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A Lesson In Art and Perspective

A Lesson in Art: Distance and Perspective: There’s a cavern in California called the Moaning Caverns. My son and I explored it on a trip to California,  when him and I were much younger. So what does the cavern have to do with a lesson in art and Perspective?

You can fit the Statue of Liberty-minus the pedestal- in the first and largest single cavern space in California but looking up you would never have imagined the space to be so large.

Lake Texoma: Distance and perspective
Lake Texoma: Distance and perspective

What is missing is perspective, large to small rocks, colors, etc-you know the distance is there but there are no cues to prove it to your eye. In creating art with depth, you also have no cues to explain  distance and allow the viewer to truly experience the space you’ve created because it is on a flat dimension.

Have you ever photographed a great expanse of a landscape and you couldn’t understand why the results were less than spectacular compared to how it  looked? It all has to do with cues that explain distance and perspective.

Pastel on Paper: Rowlett Texas
Pastel on Paper: Rowlett Texas

Art Lesson: Visual Cues act as Tools

In art you have several tools to explain to the viewer what you are trying to describe:

Color: The change in color denotes distance.

Value: The shades of color, intensity, etc. all show the viewer there is distance and gives the image its perspective.

Perspective: The eye sees images that get smaller as they sit further back into the distance, giving these cues give the viewer the dimension that is really just an illusion on a flat canvas.

Converging elements: To further support perspective-a line that moves through your image allows the viewers’ eye to go where you intend them to go and experience the image and the artists’ intention of space.

A work of art is much like an illusion a magician creates, the control and the process in which the Artist leads the viewer through the flat image will allow the viewer to experience a painting as it was intended.

HOMEWORK: Photograph an expansive landscape with no thought of perspective or color, etc. Next photograph the same landscape only instead choose  a dominant image to showcase and allow that image to lead the viewers eye into the photo-make a note of the difference in the final product and share your experience.

artwork

From a Canvas: Getting Back to Painting

From a Canvas: Back to Painting – I wouldn’t trade being creative for anything but there are parts that can be a curse if you approach them with the wrong attitude. I am writing a book about the process of finding happiness and contentment when brain chemistry has a mind of its own.

My biggest obstacle is knowing where to start.  Do you write poetry, prose, paint something or go disappear and photograph for a while-the problem is the desire to do so doesn’t always align with inspiration.

Lake at night

Creating without inspiration is like painting a wall, push the paint back and forth, end up with a solid color with no intricate shadows and detail-not exactly creative.

When the inspiration meets the desire, suddenly the paint does its own thing, you can be in another room if it weren’t for the hand being your vehicle for painting. The photograph finds its own light and models itself a composition that was already in place before you found it.

Even more interesting is how words create their own, without thinking of the right word or seeking a rhyme-it just writes itself. The feeling is euphoric and being unable to get into that feeling is where depression, mental block and so much frustration begins.

The way I handle this process is to realize you are exactly where you need to be at any given time, what needs to be written, painted, etc. has not formed yet. The panic you feel is you’ll never have that amazing feeling again and a hopelessness grows.

Realize depression, anxiety and frustration are all part of the process of discovering the next work and it will be already developed because through all the empty moments, it was slowly developing itself.

If you consider yourself just a lightning rod to the inspiration and a humble steward to explain that which might be as simple as a flower or something that could potentially change the world or at least the world of an audience that receives it, you may find hope in the darkness.

Tan Dog

I believe creativity is a great burden that we are given to explain things in a different way-there goes my humility, but I do feel we have a responsibility to be true to the vision, honest with its execution and without preconceive intention.

That which we create is no longer ours, it is the property of the viewer. The audience, will discover it and make it their own from their own experiences, I don’t believe the creative needs to explain their intention unless the viewer wants more background, art is in the viewers eyes.

City lights

It’s been a long time, I feel like I’ve been knocked down, floundering on a canvas, this is my moment of getting back, picking up my tools and describing what has been developing for far too long.

 

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Artist on the Edge of Surreal: Exploring Darker Moments

Depression: An Emotional Storm

My intention has always been to create art that was realistic and once I attained a certain skill level I would just tweak reality, just enough to make the viewer a little off kilter.

It probably stems from years of depression which, although is part of the creative process, also makes the person feel off center. The paintings that approach surreal are a bit more dark but nothing too obvious.

Moonflower is a painting of the morning glories, moon flowers, which only bloom at night. I wanted to share a bit of the darkness and mystery of evening but I wanted the flowers to have a bit of a magical feeling to them.

The willow tree is a tree from my youth. It makes it into most of my paintings and is a bit of a symbol of time spent in New Jersey. The dark green lawn in the summer beneath the shadows of tall dark willow trees.

The same trees were struck by lightning and ended up becoming outdoor furniture where many of my very old poems were written on copied on.

The Grackles 2018

Blackbirds are a consistent subject in both my paintings and writing. They are mysterious as the night sky and symbolic of impending doom.

Halloween 2016

Alone in Wylie


Halloween 2016

Halloween has always been a subject as every year I see a different feeling to capture. I love the dark evening and the idea of goblins in the trees, I have always been a big fan of horror movies and my uncle used to buy my brother and I horror comic books and the feeling and thrill of being scared has continued through my writing and painting.

Child of Ten

Child of ten is a diary of sorts, my dad died when I was ten. This is a painting of the effects of losing a parent at the age of ten. There are many symbols including the egg which represents the soul. Again the blackbirds are in the field and the child watches the future unfold.

The death of my father was a catalyst for much of my earlier writing and has only recently shown up in paintings.

Grandfather’s Willow

This painting is from a dream when I was very young. My grandfather came out of a willow tree as the lightning hit the tree. The red flannel shirt is from the dream and I remembered the shattered bits of wood-I am planning on another attempt at this painting as the face wasn’t quite correct.

Many older painting ideas are now resurfacing as I begin to gain more confidence. I plan on creating a more concise series on the surreal side.

 

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Afternoon Sun: Oil on Canvas

As the sun fades from the backyard and the birds all take their places on unseen perches, the last bit of light paints the trees against the house.

It’s almost like a stain-glassed window as the light filters through spring leaves. I have been watching this for many seasons and have had the idea on my easel for many years now.

I was interested in the richness of fading afternoon sun. I love the shadows of blues and greens reflecting a coolness in the midst of an ending day. This is the third in an upcoming series of paintings coming off the easel. Stay tuned.

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Finishing Paintings: A New Series Finds Closure

New Painting Series – This painting was inspired by a ride in East Texas. I liked the grouping
of the drakes and the females looking on. It was a quick snapshot that turned into a long process of capturing a cool autumn day.

Since I started the painting, there have been many starts and stops. I have also had several times studying mallards at a local park to get the personality and eyes right on the males.

I aim to capture that relationship between characters in nature. When I go and study the ducks, they always know I’m there, they just keep their comfortable distance.

I was also aiming for the dark colors of autumn but the warmth of light on the reeds and the shiny green heads of the males. This is the first in the series, tomorrow I will have another I just finished: A hawk from a fence near Hagerman Wildlife Refuge.

Drakes

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Painting: Deliberate until something develops

undertheseasm

Painting Deliberately – There are so many different feelings when you paint, sometimes it’s pushing paint around, sometimes it’s deliberate, even mechanical and sometimes it’s instinctual, tonight’s  sitting was a little bit of all of them.

I started with an under painting and it was one of the more deliberate paintings I’ve started, unfortunately I didn’t have the full picture, just an idea of clouds moving forward over the viewers head. The actual image is from real life, I have photographs for reference but I’m not completely sure where the clouds end and what the landscape looks like.

I painted the background with perspective lines, every form, every color and every space will be designed with the idea of perspective and I want the viewer to feel overwhelmed by the clouds overhead.

As I tend to do, I switched gears after finishing a monochromatic under painting I turned to the painting of a scene from beneath Shark River Inlet in Belmar New Jersey. This painting was inspired thirty plus years ago and it still stood clear.

I painted with a clear feeling of purpose but as suddenly as it began it ends and I wasn’t sure if I was done with the painting or should start all over. The problem is the idea and image is strong but the recollection is so hard to bring back to mind. I will continue to study it until I know it’s either done or time to start over.

Another thing about painting, sometimes you feel like you’ve created your best work and sometimes the same painting looks like a mistake. I got back to the grackles above the city, an image that I started at the end of the last series, again I had that feeling of instinct kick in and for thirty minutes or so I painted like I figured out the problem.

None of the paintings are finished but I feel like I’m shaking off the stagnation and getting in the process. The most exciting thing about painting instinctual is that images appear that you didn’t necessarily know you were creating they just come out of the details you’ve worked in feverishly.

I’m excited about this series and feel it will be a huge step toward my future painting style and feel.

Stay tuned, more paintings coming very soon.

gracklessm

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Back to the Artists Studio

Screen Shot 2016-07-06 at 10.49.45 PM Screen Shot 2016-07-06 at 10.49.31 PM

Back to the Artists Studio – Last night I finally started painting again. The excitement and inspiration spilled over into the next day. It is a liberating feeling after being stifled for so long and suddenly it all makes sense.

I think the only negative is that suddenly there are more ideas, images and concepts than I can get done in the time available. This is when my lists get overwhelming.

I first started on the third in a series of swallow paintings. The work is smaller than the two previous but more detailed, with a larger population of swallows than the previous paintings.

The name of the work is the celebration, it is a scene from a local bridge in Rowlett after the spring rain. I saw a swarm of swallows that surrounded the bridge and flew under and around the structure. There was a feeling of excitement; nature in celebration, the drought was finally over.

The second painting I work on was a brand new painting called calvary The last time I went to church, I had an amazing image of calvary surrounded by stained glass. This is going to be one of my most colorful paintings and it is a bit of a departure from previous works.

I’m very excited about finally getting back to work and I can’t wait to see the new views as they become real.