Thoughts on Current Work

I am working on a largish, 20x24 I think, landscape of the river and some trees in acrylic, on a canvas that I glued with Elmer's to an MDF panel. I've taken it to the river to work on it twice, for a few hours each time, and its gone totally south. Its disturbing to think of putting so much time into something that just seems to get worse and worse, but sometimes good things arise out of that sort of effort, which makes me not give up (yet). I had hoped the acrylic experience would be seamless and easy, but instead i find at this scale it is frustrating and too difficult to get the feeling I want. Besides that, it is unpleasant to work with after the initial painting. You can't tell if it is wet or not, and when you scrape it it feels like plastic. Which is is, I guess. The smaller paintings i've done do have a brighter quality to them, which i liked, but the larger paintings seem too difficult to sustain.

The landscape with the sky-river-trees is a theme I've returned to hundreds of times. I can't say why this particular one interests me. I've painted from the exact same spot many times, I suppose I could paint forever from there.

The stuggle i have is so basic. It seems like a technical one to me- how to get the right colors on the board in a way that takes advantage of the qualities of oil paint. That's it, really. But although i've been doing it for 30 years, off an on, i still read beginner books on it, i am still puzzled by the brushes and paints and what the best method is. That strikes me as strange. As if a violin player was still trying to learn how to tune his violin.

I am though, learning a few things. Or at least trying out a few things. I am thinking more about what the bottom line in the painting is- what is the primary quality in the landscape that I am trying to capture. This is so when i return to the studio and want to work on it i can recall what is important.

I am thinking more about the composition and "architecture' of the picture.

I am thinking more about how much of the landscape is gray. And I am using black- not a mix- for black where i see it.

I am thinking more about the experience itself and what it means to sit there by the river with a painting not working out. But how, like playing music, the importance of the act may be in painting, not the product (this is hard to understand though).

I am thinking about how I think I know which paintings are most interesting of mine as i paint them, but how inevitably people like what i think is the least interesting.

Old Landscape Painters, And Blogs

I am reading J.M.W. Turner's biography. The author notes that his predecessors, such as Gainsborough, began to build paintings out from what looked like close up as scratches and accidents. Turner of course, capitalized on the accidental, and was the greatest of the landscape artists.

And it was all so long ago, something you'd expect to appear much later, after the Impressionists maybe.

All very interesting, I think, in a way that unimportant things are when they concern things that, well, interest you. As I feel that image making is a vital activity, at least a noble and ancient one, it interests me to know something about Turner, something that would clue me in to what the heck he was trying to do in those big vaporous paintings. Its easy to see now, and to love, and appreciate. But it seems so odd, so out of the general run of things then, and much of other his work seems so boring and placid or of the times, that it really is extraordinary. Weird even.

They were all such damned good artists back then, and so well trained, and so full time at it. The way I have approached trying to learn to paint has beenso solitary, such a slow self study, and I forget there are thousands- at least- of other painters trying to make a go of it, most far more successfully and productively than I. I was reminded of this today while bouncing through painter's blogs on the internet, and seeing some long lists of painters blogs with well over 100 bloggers, all doing the same sales pitch, their "drawings", "paintings", "figures", and all, for what I could see, talented and serious about painting. A few real stand-outs, real professionals that would have been the Great Painters in the old days and celebrated, and painting in that very old style, reading old "how to" books from the 19th century, trying to paint like Sargent and Sorello and Cecilia Beaux. I suppose that's laudable, something that i wish i could aspire to. But clearly, it just makes it more of an oddity, painting the old themes, the old lighting, learning the old techniques. Not all of it of course, though I haven't really discerned what the new painting might be, though the realist style is back, and young people are lining up to paint like that.

I don't have the bird's eye view, or any real perspective on it, just what i see on the net. Its a mix, it seems almost like a cacophany of voices, of people trying to sell their work for small amounts, and there is some level of desperation there, and self salesmanship, which makes me cringe a bit to read. This blog here, is part of the din. And I am sure it is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.

In a Circle Drawing Naked People

Painting the figure tonight in Everett. All of us in a circle staring intently.

I've abandoned trying to make something work with acrylic paint, and returned to oils, where I am much happier. It suits the way I see things, and want to interact with the drawing, it is all so much more flexible, and melds together softly. And there isn't that annoying plastic shine.

It is such an odd thing, the figure drawing sessions, with everyone gathered around the model, trying to draw, trying to capture something which no one can describe and is different for everyone. I've done it for so long now that I can't recall what it is was like to start, now it seems like such an essential thing to do. And so obviously superfluous to the world's greater problems. But there is a kernel here of something so essentially human, maybe not universal, but at least a small segment of humans feel this need to draw, and I feel it bodily when i draw, or paint, everything disappears, and your mind becomes focused and excited by the challenge of imitating a small patch of tone, or a color, and always there is the wall of not quite getting it right, but we press on. And there is the looking at the drawing as it unfolds, and wondering if it will survive the next few strokes, or start to crumble and die. And then another drawing, and another, none finished, none a total statement, as if there is not enough time to finish anything.

Image making, looking at images, its all a part of the species, like making love, or war, or building, or having children, or anything. Its not about words, and can't really be expressed in words, its about its own special experience. Words seem like the thing to use to understand it, as we always do with things when we want to understand them, but in the end, there is no understanding this way, only more words. The understanding comes from doing the work, not talking about it. And that's really hard to do.