Fragment: Silver and Marmalade Jar

"Fragment: Silver and Marmalade Jar"
Oil on panel, 3.5 x 2.5 inches
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About a month ago, I painted these objects sitting on a windowsill - it's actually from a group of 3 items. I thought I'd narrow it down to just two of them for this fragment.

Silver, Glass, and Oranges

Silver, Glass, and Oranges
Oil on linen, 10 x 10 inches
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Finished. I try to be reasonably self-critical, and I certainly don't think every painting I do is good, but I have to say I'm very pleased with the way this one turned out. There are some passages - in particular in the glass - that I think are some of the strongest painting I've done. The shot I took isn't really good enough to show blown-up details (that whole proper-way-to-photograph-paintings thing), but when this is dry and before it ships, I'll take some better images and post them. Look for that in a few weeks.

Also, as it's almost the end of the month, I've decided not to send out a March newsletter. Instead, I'll send a combined March/April letter in about a week or so. Anybody interested in subscribing can do so by entering their email address in the "Subscribe" box at right.

Sunday Masterpiece: Herati Carpet

Herati Carpet
Herat, Eastern Persia (modern Afghanistan), late 16th century
Cotton foundation, wool pile, 213 x 148 inches
Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna

Maybe not what you were expecting to see here?

If I had unlimited resources, I'd naturally buy paintings, but I'd probably spend more money collecting fine rugs. I've been interested in them for many, many years. Like most of my hobbies, that interest waxes and wanes, but lately I've been spending a lot of enjoyable time looking at good carpets.

There's a tendency to see them as simply being decorative objects, but in my opinion that's a huge mistake. A well-made rug can exist on exactly the same aesthetic plane as a well-made painting. In fact, as a painter, I often feel I have a lot to learn from good rugs, particularly in terms of color harmonies. The searingly beautiful image below is a detail from the above piece. You won't see a more beautifully balanced, vibrant palette in Vermeer.



I can only imagine the amount of time and effort that went into planning and composition of this great piece... to say nothing of the actual weaving. I'm guessing there are in excess of 9.5 million knots in this carpet, each one done by hand. Yes, 9.5 million. I couldn't find the actual knot count in the literature, but I'm taking a stab at 300KPSI (knots/square inch). That might even be conservative. By the way, there probably was a division of labor with a massive carpet like this; the artist-designers most likely were not a part of the large team of weavers.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston actually has a substantial collection of great rugs, but most of the time they're in storage. That is also true of almost every other museum I've visited. If they have good rugs, they just don't display them (I know there are specialized textile museums, but I'm talking about major art museums, which for most people is their only chance to see new things). That's a crying shame, really. I'm sure if people had the opportunity to see these items in a proper display setting, they'd come to appreciate them for what they are: amazingly beautiful works of art. (In fairness, the MFA did have a special exhibit of their collection at some point in the 90s, but these rugs are not shown as part of their regular displays).

Those who are interested in learning more about fine rugs can look visit this online exhibit at the Weaving Arts Museum (the first few pages are a political/historical background which you might just want to click through). There's also a nice introductory exhibit at the Met museum website.

Finally, speaking of Vermeer, he totally grasped the beauty of a good rug. They appear in at least 8 of his 35 known paintings. It might just be my own bias, the real star of this painting is not the maid.



Johannes Vermeer
A Maid Asleep, 1656–57
Oil on canvas; 35 x 30 inches

Odds & Ends

It's been a while since I've done an odds & ends post, so I thought I'd indulge today.

The picture above is one of my current works in progress. I've painted plenty of oranges before, but this time I'm spending a lot of effort in getting the translucence just right. Interesting challenge.

I've started listening to a great podcast from the BBC called In Our Time. It's probably the most civilized and intelligent panel discussion I've ever heard. Each week the moderator chooses a topic - usually a very interesting topic - and invites 3 experts from that field to talk about it for 45 minutes. Subjects range from the destruction of Carthage to Albert Camus to 17th century witchcraft... and more. Fascinating, addictive stuff.

Darren Maurer has started a new project in which he's doing frequent small pieces (nothing new), but he's doing them as series, which is sort of unusual and interesting for daily/frequent paintings. Although I have done groups of paintings (like my sushi paintings), I've never deliberately done a series in the sense of one related painting immediately following another. That approach has been on my mind lately, and I might give it a go sooner or later.

My new favorite iPhone app is Stanza. To me, it's pretty much the perfect reader (and I've tried a number of them without being satisfied), and as a bonus (ok, it's whole reason for existing, I should say), you can purchase eBooks from pay sites, and get thousands for free from some other sites (like Project Gutenberg). I've been a PC person all my life, and pretty much looked at the whole Mac world as being one big cult. That is, until I drank the Kool-Aid and got an iPhone. Now I believe. I do. I really, really do.

It seems that crabs feel pain, and remember it too. Great. Just one more thing to tweak my conscience when I sit down and look at a menu. I’m not a vegetarian, but I do strongly believe in the proper and humane treatment of food animals.

Finally, I was in downtown Boston for dinner tonight (no, I did not eat crab), and snapped the below picture outside the restaurant. It's in one of my favorite parts of town; there are groups of beautiful 19th/early 20th century brick office buildings surrounded by Post-Modern skyscrapers. In tonight's fog, they sort of looked like hovering alien spacecraft.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Glass Creamer and Lemon

"Glass Creamer and Lemon"
Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 5 inches
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I don't paint much on linen these days, particularly for these smaller pieces. I feel like I should paint on linen, chiefly because I have so much of it. Back when I did larger pieces, I bought 2 big rolls of oil primed linen, and yards and yards of raw, unprimed cloth.

It's enough to last several lifetimes at the rate I'm going.

Anyway, since I haven't used it in a while, it was actually pleasant working with the texture. Doesn't photograph well, though. There actually is a tried and true method for taking good images of paintings on canvas. I know this method, and use it regularly. It is time-consuming, though, and honestly, I'm really tired.

So, I took this photograph, which is OK, and I'll just mutter something about how the actual painting looks better... really.

In Progress: Glass, Silver, Oranges

In Progress: Glass, Silver, Oranges

This can be the best part of doing a painting. Lots of hard work has already preceeded this phase, but now, the finished image starts to emerge from the noise. One a good day, when it's all going well, it can really feel like magic.

Guest Artist: Pierre Raby

Pierre Raby
"3 Glasses and a Rubber Ball”
Oil on masonite, 7 x 9 inches, 2008

I’m delighted to be able to continue my Guest Artist series with another amazing artist, Pierre Raby. Though he only started blogging last year, people noticed right away. Links to his site very quickly began showing up on the rolls of many of the blogs I frequent.

A quick look makes it instantly obvious why: Here is a body of paintings done by an artist that not only has a firm grasp of the techniques of making paintings, but who has a real story to tell with his art.

One of the first striking things about Pierre’s work is the wide range of subject matter he tackles. Most artists seem to gravitate to one particular genre. Though they might occasionally throw out different types, they basically have their niche. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Pierre; he works with still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and genre pieces, and he does them all in a totally accomplished and confident manner.

While there are a lot of good painters out there, this isn’t just good and competent work, it’s interesting. Take the above still life, “3 Glasses and a Rubber Ball”. I’m usually wary of still lifes that try to combine traditional elements with one or two obviously new objects. Most of the time, it feels contrived and simply doesn’t ring true. But here is a painting that does it, and does it so convincingly I hardly notice what’s happening. The glasses are as traditional as you can get. Except perhaps for the tinting, they could happily be sitting in a piece by Pieter Claesz. On the other hand, it’s difficult to think of a more modern, borderline kitschy item than a ball of rubber-bands; they’ve been present in every dreary office I’ve ever worked in. Yet he treats it with such dignity and fascination that it feels more like a jewel-encrusted orb or an ancient astrolabe instead of something I could be bouncing against a cubicle wall. I’ll probably never look at one of these things in quite the same way again.

A good number of Pierre’s landscapes are urban industrial scenes; which is one of my favorite types of landscape. The painting below is a great example; compositionally speaking, it’s perfect and absolutely riveting, pun somewhat intended. The thrusts of the major lines all balance each other incredibly well, transmuting the massive rusted hulk of the trestle into a gracefully poised sculpture.


Pierre Raby
"Steel, Water and Sake"
Oil on masonite, 7 x 9 inches, 2008

Yet for all the blunt obviousness of the iron, there are hints and whispers here of something else -- that seems to be a characteristic of his painting. The reflections in the water reveal apparently large structures that are not visible to us at all from this vantage point… distorted by the ripples. The stairs add an alluring ambiguity to the composition; can we proceed? Is this a dead end? Even the meaning of the graffiti is not 100% straightforward. This isn’t merely recording a scene he came across in the urban wastelands; it’s making a drama.

As much as I had been admiring his paintings, I was totally surprised and a little dumbstruck at the beginning of the year when he started posting his graphite portraits, such as this one of his partner Michel.


Pierre Raby
"Michel in the studio no. 2"
graphite on bristol, 10-3/4 x 9 inches, 2009

Anybody who’s tried portraiture knows just how hard it is – even at the most basic level of getting it to look like A person, much less THE person whose portrait it is. What I usually see (often even in the works of professional portraitists who thoroughly know their way around the human face) is the stiffness of a department store photo shoot. I think it’s just unbelievably hard to confer genuine personality in the painted/drawn/sculpted image.

That’s why I was so amazed by these pieces; They’re not just good… or really good… they’re great. In fact, they scream Old Master, and I don’t mean that in terms of stylistic imitation. This does not read like just any hollow likeness; it’s an authentic and convincing psychological study. There’s something truly powerful here… transcendent and spiritual… maybe even a little vulnerable (actually, the first thing I thought was that it could have been a portrait of a medieval saint or mystic). Whether or not it actually looks like Michel, I can’t say, and in fact that’s irrelevant; I now feel like I know something about him… and maybe now I’ve learned just a little bit more about people in general.

So… I have to say that Pierre is that seemingly rare creature; a real artist. It’s a genuinely expressive and imaginative vein that he’s mining. That’s why, even though he doesn’t update his blog all that often, I keep checking back very regularly. I’m impatient for the next treat.

Pierre was gracious enough to take time to answer a series of questions about his work, now I’ll let him speak for himself:

JH: How do your outside interests affect your art?
PR: I tend to experience life as a whole, seeing it as a big work in progress. Since an early age I've been naturally inclined to question the aspect and the meaning of things with a compulsive desire to remodel it, translating what I see or feel with simple tools. Like many of us, I took different paths before realizing that if I wanted to feel complete as a being and make sense of all of this, I must find a way to harmonize each aspect of my experience by letting them merge together. This way transcendence is possible. Painting is a longtime companion, a convergence of my passion for people, science, art, design and architecture. However I don't worship the finished object, I'm more interested in the incredible journey that can result from exploration: looking, listening, creating, reaching people

JH: You paint a huge range of subjects; still life, landscape, portrait, figures (am I missing anything?). Does the way you approach each of these subjects vary, or do you end up approaching them more or less the same way?
PR: I came to oil paints only 6 years ago. Although I had a strong idea of what I wanted to explore, we know that one must put in a lot of effort in order to achieve good quality art with this great medium. It's a very long process. That range of subjects helps me to overcome technical issues, kind of a self-teaching method. For two decades I painted with acrylic but wasn’t satisfied anymore. I was looking for more sensuality and more depth in my paintings. The approach varies in terms of intentions but for each subject the finished piece must communicate a sense of strong presence. I enjoy looking at things, events or people on different levels not only the surface. By this use of aesthetic forms I want to reveal or play with many layers of insights. I don't aim to create high-realistic "trompe-l'oeil", this style is more influenced by a personal appreciation of photography and its sort of objective particularity. The title works as a hint or clue about what's represented. I deeply appreciate art that unveils without giving answers. With the use of photorealism I find it interesting to go further than the obvious reproduction of things.

JH: Does your palette change with every painting, or do you always use the same colors? (If you feel like listing them, that would be great)
PR: It slowly changed over time but not that much. What varies the most is the way I work with them depending on the size of the work. When I work on large paintings, I meticulously mix and prepare all the colors on the palette and refresh them at the beginning of each session. An efficient "ritual" to establish a sharp focused state of awareness. For little pieces, I usually work directly with no such preparation. My palette, pretty basic, is composed of:

Titanium White
Ivory Black
Lamp Black
Burnt Umber
Burnt Sienna
Raw Sienna
Madder Lake Deep
Oriental Red
Quinacridone Magenta
Quinacridone Red Violet
Cadmium Red
Vermillion
Azo Orange
Bright Orange
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Yellow Light
English Green Deep
Sap Green
Cinnabar Green
Permanent Green
Phthalocyanine Emerald
Cerulean Blue
Light Blue
Cobalt
Indigo
Prussian Blue
Dioxazine Purple
Payne's Grey

JH: Do you employ the same process with each painting, or does it change over time?
PR: The technical process doesn't change, but the artistic vision is different if I compare still lifes, urbanscapes and narrative larger works. It always starts with a strong urge to play, learn and experiment on a specific physical or psychological subject. I take lots of pictures with a large range of possible compositions, croppings and then, after discarding many from the lot, begin selecting which of these could end up creating interesting pieces. At this time, a lot of hard work is done on the computer to obtain the digital version of what will become the final painting.(Yes, like your first guest the wonderful Neil Hollingsworth, I have in my professional history some graphic design background! ). I use many printed color versions of the image chosen as a reference. Although I strive to get very close, I am careful to let the piece emerge by itself, attempting to avoid the usual stiffness that could result from these steps. For the painting part, I principally work with traditional techniques: drawing, thin monochromatic underpainting ( for figures) or basic chromatic values for smaller work. I then add as many glazed layers as the painting needs until I feel it's time to let go. You know, working with this style can be tricky as it can seduce you with the illusion that the more you work on a piece, the more you will be assured of a good result... I learned that the difficult part isn't finding enough time to work on a piece ( I'm very patient and stubborn) but that you can easily overwork and kill it.

JH: In what ways do you hope to see your painting change in the coming year?
PR: Above all things, I would like to produce more narrative pieces. For larger scales it's obvious that more time is required to complete the work, generally 3 or 4 weeks. I hope I'll be able to increase and get faster over time. As you know, my weekly schedule includes freelance work: graphic design, commercial art, sculpture. I need to be very disciplined to keep on track. Last year I tried subjects I never thought of painting before, just for the sake of exploration and for learning things that could be beneficial in the end. It turned out that I've been hooked by the making of these and so decided to split my creations in 2 directions. I will continue to produce small photorealistic paintings, a good way to learn and keep in shape. Beside that, I will explore new stylistic avenues for my narrative project. I won't elaborate on this but will eventually share some details on my blog, it's a long maturing process, very exciting though.

JH: Who’s your favorite dead artist?
PR: Kind of difficult to give a short answer, Jeff. Dropping only one name wouldn’t be meaningful and true to me. I love art and artists from each historical period but honestly, the fact is that my passion for creation is almost exclusively nourished by the contemporary art scene. I've been raised surrounded by Art History, with an architect father and a mother working at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. From the past I appreciate a lot Caravaggio, Corot, Bouguereau, Duchamp, Hopper, Bacon, Pollock and the honorable Betty Goodwin (a Canadian artist) who died last year. Each one and many more had influenced some aspect of my skills and reflection. I'll extend the answer with major contemporary living artists who gave me the kick to explore and commit to art: Gerhard Richter, Marc Tansey, Lucian Freud, Louise Bourgeois, Matthew Barney, Bill Viola and Gottfried Helnwein.

JH: Just for fun, I was going to ask you what you listen to while you work, but you already tell us that in your blog posts. So instead, just for fun, what’s your favorite snack food when you paint?
PR: Can music be considered as a favorite snack? Seriously, I never eat while I'm working. Only liquids, all kinds, depending what time it is.

JH: Finally, can you choose one or two paintings of yours that you particularly like? If you’d like to say a few words about why you like it, that would be great.


Pierre Raby
"The other side"
oil on gessoed masonite, 7 x 9 inches, 2008

PR: This was my first attempt to paint an image that corresponds to how I look at my surroundings. It shows a little section of my jogging trail. I enjoy each part of this post-industrial area of Montreal, I could devote a whole series to it. Now, each time I cross that bridge, it puts a smile on my face.


Pierre Raby
"Didn't mean to hurt"
oil on gessoed masonite, 21 ¼ x 28 Inches, 2006

PR: Painted with desaturated colors, almost monochromatic, this was my first real narrative piece. In this particular one, I allowed myself to intensively blur the image, the brustrokes, in order to enhance the ambiguous psychological mood. The title works as a juxtaposed possible hint or clue about what's represented.



Well, that’s it for this month’s guest artist feature. I’d like to thank Pierre over and over again for his enthusiasm and patience in working on this; it was certainly a pleasure for me. Please visit his blog, and spend time going through the archives; it’s well worth it. Also, add a link or bookmark so you can visit regularly. His posts aren’t frequent, but they’re must-reads.

And… this series will continue next month. I’ve already spoken with another extraordinary artist who’s agreed to participate, and I’m totally looking forward to it… stay tuned!

Chopstick in a Bottle

"Chopstick in a Bottle"
Oil on panel, 10 x 4 inches
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I've had this very nice, very graphically appealing set of chopsticks collecting dust in my studio for over a year. They've turned out to be surprisingly difficult objects to work into still lifes. This particular composition came up at the end of a longish evening of playing around with about 20 objects for potential paintings. After trying to balance the chopstick on just about every single object, in a moment of frustration I just dropped it in the bottle.

And that was exactly what I needed to do... sometimes, good paintings have bad starts.

In Progress: Chopstick and Bottle & Guest Artist

Not a whole lot to say about it at this point. I was going to push myself and try to put in a few more hours tonight, but I can barely see straight, and I think maybe I should just watch TV instead. Hard work pays off eventually, but laziness pays off right now. Or something like that.

AND - some of you may have wondered about the guest artist feature I started last month. No, it was not a one-off feature, and yes, I am indeed continuing it. This sunday, in fact. I have a terrific interview with an amazing artist; I think everybody who reads it will thoroughly enjoy it.

More tomorrow.

Fragment: Bottleneck No. 4

"Fragment: Bottleneck No. 4"
Oil on panel, 3.5 x 2.5 inches
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This painting was intended to be matched with, and yet somewhat the opposite of, the other Bottleneck painting I did recently(see below). Clearly related objects, yet I tried to make the paintings quite different.

Kinda fun, actually...

(because of the width restrictions on this blog, the above painting displays larger, but the paintings are actually on the same size panels)


"Fragment: Bottleneck No. 3"
Oil on panel, 2.5 x 3.5 inches
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Salt Shakers on Silk

"Salt Shakers on Silk"
Oil on panel, 8 x 8 inches
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It feels great to finish this painting; I've actually been working on it on-and-off for the better part of three months. In a previous post I'd speculated about the effects of landscape on still life painting, specifically some of the cityscapes I saw during my trip to India last year; see below. It's not a direct transfer, of course, but the architecture made a strong impression. Obviously, the inclusion of a chinese silk panel sealed the deal... at least as far as giving it a clearly asian flavor. I had a lot of fun working on this piece; hopefully that comes across loud and clear.



Hindu Temple at Dusk
Old Town, Jodhpur

In Progress: Oranges, Silver, Glass II

I spent most of the day working on the grisaille for a larger commission piece. This is the stage in a painting where it seems like it gets worse before it gets better. The sketch always seems nice to me; since I develop it to a fairly detailed level, it could be something of a finished work in it's own right. The underpaintings, though, frequently have a rough and unappealing aspect, even when there's a fair amount of time invested in them, as is the case here.

Sometimes, you just have to spread a little manure to grow a rose.

Sackler Museum

Attributed to Mirza 'Ali (active 16th century, East Azerbaijan, Iran)
Seated Princess with a Spray of Flowers


I spent too much time reading the news this morning, which left me in a foul mood, to say the least.

Luckily, a friend and I were able to amuse ourselves with a trip to the Sackler Museum at Harvard. This museum is a real gem; small and not-too-heavily visited. It's devoted to Middle Eastern and Asian art from deep antiquity to the present, and has a particularly stunning collection of Shang Dynasty bronzes. Unfortunately, they have none of it online, and the badly-lit, out-of-focus pics I snapped on my iPhone just didn't do them justice, so I settled with the above image. Harvard is going through some gyrations with their museum collections, so fewer pieces are currently being exhibited, but it's still very well worth a visit.

Fragment: Teacup, Inverted

"Fragment: Teacup, Inverted"
Oil on panel, 2.5 x 3.5 inches
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OK. I made three attempts to write something pithy about this painting, and failed each time. Rather than trying even harder, I think I'll just present it as is.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Fragment: Bottleneck No. 3

"Fragment: Bottleneck No. 3"
Oil on panel, 2.5 x 3.5 inches
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A small painting using another one of the very old bottles of which I seem to have a rapidly growing collection. It was fun to do a painting that was almost entirely made up of warm tones; it made the few cool tones (mostly the patinas on the glass) stand out all the more dramatically.

Read a book, help an aquarium

My good friend Chris Howard has just released his recently published novel Seaborn in freely available PDF and HTML formats. Although they can be downloaded and read without charge, he does ask people to consider making a contribution to his favorite institutions, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions. Of course, people who want to hold a physical book in their hands can still purchase them from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders, etc. I vaguely remember reading somewhere recently that authors who release free eBook versions actually see an increase in sales of the physical versions of their books. It's a win for everybody. Brilliant!

Check it out here. Oh - and it's a great book too, very well worth reading!

In Progress: Fu Lion & Dragon

In Progress: Fragment: Fu Lion & Dragon
4 x 1 inches

Painting, at least the way I do it, is a lot like building a house. It seems to take forever to get the groundwork done and the foundation laid, but then the superstructure itself can seemingly go up overnight.

Similarly, over the last few weeks I've been pouring foundations (sketches, drawings, underpaintings) for about 10 pieces. The good news is that they're all ready for the final painting phase; which means I should have a fairly regular flow of finished paintings coming up.

IF things go according to plan, that is.

In Progress: Oranges, Silver, Glass

So today I got started with the second of the larger commission pieces I'm doing this month. The first step is to make a careful and fairly detailed pencil sketch over which I'll be painting. I generally don't post images of paintings from this stage, mostly because they don't look terribly appealing to me, and I assume most people won't be interested. But now and then it's good, just to give an idea of the process in it's entirety.

It requires a leap of faith at this point, but I am quite excited about this composition; it's a silver goblet, a glass creamer, and a group of orange slices against a black backdrop. The shadow in the upper left is just from the clamp securing the panel to my easel... as far as I know, it won't be part of the final composition :)

Camembert, Crackers, and Knife

Camembert, Crackers, and Knife
Oil on masonite, 5 x 10 inches
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OK, well that's the finished version of the painting I showed a few in-progress shots of. As I mentioned before, some of the most beautiful and exciting things for me to paint are objects emerging from shadow into light. I certainly got some of that here, and it only served to whet my appetite for more.

Shakespeare?

Is this the same man?

Just about the only conspiracy theory which interests me at all is the Shakespeare Authorship Question. This isn't the place for details, but the gist is that the man commonly known as Shakespeare did not in fact write the plays. These were instead written by another, adapting the name Shakespeare as a nom de plume. One of the leading contenders is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

A headlining news stories today was the "discovery" of a Shakespeare portrait, apparently completed during his lifetime, probably commissioned by a known friend of Shakespeare, and, I must say, looking absolutely nothing like the common image of the bard. I spent 15 minutes in photoshop, and came up with the above montage. "B" is the portrait unveiled today. "A" and "C" are known portraits of de Vere. Given the vaguaries of Elizabethan portraiture (consider the differences in the certain images of de Vere), I ask; are these three portraits of the same man?


In particular, consider the eyes. Having a lazy eye (Amblyopia) is not extremely rare, but it only affects 1-5% of the population.

What do you think?

In Progress: Cheese & Crackers II

It's down to business this week. I have 2 commission pieces to finish, and I also committed to doing a certain number of paintings per month when I joined Daily Paintworks. Good problems to have, but the clock is ticking.

The in-progress shot is for one of the commission pieces. To me, there's nothing more beautiful to paint than an object emerging from shadow into direct light, so I really enjoyed working on the round cheese box. I love this phase of the work where the finished objects start to fully emerge from their rough beginnings.

The camembert itself is named after the ocean liner Ile de France, and you can see a dim graphic of it above the name. This would at first seem to be a rather odd way to promote cheese, so I did a quick little search about the ship. Built in 1925 and operated until 1959, it was entirely fitted with Art Deco design, and appears to have been the very pinnacle of luxury. She also played a critical role in the rescue of passengers during the sinking of the Andrea Doria.

You can see some pictures of the Ile de France here. Must have been an extraordinary way to travel.

Monastery Traffic

Again from the South Indian monasteries; an absolutely characteristic scene - I ran into this several times a day while walking around.

International Year of Astronomy

I know, this has nothing to do with art, but, it's the weekend.

Astronomy is one of my big interests outside of painting. Deep down, I really wanted to be an astronomer, but after a handful of undergrad courses I got scared off by the math. So, it remains a passionate hobby. Though I'll never teach astronomy or do any serious research, I do get the opportunity to introduce people to it on a regular basis. Once a month I host an open observatory night in conjunction with a local college and the astronomy club I belong to. People of all ages come up to the observatory for a few hours, and we show them various objects, from the moon and planets in our own neighborhood to nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies far outside our own solar system. Many people who visit have never looked through a telescope before, and I get the privilege of introducing them to a little piece of our universe for the very first time... it's really cool...

This year is the 400th anniversary of Galileo first using a telescope to study the night sky, so 2009 has been designated the International Year of Astronomy. It's a great opportunity to learn a little more about this intriguing and constantly evolving subject. There is an endless number of online resources, but I thought I'd list just a few of my favorites:

AstronomyCast is just about my favorite podcast, period; it's extremely well-done, fun, and accessible.
Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) has a new image daily, and an archive going back into the far-distant past of the web; it's been in regular operation since 1995!
365 Days of Astronomy is another great podcast run as part of the International Year of Astronomy. It's a community-based project, with daily contributions from people as diverse as professional astronomers to amateur back-yard observers, each talking about what fascinates them about astronomy.

Also, most communities have some form of astronomy-related club or organization. Many of them hold regular meetings or events open to the public to introduce people to astronomy. An incomplete list can be found here. Anybody who's in the North Shore Boston area and is interested in visiting the open observatory I mentioned above can contact me for more information.

So, if you've always entertained a curiosity about this fascinating topic, why not learn more about it this year?

Copper and Garlic

"Copper and Garlic"
Oil on panel, 3.5 x 3.5 inches
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This is the finished version of the in-progress painting I posted yesterday. It seems to have a more pronounced classical feel than much of what I've done lately, and that was intentional. After doing a lot of pieces with somewhat unusual croppings and compositions, and including complex glass and metal effects, I wanted to take a step back. By working with a straightforward balanced arrangement of humble objects that Chardin would have used, I was really able to get the simplicity I was aiming for. Fortunately, there was still enough going on here to keep myself interested (and hopefully others!).

It's probably not the kind of painting I want to do all the time, but it was a great change of pace, and I'll certainly do more of these in the future.

In Progress: Copper and Garlic

I'd assumed that this would be a one-day effort. But, once I got into it, I realized the wrinkles and folds on the background cloth demanded more attention. In the spirit of trying to never rush things along anymore, I decided to give it the time it needed. This one should be done tomorrow.

As a matter of fact, I did use the Caput Mortuum I mentioned yesterday extensively in the copper. It is a little tricky to work with; the iron oxide component is surprisingly strong, not so much the dioxazine violet, which I had been expecting. Quite lovely, though - think I'll probably keep it on my palette.

Dead Head

No, not what you're thinking.

Today was a waste as far as painting goes; a bunch of errands and appointments ganged up on me and I didn't get any time in the studio. I did, however, manage to stop in at my local art supply store to pick up some necessaries. While there I looked over the clearance rack, and splurged on a tube of Caput Mortuum.

This has got to be one of the coolest pigment names... literally "dead head". It's a rich, purplish iron oxide pigment whose name apparently derives from alchemical treatises. The pigment was one of the by-products from certain reactions (in one sense alchemy is essentially proto-chemistry). As it was considered a useless residue, it became associated with decline and decay. The texts symbolized this with a stylized skull, hence, a Dead Head. Fascinating stuff, alchemy.

Anyway, the tube I picked up is the Sennelier formulation; a convenience mixture of iron oxide, ultramarine blue, and dioxazine violet. I have been looking for a good purple-brown, so I'll give it a shot, even though I am worried about how the dioxazine will behave (it's such a heavy stainer).

Oh, by the way... THE coolest pigment name? Mummy. Guess what that's all about...

In progress: Cheese & Crackers

This is the first day's worth of work on a midsize (5x10 inches) painting I'm doing based on my earlier Camembert painting. Obviously the lighting situation is very different. It's a little early to get the full sense, but I like the moodiness that's developing with this piece. I might play up the items disappearing into the shadows a little more.

Sunday Masterpiece: Monet

Claude Monet
The Magpie
Oil on canvas, 35 x 51 inches

I love winter... I really do.

But, it's March already, and we have yet another big storm bearing down on us which may dump up to a foot of snow. At this point, it feels like the snow and the cold and the shoveling and the scraping have gone on forever, so I thought I'd post a visual reminder of why this is my favorite time of year.

Several years ago, when I was frequently doing plein air work, I looked at a lot of Impressionist painting. Since I've changed my focus to still life, I hardly ever look at the Impressionists any more, and that's really a shame. I have no desire to paint in that style, but for shear visual pleasure, Monet at his best just can't be beat. This dazzling, enchanting canvas is one of my very favorite landscapes.

Now I'm ready for some hot chocolate...