Shell Games: June 2012

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.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Here are another picture I've been working on:

It looks really washed out in this photo. The original shell had a million reflections in pale hues of green and pink and yellow. I couldn't resist the challenge! All those reflections! Wow!

These are my scallop shells from whence the title of this blog comes. The idea is that there is a pebble behind one - can you tell which one? I've worked on it more, so the blue shadows on the linen have changed significantly - fewer confusing conflicting lines, especially the central one. I don't want the shadows to take away from the subject and each piece needs to relate to each other. I'm viewing it as a triptych, but I may have to split them up. A hundred years from now, in some retrospective show, long after I'm dead, someone will find this blog and suddenly get the idea to re-unite them. Assuming much here, aren't I?

I don't know as I will do many more scallop shells! The lines! It gets repetitive. I am leaning more towards pictures of multiple shells together. I would like to to a really big one of a shore with the sand and the shells and some seaweed and some water and add something man made to it, like it had just washed up. I'm thinking about one of those tiny ships in a bottle that you get at touristy junk shops, or a message in a bottle. I get those "really?" look when I mention it. But its like doing lighthouses - the execution will make or break it. It has to be really, really honest and straight to work.

That's enough for now. It's summer and I'm camped out in our one air conditioned room with my laptop, fighting eye strain waiting for the spouse to fix my desktop computer (power supply - it wouldn't turn on, dead like a car in zero degree weather). It's the one with photoshop on it! Need to do some editing and color correcting before I can add stuff to my website.

TTFN,

-Vicky

I have been busy at work, both the day job and painting and the following is some of my progress:

This is a variation of a previous work, this time with a blue cast. I was really loathe to sell the first one, as it had much sentimental value so I decided to paint another. Can we ever really paint a second of something? The mind works, the hand writes and we grow and change and each creation is unique and different. I like the blue cast to this picture (difficult to see in this image) It originally had many "pencil" lines showing that I liked the effect of, but it looked too unfinished, so I "finished" it by painting it fully. Maybe in another painting I will play with pencil lines more as a purposeful effect. The next step was that I went through and softened all the edges so the eye would travel better around the picture and each object would have better mass and volume. Then I went and sharpened some selected edges. I've been dickering with it ever since. It is time to turn it to the wall for several weeks and let it percolate.

-Vicky