Saturday, October 18, 2014

Developing a Scene in Blue


I am having an Open Studio on Oct. 25 & 26. 11-5.
Below are early stages of the piece I am presently working on.
You are welcome to come to the studio to see where it's at now, far beyond what you see here.

Very early stage.

The earliest stage was basically just the dark and light blues, laid on with brush and plastic baggie. I then started seeing shapes in the lower right dark area. This space developed in a way that informed me what might be going on in the center of the piece, which is where you see the painting here... with just suggestions of activity throughout.

Next in the progression of early stages.

I have been picking up a bit more form and space by adding highlights and shadows in the central area. My main concern is that I want the center to feel active, a bit foreboding, and not ...

...well, fearful. This painting was inspired by a man who said he couldn't look at blue artwork. I have learned that not everyone can look at all colors. There appears to be multiple reasons why. This intrigues me, so I am now painting into all aspects of blue, from dark to light, trying to reveal the beauty within the shadows and highlights of this color.

As with everything I make, I do not expect a certain outcome, but instead am intrigued by what is revealed one day to the next... and sometimes it is just a torrential argument with the paint. Ironically, these difficult areas often provide the depth my painting craves. Such is life, yes?


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Oh, Those Bitter Ironies

I am going to be in an art show soon but I didn't have the art finished by publicity time. The curator grumbled, but I felt uncertain about whether the painting would actually be the one I'd submit in the end, so I didn't rush it.

I then sent the painting to get framed and wondered if I should send the curator the image before I received the art all tidy in its new protective shell. Still I held back.

Today I picked up the framed piece. The framer messed with my painting! He removed paint and left a mark where he did so. I should think this is similar to a graphic artist in a newspaper production department crop editing the copy of an editor's article and leaving in an errant punctuation mark.

There is no way to repair the damage, but luckily the damaged area will be invisible to everyone except for me. Since I do miniatures where a magnifying glass is used for viewing, I'm bummed, though, because one of my art premises is that I don't correct my art: I always march forward without erasing anything. This painting now has a clearly erased spot on the clean white paper.

And now I ponder the irony: with a framer making editorial choices, yes, there actually was a distinct chance that the piece of art could have not ended up in the show. "Scalpel! ...oops...."

I'm uncertain right now what to do. This is when I think that if I could control the world I'd frame my own art. (But if I could control the world I wouldn't be concerned about tiny edits to my art, would I.)