Blue On Blue, Or Not

It feels really good to be excited about painting again. This is a picture that I did a while ago and I have a mind to re-work it some. There is an opportunity for me to put a painting in a competition and the subject was "blue" and this is my only true blue painting. I got it out I looked at it carefully. It had always been the poor sad step sister of the original version (below).

I worked a lot in series when I did watercolors and had applied this technique to this subject. Its a way of exploring the subject matter further. Alas, I was never quite content with the results of the blue version (top photo). Tonight when I took it out and looked at it, it seemed clearer what was needed. Though the color schema is blue, the monochrome, oddly, is not really center stage. Contrarily, it needs a little more of other colors in it to make the blue stand out. So I'm going to glaze/rework the band box so that the wood tones are yellower. Yellow and blue play well together. I'm also going to work the background a little more (yellow/blues?) so that the corners have a little more color to them and the box sits better in its space. Then I'm going to tweak the blue shells so they are more dynamic, perhaps work in other hues of blue. Right now they seem like all one note. It doesn't look bad that way, but it is confusing in an odd way I haven't quite put my finger on. I was taught that if you get the urge to work and re-work a particular area, don't. Work on the areas next to it instead. So, my starting point will be adding some yellows, redefining the bandbox and the background and then see how it looks. Maybe the shells won't need any re-working. Maybe the added yellow will do the painting for me.

Here I am AGAIN working on the same picture. That's a good thing, by the way. It shows energy and motivation, something that's not always there. I've been watching inspirational U-tube videos - Wayne Dyer to be exact and it is interesting how well that gets me reved up to work again. I think his point is that spirit leads us. Another point that he mentions but doesn't stress is that we don't always know where we are going or how we are going to get there. As an artist it is easy to lose heart, to give up. You need faith to keep going. It's not a “go to church on Sunday” kind of faith. It's a deep connection to the subject matter and trust in the Universe that what you are doing as an artist is intrinsically meaningful, whether anyone else ever sees it hanging in a museum or not.

The Holidays are behind me and I am re-dedicating myself to painting projects. Whoo-hooo! The above photos are before and after of work I have done. It may be hard to tell exactly. So if you can't tell, I've been punching up the shadows and the cracks between the pebble, adding glazes and trying to give a greater sense of volume and roundness to each pebble. The upper picture is before - you can tell it is greyer and the shadows on some rocks are not as well blended or worked. The feather is greyer also. In the most recent version (bottom photo) you can tell that the feather is white now and the pebbles have more shape to them. It is good to look at this in this small scale because I can see better where the areas are that need more work. For example, the round grey rock on the bottom left beneath the feather looks like a flat disk, which it kind of is, but not quite that much. For the time being I have to let it all dry some - don't like sticky paint!

I've been really BAD (like those shouty capitals) about posting blog entries. It seems I have the most energy at the start of the day, but the lease amount of time. I have more time at the end of the day, but I'm too tired. I really must figure this out!

I have been painting shells again (among other things, see other blogs). Below is a piece I've been working on off and on. The photo posted is none too good - dark morning, but you get the drift. I am drawn to "rondo's" lately, the containment appeals to me and the way the eye moves around. You are forced to focus and examine the items in the circle, find the connection, and move around some more. In a rectangular painting the items have to have their own pull, either through color or shape. In a rondo, the edge of the circle does the job for you. Cool! I can be as bad a designer as I want to be and the edge still moves you around the picture. The circle also acts as its own center of interest, another plus. You don't have to pick and choose and find a focal point if you're not sure of the concept, the circle does it for you.

So, now all I need are more round containers. Must have interesting edges, but not too difficult.

Shell Games: The Exhibit

I'm so excited! A show of many of my paintins all together. And they look awesome!

You may not be able to tell, but I have reworked this. I added a darker shadow around the shell and at the outside corners. I am trying to make the shell "pop" more and catch your attention. I was also thinking about depth. I wanted the shell to be sunken into the sand a more and there to be a little ridge of sand around it. I also lightened the middle of the shell to give the shell itself more depth, so the center will come towards you. I also added some more darkness right at the edge of the shell. I tried to avoid making look like it was outlined, so I made it intermittent. Usually the place where an object sits on a surface has a thin dark area right at the edge between the object and the surface.

When a painting gets down to the finer details, the changes aren't all that dramatic, but the tweaking ultimately affects the whole quite a bit. It is at this point that I use some glazing medium, usually Liquin or Medium No. 2 (8 parts odorless thinner, 1 part damar varnish, 1 part stand oil). This extra transparent glazed layer is crucial to how the light refracts and resonates. However, once it is used, any brush strokes added later without medium, will look dull and chalky and need some additional glazing on top. So essentially, if your pretty certain of the painting, go ahead and add some glazing to give it some more depth or to shift a color hue in another direction.

It is now time to let the picture sit and "percolate",  and me regain a fresher eye, before I work on it again. It is by no means done. There is a shell at the bottom right that looks like a wad of kleenex tissue!

I've returned to painting shells recently and started a piece with a sand dollar in the center. See below. It is unfinished, but I'm liking it. The colors aren't quite as yellow as in the snapshot and there is more contrast.  It's a little on the "pretty" side. Hmmmmm. Maybe I have a pretty side, lurking.

It's been ages. I was very discouraged this fall and put my creative energy into other areas, but am returning to work now. I am planning a new painting of a sand dollar, partially submerged in sand. I'm a little concerned about the sand color on top of the sand color of the shell and getting bored, after all it is beige on beige, but it's worth a try. I find that going deeply into detail can supersede any tendency towards boredom. Either that or infuse the picture with unnatural colors, and then you might as well just photoshop it.

No Rope

I am thinking about two disparate things in regards to my work which are actually connected in an odd way, the movie “Dark Knight Rising” and the Olympic games. So how is that? It's about effort and trying, support and no supports, and the subtle ways they can play out in the mind. In Dark Knight, the hero of the story (spoiler alert!) is trying to escape a particular prison by climbing up the insides of a well. He has a safety rope tethered around his waist and when he falls, the rope catches him, keeping him from crashing into the ground. He and the only other person who previously escaped also had support people on the ground, people who care, counsel, feed and encourage him. But the key to escaping is, “No rope.” You must climb up without the tether and really feel the need to make that last final leap or face death. In the Olympic games, our athletes, during the competition are like the hero of Dark Knight; they are alone and they must succeed or fail based on their training, strength, concentration and will power. But they, like our Dark Knight hero, also have support people around them, who helped with the training and and a million other things and that made the trip to the games possible. 

There are decision points in all lives where we have a choice to make about the direction we are going in and an acknowledgment of the sacrifices and work that go into that choice. Often I feel like I am at that point. My gut tells to me to cut back on the hours at my day job and go “No Rope,” a motivator for actually making it in the art world. With “No Rope” we do a lot of things that perhaps we wouldn't have done, make contacts, write letters, get out there more, promote ourselves; whereas if we have a day job, or a significant other to support us, what's the point? But another part of me says that I must be free to do what I love doing and that a market mentality makes it un-fun. I would prefer to make my pictures with an “in the moment” state of mind, not a feverish state of work ethic stress. Maybe that's really the way we should be approaching art and life, in a Zen-like balance with the Universe, letting go of the rope entirely, and just walking forward, unattached to our ambition and egos. So, for now, I am walking a line of compromise, with a question rattling around in my head, “Rope? No rope?”

I have worked some more on various pictures, most notably my series/triptych of three scallop shells. I had simplified the background considerably from where it was originally because I felt it was a distraction to the main subject matter. The eye was just too busy moving around. Now however, I got some feedback that  the background looked like either water or clouds rather than linen, so I'm adding back in details so that it looks more like fabric, but stays in the background where its supposed to. I'm adjusting the values some trying to be careful with “lines” and contrast. It takes some playing around and designing, moving folds around, which I'm still working on. I keep seeing things that just don't work design wise and then I change them. I'm hoping that if it “reads” like fabric, the mind will identify it as such and quickly move to the main subject which is the shell. I am enjoying working with fabric and drapery. There is a challenge in getting white fabric to look like white fabric without it getting too "grey" and boring - washing out the picture - or too blue and oceany. I think I'm leaning towards too blue, but I can glaze in some warm tones after it has dried. Thank heavens for liquin!

-Vicky

 

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

Now that I have had time to let things percolate, additional thoughts have occurred to me. When I worked in watercolor, I pretty much always worked in series. The first one was what I would label as "journalistic", a frank and realistic exploration of just what was there. The second was where I started to get more excited and playful. I would change up the colors some and really work with the washes and glazes. The third time around I would shift to an alternate version of the number two picture. The best of these versions was generally the second one. There was enough there that was real and enough creative zip that it essentially sang a little better.

I have not yet attempted to do multiples of a particular individual shell painting. In some ways the series is a multiple variation itself exploring a range of ideas. To be practical about it, a watercolor I can do in an afternoon. An oil painting takes multiple sessions and is a much more drawn out process. I have not had the ambition to try a second go at one, or have even thought of it, until now. I know several artists who say that they put everything into that first piece and couldn't do a second one because they have used it all up on the first. I think creating a painting is a process and it evolves over time. There are always decision points and roads not taken.


In regards to my Oyster Shells, I am liking this picture very much, I am pleased. But I do want to see if I can do a shell picture where I push the relationships between the shells further and really get at my original intent, which was the tension and dynamics of what happens when things touch, . . .almost. I want to play with the rhythms and movement within the work, directing the attention of the viewer and in some mysterious way, say more.

-Vicky

Here is the latest phase of my painting. You can see just about nothing of what I've been doing, but it looks better from a distance anyway! You can also see lots of my studio space and get a sense of how large the picture is and the impact that it has. I repainted some of the shadows behind the shells so they are lighter and I'm not sure I like the effect, so I may darken those up again. I have also been glazing in a layer onto the white and gray areas of the interior shells and other areas. It helps with making the interior of the shells seem more opalescent. I need to work on this stage more, but am waiting for some paint to dry before I continue. I find that adding glazes also gives additional depth and allows me to adjust the hue and value of some areas without having to re-paint it completely.
Happy painting!
-Vicky

Greetings!
My demonic children have insisted that my loyal fans need to see more of a blow-by-blow of my painting process. I have an updated image of the painting I am currently focusing on and some additional notes. I shall try to remember to do a step-by-step photo shoot the next time I paint. In the meantime, note that most of the shells are now in a semi-finished state - yeah team! (A team of one is still a team in my book). There is one really dorky shell, bottom center, that needs re-painting badly - mishandled striations, live and learn, I say. The interiors of the shells have good depth, but need to be more than shades of gray. They need the pearly-escent luminosity of . . .pearls (!), gosh, because . . .these are. . . yeah. . .oysters! , and because the inside of a shell, even in shadow is not gray at all, but shades of shades of many colors. I also added some background, that needs more colors worked into it, but the values and the basic hues are working nicely. I have been told by a critic (read family member) that some of the blues are too bright. Realists . . .go home and leave me alone! However, I will take all constructive criticism and consider it. The brighter blues make for more design interest, but are a tad distracting and fake looking in places, so they may get adjusted some. On the bright side, my uber-critical family members did stop and gasp audibly when they were allowed a peak at it and said it was certainly striking. So I'm pleased.  In case you haven't noticed, this is a big picture! It is 36" x 52". Just right for a bank lobby on Cape Cod or a really swank beach house with a modern decor and high ceilings. Just a little thought, if you know of one. We'll talk.

Greetings to all,
I have been hard at work again. This time I've dug into a painting I started a while ago and let sit for months, not moving. I find I get discouraged with a work and have to give it a break. Or I feel overwhelmed sometimes, especially with larger pieces. This time I returned to this picture and started again and I think the parts are finally beginning to fall together. This has multiple shells in it, so I've been focusing on one shell at a time and  trying to bring each one to a more final state. Originally, I had them blocked in so that the general hue and value relationships were there. That's when I clammed up (what a pun!). The blocking in stage always looks so dreadful, I lose heart. Then I get encouraged by something somewhere and start in again.

So  here it is in its original blocked in state. (The room is sideways, the picture is not):

Here is the next state, where I started "finishing" some of the shells:

And again, today's improvements! Not finished, but more shells have been worked on.

The shells are beginning to pop and its nearer to my original vision. There's supposed to be dynamic that revolves around movement and edges and relationships: how things jostle together, separate, touch almost. Like people.

Recent Progress

I have been working hard trying to finish some pieces and have made progress. Some of it is developing an awareness or atunement to the work itself, actually being able to see and put your finger on what is not working. The other part is having the courage to forge ahead and take a risk. And still another part is to just stop dickering with it. And then, finally, you have to let it go. You have to able to say to yourself that this is as good as it gets at this point in time and be okay with it.

My latest struggles are with a picture I think I have been progressively making worse! But I will have faith and keep at it. I may need to use up an entire tube of Crimnitz white in the process, but so be it. I have found that with this series of pictures, that I do not give up on a piece, that there is an educational value in continuing on.

So here it is in its various stages, my barnacle picture. My family has begun giving me shells as gifts. If I had any thought of ending my series of shell paintings, it is quickly evaporating, because more shells and ways to stage them, seem to be coming into my life. It must be Karma.

The above picture is its initial stage, roughed in, with an unpainted background.

Here, I got brave, took a risk, and ended up in the 1960's. Cool man. Psychodellic. The concept was to have an under-painting that would serve as a basis for a more naturalistic approach.

Here I worked quite a bit on making the background look more like the depths of the ocean. It has a richness to it, but there continue to be problems. The shell "pops" from the background and isn't integrated into it. It sits in front of the "water". One solution would be to soften all the edges and make the shell look like it is underwater, something I hadn't thought through when I made the background so blue. It is not the extra work this will entail that is problematic, it is the risk of losing what I have created so far in the shell itself. Another solution, would be to paint out the background, hense that old tube of cremnitz white to the rescue, and return to a "forensic" approach of a shell that is sitting out of the water on a shelf somewhere. But then it would be a specimen and not truly a living shell (which it isn't anyway). Sounds like a good excuse for a tropical vaca and some scuba gear!

-Vicky

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.

Shell Games Boxed In – Technical Details

I have been told by my children who are omniscient that a blog must have blow-by-blow detail oriented descriptions of works in progress. As I said earlier, as I have invented this blog, I get to make the rules. I do, however, have some technical details that may be of interest to people who also paint.

Drawing the Image

Since starting my sea shell series I have been working from life. No digital cameras, laptops or projection devices. Working from life is sometimes a problem on a cloudy day, or when the angle of the sun changes, but it was a goal of mine when I started and I think that it works well for this type of subject matter.

I usually draw an image on canvas directly with turpenoid thinned paint in monochrome, typically burnt umber or occasionally cobalt blue. The burnt umber seems to be a unifying element for me, creating some level of cohesion within the picture. I always start with a white canvas; underpainting tends to throw me off a little when it comes to color choices and seems to “deaden” the colors. I prefer the bright white of the canvas, especially with aquatic subjects which need some brightness to them anyway.

In this case I deviated from my usual methods. Given the complexity of the image, I knew it could take several sessions to draw and that I wanted to use a medium I could make corrections to days later. An oil sketch wasn’t going to allow that easily. So I drew the image using a graphite pencil. I also gridded off the subject into four pie shaped quadrants using toothpicks and string wedged into the edges of the box so that I would have some reference points when drawing and wouldn’t get too far off base. Remember, I’m not using a projector, but in retrospect it may have been a wise and labor saving choice to use one. But, too late now! Something to think about next time I do a subject like this.

As soon as I started to paint with oils I noticed that the pencil dissolved, muddying the paint layers. I was perplexed at first as to how to avoid this, but took a can of charcoal/mixed media fixative and sprayed down the entire painting. It worked wonderfully and no more bleeding of the graphite. I was a little worried about permanence, but I had read elsewhere that this was an acceptable method and it does work well. However, I think that in the future, I will stick to drawing with paint. I really didn’t like working with the pencil on the bumpy canvas surface anyway.

Sunshine and Shadow

Some of the shadows have layers of glaze on them that gives additional depth and resonance to those areas that recede. Sometimes I use a homemade formula, other times I use Liquin. I love the slippery flow of Liquin and its smell. It is delicious. However, it does dry relatively fast, so it is not workable forever.

For highlights I used some Titanium white mixed with a tiny bit of pigment on areas where there were little glimmers of light. I ended up adding, deleting and softening several times before I came up with something that looked just right, adding a little pop of realism without taking over.

Shell Games Boxed In

This picture has to be one of my favorites. The outside circular perimeter is an antique green shaker box that has been in my grandmother’s house forever. Every summer when I was a child when we were visiting her we would open the box and feel the softness of the tiny shells (they are all about 3/8 of an inch long, max) against our skin. The potent aroma of cloves would rise up out of the box (those brown things amongst the shells in the painting are cloves), with a slight musty something else mixed in. When I smell that aroma I am six again and sitting on the front staircase in the unlighted hallway feeling the cool shells against my arms, before I return to the open attic to find more precious treasures to play with.

This painting has taken a while. It borders on the tedious to paint and takes a fair amount of tenacity to work on. The original shells were mostly very white, my interpretation of them is more varied. I hope I have stayed away from making them look too much like jelly beans. Ugh! I think the painting has presence, whatever that means. Magnetism? At any rate, I like it. I should probably turn it to the wall for a month or two and see if I still like it. I have been picking at it, tweaking the details and fine tuning it to death in between working on other paintings as well. I am uncertain whether the details (see close up) are clean enough, or whether I need to go more photorealistic, though I think it is too late for that. All paintings have some evolution in them; otherwise give up painting, use crayolas and color inside the lines instead. That may be a little harsh. Sometimes it is restful to just color, but even then there are unavoidable micro-decisions that filter through all that we do.

Close Up of Shell Games Boxed In

So my questions for ya’ll are these:

Is it done?

More “finish” or leave it as it is? The shells are still a little rough when viewed up close. I purposely left out the patterning on most shells, it seemed too busy and distracting. The finished look is cleaner without.

The long curved inside edge shadow has been re-worked multiple times, as has the background and all those tiny points of shadow and reflections on the shells. Question: Leave it or tweak it some more?

I am tired, but I’m thinking it needs just a tiny bit more before I can let go of it completely. Maybe I’ll be one of those artists who keeps adding details to pictures years after they’ve been hung. I can see myself at a party some day saying, “Oh that’s one of my pictures, wait just a second, Luv, I’ve got some paint in my car, let me touch up that highlight a bit, add some more seaweed.” Now that is something I hadn’t considered, seaweed.

-Vicky