On Hands Holding Pear Slices

The painting came to me while I was in motion at the kitchen sink, the pristine juxtaposition of the manmade, machined sink and its appointments with the ominous drain--the dispos-all...and the foreground of the human hands, representative of the human spirit, life as we know it!  I was looking up close at this tangible reality, this opposition of kind, and wanting desperately to make the point--the knowing of it, the difference between humanity and the material world created by it.  In its midst, that gorgeous fruit, that gift from god, that sustains us!  Do we stop to admire the beauty of the pear?  The freckled yellow skin, the textured flesh so sweet on our tongues?  Do we see the elegant clasp our fingers make to hold this fruit, to section it along the spine, and gaze on it in wonder?

Notes on Self-Portrait with Broken China

These were my wedding cups, from my first marriage.  They were recently accidentally broken by two wonderful men in my life bumping into each other, one of whom is my current best friend, lover and husband.  My initial reaction was a bit angry, that these cups had been broken, as I treasured the memory they embodied--of selecting my first China pattern, a cheerful yellow geranium!   Now I had to consider them as only the broken fragments of my past.  The picture includes me (in the mirror, a mere reflection)  in the act of self-examination.  Why did I get so upset at these cups being broken? Was it now symbolic of the lost past, the broken trust, the failed marriage?   Maybe those cups needed to be broken in order for me to understand their true significance?   The clock, poised at 3/4 of the way to twelve--3/4 of my life already over?  The vase, another frequent representation of the self  (I am but a vessel), an artifact in my household, was selected because of the rarity of it's dissimilar handles, with contrasting finishes, one smooth, the other textured, and their asymmetry of placement on the form, as analogous to the way I view myself.  I could go on, but I'll stop with this amount of information.  Some mystery should remain, and others should be able to make their own interpretation.

Recent Self-Portrait

Looking Up Close...and even closer.

The Bather, Oil on canvas

Finally finished this oil painting.  I've worked the canvas nearly to death.  But learned so much in the process doing it that I didn't care that when you inspect the canvas closely you'll see the heavily worked areas.  It was about learning to paint, so it was truly an exercise.  Though I've still got improvements I would make, I need to move on.  I'm least happy about the cut-off top of image, where the neck and shoulders meet.  If I had it to do again, I would alter the position of the body just enough to at least show the curvature of the neck.  Instead, I applied myself to the rendering of skin tones, working the surface again and again to achieve the tonalities I wanted.  I've used both brush and palette knife to arrive at this final composition.  Observe how dramatic the evolution; in the first image (below) the painting looks more impressionistic, not just in brush technique but in coloration.  Some will say that the former stage of the painting has more appeal, for it has an impressionist lighting and coloration and feels less substantial.  The completed painting, I believe, though less romantic in feeling then earlier stages, has an objectivity which I was striving to obtain.

On Skin tones...

(The Bather):  I've applied the oil paint over and over again until the layers of colors congeal to something I've been looking for...but I've had to do it many times to blend, shade and tone in order to arrive at the right tonality!  The red made all the difference! No more magenta/violet family, it was wrong for the pinks I was trying to derive, with that cast of orange light that hints a yellowish tonality with the undercurrent of blood flowing through the veins!  I'm seeing why from the Renaissance forward from Rubens to the moderns like F. Bacon and L. Freud, painters have labored so over the colors (plural) of flesh!  It is truly challenging, like trying to breathe life into the form!  Skin has this translucency achieved only through great effort at placement of shadows (blue, reddish or greenish, depending on the light conditions) and the many highlights where light dances on the surface of the skin.  I've made so many adjustments in tone on The Bather that I couldn't possibly remember them all.  But getting the right shade of blue for skin shadows, or when light curves around a soft edge, a rounded form, how it reddens because of refracted light bending around the form.  The color changes there-- where dark encounters the light!  This is difficult to analyze but when you've painted it correctly it becomes a non-issue.  It looks right and so the eye can see the form correctly and see it in context of the light and shadow (it's atmosphere) in the manner that the form occupies space.

Read recently that H. Matisse spent up to 6 months on paintings only to be described as a "spontaneous" painter, like he just sat down and knocked it out in half a day!  It riled him, and who could blame him.  It might look easy, but it's not!

More Notes on Painting...

Journal on "The Bather"  (work in progress)
Discovered RED today.  Why I avoided it before I don't know.  It is Cadmium Red Deep and works so much better than the magenta I was using and complaining about it's indelibility; once magenta is down, you cannot get rid of it!  But red, as a primary, blends with other colors to derive pinks, purples and other colors, complimentary or not.
On Shapes:
 I've noted recently how important the indication of direction is in defining shapes-in-space.  Even if the entire form cannot be represented on the canvas, due to its placement or juxtaposition with other forms, still in order for a shape to read correctly, a contour showing direction can be all that's necessary for the eye to complete the entirety of the form.  Without this directional indicator the shape remains ambiguous!
Ambiguity can sometimes be desirable; but in defining a form, a shape, and its size and relative location in space, directional marks are what is essential in shape-making.