Save the Gardner!!!

Two big pieces of news about Boston-area museums this week:

First, Brandeis University announced it was going to shutter the Rose Art Museum on campus and sell off the collection, valued at $350 million (maybe). This was greeted with a predictably deafening uproar. The university has since backed off a little and may actually hold on to the art, but just close the museum. A not-entirely-convincing attempt to save face, I think, and as a solution it accomplishes exactly nothing.

Second, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is attempting to sidestep the very specific conditions laid out in the founder's will and make upgrades to the building, apparently consisting of a contemporary addition to the Venetian palazzo that houses the collection. This one surprisingly flew a little bit under the radar, maybe overshadowed by the Brandeis announcement.

OK... I'm going to throw out the balanced editorial approach and just state my blunt opinion on these items.

Brandeis Museum
Yawn - who cares? It's in a lousy location (Brandeis is in a lousy location), and every time I was there, I was the only person there. If the university truly needs the money, sell the collection. Educating students is MUCH more important than hoarding a stockpile of artwork. If even a few of the pieces end up in major metropolitan museums where they have a chance of being seen by more people, then the public is better served. (I was a grad student at Brandeis, so I have some passing familiarity with the subject).

Gardner Museum
OH MY GOD ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????

Isabella Stewart Gardner built a highly eccentric and deeply individual museum which is in itself a work of art. Her will very specifically said: DON'T SCREW WITH THIS.

There's a good reason for that. An afternoon at the Gardner is an exhasperating, enchanting, frustrating, thrilling, absolutely uniquely beautiful experience; it's my favorite museum in the whole wide world, and I know many, many others think exactly the same thing. I don't for a minute buy the argument that the museum is in deep trouble, but even if it were, punching holes in it is NOT the way to fix it. There must be a better way. And even if the changes proposed didn't fundamentally alter the museum, it creates a precedent. A really, really bad one.

The Gardner is a unique personal vision.

Leave it that way.

PLEASE.

Behind the scenes

I've spent the day working on underpaintings. These don't make for the most exciting posts, so I thought I'd offer up a behind-the-scenes look.

A lot of my work gets done in batches, and this is the latest. Pencil drawings are made on the panels, which are then lightly varnished to isolate the drawing. This is about a dozen pieces from my Fragments series, drying on the workshop bench.

Fragment: Stoneware Vase and Wineglass

"Fragment: Stoneware Vase and Wineglass"
Oil on panel, 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Sold

I hesitated before proceeding with this study because it was not immediately obvious that the thing on the right was actually a wineglass. One thing I really like about this series is that the cropping sometimes gives an abstract quality to the compositions. Glad I didn't let my hesitation stop me.

Fragments is a new series of very small paintings, generally in the ACEO format, or 2.5 x 3.5 inches. They are studies for upcoming works, details from previous pieces, or simply found objects which caught my attention. I debated how to price these, and finally opted to make them extremely accessible and affordable. For the time being, the starting bids will be set at just $25.

Please click on the image or the purchase information link and have a look!

Fragment: Brass Lamp

"Fragment: Brass Lamp"
Oil on panel, 3.5 x 2.5 inches
Sold

Another study for a piece I'd like to do at some point in the future. That composition features the entire brass lamp. I have to say, though, I really like this the way it is. Perhaps the final painting will just be a larger version of this.

Brass is a metal I haven't painted too often, and I was really pleased with the challenges it gave me. There's a surprising range of hues present on the surface, from brilliant and intense yellows, subtle greens and blues, and deep rich reds, browns, and violets. It just might become my favorite metal to paint.

Fragments is a new series of very small paintings, generally in the ACEO format, or 2.5 x 3.5 inches. They are studies for upcoming works, details from previous pieces, or simply found objects which caught my attention. I debated how to price these, and finally opted to make them extremely accessible and affordable. For the time being, the starting bids will be set at just $25.

Please click on the image or the purchase information link and have a look!

Fragment: Bottle and Tibetan Carpet

"Fragment: Bottle and Tibetan Carpet"
Oil on panel, 4 x 4 inches
Sold

This Fragment is a study for a larger upcoming painting, though I don't exactly know when I'll begin it. At 4x4 inches, this is the maximum size I'm allowing for the Fragments series.

Sometimes I look at detailed sections before I begin, and get the feeling I won't enjoy it. That was what I thought before I worked on the carpet in this piece: this will just be a lot of unrewarding busy-work. Fortunately that was not the case: I somehow got in the zone, and that was the most enjoyable part of the painting for me.

Fragments is a new series of very small paintings, generally in the ACEO format, or 2.5 x 3.5 inches. They are studies for upcoming works, details from previous pieces, or simply found objects which caught my attention. I debated how to price these, and finally opted to make them extremely accessible and affordable. For the time being, the starting bids will be set at just $25.

Please click on the image or the purchase information link and have a look!

In Progress

Savoring the process with this one; I'm not in any hurry to finish it whatsoever. Tomorrow I should have at least one new fragment.

Sunday Masterpiece: Gérôme

Jean-Léon Gérôme
L'Eminence Grise
1873
Oil on Canvas, 27 x 40 Inches

There's a definite resurgence of interest in French Academic Realism. For the most part, Bouguereau doesn't appeal to me; his fixation on pre-adolescent females is generally pretty creepy. Gerome, however, trips all of my triggers, and I can happily spend an entire afternoon with his paintings. This particular piece is in Boston, and I've seen it many times. The light is breathtaking, especially in person.

A View From Elsewhere

Last week I got an email from David Castle asking if I'd send him a snapshot looking out my studio window. It turns out he's making a series of entries on his blog based on other artists' views. I thought it was an incredibly cool idea, and was only too happy to send him mine.

These are posted on his blog; his watercolors are well worth having a look at too. Thanks David!

Tibetan Murals

As I find time now and then, I'm going through photos from my trip to India (all 1200+ of them; the ease of digital photography has a definite downside). I thought it might be fun to include some of them here from time to time.

The Tibetan aesthetic seems to demand that every available inch of wallspace be decorated. That means lots of frescoes inside the temples... lots of them. It's a real visual feast. The iconography is also exuberant and wildly imaginative. This particular wrathful spirit is always covered. It's not a secret image (those do exist), but the explanation was "because he's wrathful".

At one of the temples, there was a group of artist monks working on a mural. I would have loved to talk with them a little about the technique, but the language barrier prevented any meaningful conversation. They appear to have been applying standard acrylic onto a primed wall (therefore not true fresco technique), but I really couldn't get close enough to learn more.

Fragment: Orange Slice

"Fragment: Orange Slice"
Oil on aluminum, 2.25 x 4 inches
Sold

I'm finishing the week with another Fragment. It's a simple piece, and nothing really occurs to me to say about it, so I won't force it. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Fragments is a new series of very small paintings, generally in the ACEO format, or 2.5 x 3.5 inches. They are studies for upcoming works, details from previous pieces, or simply found objects which caught my attention. I debated how to price these, and finally opted to make them extremely accessible and affordable. For the time being, the starting bids will be set at just $25.

Please click on the image or the purchase information link and have a look!

In progress

Orange Slice

I got bogged down with important administrative tasks goofed off for a large part of the day, and as a result only completed the underpainting for the above Fragment. As I was doing it, I was struck by just how much information a shadow can convey. That little sliver tells the whole story.

This one will be complete tomorrow, and I'll have further in-progress images of a larger piece I'm working on.

Camembert

"Camembert"
Oil on masonite, 4 x 8 Inches
Sold

It isn't very often that I'm tempted to hang on to one of my own paintings, but I was with this one. It feels like a lot of things just came together for it. Although it is a simple subject, there were certainly enough technical challenges to keep me engaged; lettering can be rough! I'm also really fond of compositions that are illuminated from the side. Every time I do a painting lit that way, I wonder why I don't do ALL of my paintings lit that way.

And of course, I love Camembert... but who doesn't?

Live-blogging a painting, part 2

This is the continuation of yesterday's live-blogging experiment. Thanks for all the encouragement - this is some effort, but it's also fun (and helpful to me).


Starting in the upper left, the darkest blue is laid in.


Here some of the brighter pattern is painted, since much of this area is under shadow, I need to take care not to let the values get too light.


Moving into the area with greater light. It's a little tricky to control progression of 2 shades of blue. Also, it felt like it was time to lay some color down for the spoon and the cup interior, just so I could start feeling my way.


Corrections to the hues and values of the spoon and cup interior.


Finishing the background pattern. Notice, of course, that I'm not painting to the edge - this is to take advantage of the really beautiful brushed metal ground.


The exterior of the cup. There really is no such thing as absolute color; the cup is picking up reflected light from everything else; the background cloth, the wood surface, the saucer.


Painting in the direct reflections and the bounced light on the lower part of the cup.


Cast shadow on the saucer. One of the subtler light effects to look for is double-reflection. In this case, the light hitting the edge of the rim bounces back onto the body of the cup. Some of that light in turn bounces into the cast shadow. I didn't necessarily do a great job of it, but when somebody really nails it, it's completely beautiful.


From here it's pretty straightforward; painting the underside of the saucer, laying down the cast shadow on the wood (where there's another opportunity to paint a double reflection), and the surface area of the wood.


Smoothing out the brushstrokes, signed, and finished.


The Finished Painting:

"Fragment: Teacup and Silver Spoon"
Oil on aluminum, 4 x 2.25 inches
Sold

Live-blogging a Painting, part 1

This year I've followed a number of live-blogged events from my favorite bloggers - it's basically just a live event where the blogger writes commentary in real time. This has gotten me to wondering if a similar approach could be used with my paintings. Lots of artists are making condensed movies of their work sessions, showing the process start to finish. I've made a number of them myself.

While fun to do and watch, they do have some disadvantages. There is of course all the video editing involved; not unmanageable, but still work to do. Unless the artist is also stopping to speak, there's very little in the way of useful commentary. Also, it's more difficult to scan and search when in video form.

So, I decided to try this approach with one of my Fragment paintings. This is just an experiment; I have no idea beforehand how it will turn out, but... there's only one way to see. Here goes:


So this is the subject for today's painting. Pretty straightforward, except it will be severely cropped.



Shapes are lightly sketched in with pencil. I'm painting on brushed aluminum.



Applying paint to the dark areas of the background cloth first. I've experimented lately with skipping the underpainting phase and painting directly. That has worked well with paintings on darker grounds, but I can see right away that it's a mistake on the aluminum. The surface reflection is simply too great for the semi-transparent pigments to cover.

Strongly considering wiping down what's there and going back with a grisaille. At any rate, this is obviously going to be a 2-pass painting.


Applying more of the dark areas of the background cloth.



Painting in some of the lighter blue areas of the cloth pattern.


I am getting really concern about the direct to metal approach here. I think it just won't work without an underpainting.

I don't recall the last time I actually did a wiped0wn, but experimenting with a new support obviously calls for flexibility.

Clean slate; start over... this time with an underpainting.


Laying in some tones that represent the middle-range of the background cloth. At this point, frankly, accuracy is less important than providing a usable roadmap for the final painting phase.



Several of the surrounding dark tones are laid in.



Expanding the pattern.



Painting the shape of the spoon.



More of the background pattern. Far, far too light in value; it will be corrected in the final painting.



Working in some of the dark field; I tend to favor working with a very light part or a very dark part in establishing shape.



Very tough to get mirror image objects to correctly match, as in the case of these two flourishes.


Wrapping up the background detail


Beginning to build up the cup, working darker to lighter.


The rim of the saucer reflects light back onto the body of the cup. I find it's precisely these types of reflections, done absolutely right, that give a true sense of realism.


The outline of the saucer rim.


As the saucer is the object that captures light at closest to a 90-degree angle, and also as it's highly reflective, the rim (and the handle of the spoon) will be the brightest spots in the finished painting.


Simply laying in shadows.


The underside of the sauces captures reflected light from the table.


And done.

It's been an interesting experiment to write up the workday like this. Having finished the underpainting, I'm not sure if it's practical to do this often; there's a little too much work involved, and frankly I shouldn't be spending so much time on these small pieces. Maybe when I finish it tomorrow, I'll try a more abbreviated approach.