with the black and white presets in Lightroom, don't make fun of me), it was soon evident that I was more intrigued by the challenge of capturing moving water. The series above is the product. My drawing skills are visibly lacking, painting atmospheric landscapes has done little to maintain my eye for perspective and foreshortening. That being said, I'm pleased with this series and look forward to doing more.

On the Easel: No. 46 Work in Progress

No. 26 (Oil on Canvas, 24" x 24")

When I was young I wanted to be a musician. I have notebooks filled with songs and poetry going back to second grade. They are terribly embarrassing to look back through. Some time along the way, however, I stopped writing. There was no delineating moment - it just simply slipped away. In conversation with my boyfriend about my blog and the hours I spend agonizing over it, Avery asked why my posts were never as long as their handwritten counterparts. I replied "I could never be that honest. That's why I couldn't be a musician." I didn't have to think about the words - they just jumped from my mouth, momentarily stunning me with their honesty.

That line stuck in my head for a while, and I started thinking about my paintings. Painting has been a way for me to discuss unpleasant themes without it feeling like such emotional masturbation, the way my writing always had. John Hull, one of my professors, said that abstraction can be the subject matter of a painting, or abstraction can be the mantle through which subject matter is discussed. I loved this idea and it has certainly been formative to my paintings. My landscapes continually further themselves from reality.

However, some people misunderstand my work. "It's a landscape, right?" they ask, "and its... blue." Yes, thank you. My four year old niece can do better than that. They stand there for a moment, a giant question mark on their face, then they give up, "I don't get it," and walk away. I am left disheartened. Yet, when I respond as directly and matter-of-factually as possible that my works are nonrepresentational, emotionally driven landscapes, they look at me like I have three heads. How do I tell a stranger, or my family for that matter, that my paintings are about loneliness and isolation, both self and socially imposed, and the tension between their co-existing positive and negative connotations? They're going to think I need anti-depressants!

I do not wish to be emotionally verbose or visually obvious (it's not like I'm painting pictures of a man, alone on a chair in an empty room). I've spent so much time learning how to explicitly not say whats on my mind, but to instead hint and allude to it. There is a subtlety in painting this way that is now paramount to my work. It would seem that I have to be explicit, if not emotionally self deprecating, to be understood even though I've shied away from doing so - shied away from being "that honest" for years.  

Map of Antarctica

In other news, a couple weeks ago I was invited to join the Etsy Team, House of Art & Design, an invitation only Etsy Team whose express intention is to "transform public perception of real ART&DESIGN on Etsy." The members of this Team exude  a wonderful professionalism. I am proud to be counted among them. Due to my new found association with the Team, my watercolors have been featured in twelve Treasuries in the last few days. (Boggles my mind!) Thank goodness for Etsy's new Activity Feed feature, without it I'd only known of 4 of these.

• Map of Antarctica
• House of ART & DESIGN 100%
• Prepare to be Amazed
• Waiting for Sprouting
• The Shape of Things
• You Know Me So Well
• The Kiss in the Clouds
• Consideration
• Silvery Rustle
• Taste Test
• Watercolor Dreams in the Mirror
• Mending Hearts

On the Easel: No. 43 Continued

No. 43

 Photographing my paintings is something I'm not great at, not for lack of trying. So far, I've been working on this painting for roughly 30 hours and though not photographed well, the shifts in color are subtle and luminous, the paint having been built up in layers. The layers have also given the painting a wonderful surface, thick and modeled in some areas, and thin and soft in others. My previous paintings on wood have relied on wood grain for texture but in this painting, being my first on canvas in over a year and a half, I've been focused on building up paint for texture. I unfortunately have again reached that painful place of uncertainty, not knowing whether or not the painting is finished. Just as with my last commission painting, this uncertain feeling is in large part due to my (delicate artist's ego) fear that they won't like it. Alas, uncertainty is part of the process.

On the Easel: Key Limes Study

Lime Study 1

Lime Study 2

Lime Study 3

Lime Study 4

Lime Study Group

I've been frustrated recently with my work, with abstraction, and with people's general unwillingness to understand abstraction. Rather than allow the negativity I'm feeling to influence the paintings I've been working on, I decided to work constructively, spending my day on still lives. This morning I came downstairs to find key limes my dad brought up from the garden, so I grabbed a few.

These little still lives are painted on wood and are quite small, the largest being 5 x5". I'm afraid my inexperience in still lives is terribly evident, but now I've worked the desire for representational images out of my system.

On the Easel: Struggle, Paintings No. 46, No. 47, and No. 48

No. 46   (24 x 24" oil on canvas)

No. 47  (24 x 24" oil on canvas)

No. 48 (18 x 18" oil on board)

Success does not come without struggle. Struggle is certainly the point I am at with these three paintings. The first two paintings I started over the last two Sundays painting live at Dekka's Artisans' Market. The pictures above show them after my second session working on them. I've been looking at more and more abstract works and I am struggling with the balance of atmosphere and distinct mark-making. Having worked previously in thin layers, I'm experimenting with thick strokes of paint on the canvas. The struggle now is balance, which amount of each element makes for the most engaging experience. 

I love the subtlety and luminosity of the low contrast paintings, but when compared to my previous works, they are not as immediately engaging.

Struggle is a part of the process, and I am not disheartened. Without it there would be no edification, no growth. Without struggle this work would not be worth doing. As part of the process I suffer it, to become a better painter, a better artist, to better understand my work and myself. Struggle on.

On the Easel

No. 43, 34 x 36", oil on canvas

I'm working on No. 43 as a commission for a family friend. So far I've logged about about 20 hours into this painting.  While every painting is different, it had been my experience that a painting of this size takes about 30 hours of work to complete.

No. 46, 24 x 24", oil on canvas

No. 46 is the painting I started working on at Dekka's Artisans Market last Sunday. I was positioned on the store's stage under one red fluorescent light and one blue one which made it difficult to get the colors correct, so instead I concentrated on the values only. It was an interesting experiment. I think it turned out well.

On the Easel: An Experiment Derived from Rauschenberg's White Paintings

No. 43 (36 x 34")

No. 43 Detail

No. 44 (24 x 24")

No. 45 (12 x 12")

This week I've been looking at Robert Rauschenberg's work, namely his white paintings (pictured below). These abstract works are wonderfully perplexing, challenging the viewer's concept of art. The Guggenheim said of these paintings,

 "In the summer of 1951 Robert Rauschenberg created his revolutionary White Paintings at Black Mountain College, near Asheville, North Carolina. At a time when Abstract Expressionism was ascendant in New York, Rauschenberg’s uninflected all-white surfaces eliminated gesture and denied all possibility of narrative or external reference."

For a while I've been working in close values, but thinking about Rauschenberg's work has made me wonder how close can I get my values while still maintaining a landscape? So this week I've been working on pushing the values near the horizon line closer and closer together. No. 43,  a painting for some family friends, is still in progress and unlikely to stay in its current state. However, No. 44, in my opinion, is wonderfully successful in this experiment.

White Painting (several panel), 1951

White Painting, 1951

On the Easel: No. 43

No. 43

 

I've been up in Atlanta for the last week or so helping my boyfriend get situated in his new apartment. It would seem I'll be jumping back and froth between Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale until the fates (aka graduate school admission offices) give me some kind of inkling into my future.

I brought my whole gambit of art supplies: full sized easel (I must say I love driving a wagon), over-sized palette, art box, a 36" x 34" canvas... the works. I've been working on this painting out on Avery's patio. Below are the photos chronicling the progression to it's current state.

Wooded View on Avery's Porch

2 hours

6 hours

9 hours