Painting an Effect Instead of a Scene


Saturday was the first class of a new painting. It is a totally different process from the previous painting as this painting is very simple and low on details. This makes it hard to lose focus on the overall painting because you are in the process of working the whole painting at once and all the processes support the overall effect. The previous waterfall painting was all about detail and technique and it was easy to get lost in the details-teach a technique and an idea of how to quickly render an area and let the student take over the process.

This painting, because of its lack of detail and the subtlety of its effect demands light overlays of color, not a whole lot of paint piling up and an intricate weaving of light and hue to capture the focus of light, movement and hue. The main point of painting water is that you are not painting water-you are painting the sky, the landscape or anything that interacts with the water but the water because of its colorless characteristics can not be captured only by the movement and color of objects reacting with it.

Another problem with painting water and a simple image of a leaf on water is how do you explain the fact that their is water and that the leaf is not just plastered on a wall flat like it is envisioned. The  image needs visual cues to explain to the viewer what they are seeing, visual cues that are assumed and felt because of the fact that we know by watching water that the leaf is on water and we hear the water and know that the leaf is on water. In a painting there are no sensual cues to explain there is water so unless you can explain to the viewer how the leaf rests on water and that there is depth before and behind the leaf the image is a flat leaf on a two dimensional plain.

We have to notice changes in detail, contrast and color, without the changes the eye has no concept of what it is seeing and the photograph from which the rendering came from has successfully captured a three dimensional image and rendered it as a flat, evenly contrasting image. As artists we need to exaggerate certain aspects of the image and clarify what the viewer is seeing.

So how hard is this to teach? For me it is even more like trying to explain the color you see on a regular basis to someone who has never seen color but even harder than that is without certain words like warm or cold. I would move paint around as I was constructing the original painting and as it worked or didn't work I would adjust and refine my rendering of the painting depending on the process. In teaching you have to reach and move paint without being able to rely on the idea that this is an experiment, there needs to be clarity with a student and you need to show the way when your way at times seems somewhat cryptic.

We moved paint around the leaf and continued to refine the image-If I say refine to her one more time she's going to shoot me, but just as in the other more detailed painting the process begins with refining where light is, where the leaf falls in your plane of vision and how the contrast and color changes throughout the painting. As the textures and the colors form and push each other into the position on the plane the image will create itself almost like a puzzle that becomes only with the relation to its parts and how each appear. So just like not painting water, we are painting the way the sky looks and how the leaf looks and in the end we will have how the water was affected by the leaf and the sky.

I will continue to comment on the steps to getting there and have a final video of the class in the end when the final puzzle creates itself. Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Places to Paint and the Places Painted from


I try not to be too abstract about art and the intricacies of inspiration and creativity but there are many intangibles that are hard to explain. I am a landscape painter-I paint places but the place from which I paint tends to be varied depending on mood and circumstance. The word place could better be described as tense as in writing or maybe even atmosphere. I  paint from states of being either extremely happy and feeling content or being somewhat dark and pensive. There definitely seems to be a need for extreme of mood when I paint because I rarely intend on painting a pretty landscape I more want the viewer to feel
cold or lonely, or the excitement of light and vibrancy of color so the landscape becomes a secondary backdrop to a state of being.

The most uncanny of this is in the past having painted a landscape which for all purposes was a simple landscape but having music in the background while painting caused the painting to have a somewhat dark uncomfortable  feeling-the music in the background was Hunters and Collectors-Scream and it touched on a darker more uncomfortable place in my mind and that's what came out through the painting.

I am impressed with mystery and darkness. I think depression probably has also lent itself to the darkness in my paintings-I just sometimes don't feel comfortable in my own skin and I often think that comes out in the painting. I want the viewer to walk down a road in the evening and feel that tension of fear but the enjoyment at the same time of that fear and uneasiness and that is probably why people like haunted houses-the fear takes them safely out of their comfort zone.

My writing is actually more dark and tends to be more of an open door for the uneasiness because it is unattached to a specific image which at times might be completely contradictory to the scope and ideas I convey. I like a landscape that you can enjoy the beauty and natural feeling while at the same time feeling that there was  a bit of tension and you don't feel completely comfortable being there. I think one painter that has captured the idea that I express is Edward Hopper-his paintings are about dark places in city streets or in bars and there is a tension I just love.

I've included a pastel that is probably a bit more over the top than intended as far as the mood but the name is Halloween. It's a perfect example-a wonderful family time out with the community and yet the underlying idea that there are goblins in the trees and ghosts abound. I've always loved that feeling and that's what I tend to paint.

The second pastel is of blackbirds which is a recurring theme in my writing. The last image is of sunflowers-I thought it was a bit alarming of that one light in the evening on a silent house-begs the question who is staring out the window?

At the Cremation

At the Cremation

Smoke filled the air

Joy and sadness mingled with dust

Twisting writhing spirits in the sky

Dreaming of the day we touched the ground

All the love and time that streamed across the plane

And wound down

The pyre floating in the sea

We watched for remnants

Of what used to be

All of our memories

Written across the sky

How could we be happy

But we needed to be

As this is what was meant to be

Time is just a measure

It’s the words that create the page

The chapter ends

Another begins

Eyes staring out across a horizon

Of light

All clouds unobscurred the path

A smile and a conversation had

As tomorrow might not be so sad

The journey begins today

Discarding the weight of the body

That reaches the sky

That touches us with rings of smoke

And all the loved ones wave goodbye

The portrait measures its final stroke

And we remember all the words,

Written or spoke

How will they see us tomorrow

When we’re on our way

What will they say another day

When the wound is somewhat healed

Only a glimpse of the pain

For the soul that’s gone away

We wait here on the shores

And will follow

One day soon

To rise among the embers

Of our lives

and forever shine anew.

9-26-11

At the Burial

At the burial

The long drive and the street is dark

The sky is a backdrop

Of rain

But you won’t feel a drop

Not the moisture

In the grass

Not the salt on your cheek

Only the chore

Of preparation

Only the position

And the box and the place and time

Wills to attest

And papers to sign

Down the long green mile

Of grass so green

Its sickening

I watched blackbirds

Filling in the blanks of the sky

Forming forests and trees

In peripheral eyes

The cold grey day

The green felt gives way

To a hole that no one can ever fill

Only with earth that will cover our cries

Forever stain our frightened minds

Fill the depression

That nothing will……

At the Wedding

At the Wedding

All of the moments before

Were a preparation for this promise

And I promise

The weight we carry together

Will always be more barable

You take my words

As they bind us

You listen as Gods breath instills

A key between us

That keeps our wills

Restrained

I have no desire to capture

Nor cage

Though will it be my detriment

That you are yourself

Separate from me

And the two of us

Will always be

Two

We will have rules that neither will ever voice

But we will know them

We will have boundaries

Neither will test

They will mean everything

And trust is the block we’ll forge

A structure

With all its cracks and remnants of the past

That will stand as a testament

To a promise

For as long as we last.

At the Birth

At the birth-

The light broke through clouds

A crack in the gray and pale white

She in

Her final bout

All her weight carried

Her voice loud

The steam erupting to the cool autumn air

The silence is deafening

The pause

And the moments becoming

Memories crawling off of walls

And into albums

I remember the hospital white

The bed

The room

The simplicity of timing

The impatient nurse

And the tv fading into the silence

As the room spun around

The doctor in all his formality

And every moment before and after

Pointless

The one great divine moment

Of creation

And God shows his window

One small glimpse of this perfect soul

Captured just before

The world robs its eyes

And slowly steals

What was only for a moment

Hers and mine……

The Media Teacher

The Media Teacher

I’m so glad to have the media

To teach us about the world

To teach us how to talk with our children

To show me that most things can be unsafe

To show me how to use common sense

To instruct me how to eat

And what to eat

And how to feed my child

And what my favorite celebrity eats

And what insignificant thing they said

That I need to hear

And what product will kill me

And what I should be afraid of

And what I shouldn’t fear

How I should feel

What’s fake, what’s real

To distract me from the government

With their fingers in my life

Teaching me what’s wrong and right

Showing me how to decide

Keeping everything bright for the side they choose

Teaching me which politician needs to win

And lose

Showing me what the weather is like

Every moment, every day, every night

but don’t look at the electorate

they’ll decide

keep my eyes

on kims new dress

or her marriage failed

tell me rumors about celebrities

show me how to watch sports

and who’s guilty and who’s not

the story, the most important aspect

trumping true or false

courtrooms on tv

mesmorize me

so I don’t notice the real

I don’t know what’s false, or what to feel

They keep me tuned to tv

On the radio

On the web

Show me how to analyze sports

And how to understand celebrity

And how all my heroes fall

And most people are bad

And most things that happened aren’t good

What is sensationalism

What is a theatrical event

Rats in a maize we are

Listening to them feeding us

Spoons of words that mislead

As we follow

The news

But no one teaches propaganda

versus truth…….