A New Day

Oil on canvas
20 x 15.5

I had a lot of trouble getting a decent picture of this. Between the glare and the value contrasts it was a minor nightmare. There's still a little glare, but I think you can get the basic idea.

I'm not entirely sure I like this painting. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it strikes me that it may be too much of a cliche. Well if it is, so be it. I'll leave it to you to decide. I also don't have much to say about it. So feel free to make up your own story. I will say that it reminds me of a Thoreau quote from Walden. It's toward the end, maybe the very last phrase. "There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." It seems to apply.

Lilies of the Valley

10.5 x 8.5
Oil on Panel

I don't do a lot of still life painting, but occasionally something catches my eye. Outside the window of my little painting space (I hesitate to call this cave a studio) there is a patch of Lilies of the Valley. In the spring it's really quite pretty. After the flowers die down it leaves a pretty dense patch of foliage, and that's the part the cat loves because it provides cover for a variety of critters for her to watch. She seems particularly fascinated by turtles.

Preliminary drawings

I thought I would drag out a few of these to show some coming attractions as it were. In reality this may be as far as any of them go. Odds are I will never get around to finishing them assuming they even get started. Perhaps you can tell I'm feeling a bit down. No matter, here are the drawings and some of the images that have been rolling around in my head.


pencil with white chalk on pinkish paper

This one has been started and screwed up beyond all recognition. I could probably continue on and save it, but somehow it just doesn't seem worth the trouble. Maybe that will change, and I'll go back to it some day, we'll see. This drawing doesn't seem too bad though so it wasn't a complete waste of time. If I would have done a couple more prelims maybe I wouldn't have messed up the painting or I would have realized I was going down the wrong path sooner. Jump right in, no guts, no glory is usually superceded by fail to plan, plan to fail. In honor of the election, I'll be speaking in bumper sticker from now on. I can be as annoying as any politician. Whoops, spiraling again, sorry.


charcoal with white chalk

Don't hold your breath on this one. I like the drawing. I like the image in general a lot too, but I don't see me really jumping on this one and doing it. First, it's figurative so the marketability is limited around here at least. Second it would be recognizable further limiting marketability. Most people don't want pictures of people they don't know on their walls regardless of how good the image is. Maybe that's just a local thing, but that's what I've got to deal with. All in all, this is a piece that I would be painting strictly for myself, and I've already seen it in my mind so why bother.


pencil with white chalk

This one was done so long ago I'd forgotten about it. Again I like the image in general and I think it would make a good painting, but I'm afraid I'd be doing it for a very small audience of one, me alone. I actually showed it to one of my galleries. They made some joke and blew it off as unmarketable. Not really encouraging.

So am I worrying too much about marketability?

Figure and Fabric

Silverpoint on prepared paper
10 x 8

I've been meaning to post this all week, but with the elections and all the problems on the stock market I've been really hacked off, and I was afraid it could quickly spiral off into a rant against the vast majority of the world. Well, I've taken a deep breath, and decided there are definitely enough political blogs spewing partisan crap that I need to stay away from it. Just in case you're wondering though I'm hoping for a scoreless tie in this presidential election. No winner, start over with a whole new bunch. They're both fools at best and possibly downright dangerous. Hold on, I'm spiraling. Back to art.

Okay, I'm better now and I'll try to remain focused on this drawing which combines some of my favorite things, a pretty woman, good lighting and white drapery. Can't go too far wrong with those elements. This is on the same off white ground as the flute player a couple posts back. I really like the color and value. It's just enough to knock off the bright white of the paper but still light enough that heightening with white isn't necessary. If a bit more light is needed though a touch of white will add some sparkle. It's warm enough that it combines with the silver really well, and as it oxidizes it should just get better. Compositionally this is obviously based on triangles, the most stable of shapes. But there's also an inverted triangle coming down from the top. Most definitely not stable. So to counter that throw in a couple vertical columns and a horizontal or two and everything nice and solid again.

You may notice I've added a couple new links where you can see more of my work. Everything there will be here. There will probably be more things here actually. But please free to take a look and tell me what you think. If you go to Brushspace click on the follow this artist button. Near as I can tell it doesn't do anything or maybe nobody that I'm following has added anything new. Anyway I've recently fallen out of the top 100 most followed, and that bothers me for some reason. There's some really good work there. If you want to take a look at the My St Louis Art site you'll see the world I find myself stuck in. Click on the photos button to see examples of the work from around here. And while I'm babbling on let me add a thank you to everyone that has dropped by, and a special thank you for the ones that have taken the time to comment. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated. Thanks

Monday Morning

Oil on Panel
24 x 11

This is a painting about light. If you've been paying attention and have a really good memory you may remember this window from a watercolor of an old church posted a year or so ago. That was a foggy winter day, this is a bright, sunny day making for a completely different feeling. Light changes everything, and light is really what painting is all about, at least the way I paint. There's a saying that light defines color and texture and shadow defines form. Look at the wood textures in this piece. In the light the textures are much more defined and important. In the shadows the texture is more limited to the flaking paint. The shadows define the clapboards and the shape of the window in general. And look at the difference in color. The shadows are a warm almost uniform gray while the light is a mixture of light ochres and siennas. The color of the light is of the utmost importance in feel. This is a relatively warm light which would indicate a late spring or summer day, probably in the mid to late morning. If it were warmer it would make you feel like it was earlier morning, not long after sunup. The angle and length of the shadows would be an important indicator too. If it were a cooler light, it would be more likely to feel like a winter day. So if you look really closely and pay attention, it is entirely possible to tell an entire story with nothing but light. At the very least you can use it to define a mood in whatever you're trying to do.

If this is interesting to you, might I suggest you look at Giovanni Bellini's St Francis in Ecstasy in the Frick collection. He was one of the earlier users of light to unify a painting. In that one he uses a greenish light which really enhances the feeling of something out the ordinary going on. There's some real interesting compositional things going on too. One of my favorite all time paintings. Maybe it deserves a post all its own.

Flute Player

Silverpoint on prepared off white paper
12 x 9ish

You don't get many do overs in life, but that doesn't really apply to drawing. If it isn't right, throw it out and do it again until it is. This is a do over. I originally did it about a year ago when I was experimenting with copper instead of silver. I found out that it works, but I much prefer silver. Copper is harder and therefore leaves a lighter line so you really don't have much of a value range to work with. I couldn't tell that annealing helped in that area either. You might expect a different color line too, but that difference is so slight that you really have to look hard so that's not a factor. Plus there is the question of how it will oxidize. How would it look when used with silver? That's not something I can control, and I really won't know for several months if not years so that's a risk I'm not really willing to take. Anyway, what I wound up with was a rather faint image that was basically all right, but nothing to write home about. Since I liked the image and the model I thought it was worth taking another shot at it. This obviously, is the result.

Arches I and II

Oil on panel
22 x 11

Originally I thought this would make a really nice watercolor or gouache. Boy, was I wrong. Actually it probably would have if I hadn't screwed it up horribly. I once had a teacher that said watercolors were either really easy or absolutely impossible. Apparently this was one of the impossible ones, especially since I hadn't done one in a while. So rather than attempt the impossible I switched over to oil. I'm glad I didn't give up on the piece entirely. I really liked the pose. The arch of the back accentuated by the hair hanging down, and the arched doorway. And let's not forget the arched niche in the back wall. But once it was finished it looked a bit lonely. So it became one of a pair.


Oil on Panel
22 x 11

To do a set you want to have them be similar without being too similar. Same background, yes. Same, or at least similar dress, yes. Same model would have been nice, but she's moved on so I needed somebody else. Just as I was about to find a replacement model I stumbled across an older photo I had laying around waiting to be used. Could this work? I think so with a few alterations anyway. So what do you think, does it work as a companion piece? It's got some nice arches and arcs to it. The model is similar, although I think I could have made her just a bit taller. All in all, I rather like the way they came out.

Gallery Announcement

I am pleased to announce that I have been accepted into the Argonne Gallery. It's a brand new gallery here in the St Louis area, Kirkwood to be exact. The official public grand opening is August 9, but it's already open for business so if you're in the area please drop in.

Argonne Gallery
101A West Argonne Dr
Kirkwood, MO 63122
That's right across the street from the Kirkwood Train Station.

I've got three pieces there right now, two silverpoint drawings and a small oil.

River Icing

Oil on Canvas
19 x 36

Summer is most definitely here. It's hot and humid and nothing like the day I took the photo references for this painting. That day was about 10 degrees with a gentle wind wafting down the river from the north at about 100 miles an hour. It was freaking cold. Therefore this was not done on site from life. I guess I'm just not that dedicated. I did leave a nice warm house to walk along a frozen river though so I should get some points.

Longing

Silverpoint

I meant to post this months ago, but never got around to it for some reason, laziness maybe. I'm not really sold on the "Longing" title so if anybody has a better idea I'm open to it. This has always struck me as more of a drapery study with an incidental figure than a true figure drawing. I used to hate drawing drapery like this, but somewhere along the line I got to like it. I suppose it has something to do with the more you do, the easier it gets. By the way, the full size image is about the actual size of the drawing.