What to say?

I saw this video over on the Gurney Journey and just had to pass it on. Strangely enough it kinda fits into what I have been thinking about the last few days. You see, I couldn't quite come up with what I wanted to say about today's offering. That's mainly because there's really nothing to say from my standpoint. So I could make something up that may well be marginally interesting or just punt. I've never been particularly good at creative writing so maybe the video will be a good lead-in. So here's artist's statement along with translation.



And here are today's drawings.



Both are silverpoint and 10 x 8

While these are both nice little drawings, more or less competent, let's face it, they're not exactly earth shattering. Don't get me wrong I like them both quite a bit, and I think they're worth looking at, but neither have any great message. And that's all right too. Everything doesn't have to be a metaphor for something else. Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing. I did them because I liked the poses and the overall feel. The second one is actually a rather sissy pose with no face and just the back of a hand without any fingers showing, but I like it anyway. Deal with it. How's that for an artist's statement?

That being said i'll bet that somewhere out there somebody is going to like these even without all the artistic gobbledygook. Maybe they'll even find a message of their own. So much the better. Maybe they'll even want them for their own. That can be arranged too.

Well, y'all take care out there and try to retain your sanity.

Sugar Creek

Oil on Canvas
24 x 18

Have you all been paying attention? If you have this may look familiar. Back in late February there was a study for this. It's finally done, I think, and I've gotten around to posting it. I'm pretty happy with this. It may not be the bright, sunny autumn day you usually get, but that wasn't what I was after besides those are way too common. I was after something more moody. The day was misty at best. It looked like it was about to pour actually so the day of painting outdoors was put on hold. Instead I took a little stroll in the mud up this little stream fully expecting to get really wet. I escaped merely damp and the camera showed no ill effects. Anyway that's the story of what I was trying to do. Hopefully I did more than just give a weather report. Funny thing is that by the time I got home it was bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

Back Study

oil on panel
12 x 11

Another little figure study today. I don't think I've done a figure painting in a while so it seemed a good idea to do one before I forget how to do skin tones completely. Not that I knew all that much to start with, but I have picked a few things here and there. So today's effort was centered on skin tones both in strong light and deep shadow. Can I get that glow that comes from a strongly lit figure? I think it came out pretty good actually.

Unfortunately, this is not the best picture. Sorry but something this dark with a glazed background, strong contrasts, and some pretty thick paint in places created a lot of glare with little hot spots that are beyond my ability as a photographer. I think you can still get the idea though.

Figure Drawing

pencil and white chalk on Bugra paper
20 x 30ish

More in my continuing effort to improve or at least maintain my drawing skills. I really do like doing these larger, more finished drawings. They take some time, but that's all right. I think it's time well spent.

I still can't decide if I like this Bugra paper or not. It's awfully soft and rough for my taste. Still it holds up to erasing pretty well and it does take pencil nicely as long as it's a nice sharp pencil. And then there's the fact that I still have quite a bit of it left.

Asleep

Silverpoint on blue gray prepared paper
5.75 x 12.75

It seemed like this thing took forever to do. I don't know if it really did or if it just felt that way. It shouldn't have. It's not bigger than usual or particularly complicated. The dark background did take quite a while to build up which is a pretty boring activity. And I did take a few elements out of that background. Speaking of the background, sorry about the glare. It's a much flatter tone. Photographing silverpoint is the only thing I don't like about the medium. That's probably why they tend to back up. I've got a bit of a backload to post in the coming weeks.

Fog Shrouded

I had a little unintended break there. Time just gets away from me sometimes. During that break I realized that some of the things I thought were done -- well, not so much. So a little more work, some more photography and we'll get back to them. This one was and remains done.


Oil on Panel
12 x 9

Another trip to the wetlands on a foggy day, actually the same day as a couple earlier posts. That was a good day. I think I got some good spacial depth here, pretty happy with that. What I want to point out here are the grays though. I've been a proponent of the "grays make the picture' theory. The last two paintings really show that. They are both basically a collection of grays, but the addition of just a little bit of brighter color brings a great deal of interest. If you really look hard at those spots of color you'll see that they are also pretty low chroma too. So the moral is that you only have a limited variety of hue, value and chroma to work with so save your bullets for the places they are needed most. Don't overdo it or you'll have no room left for accents.

Good Friday Storms

No art today, more of a weather report and storm aftermath. You in the US may have heard this on the news, but since I happened to be in it I think it definitely deserves a mention here.

First let me say we're fine, no problems here. But just a mile or so away large trees were snapped along with huge hail. We got extremely lucky here.

Late last Friday afternoon (Good Friday) we had a storm front move through, actually two big storms that met up in St Louis. They really started picking up strength west of here in Warrenton, maybe even as far west as Hermann, and tore through well into eastern Illinois. I don't know exactly how far that is, but I would think it's a good 100 miles.

These weren't your normal everyday thunderstorms. They were big and it seemed they were just about everywhere. Rain, hail and tornadoes were all there, and not just the run of the mill version. Hail the size of soft balls (that's about 4 inches for the non sporting), inches of rain and a confirmed E4 tornado (the scale goes to 5) An E4 tornado is defined as having winds from 166 to 200 miles per hour, that's big and rare. E5s are practically unheard of. Just to get an idea of how rare these are E4 and E5 tornadoes make up less than 1% of all tornadoes. It wasn't entirely unexpected. Stormy weather had been predicted for several days. There were even storm chasers in town waiting for them. They were probably still here from Tuesday when another good size storm rolled through about the same time of day. Well, they got a good show. One of the bigger cells went right over the regional weather bureau which isn't very far from here.

If you've never been a big storm complete with tornadoes consider yourself lucky, but they are extremely fickle. By that I mean one place can be totally leveled while someplace else just a few hundred yards away can come through unscathed. That's what happened here. There was a lot of destruction in New Melle just a few miles away in a straight line from here. Just a mile or so there were 12 inch trees broken down and egg size hail. Here, some hail, mostly pea size with a few piece slightly bigger. One gust of wind maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary. Didn't even blow over the trash can. Like I said we were really lucky this time.

Pictures are worth a thousand words so here are some pictures just to give you some idea. I stole most of these from the local news stations. If you'd like to see more google fox 2 news or kmov.

This is what it looked like coming in. Storm sirens are already blaring.




I forgot to mention some rather spectacular lightning.


Here's one of the tornadoes. I don't think it's one of the big ones that did most of the damage, but it's big enough. Most of the tornadoes we get around here are rain wrapped making it hard to see them. Not your classic plains tornadoes here.



That's some big hail and it was pretty widespread.

Now look at some of the damage. While you're looking at this keep in mind that there were no deaths and not even any serious injuries as far as I know. Apparently the warning systems work pretty well and I think there was a fair amount of luck involved too.




The airport was hit really bad too. There are a lot of big reinforced glass panels there that were mostly blown out. Most of the roof on one section is gone. The windows in the control tower that are supposed to be able to withstand a wind of at least 100 miles an hour were blown out. And then there this picture of a shuttle van that was apparently picked up, and is now just dangling off the side of the building.


The area in general is quite a mess. Tornado damage, flooding from the storms and normal spring floods with more rain coming today, tomorrow maybe Tuesday and Wednesday too. We'll get through it though, always have before. Nobody died so it's not that bad. One last view.

Wetlands in Fog

Oil on Panel
8 x 16

Another one of those moody, foggy wetlands paintings. Not much to say about this, hopefully it speaks for itself. I think there are a few more of these in me trying to get out. I'll try to mix in some other things so you won't get bored.

Spots of Interest

In my roaming around I've come across a few sites that may be of interest, at least I thought they were. Some are already linked here but I think these deserve some special attention.

First, if you've ever wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, but found yourself economically challenged or maybe you just don't want to go all the way to Italy here's your chance. Here is the Sistine Chapel in the round without the crowds. Moving around takes a bit of getting used to, but still pretty cool stuff. Really the best way to see the ceiling frescoes is to lay down on your back and just look up. You'll find that that's frowned upon, and you'd probably be trampled. Don't have to worry about that here.

Edit: The Vatican doesn't seem to want to cooperate. The link isn't taking you to where it's supposed to. Here's the actual address, maybe a little cut and paste will work. http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm

Next is Scott's Sketchbook from Scott Waddell. The whole blog is good, but what deserves special notice is his series of webisodes dealing with drawing and painting. Lots of good, clearly presented information, and the webisodes are really well put together. He puts some time in on these rascals.

And lastly is this video of a lecture held at the Grand Central Academy on the Golden Ratio. You may find the first part a little heavy on the geometry, but it is needed to introduce the topic. Once he gets into the use of the ratio and underlying grid systems in general, well, I thought it was interesting.

The Golden Ratio from Benjamin Cave on Vimeo.

Angry Eyes

Silverpoint
8 x 10

I did this one a while back when I was thinking about The Lady in the Lake that eventually turned into a watercolor. I wound up going a different direction, but at one time I had thought about using this or something like it as the lady. The expression would have worked nicely I think. She would have been in the lake with the water bubbling up around here gradually turning into her white gown. Still like that concept, may have to go back to it.