Italian studies

I just returned from a few weeks travel around Italy.  I traveled with a simple paintbox I'd fashioned from a cardboard box, a few brushes, paints, and small panels, and a notebook.  I've never been particularly good at plein air painting; it takes a lot of practice to be good and to understand the shifting light and wind and life that is painting outdoors, and I've neglected to do so with the diligence needed to master the art.  But I still enjoy it, and I find myself more willing to take risks in plein air than in my studio, painting things I consider far more difficult than what I can manage in an hour or two, because I'm not expecting a brilliant finished painting anyway, so why not make the most of the study and try something tricky?  I came home with  nine paintings and a couple of drawings, and while none of them are fabulous, I learned a great deal in the process.

Souvenirs

I spent a fair amount of time painting with my friend, Kelly Medford, who lives and paints regularly in Rome.  Our first day out to paint, it rained.  It rained buckets upon buckets.  And we were soaked through.  But what to paint in the rain?  We found an  interesting old building the the Borghese Gardens with an overhang which would keep us dry as we sketched the crumbling interior.  It was challenging to try to capture the gloom of the rainy day as well as the complicated architecture.  

(My shoes were wet, I promise I didn't wander around Rome barefoot.)

The next day was windy with dramatic clouds.  I set up next to an aqueduct:

and painted the field leading to the hills beyond Rome. 

After Rome I went up to Cinque Terre, an area almost too beautiful to paint.  One morning I started a painting of the colorful houses bunched up along the sea, but quickly decided I had gone about it all wrong, trying to capture the details in the buildings instead of keeping it simple blocks of color.  Instead of starting over, as I knew I should, I went to the beach (it was my vacation after all) and decided to paint boats the next day, as I'm infinitely more interested in painting boats than buildings anyway.

 Here's the unfinished start of the jumbled buildings:

The next morning I got up early to paint the boats in the harbor of Riomaggiore.  I found a seat on the rocks by the shore and fell in love with a beautiful white boat with a purple floor and orange walls.  It went much better than the painting of buildings, but before I could finish, the sun came over the hill and changed my light completely.  And while I was sitting there contemplating trying to fake it, that is, to make up the way the light would have been while looking at a scene completely transformed, a man came and took my beloved boat out to sea, so I packed up and went for coffee. 

If I had a boat, it would have a purple floor too.

I do have a thing for boats, among other things, there's a growing collection of toy boats in the corner of my studio.  And so I spent a lovely while in a cafe overlooking the sea sketching the various boats as they went by, trying to capture them with as simple of a sketch as possible: a few perfect lines, the right shape, a silhouette. 

It was a great exercise.

The next day, encouraged by the boat sketches, I had a go at a gnarled tree.  I have a bad tendency to be lazy with trees, not bothering to study accurately the patterns of the branches, even though, truth be told, those patterns are probably my favorite part.  So I decided to do a proper study.

Tree study, Riomaggiore.

And then I found myself in Florence, a bit astonished to be returning to a place I used to call home.  In San Domenico, I again decided to do a proper study of a tree, this time in paint, and of an olive tree.

I've always loved the character brought out of the trees through years of cultivation, they are such twisted, gnarled creatures.

Then we had a turn in the weather, an overcast day, threatening rain. I had another go at buildings.  For all the the lines of Florentine buildings are all a bit crooked, they seemed less challenging and more straightforward than a pile of brightly colored houses wrapping around the cliffs by the sea.  It certainly was a more successful painting.

San Frediano 

One of the things that always strikes me in Italy is the way the buildings glow.  It's not the bright colors in the sun, although those glow as well, it's the light bouncing off the bright colors and lighting the shadows with incredible warmth that catches me and makes the scenes seem fantastic.  I tried to capture it in the study below of a few Florentine buildings.  I neglected accuracy of drawing in the buildings themselves, but I think I started to get the glow on the orange wall in the shadows, and that was exciting.  It was also, that day, despite being brilliantly sunny and startlingly clear, very cold, and I stopped the painting sooner than I would have liked in order to go in search of warmth.

My last few days were spent in Venice, and after wandering around under perfect blue skies, admiring the green of the canals and the arch of the bridges, I decided I couldn't paint them.  Not that I was unable to paint them, but that there are already so many paintings of them, and their beauty has been so well captured by so many artists, that I had nothing to add.  So I wandered around, enjoying the beauty around me, but wondering what I would finally paint, and I came across a boatyard.  A busy, cluttered, fabulous boatyard, which was far too complicated for a plein air painting of a few hours, but which begged to be painted all the same.  So, hoping to get to a larger, more finished painting of the boatyard, I did a study that was, among other things, a wonderful exercise in leaving out a hundred million details and focusing on the big picture.  It was the most exciting painting of the trip.

Boatyard, Venice.

Or at least it was the most exciting painting, until I found an old man with an old boat turned antique shop.  It was a fabulous old, beat up boat, piled in junk: chairs, boxes, chandeliers, cake pans, vases, saw horses, table cloths.  All covered with a faded, brilliant blue sail to keep off the sun, and anchored next to yellow and orange buildings on the edge of a canal.  It was another scene that begged a larger, finished painting, and also a study in simplification.  It was so much fun to paint.

Boat of antiques, Venice.

It was lovely trip, and while the paintings are of various quality, I learned so much from my studies, I hope to launch into successful work in the studio now that I'm home.  

Messy update

I thought I ought to give a progress update, as much for myself as anyone else.  Last Tuesday, the remains of my studio that was in Chicago, (and which had been quietly biding its time in my parents' basement) crash landed in the middle of my studio here, which is nice, as now I have all my stuff in one place, but which is also not nice, as my studio now looks like something exploded in the middle of it, and I don't work well in the middle of a mess, quite the opposite, in fact. 

(See?  It's so messy not even my camera can bear to focus on it!)

So, the last many days have been spent reorganizing and not painting.  But some painting has happened since my last post, and here's proof: 

I'm having a great deal of fun with this piece, which is a blessing, as my desire to get back to working on it is holding me up through the seemingly endless piles of boxes.  

To new beginnings

I know there are many arguments, many valid arguments, for not giving up on things, for seeing things through to the end.  I know this.  I also know, however, that sometimes giving up is necessary, liberating, wonderful.  I started two new paintings today, although, if I am honest with myself (and I try to be), the paintings I took down and called 'done' could have been better if I pushed them, pushed myself, a little longer.  But I caught myself recently, in the realization that in a lot of my studio work I was pushing myself "because this might sell" instead of "because this brings me joy", and I strongly believe the latter must be the stronger drive if the art is going to mean anything, is going to be truly worth the paint it's made of.  And so today I started new paintings, in the search of what brings me joy, and which, I hope, will also bring it to others.

This is one of the "done" pieces, that is, one with which I am finished, even if it could have been better.  (I hesitated to post it, lest someone be turned off of it by the above knowledge, but I don't care to be a dishonest artist, and I've found that people love works of art regardless of the stories surrounding them, so here it is, a less-than-perfect masterpiece): 

And here is a new Sebbie, as yet the vaguest of under-paintings: 

And here is the piece I am most excited about, so much so I hope the excitement will carry me out of my rut.  It is also as of yet an under-painting, but even so it makes me grin a bit mischievously.

Here's to new beginnings :)

Finished... maybe.

I've been stuck in a bit of a rut lately.  Artist's block (writer's block for artists?) seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life, and as I haven't found a cure yet, it's always just a matter of waiting it out.  It's funny, the artist's temperament, the attributes which allow us to be creative are also so very inclined to melodrama, to find every lack of inspiration the end of the world. Alack! Alas! Of course, the reasonable part of myself knows better, and so I've been forcing myself to still pick up my brushes, to do studies, to work out step-by-step demos for the classes I teach, to finish the pieces that have been sitting in the studio nearly done for too long. I think the little guy below is finally done, or nearly so, there may be a few little bits left to tweak. 

Even in my uninspired state, I still think this might be my favorite Sebbie painting yet.  

Nantucket

I spent yesterday on Nantucket, which, frankly, is not such a bad place to find oneself.  I brought my plein air getup with me and was quite excited to paint some boats.  The wind, however, had other plans, for while you can paint in the rain or the sun or the snow, it's the wind that causes the biggest headache, quite happily blowing over all but the heartiest setups, and I had not planned for the wind.  So, wandering around looking for a spot out of the wind with a nice view, I found myself at Jetties Beach among the dunes, and set out to paint the racing clouds and sand.  I knew that painting sand dunes well is plenty tricky, but I'd never tried, so thought I would.  I think I could use some more practice, which, sadly, will mean spending more time at the beach :)

why not?

I've been having a lot of fun with my paintings lately.  And by that I mean, I've been throwing a lot of indoctrination to the wind and working on paintings the way I can only imagine my ten-year-old self would (if my ten-year-old self had an academic training).  I think the biggest stumbling block I picked up at school was the knowledge of how little I knew and the corresponding fear of trying things I knew were outside of that knowledge.  But a ten-year-old doesn't think, "I don't know how to paint a flying bee," a ten-year-old paints a flying bee, and gives it a smiley face.  So, I have been giving my paintings (metaphorical) smiley faces :)  

flying bee :)

totally arbitrary background :)

rose :)

peony, roses, hydrangea :) (quick study)

 Sidewalk treasure :)  or, leftovers? (still in progress)

Some flowers, or variations on "he loves me"

I have written in one of my sketchbooks, under the heading "General painting alla Sargent" a series of notes, paraphrases if you will, on advice Sargent gave his students which I'd copied out for my own purposes years ago when said advice had crossed my path in the form of a book I did not own.  The last note is a fragment, reading simply, "excellent practice to paint flowers, for the precision necessary in the study of their forms and the pure brilliancy of their colors."

I was given a beautiful bouquet of flowers recently, as remedy to the series of damp, gray days that have all but squashed my spirits lately, and, naturally, set out to paint them.  I love painting flowers because they require a freshness, a rapidness in execution, and all the pressure towards exactness and accuracy I feel in my other work is pushed aside (in fact, my normal working methods don't even apply, as flowers will change, open and die while you are trying to capture their likeness--hardly a "still" life).  If you belabor over flower paintings, they start looking lifeless; for me they are the ideal subject for alla prima work.  If I do not like a piece, I simply set it aside and start a new one.  

First attempt.  Why not go for everything at once?

Gladiolas!  I painted this one w/o a background (that's the shellacked panel you see). I do not usually work this way, it's more exacting as you have to be absolutely sure of where every brush stroke goes--I did it as a challenge, to keep myself on my toes, as it were.  I'm not sure I like how it looks, though, I may go back and paint in a background.

Snapdragons.  This one's my favorite.  (And clearly needs its background finished.)

This one, I felt, beat me, but it was great fun... I may try again.