Shell Games: October 2011

Shell Games

This blog is about the creative process that I engage in while painting. My goal is to clarify my thinking, explore some philosophic questions and get feedback (be gentle!) on my work. I may pose some specific questions from time to time, for example: “Do you think the background would look better in blue or green?” or “I’ve been adding and deleting details for three weeks, is it time to stop?”

The title of the blog, “Shell Games” is the name of a series of large scale oil paintings that I’ve been doing (you guessed it!) of sea shells. I’ve been motivated to explore a range of meanings within meanings, metaphors, and how people view the world and reality or non-reality issues that come up. The paintings are meant to be DEEP, not just cute or pretty, with varying levels of success. You can choose to interpret them as purely decorative, but I’m hoping they have more internal essence than that.

The name “Shell Games” is a double entendre. It comes from old time carnival illusionists and hawkers who would hide a pebble under a shell (or cup, or hat or whatever) and then move the shells around. At the outset, the viewer would lay bets on whether he could follow the action well enough to say where the pebble was when the illusionist was finished. Sometimes, a sly carnie would, through sleight of hand, remove the pebble altogether, thereby cheating the watcher out of any chance of recouping his bets.

In terms of painting, it’s about how you follow the action, what is seen or not seen, what is inside, what is outside, what the distractions are, where you are going or not going. With shells you’ve got that inside, outside and relationship to context that is so interesting. And it has to be playful in some way, too – hence the “game” part of “Shell Games”. It’s not clear if I can get to “edgy”, but edgy would an advancement for me.

Life is a carnival, the Persian poet Rumi would say a Tavern, but the drinking metaphor is too dry for me. I like carnival better. We enter by a gate, there are all kinds of amusements and ways to lose your way or your money, and at some point it is time to go home.

If you would like to see more of my work please visit my website at VictoriaHaskell.com.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Backgrounds

I’ve been working on backgrounds and the relationship between the subject and the background. Some of my pictures have started out with just a plain shade of white/cream, kind of a scientific approach, like a technical diagram, a forensic study of a particular specimen. The earlier shells had backgrounds of sand or water, more like the subject in its natural surroundings. Lately I’ve been going more for a “portrait” approach, the subject is posed like a human and the background is part of the picture but not dominant or competing for attention. Sometimes it’s hard to find just the right shade or combination of shadows that sets up the portrait of the shell in just the right way. Sometimes I try several different approaches. Sometimes the background is smoothed out, sometimes the brush marks show. I’m not a smooth person, I lean towards the painterly. I like it when the shell has a “monumental” look, like more than a shell, like “2001 Space Odyssey”, floating there in time. I have not yet tried black or deep siennas, but they are on my list. It seems like the shells are a brightly lit seaside thing not a dark thing, so that is another concept to think through and decide.

These three have realistic backgrounds.

These three I recently reworked the backgrounds in various shades of beige, blue, sand, greys. I'm still making up my mind about some.

The razor clam has some wet sand beneath it, but it's not textured like sand. I originally wanted it to just float in space like a specimen or a shell on a page in a notebook, but it didn't quite make it.

This one I just repainted the background a lighter shade of grey, but now the whole painting is too grey. I need to shift the color scheme for the background some, but haven't decided what to do. I'm thinking of adding a shadow to the right, like there would be in a portrait.