Sailing Club

9 x 12

It was a great opportunity to play with abstraction as I worked on my third entry for "Subject to Interpretations." If you haven't see it yet, just click on the title and that will take you to the blog.

Instead of painting the boats, I zoomed in on the sails and focused on how the wind and light defined their forms.

The Portland Plein Air and Studio Painters have tried to maintain our group painting efforts through the cold weather months by creating winter projects. This year, I designed the project in the form of a new blog. Twice a month, I post a photo reference (the "Subject") and all of the artists from the group can paint from that and I post the photos of their paintings (the "Interpretations"). The holidays may keep many artists from painting in December, but this is my entry.

I remember watching the Olympia Sailing Club out with their boats on a race in Budd Inlet last summer. Their bright sails in the full sun were graceful as they caught the wind and light and I took many photos of them and sketched them as they zipped past. And now, I look forward to seeing how the other interpret the scene.

Chasing the Light

12 x 18

Maybe not chasing the light, but I am certainly studying the light more carefully since critique last week. This painting is done from a photo I took in Palm Desert on a sunny January morning.

Cold Outside!

18 x 8

pastel with water under painting

Temperatures in the 20s and 30s make me look for warm subject matter. This palm tree painted from a photo I took in Temecula, CA, along the Butterfield Trail.

I used a piece of Wallis paper that had a crease in it, making it the perfect support for a quick study. First, I did a gesture drawing with graphite. Then I lightly put in pastel in big blocks of color and value. I used a wet brush to push it into the paper and soften the edges. Once it was dry, I added a bit more pastel on top.

Baby, it's cold outside! Perhaps some snow in the forecast!

Filling up

Calder Cow

Sargent "Leon Delafosse"

Paint. Paint. Paint. I can be driven when I am pursuing art. Push. Push. Push. Things flow and it's a joy to be in the studio or out in the field. Then, without warning, I am dry. Parched of ideas and energy. Not that I love art any less. I just need to be recharged.

Spending time with art friends is one way I fill up. Even better is spending time with art friends on an all-art adventure. That is exactly what I did.

A day trip north to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Michelangelo exhibit and Calder exhibit. To stand in front of Michelangelo's drawings of the human form that date back to the mid-1400s is nothing short of amazing. It made me want to draw and to draw more. One hundred times or more. There's a nice series of lectures about this exhibit on the SAM website if you are interested in seeing/hearing more about this exhibit.

In another special exhibit, the whimsy of Alexander Calder. I LOVED the cow. A bit of wire bent like a three-dimensional contour drawing. Udders and all. A delight!

Of course, no trip to SAM is complete without adequate time to admire the Sargent portrait of Leon Delafosse and the Robert Henri portrait of the dancer. All four of us stood for a long time looking at these two masterful paintings. We would walk up close to inspect a brush stroke, then step back to see the strokes come together to form a hand or the fold in the skirt. Close again to see how he did that, back again to admire the perfect effect.

The timing was just right to zip over to the hills of Kirkland and peek at Casey Klahn's "River Series" exhibit at Northwest University. It was lovely to see in person the paintings that I have admired on his blog. I enjoyed that very much.

Then, a short drive down the hill to the Howard Mandville Gallery for a look at their small works show. We watched the sun set over Lake Washington, the Seattle skyline in periwinkle silhouette

with a lemon yellow and soft orange ground.

Now I feel full to the top. And I'm ready to paint again.

How to you replenish your artistic energy?

Structured Critique

Well, in the interest of not overreacting, I will laugh and say that Structured Critique was tough.

I brought in five paintings. I missed the mark with most of them. Distressingly so. I thought that at least one of them would get a "Wow, that's pretty good" comment. None did.

Kitty Wallis, my mentor and the leader of Structured Critique, observed that I did not observe and paint the light pattern consistently, so that ruined the effect of form and space of my figures. I knew that something was missing in my paintings, something that was keeping them from making the viewer want to look at them longer. Now I know what was off.

While negative feedback is never pleasurable (unless you are a masochist), it is good. Good to hear the truth. And I know that I can always count on Kitty for the truth.

I have a new painting on the easel already, and you can believe that I am looking carefully at the light pattern. I have every intention of getting it more right next time.

John Singer Sargent

Mrs Knowles and Her Children
1902
Youngstown, Ohio
Butler Institute of American Art

The Official White House portrait of
President Theodore Roosevelt
1903
Washington, D.C.
The White House

Oyster Gatherers of Cancale
1878
Washington, D.C.
Corcoran Gallery of Art

It's hard to choose a favorite among John Singer Sargent's large body of work. His paintings cover a broad spectrum of subject matter and his style evolved in the course of his long painting career. Here are a few of my favorites.

I like the informality of the top painting. As a mother with two sons, I instantly identified with the mother's attempt to get the boys dressed in their good clothes and her relaxation in letting them be themselves while they sat for the portrait. Her face is serene. One son cuddles close to his mother. The other is missing his shoes and is sprawled on the loveseat. This painting feels like more than a portrait to capture their likenesses. Sargent captured their relationships and personalities, too.

The formal portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt is gorgeous. It knocks me out! I feel like I could hear the man speak at any moment. TR had a respect for the beauty of our country and a mindset for conservation that resonates within me. Maybe my fondness for this president prejudices my admiration for the portrait, but it is awfully good, don't you agree?

Finally, Oyster Gatherers at Cancale. The figures are real people engaged in a real activity in a real landscape. When I think of the other paintings of that period (think of it, 1878!) I can only say that Sargent was a genius. He saw what he saw and felt how he felt and painted all of that in a miraculous way.

Here's a wonderful website to check out. Which of Sargent's paintings are your favorites?

Work in Progress

18 x 24