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Travel articles including trips where art is a large focus. Food, travel and general interests including food reviews.

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Pushing Paint

For the longest time I used to paint from memory, than from photos, and than from just bits of photos and yesterday in an afternoon of painting I experienced several shifts of thought and realized very distinct differences in painting and the feeling you have when you are deeply involved in a painting.
I think teaching painting has very much pushed me to not be happy with the idea of pushing paint around, the feeling is very enjoyable if not frustrating which depends on your place and mood.

I have several waterfalls started-one of Petit Jean in Arkansas which has been pending for about a good two years and another of Turner Falls in Oklahoma-you notice a trend here-waterfalls. I don’t want to paint another landscape that is as good, even closely to anything I have previously created, I want the water to be so clear and so crystal the viewers get at least a cold feeling or even barely the feeling they get sitting in front of a waterfall. I want the viewer to look for the movement and clarity and try to find the key to how the painting has captured that feeling so well-this is a tall order for a painter but something that I believe is a process that has showed me the place where painting from memory can only fail. The simplest things we don’t notice are the reasons why we see a waterfall and feel things in a landscape-these small details are the first things we lose in a painting from memory.

Here is the experience that I noticed first hand. Usually I start painting with the idea that I have a short time to do as much work as I can get done and I must feel whatever painting I decide to start. If I am in the mood for a cold winter scene, I have a hard time painting a sunny landscape. If I am extremely detail oriented, I will chose to paint something that has lots of details I can get lost in and not  a water scene that begs for less detail and more quick responses to atmosphere and image. I have always said the less you put into t a water scene the better because the details are often in what you don’t see or barely see rather than the great use of details.  I have a rose painting that people have remarked about the droplets-it’s the simplicity and lack of paint that actually captured the droplets-this image was actually created from life which brings me to the next idea and supports the idea that memory often fails us. When we try to capture something beautiful and simple our memory tends to overdo the image-we fill in the gaps with details and ruin the fresh simplicity which will make the image what the viewer has a dilemma and begs the question-how did he or she do that?

I painted the Petit Jean image and departed from the original idea that escaped me and made me push paint back and forth for the last six months, granted in overlapping the strokes of paint the skeleton image beneath was actually necessary and made the overlapped detail work but at the time it seemed tedious at best-ask my student about painting rocks-notice the second painting she did was void of details-that says a lot. So suddenly after looking at a photograph the image came together and suddenly every stroke was called for-I knew where the paint went and what color went where because it made sense and the photograph although missing much information allowed me the direction to support whatever memories failed me.

After having a great flow of work with the one painting I switched to a commission I am working on from a photograph, the image is very detailed but extremely well positioned and thought out. The lines are clean, the execution is almost without surprise-which is the drawback of painting from a photograph where the knowledge of the scene increases the quality of the image being captured, much of the surprises and mistakes that occur from memory are lost. Much of the freedom of stroke and movement are somewhat toned down-there are drawbacks to both. After a very successful time painting this painting I switched to a portrait for all of a second or two but I just wasn’t in the detail oriented mode and feared ruining what I started. So on to the Turner Falls image-painting from memory and some poor pix-I felt like I did more harm than good-the colors muddied quickly, the depth and clarity of the water turned more into a bunch of lines and colors that just didnt’ capture any depth, coldness or clarity of the water-I was pushing paint again.

I quickly got off before I did too much damage and worked on an ocean scene that has gone through many changes in form and focus-it’s kind of a wild card but here is the fun of painting from memory-freedom-almost working in an abstract feeling-enjoying the movement in lines, the change of form and colors-I created an ocean scene but nothing in the scene was clear as a wave or a rock, even the boat was somewhat an afterthought. The only success I felt I had achieved was a great depth of the painting, a change in the light and movement and it was a really free enjoyable process-I will in the future look at an ocean scene to capture some of the intangible details that I feel I missed in the execution. It is just funny how the brain reacts to different processes of painting and different needs are achieved by different approaches we take to capturing realism/impressionism/expressionism., which brings me to the new year and the new process I am excited to embark on-Plein Air- I plan on painting outside from life more often and I’m excited to see the change of works and how the eye and brain depicts realism from life instead of photographs or memory.

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Artistgordon - Find me on Bloggers.comChristmas Miracles (2012) Part 2

Here we are, Christmas 2012-again miracles are more than the giant, earth shattering stuff we save the word for, what’s more important and common than the great miracles we leave for God and his awesomeness-it’s the subtleties of miracles we experience more than we are aware-we just might not see them as miracles or celebrate them quite the same.

This year-I waited again too long to start shopping-November was a rough, busy, expensive month and I just couldn’t get to Christmas until Santa was practically running across my roof. I scrambled as I always do but this year-the expenses, the time, the thought and the feeling seemed to stretch as long as it needed to. I was able to get everything done and the time and the money seemed to appear out of nowhere-I stayed on budget-first time in my lifetime of insisting I would stay on budget. So where are the miracles-again-it’s the subtleties and the quiet presence that you get when a moment that should be stressful and irritating becomes peaceful and full of calm.

 I felt like I was able to get everything I needed and in the time I had did not get as stressed as I would normally feel appropriate. My son was able to buy everything he wanted for his Christmas-my mom was not in the hospital and her being home made Christmas great without any of the seasonal requirements. Halloween and even Thanksgiving kind of slipped by us-we usually decorate the house and go to haunted houses in October but in our defense we did kayak often in October. Christmas was on my door-My youngest son and I were able to decorate the house-something we always  plan to do but never get the chance or just go through the motion, my son actually designed the whole thing and I was happy to watch it come together as a donor to the cause instead of the architect. My oldest son and my youngest went and picked out a tree in the country and cut it down-a tradition I have started, ended and started once again. We probably chose one of the best trees we ever have and I really blame that on my two sons-they have a good eye for this-I think I would have probably picked the Charlie Brown Tree being more of a lover of trees and nature rather than the perfect shaped tree. We went to a tree farm in Caddo Mills-4 CeeSons Christmas Tree Farm. The trees were beautiful and extremely affordable but it was the people that really struck me. They treated us with trust and genuine Christmas cheer-we drank apple cider and talked about their business and family. I will definitely be back next year, more important than anything was I had both my sons together and we picked the perfect tree and still had enough money for Christmas-pretty amazing. Again it’s the feeling of family of your two sons picking out a tree together-we could have been in Colorado or even back home in NJ for all I was concerned, it felt like the holiday. We forgot the saw though-just kidding-Christmas Vacation-imagine  a tree on the roof with the root still intact-but I digress.

My youngest and I went to the Galleria, decorated the tree, the house, I got the feeling of Christmas without the need to feel it or to perfect it-it came and overwhelmed all of us-it could have been simply the lack of hospital and surgery this year as opposed to the previous but the spirit just seemed to permeate the holiday. We had an amazing dinner with the whole family and we genuinely enjoyed every bit of it. I bought just what I needed, I believe-not too much, not too little. We enjoyed a perfect candlelight service in Wylie and a catholic service in Richardson, there was peace, love and family-this is the miracle of Christmas-when we all stop for a moment and appreciate the gifts and miracles we all tend to take for granted, when we realize the best miracles are the ones that pass through without announcing themselves as miracles.

Christmas day-I sent facebook friends my thoughts, trying to start a new year being closer and reaching out more-I just so happened to send my oldest son a letter-he replied-look out the front door-he visited-which is one of the greatest gifts he could have given me. Full of Christmas joy and love for family, feeling like I have accomplished the most important essence of the holiday-Christmas day it snows-yes in Texas-it snows and sticks. My youngest and I drove across town surrounded by a winter wonderland-I was in awe-I felt like a little kid and didn’t even mind the snowballs in the back from my two kids-I call them kids but they are taller than I am, and I’m six two-okay would you believe six-okay five nine-but that’s another story and one of those amazing miracles of me starting to grow again and outgrow both my sons-I can aspire right? We had a wonderful dinner, enjoyed my brother and his family and got to walk in the snow with my nephew and youngest. I got to talk to a very special friend on the phone which always seems to make the season brighter, It was a perfect day and its perfection was not something I could have perfected or planned for-that is the miracle-peace that defies all understanding.

So my advice is to look for miracles, don’t stress waiting for them but be open to them and see them for what they are. Notice the sunset, the beauty of snow and silence of a stream bed in the winter-stop for a moment and realize miracles are all around us-we just need to notice them. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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Inspiration 2: Evening Sunflowers

This is a large pastel inspired by the image of a single light illuminating an upstairs room at a nearby townhouse in Rowlett-actually the scene was pretty much unchanged only simplified-there was a haunting atmosphere to the image. I like the idea of an image that keeps the viewer questioning the scene-who is in the room-there is a mysteriousness about the window in the darkness. The sunflowers brings your attention in and lead your eye along the fence.

Sometimes images create themselves and all the artist does is capture what they see-parts of the scene are simplified or exaggerated for the effect and to control the eye of the viewer and how they perceive. What is obvious to the artist is not necessarily what the viewer will see-they make their own impression from the image and hopefully a hint of what the artist feels remains with the final rendering.

Below is the second in the series, again a very large pastel. Each of these include plants that were my favorites in the garden, the sunflower and the passionvine-each are symbolic in their own right and although I don’t often paint flowers, the ones I choose tend to be significant to me-either I have them in my wildlife garden or they have a symbolic meaning to them. The passionvine represents Christ, although there is nothing specifically religious about the bottom painting, I like the passionvine for its uniqueness and symbolism.

I still feel like both of these will probably be revamped as paintings. My initial image of the bottom pastel was originally darker and the passionvines stood out larger and more vibrant. I kind of got lost in the clouds, I will paint probably a smaller version of it with larger flowers, a less awkward smaller house and a late evening time frame.

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Inspirations: Origin 1
After the Funeral
This is the first of many in a series of paintings explaining where the inspiration originated, this should keep me busy while the weather outside bars me from getting out on the kayak. It’s actually getting cold and windy enough to not go kayaking.
This is the road right near Firewheel park center-it was before they finished putting in the ramps and stuff for the George Bush-it’s been a bit altered but you get the basic idea. The day I saw it was after my grandmothers’ funeral. There was a sadness and solemn state of the sky and out of the grey a whole flock of mourning doves raced through the image.
I felt it was almost like a metaphor for her soul moving on-okay this is the way artists, writers’ think or see things-lots of metaphors-okay maybe just me but I felt that moment when everything stops for a split second and the image pretty much paints itself. This scene was actually sketched and lived as a sketch for just a day or so. The immediacy of the pastels allowed me to start and finish the image in a matter of days. It was important that the sky captured the viewer and lead them in through the scene with the help of the road going into the distance. It is a mass of metaphors-even though I don’t like specific metaphors in a painting but I had just been to a funeral and you tend to be all symbolic and nostalgic after -okay again, maybe it’s just me but a funeral brings out my philosophical side and the obvious metaphors just kind of painted themselves-I guess the only way to get past the metaphors being so shamelessly obvious is the fact that it was a real scene and I wasn’t trying to be all philosophical, sometimes reality just begs to be captured and the images and symbols just jump out in real time. 
Which brings me to the intention of most of my paintings-I don’t set out to create a haunting image or disturbing scene but depending on my mood and circumstance those feelings usually meld in the design. I almost feel haunted by nature, I find myself excited about those dark misty days, I enjoy violent storms and ghost stories-I guess all of these feelings and images just naturally become part of my paintings. The secret to what would consider a successful painting is when the viewers feels the sadness or the loneliness of a scene without it being obvious why they feel the loneliness-it’s that intangible feeling that I strive so hard to capture.
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Ok, forgive the photography-I hope you will notice a great improvement once I actually shoot with a camera and not a phone but here is where I originally came up with the idea of a blog specifically about the vantage point of sitting close to the water. Everything is different, the scenery, the sky, the wildlife around you, you can slip into places and get by wildlife without them seeing you. It seems like your part of the scene and don’t interfere with it. The constant movement of the water and the sound of the birds around you is quite intoxicating-not that I suggest drinking and kayaking, in fact I’m going to say abstain but I digress.

I’m out with my son fishing on Lake Texoma, it’s one of those beautiful days where the air is cool and there is a slight breeze out of the south. Every time we go, we have these visions of grandeur, this time we are going to kill them, even if killing them means to just catch a lot of them and throw them back. It is a strange idea I guess as I’ve been told by a friend of mine to catch and just release, all that work, all that preparation for the fish and you catch them and just throw them back, well as far as I’m concerned If I want to eat fish, we have plenty at the grocery store, I would rather let them go and have another father be able to watch his son catch that big fish-you know the one I haven’t caught yet but still I have hope. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t eat some fish and that I haven’t eaten what I caught in the past but I don’t have a live well on the kayak so that would add to the idea of catch and release.

I  love the feeling of being out here, even if the idea of getting up early in the morning and doing all the preparation has made me hesitant in the past to go fishing but I’m so glad to have a persistent son because this is what I need to do more. I’ve always said that if I had a mountain or a place to hike, I would be very active and love exercise, it’s just the idea of being in a gym and doing the same repetition of weights or riding on a stationary bike that just seems impossible for me to embrace. Here I am out in the middle of a pristine lake-okay they have zebra mussells-short of that pretty pristine, I am enjoying the workout almost as much as the fishing which seems to be a futile point lately.

The sky is an amazing blue and it reflects in the water perfectly, in fact as I look across the lake I am envisioning new paintings and options for the paintings I have started. The more I study the water and study how the reflection of the sky changes with the angle of the sun I learn more about painting water which is my specialty after all. So while everyone else is fishing, I am staring across the lake with a look like they must be thinking I’m spacing out. Every time I get out on the water I have a new idea and new vantage point to paint water. Again, as I’ve always said when we see things as an artist often we complicate them-when you study water I realize it is a simple process of a transparent block that refects the sky and when the mirror of the sky is broken you see either the bottom if it is clear enough or the darkness if it’s either to murky or too deep. I will definitely have more paintings of water and probably of texoma.

I’m planning on getting this same photograph from multiple lakes-I collect places, vantage points, memories and this will be the main focus of this blog. Anyway-until the next time-get out and explore…..

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This is the first of many I hope, contemplations from a kayak- what a wonderful place for clear thought. It has not been easy to get to this point as for some reason there has been much hesitation on my part, I’m not sure if it is the getting up at 4:00 AM on a Saturday morning to go kayak fishing or the stress of putting the kayaks on the top of a Nissan Sentra which is not exactly meant for carrying kayaks but with the help of Thule-I have gotten past that obstacle. So why have I had such a hard time motivating myself to get out on the water. 
I love nature, everything about being out in the woods but I have never been a lover of lakes and that may be from a rather hazardous time I had my first time water skiing. It’s awkward, hell I can be awkward and clumsy by nature never mind putting a set of skis on and a large life vest and hold on to a rope and relax. I’ve watched people do it before, it looked easy, I’ve even enjoying snow skiing but what happened that day on Bardwel lake might have changed my feeling of open water. I was in the water after my first fall trying to overwork the rope and fight the water-you’re supposed to go with the water and let the rope ease you up on the water but all I ended up with a face full of rushing water. The boat always seemed to win-the boat, than the water and than me-with a face full of back wash. 
So I’m waiting for the rope to come around and I hear the unmistakable sound of a boat going at a high speed some where in my peripheral view. I turned to notice a boat that had its front high in the air and the rooster tail of water behind him coming straight for me. Luckily, the life vest was big as I mentioned, I slipped out lost my skis and swam as fast as I could straight down, waiting for my legs to meet the propeller of the boat that just went over me. It must have been a terrifying moment for my family that saw me and than just the boat going over the same spot that I had just been.
Obviously it was a close call and I got to keep my legs and my life but I did partake of a bit of alcohol that evening. I believe since than I have not loved the water or the idea of being out on the water. So here I am out on a kayak and actually loving being out there. It has taken a long summer of fighting with my son who never seems to get enough of getting up at 4. So now I am loving being out in the midst of an amazing sunset, realizing I am being upstaged by the greatest artist there ever was. I sit there, my son is close by fishing and I watch the sky. There are a few boats, a few twinkling lights in the distance and just me and the water all around me, I believe I have finally overcome my fear because I refused to let it be an obstacle for me and I have a pretty persistent son.
We have been fishing for about an hour now, just before the sun goes down for its final display. For the third time in a row we haven’t caught a dam thing-I think the fish realize its cold in the water and are just not in the mood to eat, especially the plastic wannabe shad we keep dangling in front of them. Three times and I could care less that we didn’t catch anything, my son and I stopped our treadmills for an hour and have the beauty and amazing feeling of being out there. 
From a kayak any place can seem beautiful-we could just as well be on some lake somewhere in the northwoods-okay it would be much colder and more beautiful but I digress. It is amazing to stop and take in the sunset, enjoy the sunrise, listen to the sound of water rushing along the edge of a kayak or the sound of the birds diving for the shad we have not found yet, It’s a moment where all you need is what is right in front of you and the artist who has somewhat of a phobia of open water truelly relaxes and takes in nature-something he has lost the power to do in recent years-I’ll explain later but it was an amazing sunset and an even better time with my son as we just about closed out the kayaking season although I’m sure we’ll probably squeeze out one or two more trips before it gets too cold-we are in Texas after all-there is no winter-just summer, cooler and than summer again. 
I will let you know the next time we get out and maybe I’ll have other thoughts and ideas to share but until than-get out there and see things, experience things, find new places to explore…..

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Taking Chances with Style and Technique

Too often we fall into a safe rut with our artwork or creative endeavors, choosing subconsciously to stay with what we are familiar with. A portrait artist may tend to stay with portraits, a landscape artist with a certain landscape style or even region they paint. Over the years I have painted many landscapes and unfortunately at times find myself attempting to stay within a particular style or using the same mediums and colors.

As I have gotten older and perhaps more confident with my mediums I have gotten more eager to try new things and open to new directions. I have painted more people in the last few years than I ever have, I will try anything once, being unafraid to not succeed is the key to many recent successes. I have recently started to revamp a painting that had sat on my wall for many months waiting for a new direction. The painting is a simple landscape of Lake Ray Hubbard and the original image is a late afternoon moon rise over the lake. Originally there were the wild sunflowers in the foreground which were small and barely gave any direction in the painting. They turned into an area of flowers that didn’t do much for the scene but maybe lessen and distract from any depth. I did like the direction the moon was taking and the light in the scene was headed somewhere but the foreground was just blah.

The painting sat unfinished, I even added flowers, deleted them, adjusted the light and the water but nothing seemed to spark the creative vision that originally motivated me to start painting. This particular image was not even sketched out or envisioned which might explain the loss of direction in painting it.

I drive through the country and see many sunflowers on a daily basis and have gotten the idea of a field of wild sunflowers with dashes of blues and violets. I thought of the image as a rough, almost violent scene of sunflowers in a simple field. Suddenly the image that lost all its inspiration became a place to throw paint and enjoy strokes of raw color. I didn’t care about the quality of each flower or the grasses and detail it was more the whole image with the vibrance of the sunflowers and dashes of violent color and suddenly from no mood and direction an image finally appeared in my mind.

Another element that appeared in the new image was that of a young girl staring into the distance, the departure from the original and the chances I took with colors, style and subject matter turned something mundane into a vibrant place that restored my excitement and inspiration. I believe the creative mind needs to be challenged, pushed beyond its comfort zone and allowed to play.

The need to create what will be a masterpiece can often turn into a mundane task that loses all its vigor. Sometimes taking chances with color and form and having no fear of failing miserably is the shot of inspiration and passion a painting is desperately missing.

Questions:

Have any other artists had the same process? Do you always know where the painting is going and how often are you surprised by the final work? Do you often enjoy just the process of playing with form and color instead of being afraid to not perfect the inspiration?

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Criticism, the Best Learning Experience I’ve Ever Known

Artists can become blinded by their own sense of accomplishment and tend to recreate the same image and the same mistakes over and over again. Another drawback in this point in the creative career is that we tend to feel we’re better or further along than we are. I had the good fortune about twenty years ago to meet with a very talented professional artist and teacher as well as a gallery owner. My first expectation at the time was that they couldn’t get over how amazing of an artist I was and that they just had to have me in their gallery at any price I wanted. Of course, this was not the case, luckily for my beginning career as an artist-I learned humility and much about what makes descent art much better.

I learned that what I knew about perspective and depth was lacking and learned to think about depth, color, light, value-Immediately I learned what I might be doing right and what I needed to do better.
So many of the bad habits I had picked up and the lack of being able to be objective enough to truelly see what I was creating opened a whole new scope of ideas and a wealth of knowledge I had just started to process.

Unfortunately my first feeling of painting was awkward at best. I started out questioning every movement I made, I had a hard time going into a subconscious state of creating because the things I had learned were not second nature yet and I was thinking and processing every lesson I had learned. I found myself pushing paint-a term I use for what seems like painting a strangers painting. I saw the process and instead of being able to paint fluidly and without thinking, every stroke I made was awkward and clumsy. I had several failed series of works, many that never saw the light of day.

Over the years I had come to the point where the new lessons I had learned became second nature and I no longer had to think of how to create in varying shapes to create interest or to change values or colors to illustrate depth, everything became second nature to me again but instead of going back to painting the way I had been, I had a new way of seeing my own work and a greater arsenal of tools to use in my painting and I learned to use them with the instinct of an artist that had grown from the criticism and objectivity of the lessons I learned from other artists and art lovers.

I welcome criticism, I want to know what hits and what doesn’t, I know it is a subjective process and one persons’ art is anothers’ garbage but I believe the more we can step back and really see what our art does to the viewer and learn other ways of judging our own work, we open a door to an amazing insight into what makes us artists and what makes great art.

QUESTION: What was the greatest lesson you learned through a viewers opinion or the criticism of artists or art lovers that were critical of your art? How did it change you as an artist? How did it change your art?