Bruce's Art Blog

The price of your soul: How the brain decides whether to 'sell out'

2012-01-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

The price of your soul: How the brain decides whether to 'sell out'

How does our brain know what is a face and what's not?

2012-01-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

How does our brain know what is a face and what's not?

2012-01-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

Until recently I have been buying and stretching my own large as well as small canvases. I always worried about the quality of the gesso, the canvas, and the method of pre stretched pre primed canvases. A friend mentioned to me several problems about the gesso flaking off on pre-stretchered canvases but had no detailed information on particular brands ,companies, or countries making them. I called Golden Paints and talked to one of their technical support persons. She suggested the following articles on problems with gesso. Above are the links .http://www.goldenpaints.com/technicaldata/AdhesionCanvas.php and

http://www.goldenpaints.com/justpaint/jp13article1.php

2012-01-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.nea.gov/news/news08/ArtistsinWorkforce.html

The National endowment for The Arts did an interesting study a few years ago.It's about the numbers, income, distribution education and so forth of artists in America. Pay specific attention to fine artists to understand painter's survival, and income vs actors, writers, designers, and so forth Above is the link to their website and the article. I suggest you download the entire article ,and read the specifics on fine artists i.e. painters.

Tobacco company misrepresented danger from cigarettes, study suggests

2012-01-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Tobacco company misrepresented danger from cigarettes, study suggests

Computer vision research: Do you see what I see?

2011-12-23T07:31:00.000-08:00

Computer vision research: Do you see what I see?

Being told painting is fake changes brain's response to art

2011-12-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

Being told painting is fake changes brain's response to art

2011-12-08T18:55:00.001-08:00

Some new drawings.Having less time to draw the figure because of Christmas , the level has dropped.

Some people can hallucinate colors at will

2011-12-03T00:20:00.000-08:00

Some people can hallucinate colors at will

New evidence of an unrecognized visual process

2011-12-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

New evidence of an unrecognized visual process

New research distinguishes roles of conscious and sub-conscious awareness in information processing

2011-12-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

New research distinguishes roles of conscious and sub-conscious awareness in information processing

2011-11-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

I find that writing about what I'm doing helps to clarify my thoughts. So here's my thoughts about one direction in my drawings. First, I will put up pictures of three other artists whose work seems without thinking to be going in the direction I'm thinking about. Then I'll think about that direction by examining those artists pictures as visual mechanisms and try to take apart how one or two of their pictures work . I do this in order to help clarify my thoughts.But I think where I function from as an artist my not at all be driven by this analysis or my thoughts.

These painters are anne gale,jordan wolfson, and giacometti

First thoughts on giacometti:

1) in this work, there is a delicate harmony of grays and muted rose tones
quoting Fletcher;
2)there are rectangles within rectangles which serve to isolate the figure and progressively recede the figure back into space;
3)The bottom of the figure is almost on the picture plane;
4) The space moves:from the bottom it goes back ,then up,then back and then up to the head;
5) there is a lack of detail for hands,elbows,etc;
6) The edges of the figure, of tables,chairs etc are indefinitely. revealed by several lines,or edges;
7) The proportions of the figure progressively shrink so that the head is isolated and smaller than in reality;
8) There are interesting little light effects within each of these small isolating boxes around the figure;
9) The lines in the drawing create the illusion of three dimensional space and also sometimes work against it
10) The erasures --how do they work?

Ann Gale

1) The figures assume a slightly psychological pose,particularly with their face expression;
2) The small brush strikes insure continual processing ;
3) There are bits and pieces of 3 d perspectives;
4)There are parts of the figure that aren't complete--like the left arm,one of the edges of one of the legs;
5) There is almost never a straight edge;
6) It's almost as if there were several viewpoints on the figure;
7) The color of the background is woven through the figure;
8)Roughly there are three bands of color;
9) There are directional lines within the background that seem to reinforce figure elements e.g. leads to area at feet;stops the eye at the left arm;one over the head; others catch your attention only.

Wolfson

1) it's almost as if he draws the scene and then goes back and erases information without losing the 3 d dimensionality;
2)There is white and black,with a very wide range of greys mostly toward the darker grey end(the photo is way to light);
3) The lines of the smeared charcoal lead the viewer into the composition,or the darken smear also reinforces the composition;
4) There are at least two kinds of light-one natural,and another from the paper and from the drawing;
5) In this drawing alot of the dark lines add a density to the drawing but in my view aren't necessary;
6)I'm not convinced this drawing actually works;

More on Wolfson,

1) these drawings are 3 d accurate
2)Why are several areas drawn over again and again to become a style
3)they recede in space from lower left to upper right
4) Erasures are done on all four sides of objects or rather on all four edges and usually in the middle with the middle of the side plane left open or erased
5) almost all of the edges have other lines breaking into through them
6)again edges are defined b y 3 or 4 lines
7)the floor is left white in most drawings
8) the darkest area is in the middle of the drawing as opposed to the edges,right or lower area.
These are just first responses,nothing definite.

Again the goal of these notes is to understand how these drawings work as visual mechanisms. it's sort of like taking apart a clock and then putting it back together again--to see how it works. There are limits of this analogy,

What I think I have to do is first find out what each artist thought he or she was trying to do, then ask them if they felt they succeeded, and judge them on these standards. Finally, ,or maybe first, I'll try to define my reaction to their drawings and them ask how my reaction might occurs as a response to the drawings themselves. Realizing my response is only one reading of the drawing.

So first, to Giacometti

First, I'm drawn immediately to the head.It feels set back behind the plane of the paper, psychologically,it feels reserved, or withdrawn into itself.With indistinct features, I don't quite attribute any particular emotion to it--like anger, you etc. Perhaps its a bit stern. tyhe space around the figure almost seems to envelope in from the sides. The change in color around the head further isolates the head almost from the body.--perhaps drawing more attention to the head,and it's stillness.

In other G's paintings I felt a presence in the work-- i don't in this work,nor does it seems over time to change "beings" as other of G's work has--at one time being one person at another being a totally different person.

2011-11-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

2011-10-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

New drawings in old style.

2011-10-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

To continue from my last post:

Bias against Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida as well as Freud and psychoanalytical approaches(see The Assault on Truth by Masson, and The Critics Bear It Away by Frederick Crews)
While the evolutionary biology and neuroscience approach to creativity and aesthetics has enriched my understanding of how the brain works( see Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works,Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker)as an artist, both approaches leave me uneasy. What that unease is about remains unclear. AI seems to me helpful but to miss essential features of creativity.Searle's The Rediscovery of the Mind leaves me unconvinced. Marxism and the Frankfurt School for me remain opaque,and too often driven by a true believer mentality. Making Monsters by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters has thrown the entire field of psychotherapy and its relevance to these issues into discredit.

Again, while I have drifted away from my starting point, part of my approach has been to address the use of various kind s of data as evidence and to stake out where in the intellectual environment I stand by identifying what approaches don't for me make sense.

Evidence Based Art Practice

2011-10-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

Like the thrust for evidenced based medicine, my approach might be called evidence based art practice.
The pay off on this approach is mostly for the individidual artist struggling alone to unlock his creativity.
The quality of evidence used in decision making can be difficult to access For those unfamiliar with the quality of different data as evidence I refer you to the Wikipedia article on Evidence based medicaine.That article will provide the reader with a broad outline of kinds and quality of evidence .

For the individual artist, it will help evaluate the evidence value of books such as Ralph Mayer's The Artist's Handbook, or the compare and contrast study such as Pavel Macchotka"s Cezanne: Landscape into Art,to Robert Hughes Nothing If Not Critical, as well as more traditional "scientific " studies like John M. Kennedy's The Psychology of Perception ,Ellen Winner's Invented Worlds-the Psychooogy of the Arts,
or the long history of experimental works on aesthetics.

Of particular interest to me are the following kinds of studies: material and technique studies like Ernst Van De Wetering's Rembrandt--The Painter at Work, or Claus Grimm's Frans Hals; particular critics like Robert Hughes, historical studies like Jacques Letheve's Daily Life of French Artists, Wittkower's Born Under Saturn, sociology of art studies that study the sociology of the art world, the socialization of artists into art careers, and life cycle studies of art careers; studies on teaching of art like Carl Goldstein's Teaching Art; studies of creativity like Margaret Boden's Dimensions of Creativity orRobert W. Weisberg's Creativity: Genius and other Myths,or the work at U.C. Berkeley; individual life histories like The Journals of Eugene Delacroix,;and finally many of the more traditional art historical studies,and "scientific studies" on perception,
etc.

Finally, I must disclose my intellectual bias: against Levi Strauss,Roland Barthers.

2011-10-14T00:18:00.000-07:00

Drove to Castro Valley to draw. While the model was late, she made up for lost time and was beautiful-lovely skin tones. ,and very classical poses. It always amazes me-- at home it's such a struggle to get into the car and drive two hours to draw,pay 30 bucks in gas and 15 in models fee--I have to leave at 5 30 and get home at 11 45...( which i dread doing) but god when the model is good what a wonderful experience. How lucky i am to be able to do this at 69. Today the quality of the modeling lifted the class. I made new discoveries.--partly because i was using some very thin charcoal and it kept breaking on me. That introduced a randomness in my line--starts and stops. various thicknesses, sudden unexpected smudges ,etc.

I also for the 3 or 4 time in 20 years actually saw how to include the background as large chunks in my drawings and how to use the envelope , directional lines, and lines from the chunks to create unique senses of light. It was quite exciting. Now, i just have to live long enough to explore it. Next time i draw I hope I can come back to the creative place i was drawing from tonight. Some of the drawings got smudged driving home. so we'll see how i can fix them up. But what a deep blessing to be able to do this activity. And i am quite fond of the other people who draw in this Thursday night group. What a lovely experience. How lucky i am.

2011-10-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

These are more interesting drawings. I've left more of the lines . But still haven't figured out how to relate the chunks and interesting shapes to the environment. I find it interesting how difficult it is to break the habits of drawing in the bay area figurative style, I find that when the first thing that comes to people 's mind is that the drawings remind them of Diebenkorn's. Once that happens they actually don't see the drawings. The same thing with my drawing habits--once i slip back into that style, I tend not to see the figure

Relating to the background in term of chunks brings up interesting ideas. First, the chunks can be played against each other,destroying in the process, the actual light effects and creatng new ones. The playing of lines against each other can create new or multiple senses of space and the artists and /or viewers place in space in relation to the drawing. It also brings up ideas of building up layers and layers of lines and picking out space among them. Or going in a Giacometti direction. the problem is I so easily slip into a bay are approach that i find it difficult to break out. When you add erasures effects it complicates everything,as does adding charcoal smudge marks,on and off the figure.The only way through this is to draw the figure 3 or 4 times a week and that costs almost two hundred dollars. hard to shell out even if i had it. I plan to draw Friday. Hopefully I'll be able to focus more on these issues. The smart thing to do I guess would be to draw things other than the figure but I'm so in love witht the figure than I find that difficult.

2011-09-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

pia, here are some small figures 20 by 30 inches

2011-09-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the third set of figures.with each set so far there are works missing.

2011-09-07T23:33:00.001-07:00

Pia, these are a on going set of monoprints. Second figure group.

2011-09-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

First figure group

2011-09-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here are several fish paintings.

2011-09-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some landscapes.

2011-09-07T10:59:00.001-07:00

2011-08-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

Several more drawings. Reading John Searle's The Rediscovery of the Mind. Interesting book. Also reading E.O.Wilson's Consilience.Both have implications for painting.

2011-08-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Some new drawings.Actually two weeks ago I stumbled again on two interesting things to do with the figure.First, I had shaded the entire figure in, and then begun to erase the shading to create light effects. The pattern of the erasing of shading,and the pattern of the erasing of the envelope lines around the figure developed an interesting surface and worked with light effects in interesting ways. Definitely something to explore. Secondly, when sketching the figure in and looking for chunks I was able to pick out chunks that integrated the figure into the background in interesting ways . Ways that created a whole new organization principle for the drawings' 2 dimensional surface.

Immediately, I wondered how I could " chunk up" the tonal pattern that created light effects and integrate those chunks with the chunks of the figure/background. Since I'd chunked up the light effects, the natural light effects wouldn't hold. Would they create a new light effect by accident? Would the mixing of chunks demand a light effect that occurred by an interesting design or compositional effect? I don't know. Chunks is a term my reader may not understand. Let me explain.

In the way I draw I first surround the figure in an envelope. Then roughly locate shoulder vs hip lines; then find the joints--shoulder ,elbow, wrist, hip, knees ,ankles,etc. and distance them off from each other accurately.At the same time, I'm looking for interesting shapes within the figure--large masses of the figure, triangles of knee, ankle and hip joint, etc. In this process, I also look for large

chunks of negative space, or interesting chunks where background objects and body parts line up. At the same time, I'm looking for the energy lines in the figure and in the gesture of the figure. Often to help relate the figure to the 2 d rectangle of the drawing papers, I start outside the paper and draw interesting line through the figure tracing the gesture, an weight point, lines of tension of emotion.In all this I check negative spaces to make sure distances from elbow to knee for example are correct.etc. Again when you're doing this you're developing the surface and looking for chunks of interesting surface marks,or accidental light effects that have emotional power.

"Chunks" then are large interesting shapes.--within the figure, within the whole drawing surface(figure and background).Sometimes they are large sometimes smal

One organizing principle behind the search for chunks is: what interests me about the motif.

Sometimes that's beauty. Sometimes the body mass. Sometimes the personality of the model.Sometimes light effects. Sometimes,truth.

I hope this explains a little .

2011-08-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

Some images I cleaned up i.e. lightened up

2011-08-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Four more drawings:not my best. I need to refocus and concentrate,and draw more. the past two weeks have been disappointing. This week should be better. Hopefully ,I'll get in two drawing sessions.

Have been working alot in the studio and am about to revamp my web site. There is so little audience for my work that my web site such as it is is probably my best outlet.

2011-07-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Some Yosemite drawings.

2011-05-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some new drawings.I'm excited about several of these.

Can't wait to draw some more and wish I could have an extended period of drawing the figure three times a week--like for 6 months. wonder where that would lead me.

Open Studio

2011-04-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well, what an adventure.

The open studio is a community event when artists open their studios to the public. In Modesto, 52 artists of all mediums participated.

Overall, for me, the event was wonderful. I sold a modest amount but not enough to completely recoup my costs. About 140 people visited my studio--people of all kinds,shapes and aesthetic tastes.Most came because other artists suggested to people who visited them that they visit my studio. Learning that Chella and Susanne --other artists in the open studio --referred people made me feel like I was part of the community. That's a nice feeling.

Overall, I enjoyed this open studio much more than the ones I participated in in the Bay Area.

The big surprise for me was getting back in touch with how much I liked to talk to people about art, and my art,particular explaining and educating an audience who were mostly still coming to terms with modern art. It was great fun. I found it interesting that most of the local college art faculty I had invited chose not to visit. A selection of older retired folks very conservative came but many of them were honestly interested in learning about art. That was quite refreshing. Friends came which i appreciated. My wife's mother came,bless her heart. I was worried that no one else might show up. So her smiling face was a relief early on.

When visitors honestly don't get something, or really wonder about an artist's life, or always wanted to paint but felt they didn't have any talent,and they say so directly I enjoy explaining,and correcting myths about art and an artist's life.

Common comments or questions were: "Yea, but what do you do for a living?", "How long did it take you to do that?" " I just don't get it. what does it mean?" " Well, you sure have a unique sense of color." "How come the sky is yellow-- I like things that look real" Isn't that (picture} a little strange? What's the story with this picture?" " How much is that? You want what for that?", and so forth.

Answering questions like these is a real challenge,especially when people are honestly and earnestly asking them.

There is an amazing amount of talent in the central valley. Open studios was a fun way to connect with some of it.

2011-03-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the last two blogs, I've been working on this last group of paintings, trying to figure out how to make them work.When I get stumped I often ask my wife who has an unerring eye what to do. Luckily, we've struggled through to find a way for her to figure out how to do this so it doesn't feel oppressive to her. I've learned she has a very good eye--different from mine, with an aesthetic that's different from mine but helpful.I feel blessed to have her critique the work, since there's no one else around in Modesto who will. Her comments about most of these are(1) most of them are boring,(2) a couple are interesting,(3) none are fully resolved,or uniquely mine(4) many of the figures are less interesting than the backgrounds or are lost in the backgrounds,(5) alot of the figures suffer from lack of correct proportions that distract from the work(e.g legs too short, faces ugly, hands feet too small,or large,etc),(6) a design elements often adds to the work.

After 30 minutes of comments, she reached her limit so typically i don't get to ask the kind of questions that I think would help direct me in my work. One thing I value about my wife and which I think is rare is you always know where you stand with her,particularly on aesthetic issues. Since she has a rather large art background, and worked in a gallery in the Bay Area her comments are relatively sophisticated--anyway I appreciate them.

One problem I'm having is this: here is a drawing I like. The kind of lack work the lines around the figure seem to me to make the drawing more effective.what i can't figure out is how that works? Do the lines reinforce the structural dimensions of the figure.? Do they in the area of the face actually Add up ? What element do they add to the Face ? If any? How do these lines relate to the tonal values added on the figure? How do I repeat this? How do the tonal values, the effect of light to create mass and volume , the weaving of the lines interact? What would have happened if i tried to erase some of these lines ?

The lines are an artifact of my measuring and proportion seeking. What if I didn't actually press the charcoal onto the paper but just noted the correct positions? How can I relate these lines which occur only within the figure to the entire background in a way that does for the entire surface what the lines did for the figure? What would that look like? Has it been done before? Would it carve the rectangle of the paper up into interesting shapes that revealed new dimensions ? New senses of space in the 3 d aspect of the drawing or on the picture plane?

2011-02-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Boy, here's a mistake using greys with too much blue in them.

2011-01-30T21:20:00.001-08:00

Second Impressionism Show.San Francisco

2011-01-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

This is the second attempt to write my review of this show. I accidentally deleted my first ,and am not computer literate ,or blog literate enough to figure out how to retrieve it. If you know of references to correct a accidental draft deletion, please send me a e mail. Thanks..

I have seen this show twice. After the first viewing, I read Ken Baker's review of it, as well as the review of it in the San Jose paper and reviews of it on yelp. Finally, I read some of the commentary about individual artists and pieces in Robert Rosenblum's Painting in the Musee D'Orsay. All I found helpful,but not necessarily equally so.

Again I would recommend Costco ticket's, talking a notebook,and water. It was as crowed as the first show. Given the crowds, I would take advantage of sitting down and studying pieces as views of them came up around you. After doing that, I would move up closer. Both distances give different information about the pieces.

In addition, one gets a view of the how many different ways people view shows like this. That is not only entertaining, but an education in itself. For example, most people I observed(an actually small sample)actually spend very little time looking . I would say most spend less than two minutes before a painting. Those that have the audio tape are led through the show by the pacing of the tape. Some people do actually discuss the paintings before the paintings,but the discussions I over heard had less to do with understanding how individual pieces worked as visual objects,and more to do with tidbits about the piece(this is one of two Starry Nights),or artists(he was a very short, you know),gossip(look at her, I wouldn't be caught dead in that! ),cheap dismissals(his nudes are terrible),or simple uninformed taste(A head on a platter,OMG).. Thinking about how odd these comments were, and about how few people actually looked, I realized I also mostly glanced at the works.
That sustained looking was difficult, and probably is due to the visual context I and most of us grew up in. Do I even as a painter go to shows to gleam deep moral truths about myself or society ? Even though I
struggle with creating everyday, how often in the last ten years has a painting changed my life in any deep way? Most of my growth personal as well as changes in creativity has come from my relationship with my wife. Little from art,even though making images is my lifes' work. Some has come from the realizations that occur as I paint through emotional areas but little from observing others finished art products. Images stick in my consciousness,but it's unclear what impact they have. T.V.,movies, newspapers have conditioned my visual habits,and I have to work to enter works of art. I probably need to amend this: Lucian Freud has changed the way I paint the figure as F. Holder the way I paint landscapes. The beauty of Matisse's color and light effects as well as backgrounds has also influenced and changed my work.

I will review this show not from the perspective of an art critic(i.e.personal viewpoint),nor art historian(i.e. does the show treat historical periods,and artists justly, and representatively),nor from the shows' curators viewpoint( do they outline their goals in the show and do they attain those goals).

Rather I'm interested in several things(1) finding pieces I love,(2)finding pieces that are new to me, or artists that I didn't know about,(3) discovering something that will nurture my own growth as an artist--whether that's for lack of a better word --a new technique, or getting over a bias against an artist , artist's work,or (4) finding a historical tid bit which helps my art;or finally,(5) comparing this show with the first.

Overall, I'd say the show is slightly less interesting than the first. It is a treat to have the works here. But I must add that this show and thinking about it forced me to revise my evaluation of the first show and taught me several lessons in my self limitations.

These limitations are

(1) first and I'm embarrassed to admit it--I don't look hard,long, or critically enough at the pieces in the show--both this one and the former show. I don't know why this is. Partly, I suspect I'm just lazy; partly critically looking is hard work, and in a show I quickly--after two hours-- become exhausted. Partly, it's the influence of T.V.,and movies. I glance alot--even though I fight against that tendency by sitting down and looking. Partly, it's because those I view shows with don't really want to discuss them in detail, nor have as much interest as I do. And I haven't built a network of friends interested in examining works--my responsibility.Partly because I also think I compare my achievements as an artist with those in the shows and always come up short. Most of these artists have more technique that I do. This brings up a large topic for me : fear,and socialized self limiting attitudes I have uncritically accepted. I believe I briefly touched upon it earlier. I don't want to go into it here

and

(2) secondly, and I think this is terribly important--For me and I suspect others I relearned how critically important it is to look at actual work,and have the chance to study them frequently and in depth. Live with the works if you will. It also stressed for me the value of readings others reviews and commentaries.

So now let me turn to writing about the actual art. I am going to discuss the works as they come up in my consciousness,not the way the show is organized. I will note first my response and then how
I analyze the work of art that may have created that response.

The Poor Fisherman by Pierre Puvis De Chavannes

My Response

:A surprisingly moving image for me. At first glance, I dismissed it.Then the fisherman figure caught my attention and when I came closer and saw the figure of the dead child . i felt it was deeply moving. I wanted to look further. My critical capacities began to click in,analyzing how the composition worked, the influence of the colors,etc. Then rather than as escapist vision I read the painting as a tragic comment . A moment of silence for me,a family caught in deep grief. It's a very eerie silence.Having a brother who just died I know that silence-despair, disbelief,desolation,etc. Fr me a very moving painting.

How IT Works:

This response -(assuming I'm not projecting my emotions into the painting)how is it provoked? It's the oddness of the man in the boat, with the straight mast plunged almost at his feet,and as if the mast were going though the boat into hell. The dark mass of the boat and its shadow seem to pull down. There is also a play of triangles in the composition: the triangles of land that juts out into the sea;the triangle of the man-daughter -child that keep my eye circulating around those figures the man to the woman to the child. For me, it's very effective. Then there is the desolation of the scene itself; the thin unmodeled figures with their body language;and the tonal range,mostly in muted greens. Finally, there are all the cultural references i.e mainly the biblical story of the poor fisherman. I think the boat also leads me right into the circular effect I commented upon earlier. His other paintings didn't catch my eye.

Moreau's Orpheus

My Response:

I was dismissive--not another mythical masterpiece. I walked right by this at first. Most likely because in the first show several of his pieces failed to grab my attention. This one fails also. Partly because to understand it, I have to be versed in cultural history(whose severed head,and why);partly because the image of a severed head on a lyre just doesn't do it for me.
There is an eerie kind of light in the work,and like his previous pieces odd things in the painting.For example, out of scale dancers up on a rock behind the central figure, and odd little creatures in the lower right as well as strange plants in the shadows. Granted it took courage to paint like this during his time, and granted he was the teacher of several important painters ,the meaning and content of the work just doesn't hold my attention,move me,or interest me. Why?
Perhaps because I think opium induced visions don't help painters.Nor do I think severed heads of mythological hero's and myths can evoke erotic feelings as implied by this young girl staring fondly , and in reverence at Orpheus's head.

When I worked in a psychiatric ward, it was common for bi polar clients to love their highs, and to believe they were most creative when they were in their manic phase. They were almost always wrong. Manically, they lack the critical reality testing that's necessary for evaluating the creativity of the products they produced in those states.. Similarly,they lacked the abilities in those states to produce high order creativity.

Perhaps Moreau never painted when high. Perhaps he painted only when sober,and only used images, and ideas from drugged induced states in his paintings when he painted not on drugs I don't know.Chemically induced states harm not help artists.

It's probably my cultural conditioning but I find myself shaking my head and walking away.I don't deny his technique,nor some of the beauty in the work, his effectiveness given his goals--but I bounce up against an emotional boundary that I pay attention too. The severed head, the implied reverence,or eroticism or longing in her stare at the head, the dim light, the odd things in the background,the cultural references --all of these I'm afraid call up the same response I have to movies like Saw,or on serial killers ,vampire movies, Gothic tales,macho movies like Rambo,or the Expendables, a certain vein of macabre comics, some science fiction --there is just a whole cluster of veins --you can see it on the internet in abundance-- that I turn off too. Often this work has fantastic technique,and imagination. As you can tell from my response it's just not my cup of tea.

How It Works:

I really didn't analyze it. Honestly, I would say I had a knee jerk response to the work.Most likely not fair to it.

Degas' Dancers Climbing a Stair.

My Response

This small work caught my attention. What aspect? The diagonal leading from left to right and the length of the piece. Then I noted it was a Degas and stepped closer for a more detailed look,expecting to be pleased. I was.

How it Worked:

The unusual composition,muted tones,and long shape drew me in. I liked the diagonal leading from lower left across the picture to the end of the wall,and the body of the young dancer. The small patch of light just beyond the wall at the top of the wall got my attention and left me going back and forth between it ,and the face of the dancer to it's left. I wanted to get more details.When I came up closer to the picture, the dim light in the painting prohibited this. While I liked this, I wondered why of all the work of Degas the museum has --why was this piece selected.?

That raised for me the question of why these particular works were chosen for the show, and how.

Cezanne's Work.

My Response:

I'm a little defensive around Cezanne because of his status in the art world. But I'm always excited to see his work. Two of his pieces grabbed me. I found my eyes wondering over those canvases almost in rapture- noting tones here and there, solidity in forms, beauty in composition. I was lost in study,transported out of myself into a mixture of admiration,jealousy,and resolve to create more solid forms and stronger compositions/.

When I studied his other work, I was disappointed wondering how you could produce great masterpieces and also to my eye such duds.

How They work:
They are too complicated to analyze in a short review. Plus, I really don't know. There's magic in them. Part of me just wants to enjoy them, Apples and Oranges, and Still Life with Onions was worth the price of admission. God these were beautiful pieces. I'd die happy if I had painted just these two works.

The rhythm in the former and the whiteness of the table cloth in the other just stunned me. I've seen both in many different reproductions .None have done justice to these paintings. I could go on for a long time about these two works. They are worth serious study-the composition, the value patterns, the tonal complexity,the solidity of the objects--just beautiful.

On the other hand,some of Cezanne's other works disappointed. One head, the portrait of his wife seemed like a wooden head wig makers set their wigs on. Of course, if your object is to make it lifeless and a solid object,perhaps he succed. But for me, I'd like a portrait to tell me about the person and about the artist reaction to that person all the time making the portrait come alive. In my book, Cezanne failed.
Ahile I don't like all of Alice Neel's work, they at least return to one of the classical purposes of portrait painting Another Cezanne -I think a small mock up of the bathers- seemed simply awkward. In general, while the treatment of the figure has changed radically from The Birth of Venus to Cezanne's little bathers painting, I certainly didn't like his figures. nor for that matter Wayne T's.

Van Gogh's work drew all the crowd's attention. Always crowed before his work.It was difficult to see.

My Response:

Starry Night failed to move me.Perhaps it was the light on the painting,or the fact that I was three rows of people back standing on my tippy toes looking over shoulders trying to see his works. What is the couple in the bottom of the painting, doing in the painting ?
Euene Boch I liked. One small painting of cattle, horses,--The Caravans I liked.The figures were sketchy,and I remembered how poor a draftsman he was when he started,and how good he became with practice.When I turned to look at the painting of his room, the paleness of the colors on the floor disappointed me,as well as the lack of their intensity .Again I wondered why these pieces were selected. It's interesting. His pieces didn't draw me in,but rather since I'd seen the great Van Gogh show years ago,and since I knew he completed so many of his works in just fifteen years I felt compelled to look even if I had to fight my way through the crowds.

How They Worked:

In the Caravan, the looser brushwork and quickly done nature of the work held my attention. None of the other work worked for me. Most likely I've been conditioned by the reproductions of these works and they may have spoilt the painting for me. I'll look at it again.

Mount Kolsaas by Monet

Mr Response: Disappointment I think Ferdinand Holder has ruined mountains for me. Monet's seemed weak,sketchy in a bad sense and second rate compared to the mountains of Holder and Cezanne.

Renior's The Bathers

My Response: Immediately I found myself moving closer to the work to inspect it. Then I was disappointed.I looked at it for quite a while trying to figure out why.

How it Worked:

. There is an interesting over all rhythm to the piece.However, the small heads, their innocence and the flatness of the painting bothered me. It's almost as if the figures were pasted on the canvas like cut outs. There is no depth,or little. I understand the historical context of the painting, It's cultural references to Rubens and others but my mind wants real women not fantasies. The same is true of depictions of men.-only with men  there is a different set of issues.

The website Women Painting Women -- a collection of high quality images of women painted by women --reveals how hard it still is to escape men's notions of women, idealized images, commerically influenced images, or sadly sexualized woman,etc.

I despair over this. Even when I paint women whose lives I know in great detail I come up with unsatisfying images.Who is painting women, or men for that matter in all their complexity, freed of cultural stereotype influences and revealing an alive fully human being? Not L Freud, Matisse, Close,Neel,Dumas Saveil-,etc-take a look at the website I mentioned and see the wide range of images, and the struggle .

For me, the struggle is to capture something alive in paint.Few people have done it.

Bonnard:

My Response: I found myself smiling at his work. Especially the cat. He made me realize how serious all the other painters were and how wonderful his work is,--sometimes-- when he has humor in it. I was laughing inwardly at the length of the cats legs,telling myself --that's exactly how they look.

Bonnard's work
Of the Bonnard work, I liked The Cat best. I was embarrassed by his two nudes of women on beds/and or with men. You will see them later in the show. For years I'd seen these reproductions and wondered about them. In real life, I felt they were weak. they don't evoke any emotional response in me. Why?
I am not sure. Perhaps it's the painting of the figures--too weak structurally--as if without a backbone,perhaps it's the dividing line in the one-between the female and male figure. I don't wonder about the moments the pictures capture And in the other ,perhaps its the expanse of the bed as well as tonal range.
Bonnard has two large murals on canvas-- just before you exit the show--both disappointed. These didn't seem integrated to me--the highlights didn't work for example.

Vullard had several pieces I liked including one large mural.

Sargent had several works that dazzled. His brushwork on highlights was impressive. Generally speaking I admire his work,especially his capturing of light particularly in his watercolors, but I agree that the content of the works is lacking in depth. I think Fry's essay on Sargent's work is the best appraisal of Sargent's work.

If you go to the website for the Museum De'Orsay you can see high quality reproductions of all the works in the show. In addition, they have commentary about each work that give some interesting background. I suppose the audio tape that goes with this show contains much of that commentary. I must admit reading the commentary has enriched my viewing of the work.

Back to the art work.

Henri Gervex

Mme. Valtesse de la Bigne

There were three or four full length portraits of women in fine dresses. All well done , but all as I remember had lengthened the lower half of the figure. A friend said that was because ,perhaps, these painting were hung high up on the walls of houses. High up they look fine. I don't know.The distortion bothered me. I had the same problem with A Dance in the Country by Renoir. When I look at her face, I wonder who she was.
I'm so unfair--when I find a fault like that I almost dismiss the entire work. those kind of cultural difference inhibit me. The woman turns out to be Renior's future wife who he married seven years later. I've been carried away by music in the open air with the woman I loved so I appreciated that aspect of his work. But when I looked at this after feeling those feelings, I thought while they danced like that, and many of the new middle class did what was the country like for the average poor citizen? I felt the same thing when I visited Paris years ago. I was delirious looking at the art,walking and eating in Paris but I couldn't help noticing the poor. It may just be guilt, but until everyone has a decent life I experience it. Even though my responsibility may be quite small to change the world, and I in some way act to meet my own sense of what I can door ought to do, I will feel that guilt and live with the knowledge that the future will judge me harshly. These feeling of course have nothing to do with Renoir's painting. Nor affect the quality of his work. One standard to jusge his work against may be : what were his stated goals in his painting, and on his own terms did he succed in attaining them.?

This isn't one of the criteria I'm looking at these two shows with. But as I look at works, these kinds of issues keep popping up. Perhaps they raise issues of the social role of artists, or how artists justify doing art to themselves given all the demands on their lives, --fatherhood,family,making a living ,being true to themselves,leading a moral life, making a difference in society, what their actual power or responsibility may be in any of those roles,etc.

Gauguin

I like his work ,particularly Tahitian Women, some of his landscapes and several other paintings of Breton peasants.His portrait of himself with a yellow Christ didn.t work for me.

Seurat

I loved a series of sketches they had of his work--6 to 8 in all . These little studies were quite beautiful and I spent a great deal of time looking at them. They're all in a row on one wall,and few people were looking at them. As i looked at them all kind of images,ideas come across my mind. How traditional? D id he build up his larger paintings from these small studies? I could never work like that.   Maybe i ought too. ? I remember Bishoff telling me to slow down and think. Was that what he was talking about?then I'd get sucked away by the beauty of his tonal variations and I'd be off on another tangent.But hey,that's what it's all about--in part at least.
His larger work didn't work for me.
Again rhese small studies were very traditionally made.

Henri Cross

His work surprised me. I didn't know anything about him . While I knew Signac's name I didn't know the work shown here. Port of La Rochelle,and other works by Rysselberghe, Lemmen and Luce also surprised me. Dots and points aren't very interesting to me,but these held my attention. they were fun. i kept thinking that I wouldn't have the discipline to do work like theirs.

How they work: Pointalism Theory

Lautrec

I loved several of his pieces--Alone, and The Toilette in particular. These pieces were closet to real women in the show for me. In the latter, I liked the chalky whiteness,and the perspective. I found myself wanting to see more of his work,particularly if it wasn't for posters. I wondered how accurate they were in portraying the lives of the women he drew and painted.

How They Worked:

The Toilette

For me, it's the back and how it leads my eye down against the flat floor and then the leg leads me to the objects on the upperlright and upper left. They balance out the composition and return me to the head. The chalky whiteness ,the thin strokes the sketch reflection before the face-they all add a desolation and at the same time a warmth to the work. The woman's limbs feel thin yet not unattractive. The brush strokes form a kind of rhythm that lead me around the surface again and again.

Alone

For me, it's just a very brilliant sketch-every detail spot on, extreme economy, and filled by these means with compassion.I echo Rosenblum's comments here.
Gauguin

Some of his works were just beautiful. On the Beach I loved and Brenton Peasants as well as Brenton Village in Snow.

Emile Bernard

His work was new to me. His Woman in the Forest of Love--I think it was called was very strange. The female figure looked glued onto the canvas. She looked as if death were slowly enveloping her body --from the toes up. Her left hand was off, and she didn't lay right on the ground. The trees behind her were as if in another separate painting.. This piece was as strange as Bathers with a Red Cow. But I liked his Brenton Women with Parasols .

The Violet Wave did nothing for me.

Vallotton caught my attention --especially The Ball. It's simple composition,the shadow coming from the left, the running child,the distant figures in light, the weight of the trees above the child ---all added up to a painting that held my attention. I had a sense of danger for the child--being lost, or alone in a park.

His Dinner by Lamplight was interesting but a little strange.

Maurice Dennis was another painter whose work caught my attention. His Homage to Cezanne
seemed pale and forced .But I liked the female figure on the right looking out at the viewer.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was Henri Rousseau. His two works were beautiful.They seemed to come out of no where.But what power. War and The Snake Charmer are equally beautiful and powerful. In some ways these works are more powerful than Cezanne's.

There are a bunch of works I've left out. I went back a third time, checked the computer to see the show wasn 't sold out but by the time my friend and I got there the show was sold out . And not only that day but to the end of the show. So my friend and I went to the Legion to see the Japanese show of prints. Worth the visit. Again packed with people,particularly older folks. Some very beautiful pieces by both cultures,and an interesting section on more modern prints which were claimed to have been influenced by Japanese prints.

While I liked the work, the commentary notes by the pieces were of mixed quality. i guess the general theme was first, look at the Japanese aesthetic as revealed in these prints;note how this aesthetic influenced the Impressionistic painters, now look at how both has influenced more modern print makers.

It's unclear to me what all the details of the Japanese aesthetic are putting aside process induced differences(like their inks and brushes), and differences in for the lack of better words--philosophical approach to the activity--(i.e. zen attitudes, master-teacher,socal role induced attitudes)but some must be: close/distant compositional devices, graphic influences meaning simplicity,drawing influences, nuted color range, distance and perspective built not by traditional western devices (i.e. overlapping,perspective, diminishing size with distance, loss of details with distance, larger tonal differences close up and smaller differences in the distance)
but by layering of bands, vertical stacking, lack of middle distance differentiation,size equated to symbolic importance,etc .

When I looked at the western influenced prints, I could see western printmakes  stealing devices like up close/distant compositional devices, muted colors, even quoting directly from particular Japanese prints or artists .Alot of them also experimented with Japanese materials e.g. papers, inks ,as well as their woodblock production processes.

It was interesting and instructive to learn about these facts.but for me, more importantly, the beauty of some of the prints was wonderful. I particularly liked some of the snow scenes,the bold simplicity of some of the graphic design of the prints.

For me, there were three prints by Whistler that just stunned me. His atmospheric effects were beautiful.
The more modern prints in the last section of the show wetted my appetite for modern California printmakes and for the printers of the time period shown. Lautrec's prints -not the posters-but his drawings again had a freshness that caught my eye. Bonnard's graphic work was fun to look at-his humor particularly.
Degas has several drawings.In one, a picture of a woman full length in a dress ,the light was so delicate and beautiful my heart ached just looking at it. A drawing by Van Gogh in the next to last room as you were leaving the show caught my attention. The paper had badly aged, and discolored. It still stood up because of the variety of line marks and the medium of chalk. But I wondered what chalk ment--charcoal, oil based pastel, lithography crayon. I wanted more details. The show was partly interesting because of the large number of printmakers I knew nothing about--that means I has a lot of new leads to look up. Exciting new adventures. what fun.

The prints seemed in good condition.-even though the colors seemed faded at times. I wondered how they were stored, and how they were framed.,and how much damage exhibiting them under lights caused. It looked like they were framed with uv protective glass.

Again, a show worth seeing .

2010-12-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

Some new drawings.

2010-10-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Some new drawings.

2010-08-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

" Life is ,in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong;beauty enchanting but rare ,goodness very apt to be weak;folly very apt to be defiant,wickedness to carry the day,imbeciles to be in great places,people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no illusion,no phantasm, no evil dream of a night;we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it not deny it nor dispense with it."

Henry James

Memento

I wanted you all night,the old way
your heaviness solid,becoming my dependable guide
through the dark channels night loves to swim down.

I wanted to feel the weight of your body
lifting out of the bed, bear like, checking the fire,
climbing back in the tangle of sheets

to search out my body,move your head
like an otter down the water of me
swim from my winter den to crawl back out
on my summer body.

I wanted to hear the dog twisting in her sleep
by the bed,crying in her animal kingdom.

I wanted the puzzle of our lives, the heavy bone pieces
gliding back into their places

I wanted the moon that lives in our backyard,
trapped in redwoods, to rise
white hair wild and streaming

rampant in all the windows
of our bedroom's glass.

Devreaux Baker

2010-08-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here are five drawing I put up again to remind myself of directions I need to follow:--1 --constructing the figure with inks and imaginary light;-2. finding the figure by accident by following suggestions that come up while working on the figure,3-a drawing where all the spaces between the limbs are activated;4-working with lines around the figure and to the environment that lead to jocks space,or isueslike jordans;5- doing a series of heads;6- doing more yosemite drawing to get massive and solid space.

2010-08-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here are 8 more drawings.

2010-08-06T19:14:00.003-07:00

2010-08-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

2010-08-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

2010-08-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

2010-08-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some experimental paintings. All images are copyrighted. Sorry I have two of that one image. I can't seem to find the cropped image of the figure. Nor do I know how to delete one of them.more images later.

2010-06-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my reaction to the birth of impressionism show.

My reaction is in two parts. the first--practical stuff;the second my responses

Practical stuff: lines on week days are less long. i got there at 12:00 and got a ticket for 12:30 for 22 dollars. Costco sell tickets for 17.50. once you leave the show you can't come back in. so plan things out.

I would take water, a nutritional bar, and a notebook plus some friends to bounce responses off. i went through the show and then returned to specific paintings. i didn't buy the talking tour cause i wanted my own thoughts un clutter ed   with pr hype. I found myself sitting down alot to look,study and think about the work. it is possible to get quite close to the paintings which allows detailed study. for some it might be worth it to bring a book collection of impressionistic work so you could check the reproductions against the actual work.

I didn't bring a catalogue, or writing material so i had to rehearse my responses in my head in order to remember them at home.

Since my responses were so shocking to me, i might go again to check them out a second time. the second time it might be interesting to rent the audio pr hype package because every once in a while those packages actually contain interesting information.

My responses:

My responses are in two categories: overall, and specific

Overall: c plus( after viewing the second sow, and thinking more about the two shows I would upgrade my evaluation to A- or /b plus.)

Seeing these works reinforced my belief it's absolutely essential to see the actual works,not just study reproductions. the show was organized this way: salon and academic painters, Manet and the Spanish influences,early realists,and impressionists. my opinion of the first three got elevated,and of the later depressed. Monet, Manet,Cezanne, Bazille,Caillebotte, Millet, Tissot,evaluation went down; Moreau ,Pissarro, Renior,Sisley,Boudin Bouguereau,Courbet,Degas, Latour,Whistler stayed the same or went up(however slightly).

After viewing the second show and again thinking about specific works, I would raise most artists evaluations but be more specific in works of theirs I disliked. That's all these comments are--my likes and dislike no claim is being made to anything more universal)

Specific works:

Birth of Venus: by Bouguereau-- and Truth by Lefervre
  I actually liked these two paintings even though they're academic.i.e. glossy surface,no brush strokes,no public hair or clit ,idealized figure ,mythical content,etc. This surprised me.

St. Sebastian,Martyr by Ribot:: I loved the paint application, clogged pores of canvas,smashed down highlights, and somber colors.The painting with the large horse opposite Ribot,bored me to death.

The Comtesse de Keller, by Cabanel--The arm and forearm were much too long and too big ,neck to long but I liked the fur treatment,and her face.

Moreau two pieces interested me for the fantastic creatures and ferns in the background. I wondered if they were drug influenced.

Millet's Spring actually didn't impress me, except for the light. This was a disappointment. I was prepared to like his work because of my belief that he identified with poor working people.this showed an idealized side to his work which I didn't find appealing.

Bastien- Lepage's Hay Making.

The focus of the painting seemed to be on the womans' hands and face,and the man prone behind her-- this focus formed almost an ellipse: from her hands to her face and then to the man prone behind her and back again.
But the prone mans' legs were off, her right foot sloppy painted, the upper landscape area seemed almost an afterthought, especially the right side which seemed to have the remains of an under painting of trees that were readable,and hence distracting.The treatment of the grass was wonderful.

Courbet's work in general went up. His nude with dog was fun. His trout wonderful ,except for the treatment of the upper mouth of the fish. I was surprised by the trout's lack of detail. There is a bunch of critical talk about the fish caught in the moment of dying,etc. I didn't feel that. Homes fish are for me much more interesting.

Whistler's mother was beautifully abstract. Probably the only piece that held its own . It's just stunning.

Tissot's Portrait of Mlle. L.L. hid a poor figure under decorative black skirt,and decorative background

I liked Stevens' The Bath,especially the treatment of the water. for me, i read into this work a certain relaxed sadness.

I liked Monticelli Still Life with Pitcher

There was a small Boudin that I also loved: quick efficient brushwork ,lovely sky and beautifully painted people.--all dots and dashes. As a plein air painter I loved this work.

Manet's   work was mixed:

Angelina I liked parts of face ,but it seemed almost a sketch.
The small Mme Manet at the Piano unimpressive
The Fifer seems too flat,but the handling of the head ,hands impressed me.
Overall   his  work was much looser than I expected.
His Asparagus, a painting I thought i loved was framed so that the asparagus tip smashed into the right bottom
of the frame,and ruined the work.
His   flowers in a vase disappointed,given the reproductions of  it    I've seem in books.
Of his work I liked the small little portrait of Mallarme the best.
I was embarrassed by the Woman and her Fan,as well as The Escape of Rocheort, and a whole bunch of his other work. To me ,the critical hype around the impressionists has distorted my evaluation of their work.

I need to remember: productions in books are always limited by economics,and technology. Critical evaluations are too often self serving aimed at career building,or distorted by the critics values, or market forces. These works represent an a lot of money, tax write offs, status ,etc.

I must always try to see actual work: I'm 67 and have held certain painters in high regard because of critics and reproductions It's stunning to see the real work and be disappointed. To have spend my life painting under hype and devaluing my own potential based upon those reproductions and that hype is a crime against myself.

Bazille:Family Reunion --

His figures  are awkward and stiff. The chair the blue skirted woman sat on didn't seem to have weight or sit on the ground.  Other figures looked like they were painted one at a time; first this,then that one--almost no unity among them.For me the most interesting part was the landscape background.

Monet's work also went down. The Magpie failed to impress me as did Gare Saint Lazare and a whole series of others. Monet was the big looser,especially his landscapes.

Renoir , Pissaro , and especially Sisley were the winners.

Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers was odd. I liked it but it was full of distracting problems:the wine bottle floated,the floor stripes wavered and floated;the angles on the wall were off. But it's still wonderful.

Morisot 's the Cradle was touching.

Degas's work stood out. Cezanne's was the single biggest disappointment. It's interesting to me--after viewing the second show,and falling in love with two of Cezanne's works in it, I can't even remember what works of Cezanne were in this show. No images stick in my mind. Images from other artists do. Probably my limitations rather than his.

Moreau's work surprised. In his pieces there were a lot of bizarre tidbits.Knowing his substance abuse I don't know what to make of his work.

There was a host of lesser painters whose work I liked but whose names I was unfamiliar with--shows you the effects of criticism,and fashion.

Painting Yosemite

2010-04-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yosemite Falls splashes down on the valley floor. Tourists snap images.Week end artists paint momentos. After summer ends and school starts, dedicated en plein air artists race against the waning light to capture the magnificance of Yosemites' national treasures.

One of these,Bruce Klein, has been painting in the park for over twenty years. "It stated by chance", he says. " I was in graduate school finishing a Phd. On a lark, I took a drawing class and found my lifes' work. Henry Brandon introduced me to en plein air painting .In short order,I was painting in the valley. Soon afterwards I was an artist in residence. Ever since,20 plus years now, I've been painting in Yosemite.'

What about painting in Yosemite could hold an artists attention fopr twenty years?

For me ,part of the challenge lies in trying to finish a painting before the light disappears. Another is the thrill of painting before breathtaking scenery. A third is creating your own style.

Most plein air painters strive for a degree of realism. Make El Capitan look like El Capitan. Not all painters feel this necessity. Others paint formalistically, letting abstract qualities dominate. Within realism, most Yosemite artists paint in the traditions of 18th century landscape painters,or use some narrow subset of landscape data that has colested into a formula whether Impressionists,Fauvists, or whatever style is currently in vogue.

"There is nothing wrong with this", I believe. " I just have a different sense of priorities. For one thing, I want to do a comprehensive approach to the park.After twenty years,I still haven't gotten out of the valley floor. Or painted even one of the momunents to my satisfaction. Roughly speaking, what Bill Owen's did for suburbia, I want to do for the park.

Another part of my approach is that it isn't about nostalgia. Sentimental images invoke sterotypes rather than encourage the viewers' exploration of their own complex emotional responses to the park. Getting beyond socializaed constrains in vision and in experience is difficult.

What range of thoughts,or feelings does the experience of being in the park call up in you? How does the experience of the park deepen and broaden our humainity? What does it tell us about being alive, or about ourselves?

Answering these questions in words is difficult.Most artists learn their answers through the activity of painting and state them in pictures. I do. The knowledge I'm after can't be expressed in words. My belief is that the physical characteristics of paint can trap certain information that can only be expressed through the physical characteristics of paint. Trapping that knowledge in paint is difficult.

For example, it's very difficult to experience Yosemite without seeing it through the eyes of Ansel Adam's vision.

Any reasonably intelligent artist has inside his or her head a catalogue of images other artists has created of the park-Bierstadt,Wolf Khan,Wayne Thiebaud,William Keith,etc. Past artists enhance your vision but you don't want to be restrained by them.

Moreover, as an artist I'm not merely projecting my emotions onto the landscape.My work isn't merely expressionistic. Instead, I'm trying to notice the range of my responses, pick out particularly valuable ones, and paint paintings when viewed will likely call out the same responses in my viewer.

This isn't easy. It involves me as an artist discovering my own responses to the park-some are immediate,some take time to develop. Next, I must analyze what evoked that response in the environment,figure out how to translate it into a picture,and be sure to stop when the pictue is complete and not overpaint it. Then I must reality check the picture with my audience to see if it ovjectively puts the viewer in the ball park of emotions I hoped it would.

Imagine you're standing below El Captian in winter as snow is lightly falling. You're cold. There is an errie silence. You're alone or with your significant other. You look up at the mist swirling among the El Captain cliffs. The play of lights on the rock faces is breathtaking.

At first ,you may be struck by the sheer beauty of the scene. As an artist, I start to paint,analyzing the play of light. I'm looking for my motif as Cezanne would say--trying to discover what objective information about the landscape right now is creating that subjective sense of beauty. As I work, images from Ansel Adam's pop up in my consciousness,or how the Macchaioia Italian painters created their special light sense.

I wanted to avoid the former, and try to remember the arrangement of rocks in a famous Macchaioia painting--perhaps the cliffs will line up like those rocks. As I paint I become aware how frozen and lonely I feel, how looming the prowl of El Capitan is. I wonder how the Native Americans survived winter here. Or when the prowl will fall. How many have died climbing El Capitan. Perhaps I think the looming sense can be created by a series of large upsweeps of brush strokes. I trty some. I like that. Suddenly the painting turns in an entirely different direction, and I'm following it.

I breath the cold air. My lungs sting. As I breathe in suddenly a weight seems to lift off my chest.I relax. A flood of new thoughts stream into my consciousness.How lucky I am. How I love doing this. How all my other ambitions are essentially nonscence.Just let me do this till I die.

A gust of wind blows snow flakes over my glasses. Suddenly, I realize I've been standing in the meadow for an hour, and I'm freezing.

This little snipet is just a small part of the more complex picture of the creative processes during painting. It is a hundred times more complciated than this, and much goes on outside awareness. I paint with my body as much as my consciousness,with my sense of smell,taste,and feel as much as my sense of vision.

When I focus on the sense of El Capitan looming over me- a response in my body, I must focus on the external and objective data that created that sense in me. Analyzing the spacial relations in the prowl of El Capitan so that I can understand how those relations create in me and then in you the viewer a sense of mass and monuntality takes time. I must see El Capitan in winter,under different light ,and weather conditions.
I have to paint El Capitan a number of times to figure out what objectively creates those feelings, and then figure out how to translate that data into a two dimensional painting.

Geography helps some. Studying the fissions to see how weight is transmitted through stone helps. Light effects teach you about form and mass.How other artists have solved the problem also helps. Clmbing also helps. Feeling the cold stone against your hand and face gives you another knowledge that a necessity.

At the same time I'm doing this analyzing , I'm calibrating what creates the sense of beauty. Partly, it's the light. Partly,it's color. Partly it's the coldness of the air.

Im painting sometimes I paint into and through a cluster of feelings until I realize what it is I'm really after. Beauty may seduce me at first, then there's a dawning awareness that beauty was only a marker. The beauty i'm after is really about the beauty of the cold impersonal stone, and brutality of nature. Then the motif of the painting changes and a new challenge begins.

This happened to me last week. I was painting an area of rock formation between Yosemite Falls and Royal Arches. I just happen to get there early. The light effects for the first time revealed some structural arrangements of the receeding rocks. Luckly, I had my camera. I took a picture because 15 minuted later the light had canaged and the clarity of the rock formation disappeared.

Once understood,trapping that data about mass and monuntality in the physical properities of paint is another challenge.

But it's not merely that sense of mass and montuality I'm after. In the high country there is a sense of wilderness. I want to capture that. How? I don't know yet.

Some eastern critics will tell you that wilderness doesn't exist anymore. Yosemite isn't wilderness but managed land. But for me when I am deep down a trail off Tolumine meadows, there is a sense of the earth,a glacial awareness,and a physicality of stone that many of us have forgotten or lost. But how do you trap the smell of the high country in paint?

At sunset before Cathedral Rocks,or as clouds envelope Half Dome, or in winter,in the snowy silence in the meadows below El Capitan,there is knowledge that's platable not merely subjective,a experience that puts me in my body,and brings up in my consciousnes a beauty about standing in falling snow in an open field that's deeply important.

Critics dismiss you: Oh you're painting the 18th century sublime. No, it's about something more important--about being in the moment in your most authentic self .grounded in the real world, not lost in some trance.

As I watch the mist break among the cliffs, and breather the cold air, I realize how essentially small and alone I am and each of us as humans is.

Turning slowly 360 degrees, eyes fixed upon the snowy sky-how enormous and silent the meadow is--the accumulated chatter inside my head begins to fall away. where the kids are,what duties I have to do before going to bed, bills I forgot to pay--all these thoughts begin to cease, or get turned down. For a moment, I am alone.

A flood of new thought stream into my consciousness. Mother nature can kill you if you're sloppy. How luckly I am to have the love of one good woan beside me sharing this.

It's these kinds of thoughts and experiences I want to trap in paint. If I do, when a viewer looks at my work he or she is put in the ball park of these experiences. He or she is for example,standing in the silent snowy fields before El Capitan lost in thought. I can't compel the viewer to have certain responses but I try to put them in a ballpark where they muight occur.

The rest is up to them

This is my particular vision.

2010-03-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

How to characterize the black box that is human functioning which produces drawing and art.

My stance is to go with experimental evidence and logic. Current paradigms that help are: the brain as a computer,especially for problem solving activities involved in creative processes;and any conceptual apparatus we can pick up from experimentally oriented evolutionary biology and brain science.

Hence the research report in Seed magazine. It identified areas of the brain where increased activity was noted during musical improvision. Specifically, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--can deactivate planned control and self control; the medial prefrontal cortex associated with self expression, and the inferior frontal gyrus associated with language and sentence formation- improvisation uses the same set of mental muscles used in sentence creation as it does for music formationas . the inference is that perhaps those muscles are also used in artistic creation. A big generalization but at least interesting one.

Another bit which I find interesting: recently some studies showed that people who use cell phones that they wear on their ears begin to map in body awareness that apparatus as a body part. Apparently there is some mechanism within people that images their body. A mental holigram of the body -that creates an awareness of our body's and limbs' position in space. This sense of the body, I think is particularly important in figure painting.

Another aspect of this is the set of instructions, rules if you will, or program that artists use when they create the figure. I would dump into this the laws of presepctive, how to create the effects of light, information on muscles shading,etc. For me, a simple case of this is what academic realists outline as their instructional program.

Another cluster of information would be about materials ,and the artists learning experience with them.

Finally, there is a New York based artist who acutally is writing programs for figure drawing. I have referred to him earlier in a blog but right now his name escapes me. Harold Cohen.

This isn't much . but it's a begining. I want to avoid Freudian notions, and all that comes with it.Just as there is evidence based medicine, I'd like to develop an evidence based thinking about creative processes.

Creation on Command § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

2010-03-22T01:11:00.001-07:00

Creation on Command § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

Posted using ShareThis

Here is an interesting article well worth reading.

2010-03-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

Several new drawings. I"m going to refocus the figurative work .I'll think more about what that means and write it up soon.

2010-03-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Several new drawings.The light effects are off because I don't know how to fix them in photoshop elements 6.

2010-02-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

Chewy with my wife Lauren.

This is the story of Chewy, the hobo dog, and how he found a home.

Friday 11p.m. Cecilia waits in the darkness for Chewy to collapse The tranquilizers she buried in the hamburger he gulped down should have knocked him out hours ago. Cecilia is our neighbor and a hero of mine. Chewy is a stray, one of thousands of dogs destined to be put to sleep in Modesto. This is the story of how Chewy, a stray, galvanized our neighborhood to rescue him.

The story starts with Chewy's beauty. Part border collie, part St. Bernard with a reddish brown mane and a white blase down his freckled mussle, Chewy pranced the streets of Modesto for two years like the lion king.

" Who is that dog? He's beautiful. What's he doing alone on the streets?", wives would say to their husbands catching a glimace of

Chewy prancing the streets of the College neighborhood. Others saw him skillfully weaving in and out of traffic near Tully and as far as 9th street. Adam our friend turned around early one morning to find Chewy playfully jogging behind him near Graceda Park. Denise, our neighbor behind us, out walking her dog Boss, would suddenly find Chewy playing with Boss.

Boss and Chewy running, jumping nip and tucking each other so gently, so joyfully you knew both dogs were wildly happy. "When Chewy plays" Cecilia says "He's a gentle free spirit"

Chewy played with countless people's dogs, and followed numberous people home. It was as if he was looking for someone.

Little did my wife and I know, when we first met Chewy how true that would turn out to be.

During the day, Chewy roamed Modesto. No one knew where he traveled, how he lived, or survived. Each evening he would return to the bridge over the canal near Enslen Park where we first met him.

No one knew why he was alone and on the streets. Nor why he returned each evening to the bridge.

When people crossed the bridge, Chewy would come up inquisitively as if he somehow knew you. Friendy but shy, never aggressive never barking always extremely gentle, he sniffed you and seemingly wanted to befriend you. But when you reached out to pet him, he pulled away.

Denise, Cecilia, Gary, my wife and I all met Chewy that way. So did dozens of others.

Chewy became that beloved dog by the bridge. People began leaving treats for Chewy. Some left water. Some food. In cold weather, people left blankets. When the rains came someone left a large plastic dog house for Chewy. Everybody worried about Chewy. Everybody knew sooner or later the pound would get him. Since he was shy and skiddish, most likely he'd be put down if caught. Lots of people tried to catch Chewy. My wife and I tried. But Chewy was too smart. His street smarts outwitted us all.

Neighbors talked about how to help Chewy. My wife began leaving food and talking to Chewy each night That's how we met Gary and Cecilia. Cecilia left food each morning. Gary whose properity bordered where Chewy stood guard simply fell in love with Chewy.

Chewys' fan club grew quite large. Neighbors talked among themselves about how to help Chewy.

One cold January night, Gary told us the pound had been chasing Chewy and that some toughs had been throwing rocks at Chewy. Outrage galvanized Cecilia, and my wife to hatch a safe rescue plan. They consulted a sympathetic vet.

The plan was simple: tranqualize him, fix him and my wife and I would adopt him.

The execution of the plan was anything but simple.

On the night Cecilia put the plan into action, it rained. She fed Chewy a pound of hamberger laced with tranualizer. Then she sat back in her car in the rain and waited for the tranqualizers to take effect. And hour passed. Then two. She waited. And waited and waited in the light drizzle. Finally since she worked the next day,she went home to sleep . But all night she worried about Chewy. Around 4:00 a.m.,she went to Gary's house to check on Chewy and found him crawled under Garys' car fast asleep. Cecilia pulled Chewy from Gary's car and tried to push Chewy down Gary's driveway to the back seat of her car. But Chewy weighed too much. Luckly,a paper boy who came by helped her lift Chewy into the back seat of her car .

When Chewy woke the next day, he woke to a new life and a new home. After being fixed, and checked out, he stayed at an animal boarding faciltiy while my wife recovered from an operation. Then he came to our house.

Two years later Chewys has adapted well. He's gained 25 lbs. His stress panting has stopped. He's adjusted to our other dog and cats. But more importantly he's bonded with my wife. How do we know? First off, he escaped several times. The first time, my wife and five of our neighbors were out looking for him,. Walking down the alleys, going to the public park yelling "Chewy, Chewy" the neighborhood was in mild uproar. People driving by stopped to ask what was going on. Finally Denise realized yelling scared Chewy. When she saw him in Graceda Park, she called my wife and they both causally sat down on the grass and began talking. Soon , Chewy came over and sat down. " Let's go home" my wife said . Chewy followed her home, and saundered in the front door like nothing had happened. Chewy had just had a great adventure. Now he was hungry and wanted to eat.

The second time we just let him go. Several hours later, he was at the front door wanting to be let in. Now, he will sit in the front yard without a lease while Lauren gardens.

Even now, two years later when my wife walks Chewy, people curb their cars to say hello. Over 100 people have stopped my wife to tell her their Chewy story.

One told us that she had seen Chewy as a puppy with a pack of older stray dogs. How that came to be remains a mystery. Since then he had survived on the street for over a year and a half.

The other day a man ran out of his house elated to see Chewy, and learn of his rescue. "This" he said "This is my perfect birthday gift. On behalf of the neighborhood, thank you for saving Chewy".

My wife, Denise, Gary and Cecilia may have rescued Chewy. But a whole group of neighbors and the neighborhood's good will saved Chewy. They did because this kind, shy, gentle and extraordinary dog touched their hearts.

story and images copyrighted by bruce klein 2010

2010-02-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

Earlier,I mentioned for me painting is a mystery.Not a mindless kind of touchy feely mystery,but a mystery after we have used all our rationality and empirical based scientific evidence to date to understand and explain creative processes.

In this I am influenced greatly byWilliam Stafford in his two Books Writing the Australian Crawl(WAC) and You
Must Revise Your Life.(YMRL)

For years I have tried to understand my almost pathological avoidance of career building activities--networking, smoozing, gladhanding,influence trading,and getting my work out there. Not that I haven't at times attempted -I got a gallery in Santa Fe, Chicago, visited New York, had a representative in Seattle,and San Francisco. Used connections that seemed organic. But underneath it all has been a deep reluctance to build a career in what anyone might call a "normal" sense. The sense in which a newly minted MFA from a high powered art school might attempt. I have had two acquaintances who started painting after me go on to quite impressive careers.

But viscerally, I simply find myself reluctant to engage in my fantasy of what that entails. It's clear to me that I have a tendecy to see the glass as "half empty",rather than " half full." Moreover, I acknowledge that I acknowledge that I have a structure of poor habits, life decisions,and cognitive beliefs that have short circuited more opportunities for recognition than most artists get in their lives.

Beyond all that, there seems to me to be a series of points that Stafford has articulated which when applied to painting brng up terribly important points.

Here are some of them:

" A writer(read painter)" is not so much someone who has something to say as he or she is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say (paint") them".(YMRL,p14)

He had profound unease with competitive methods of teaching and career building. Largely because,
when learning techniques people were" competing and not allowing themselves to paint their way and explore that area of creative tension where the actual material of art guides the active artist"(YMRL,pg14-15)

Here in Modesto, all I see are artist trying to learn techniques. And if its' not techniques,then it explanations as " well you got the talent genes",or " you have some special material i.e. paper, ink, paint". Rather than artist being willing to live with the tension in their body and mind of struggling to create techniques for their own special abilities.

This isn't an either or situation. Sometimes on the short haul it seems like you can benefit from learning techniques.Sometimes all people do is want to paint like the old masters. You can make a career out of that and a dam good living.I remember here in Modesto going into a art center landscape class and seening a beaming teacher barking encouragement to twenty students lined up in two rows who were all painting the same lake view the same way with the same colors. On the twenty easels were the same image in the same colors. It was like walking into Costco's t.v. display section. Or Best Buy's t.v. display section.

That's a little unfair because all the artists were decent people just trying to learn.The teacher was sincere.There weren't many alternatives. People might grow beyond that. Many do. Just check the internet for academic realism. Or ebay for all the self expressive arts.

The risk on this self expressive end of the learning scale is simple self expressive art. At worst, art therapy parading as fine art, or self expressive art as if that in and of itself would add anything importantly new .

For me , the secret is learning to listen to your own creative proceses, have a willingness to explore and experiment, and learnig to let the painting lead,or your process matierals talk back.

That's what techniques inhibit. As do rationalizations like no talent genes. Nor does letting the painting lead, or being willing to tolerate being lost,or confused as you are trying to decipher your own creative processes necessrly lead to creative break throughs.

I'm a case in point. I've been the large majority of my life dedicated to making art ,largely because as an activity it engages most of the majority of my resources. But I've earned neither critical acceptance,nor made any in terms of art history, any important discoveries. I have a unique style, and at 67 am still excited every day to paint. Currently, my landscape as well as my figure work seems rich and full of new possibilities.

Keeping that richness alive seems to me what most artist lose over time.I don't think my subjective sense of myself on these issues is self delusion.
three of my important values have been keeping the space between me and the canvas alive, keeping the sense of mystery alive and getting out of myself what I needed too before I died as a painter.

Learning techniques, developing technical skills, getting $ and critical attention have always been secondary. Usually the cost of attaining these secondary goals in terms of my primary goals has been too great.

2010-02-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

Here is a series of paintings. they are the next body of figure work. They got a nasty review so I quit painting figures.

2010-02-12T20:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some random thoughts, perhaps helpful,but mostly written to help me clarify things.Tuesday night at drawing group, I had a wonderful and interesting experience. I left the group energized and excited-about my own work that night and full of admiration for another artist.

The other artist was a woman in ,I think ,her late sixties or early seventies. I admire some of her work which is very painterly. I will leave out details that could identify her so as not to embarrass her or become the subject of gossip.

Having known some women artists of her generation, I know the problems she must have struggled through to attain the aesthetic and recognition level she has,and at the same time to remain married ,and successfully raised decent kids. I haven't done equally as well. .So I admire her work,her character,and her successful struggle for achievement and recognition.

Raising decent kids I think of as a magnificent accomplishment. Staying married through difficulties,takes in my view strength of character which i admire,faith in your partner, and the daily ability to recommit to the marriage.. Moreover she has accomplished this in a deeply conservative environment.

Faced with that same environment now has been a blessing for me because it has allowed me to relive the handling of same kind of pressures i escaped as a young man, but which I didn't handle approporately in my youth. Life often gives you a chance for renewal.

So I am watching her paint,on and off, during the drawing group. By the way she has a physical handicap.

Having not drawn the figure for years,she comes in and starts drawing at a level beyond where I was working. To witness that is always humbling,and joyful.

Humbling because it reminds you to get down to work. Joyful in just watching someone do something you love very well.

It was fun to watch her interact with other people in the class and explain what she was doing. Of course she got mostly blank looks from people. I kept thinking" Yes ,yes that is what is interesting in that pose. Or yes yes diagionals are the secret to this pose."

She had actually taught the mothers of some of the people in the class. and the kids were now adults
well into the 30's,and married with kids of their own. For me that ment she had been working at her craft for 40 or 50 years. Here she was on a rainy cold night squinting at the model,hunched over her canvas figuring out a very interesting drawing.

The drawing was simple ,direct, full of large strong shapes on a flat surface, with a big beautiful shadow and delicate light. I got energized. my own work improved just from watching her.

When i spoke to her, she excitedly said: " I finally got it. I know what I want to do" I could see the excitement in her face" That" I thought," That is where I want to be when I'm her age.
Still taking risks,still struggling,still making discoveries."

What a lovely experience and surprise.

2010-02-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

Some new drawings. I find it difficult to solve the issues I"m working on given the little modeling time I actually get. Here are some of the concerns(1) to get the structural dimensions of the figure,(2) to get the figures' skin ,(3) to get the natural light correct,(3) to explore a new sense of space around the figure-that isn't what's actually there;(4) to let accidents lead the work rather than being bound by the "objective facts";(5) to look for those internal and external clues that lead up to psychological reading of the figure(6) to figure where my personal internal responses lie, and how they get into the drawing,(7) to stay sensitive to my own natural gifts which may lead me in a direction different from what I tell myself are the issues,(8) to forget all the images in my mind from art history,(9) to remember all the images in my mind from are history(10) to stay focused and not be distracted by my environment.

The model I was drawing here was a large woman very beautiful and tremendously interesting to draw. One aspect was simply to get her bulk which had a kind of organic beauty to it. Another was her skin in all it's particularity-at times taught,or slack, shinny or dull bumped or smooth--just alot of different skin textures.She had long beautiful hair which laid across her body and down ,and around it, in such amazing and interesting patterns. All of this of course called up some of Lucian Freuds' paintings

Not to forget how beautifully the light played across her body and its shapes. In addition,drawing a large woman is rather atypical so that all my expectations were constantly being thrown off.And she of course was talking as well as were the other artists drawing her--which made psychological analysis at once more difficult and easy. Doing all of this in 20 minutes. What a challenge. What fun.

2010-01-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

Here are four more drawings. In some I've tried to play with the space around the figure using smudges,fingerprints,etc. In others I've left in more of the envelope lines so that a viewer could follow the thought process in doing the drawing. What is interesting to me about this model is my response to him, and how my own cognitive machinery structures the act of my perception of facts about him.

When I think of him using one set of cognitive apparatus I seem to "see " him in one way. When I use another set, I perceive his poses another way. He tends to take stereotype poses that also evoke certain responses. There's alot of other things going on, but one other set of issues that interests me is that with each pose I take a moment and ask myself:what is it in this pose that interests me? Unfortunately, what I think interests me at the outset isn't what often interests me mid way, more what finally becomes the focus.

I find the whole process of drawing so terribly interesting. Sometimes in twenty minute poses the challenge of just getting the light right overwhelms. At other times working on these in the studio days later, they evolve into something different entirely/

At other times I'm engaged in self talk: telling myself not to lose focus,or be distracted my the not very serious atmosphere around me, or to take heart,you can nail this pose, or simply not to give up.

it's like an athlete talking to him or her self before,during and after their event.

Many times there's a short little moment when my motif becomes clear but usually it suddenly disappears and I'm lost again. constantly, I'm telling myself to search for the new, be open especially to accidents of materials, or don't repeat the old.

It almost like a self talk computer program outlining a series of drawing rules,or guidelines bouncing off the emotional excitement or lack thereof in the act of drawing. all of this is grounded in, or going on in my state of health, whether or not I had dinner, who's yelling at who in the drawing group, or what kind of music is playing.--racing against the twenty minute pose deadline.

What an interesting process.

2009-12-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

Here are 4 more drawings.I'm still feeling rusty and need to up my figure drawing skills.Perhaps go back to earlier restrictions on what elements I am restricted too.

2009-11-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

2009-11-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last blog. I've forgotten where the train of my argument was going,so I'll try to reorient myself by restating it.

Drawing the figure ,or landscape painting for that matter, involves three focuses: 1-between the artist and his/her model;2-between the artist and his/her developing drawing,3- between the artist and what's going on in his/her mind/body.

The general problem is: what data does the artist/i.e me include in the drawing--given that I have these three focuses to sample.

The goal is to develop my own individual self expression, or style, or medium/content. This is similar to what Matisse and Delacroix thought: to express your own voice within tradition while carrying it forward in your own unique voice,and without being limited by tradition.

What data then do I choose from whats going on inside my mind/body;from the materials of drawing -however that defined, and from visual data before me i.e. the naked figure.

Matisse,Cezanne, and a host of artists I deeply respect talk about fixing, or getting,or returning to there initial sensations. Matisse talks about recognizing what the model causes to arise in the artist as an emotional response to the model.

Further more he talks about the original artist being able over time, and under different conditions to call back, or remember, or clarify , or fix those sensations in the work .The more original an artist the more he/she can sustain this effort over a long time until it is finished and then, the artist is"relieved" of the burden,or the emotions.

In some ways this is almost like emotions recalled in tranquility.

One of the problems I have with this is that the terms used are so vaguely defined that I don't know what these artist were actually talking about--when I try to compare what they said with the reality of my own experiences.

Another is that few artists I know as friends or fellow artists talking about these issues honestly.
Take Lucien Freud . He talks always claiming to be absolutely honest,but for me he's always career or reputation building.--rarely do I feel like he's honest. Always self promoting.

Critics by and large are no better: a critic doesn't build an artist career but foremost their own.
There are exceptions--R.Hughes, some L. Gowing, P.Berger to name a few.

Finally, there are several overall and overarching problems: language, and translating from other languages, conceptual apparatus--for example how do we talk about mind,and the self,
the place of art within society, and issues in art history.

In general, I would say when I stand before a model to draw or paint, I start asking myself what interest me in the pose, or start by noticing what are my emotional responses to the model.

All kinds of things flood into my conscious awareness. Sometimes I follow the sheer beauty of the model trying to capture that;other times I want to avoid doing what has become habitual. In other instances, I want to remember to do x,or try y.sometimes I seen to follow wild hunches, or my intuitions..Out of this somehow comes my own style.

But the language of all this self description is laced with outdated concepts,models, and words--conscious,unconscious,impulse,sensations.

The problem I have is that I studied psychology and the language of the self before the computational model of mind overran psychology. Big parts of me resist the computer model of the mind and the evolutionary biology/ psychology of creative functioning.

The only answer i know so far is to struggle on alone stating things in as plan a English as I can,with as much clarity as I can.

2009-08-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

Three new drawings.I'm working the rag rather than a stump,and struggling to find a way to create a different way to divide up the space. since these are only twenty minute poses, I'm really struggling just to get the figure down let alone worry about the space. But I think that's the problem: I think of it as get the figure down them work on the space and both should be perhaps developed at the same time. Old habits die hard.

I also have a hard time keeping focused-I'm easily distracted by my environment and I keep forgetting to brind my headset to block out all th chatter. I like the race against time. It helps force quick decisions-not necessarily the right deisions but the pressure reduces procrastination.

2009-08-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Two new images. I have to figure out how to handle the images in photoshop-these are two images on same paper in same light but when i worked them over in photoshop they came out radically different. I'll get the proper ratio of variables correct soon.

2009-07-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

Four more images.Sorry for the quality. An interesting discovery-I can paint with the rag I use for adding tone--the rag full of charcoal dust. This opens up alot of possibilities.g. instead of using thin charcoal for my envelope lines, I can use the rag.

Either for envelopes lines, or to capture the gesture of the figure, or
to build a sense of space.

2009-07-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

Here are five more images. I am still working on them. In the next few blogs,I'll publish the changes I make. I went to the Castro Valley drawing group Thursday night. They have experienced models.Makes a big difference: no idle chitchat, the model takes responsibility for posing, props are used, wider range of poses, models don't lose the pose,or take poses they can't hold, the model doesn't feel compel ed to tell the group his or her life story,during breaks to the model doesn't feel compelled to interact with the artists, model doesn't talk during the pose, the model checks for cameras,and often protects his or her space if an artist invades it unknowingly..etc.

What's interesting is the response of different groups to my work--it's all over the page reflecting the sophistication of the various groups,and/or their members

What I find interesting is the level of work in all the groups I've gone too:Palo Alto, Berkeley,Berkeley Adult,Studio One, Castro Valley, Modesto, San Francisco Art Institute,CCAC. Rarely do I see people for whom research into the figure is there life's work e.g. Terry St.John,etc. Sometimes teachers from local colleges eg MJC. The culture of the drawing groups varies widely. The Berkeley group which I have been going too for over 25 years is an example. It's an official student group at the university sponsored by the Arch.Dept and one faculty member. The group has volunteer monitors, model guild members come and draw, they keep records of attendance,charge the lowest fee,have an bank account with independent checks,pay rent to the university, and extra money in the bank. Modesto has the most difficult time. Its leader does a valiant and thankless job organizing the entire drawing group at a local gallery.Somehow he finds models who unfortunately are often very inexperienced It's a miracle he keeps it going.

Beside these semi public groups there must be an entire network of more private, or more focused groups. There are several artists who teach and have groups in their studio,usually as an adjunct to their teaching. Then there are individual artists who have enough money to hire models on their own privately e.g. Terry St.John. He has stated he likes to control the poses,and the process.

I tried a group in my studio but found it too invasive,and time consuming.

Here's a list of group variables:

experience of the models: professional and experienced vs inexperienced

quality of the environment: large well lighted space like Palo Alto or Berkeley, to cramped studio space ;equipment available to you bring everything e.g. easels.

culture of the group: self selected on sex basis e.g. all gay men's group in S.F. to completely open
with other variables -- drinking vs chemically free,women's group

behavioral rules of group :no cell phone vs cell phone can ring during poses,talking to no talking during poses; group members can chat during poses to no talking, music vs no music;

discussion of poses, member initiated vs model initiated vs monitor initiated; members help clean up to monitor does all the work; how sloppy you can get in the groups building, the media one can use i.e. no turps because of allergies,etc.;degree of member responsibility for the group-- just attend,to help clean up to running the group and organizing group shows;

age level, experience drawing and painting the figure,educational experience in the arts, degree of socialization allow during poses,or in between or after e.g. let's all go for a drink afterwards;

whether the group allows people to put up work during the group; does the group organize shows of the groups work;do members socialize after the group e.g. go landscape painting together,take formal classes together,study with some local guru--

What's interesting for me is how the social organization of the group affects the artistic level of the members drawings,defines their level of seriousness, and quality of their effort.

These variables could easily be examined under the general variables of power vs powerlessness, social isolation vs meaningful social interaction, self actualization vs self estranged,meaningful norms vs normlessness.

2009-06-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Here are three Yosemite drawings done recently when I went down for the show I'm in in Yosemite Museum.

2009-06-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some new images. When to Bay area to draw at UCBerkeley,nice group,good model, so so drawings. Four hours driving for three hours drawing.

2009-06-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

2009-05-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

Three images that I don't think work to well,but I learn from misses as well as hits.

2009-05-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

John Perreault on "taken from his book: P.Pearlstein: Drawings and Watercolor" 1988, Abrams

" contemporary realism" defined as having the following

high information depictions of directly observed realities that can be theoretically verified or confirmed by others with normal vision and normal brains
these depictions are illisionistic insofar as some of the information concerns objective spatial relationships and effects of light and shadow
no use if divided color
no distortion of natural forms,no angst,no emotional brushstrokes
no surface treatment that distracts from the realistic effect of the constructed image
no college
no stories,no allegories,no symbols
no hidden meanings,no obvious meaning
no philosophy,no religion or psychology
no jokes'
no political content
no meaning
no illustration,
no fantasy,or imagination,no dreams,no poetry
no free floating single images, no images displayed without a spatial context
no futurism no depiction of objects or persons in motion
no non local non descriptive color or flatness without a counterbalance of illusionistic space
assumes that the best art exists in a aesthetic realm that is outside of time.

What a definition. But it's a interesting starting point. Especially since it's defined less for philosophical uses than for practical use of the working artist. In my thinking about this I would like to avoid questions of perception that involve mastery of cognitive and neuro/brain research, and on the other hand avoid philosophical debates about representation(a la Richard Wollheim),or epistemological issues that don't help the working artist clarify his/her own style.The point isn't to talk better about art,but to make more individual art.i.e. painting,sculpture,drawings etc.Theory shouldn't outstrip practice.
Right off then, I'd dump no 18: assumes that the best art exists in a aesthetic realm that is outside of time .
Dear reader,please remember the distinctions drawn here are tentative,ment to aid discussion,and improve the practical reality of drawing the figure,and creating one's own individual style.
I'm not sure I know what the author means by this. If what he means is something akin to Plato's theory of forms, then I'd dump this assumption.
I'm not sure for example that I believe an aesthetic realm exists period, exists independent of our normal physical reality. My experience as a an artist for my creative processes is that sometimes I just "know" that a piece is done-that happens less frequently and faster in time than the experience of more slowing working on a piece over time (more than one or two work sessions) with critical analysis , and often input from other artists until the work seems to click,or my critical sense tells me it's done. But there is often examples of times when works simply don't seem to resolve themselves. Or times when I make choices that irrevocable screw a work up so it can't be saved.
Subjectively the experience of the work being done, my sense of the state of being that I'm in,is that that state is qualitatively different from my normal consciousness. Would brain scans reveal unique areas of the brain lit up,or being used ? I don't have a clue. Creatively seems to use such a complex stratification of brain functions that I'd doubt at first glance that one unique area would be activated. how to measure that would be another interesting question--blood flow, tracer elements, electrical conductivity,etc.
Does that often perceived internal sense that a work is done mirror an objective reality in the work? Could others detect it upon testing? I don't know. Often it seems out of 10 works friends will agree on the "best" piece usually the most "beautiful". Often they can agree on pieces that fail. But there's a whole bunch in between. It does seem to me that by tinkering with a work an artist can create a nexus of pictorial elements that click--these elements are in a relationship that work and is in the work--and not only in the eye of the beholder. However, I can throw up objections that in terms of arguments seem to make these points mistaken.
For most of the other points, as I think about it, if I take them literally, I don't agree with. Pearlsteins stress on direct observation of the figure and on placing the figure in an 3d environment I agree should be a central focus.
Beyond that I find it difficult to articulate hard and fast rules.
For example, I'm not interested in photographic accuracy in and for itself. Photo realistic depiction of the figure leave me cold. I admire the technical skill,and marvel at the complexity but I'm not moved by them.
Pearlstein's work I enjoy for their compositional elements but the figures are neutral and uninteresting to me. Granted he bucked a.e.--that took courage -- I probably don't have that courage -- but just at the level of optical accuracy his figures are distorted. The skin of his figures has no warts, blemished, freckles, cuts scars etc. Granted he wasn't trying to present psychological depth-just the almost scientifically observed figure seen without the artist projecting emotions of the figure and in a studio setting. Perhaps he attained his own goals.
But his figurative work doesn't move me. There are alot of ways to try to characterize what"moves me "means. One would be to point to works that do-for example Rembrandts' late self portraits,some of Bischoff's figurative work, images in Goya's drawings, or that big head of Jenny Saville.
Why? there isn't one simple answer. Some images just stick in my consciousness;others like Rembrandts portraits especially in my old age cause me to pause,and reflect,and convey a deep sense of sadness,or the pity of it all. Some of David Park's images have a nervous twitchy quality in the painted stroke that resonates a certain anxiety,or curious alertness to the figures. Some of them have a"presence" as if inhabited by a living being.
So moves me, sticking in consciousness, pause and reflecting ,presence- these are all words pointing to the experience--maybe like that fabled elephant that each peasant was touching a differenet part of., or perhaps each reflects a different experience.
There are thousands of images that are beautiful--just check out the website-women painting women. Many,many images that are technically stunning,and way beyond what I can do--almost everyone in for example John Pence Gallery in S.F. or Stanley Spencers work--but again they don't speak to me. That isn't a function of needing to get the image in a glance.
Bonnard ,for example in some of his figurative work of women in their bath , captures a kind of moment in time for a certain middle class existence that lead me to believe how much at least at one time he must have loved his young wife. When I was in Paris years ago,I stepped into a room full of Bonnard paintings and they were just stunning..I was moved to tears. The light in them, the beauty of the color, their strong compositions and his lovely little dogs head popping up --it was as if I could feel imaginatively his presence. Of course it was too embarrassing to cry so I quickly composed myself.
Too get back to the point: Perreault's "realism' points I disagree with if taken literally.If interpreted more as signposts on a direction to travel,a road to follow, a path--notice the metaphors, then I agree with one of his major thrusts i.e. in painting or drawing the figure, direct observation of the figure in its 3-d environment remains central.
Works that are painted in symbols,so you need a intellectual dictionary to decipher the symbols to understand the work,or works that are allegorical so that you need to know the allegory I similarly reject.
Jokes,depending on how they are done, can work for me i.e Bonnard's little dog starring at the dinner food. Again ,it's on a case by case basis.
Narrative content,stories, seem to be something I want to avoid,but again there are paintings by Degas that have narrative content that seem to work.
So on the one I have a general direction I want to go in. And on the other hand, large clusters of ways of representing the figure that I can rule out as directions i don't want to go in--using symbols,illustration,bland neutral observation ,super photo realism,etc.
Middle ground where paintings have to be examined on a case by case basis.
There will also be cases of specific works that are hard to place on which side of the line they fall.
Finally, when I try to characterize the direction i want to go in--give for example necessary and sufficient conditions for that direction,I find I can't and believe in this arena, necessary and sufficient conditions is an inappropriate criteria. The criteria are more like family concepts.
However, each criteria I roughly identified so far--stickiness in consciousness,moved me, pause and think,or emotionally reflect, and presence--all are vague.
Other criteria-identified by works like beautiful, technical skill, astounding ambition, bringing into painting new areas of feeling,--all these don't seem to help.
When I read my own work--try to listen to the voice of my work--in Bischoff's words I find there is a certain sensuous brushwork,non local color, structural sense of the body of the figure, and energy,or compositional strength in the work.
Subjectively, i just know that in this phase of my life,I simply love to paint and draw the figure.
More later.

2009-05-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

All day working on figure drawings and then landscapes. Looking at the drawings of Philip
Pearlstein and Goya. Like there was any comparison. I'm looking for more figure drawing groups. So much interesting research to do.

2009-05-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

More on Freud. I have been looking at Freud at Work by Bernard and Dawson.

It seems to me from the pictures in Bernards' book that Freud general method of work is

sketch sometimes a general view of figure,but not always;
start with the figure,usually with face,head and work outward,but rarely start with the background;
items in the background do seem to be moved around as he's developing the composition which supports the impact of the figure;
from the overpainting,and clogged paint ,it seems that he scrapes down quite alot- so that he must move the figure around some..
production problems due seem to occur;evidence-1- canvas additions to the original canvas; 2-distortions in the figure large or small heads, feet, elongation of the body, large hands,etc;
For example, in the figure above , because he's billed as the best painter alive, I approach his work critically but expecting something great. With this painting, I approach it with high expectations that it will work, hold my attention long term, inform me of something I didn't know, and perhaps teach me something as a painter I didn't know.
So I approach the painting excited, the first thing I notice in my response is disgust in the physical grossness of the figure. Perhaps this is simply a anti fat bias within me. Overall i believe the figure-- there aren't any parts of the painting that cry out--fix me, I'm off in some way.
Second, I notice the difference between the beauty of the painting in the couch and the tactical qualities of the skin,and heavy massiveness of the figure.If you look at the photo of the model,those tactical qualities don't seem be on the figure. How are those tactical qualities made--some by accident, some be scraping and repainting,some by smearing thick paint with brush or scrapper, some by layering. These are just guesses--because I haven't seem the real painting and there aren't close up shots in the book.
Third, as I move from first glance to repeated viewing and more detailed looking, distortions in the figure arise...Moreover as I compare reproductions of this painting in separate books --big differences arise in color reproductions.-in details of brushwork.
Different reproductions different images. Bernard and Dawson vs Bernard and Birdsall
Disappointing,but not unexpected. As publishing was explained to me, publishers have a limited color budget . If they have 75 reproductions, they pick a color spread that balances most colors in most reproduction most accurately.--some are accurate,many aren't totally,and some are off. If they're off to much,they're dropped.
I was told if you look through the reproductions, you can usually pick out the color bias. Dawson seems too stress ochres and greys . Birdsall has a red,pink flesh tone that Dawson doesn't.
Birdsall has a higher key overall, deeper blacks,browns,greys,greens,and wider tonal contrasts-this frustrates me ,because it means you--I must see paintings in person. I shutter to think how reproductions have damaged what I thought I learned form book reproductions. Or entire generations.
I need to stop and paint.

Addition. I learned through a friend that if you go tp the two big auction houses in the u.s.,they have a collection of images of worok they have sold. the reproductions are better than anything i've seen in my books. Perhaps that's a function of a computer screen but they sure look great.

2009-05-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Here are four more images. Each needs some work , especially the left eye on the second drawing. As I change them I'll list them.

2009-04-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Two studio shots and one head. The model failed to show in the drawing group so we did someones' head. Beside the fact that I've got to sharpen my likeness skills(see Matisse's series of drawing that demonstrate there is always a variety of visual facts to chose from to create a likeness), I'm interested in the erasure and how they work in this drawing. I've got to somehow figure out how to draw more heads, and the figure more.

This head isn't done but the parallel erasure add a structure to the surface and also especially around the left eye bring a solidity to the head.

This accidental discovery interests me.

The painted figures and landscapes are works in progress. Learning from L Freud- it took alot of hours to get some of these results,however pitiful they are. In Modesto, where I live it was 97 today and 100 yesterday. Right now, my creative life is just so exciting-- the landscape views are suddenly opening up. By that I mean I see a way to new directions, Right now, I suddenly realized today that I could play with the plane relations on the side wall of the landscape views in

ways that were similar to W. T. I've got about 12 of these views of the great wall in Yosemite in the field near the old Curry company big wigs homes. A small parking lot with a great view early in the morning, So Christ,for years I've been trying to figure that wall out --hence the 12 painting,but I don't like any of them yet. It's so beautiful I can barely contain myself when I paint it hunched down on my knees beside my truck.

I'm intrigued by Harold Cohens' computational work on human figure drawing,but the drawing process seems too complex to me .Not only that but the whole point is to break the rules and discover something new,and then explore it. For example, you can line the erasure line in this head up to create a strong sense of volume. What if you sliced the entire drawing up into 1/4 wide, entire length slices and them slightly line them up out of wack.Or zeroxed the drawing up and the gliceed it and reworked the surface,or simply began to change tonal values. How can Cohen duplicate that/ his programs need self transforming rules.For example, drop a drawing rule e.g. leave out the ear, don't finish the hair outline). As well as some kind of representation that says for example suddenly start using an accidental erasure stroke arrived at by accident but which has transformation potential. We're looking for ,or trying to invent new systems of representation to trap in paint and drawing materials new realities--new facts.and as crazy as this sounds new facts of being.

It's 11:30. I've been up since 6:00 and need sleep.. To finish one thought-landscapes opening up ,figure painting exciting in Freud's direction, drawing research rich . What fun. I'm 66 and been doing this 30 years and it still completely absorbs me.Like S. Freud said- we need a hobby horse to ride.

2009-04-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

A photo and a painting :the photo from Freud at Work,by Bernard and Dawson,2006 ; the painting by Lucien Freud from Freud at Work. I discuss them below. As I include other work,I'll include the photos and paintings.

The approach of Lucien Freud I respond to-- the structural elements and the use of brushwork to tactically follow the skin on the figure, its movement and planes, the restricted skin colors, the absence of psychological reading of the figure, the averted eyes of most figures,and a host of other effects I find useful. The question is how to build on them and carry them forward.

These elements I like and can learn from. Which is what I'm doing. Since our personalities are different, there is only so much of his style that I can use. I view one's style as importantly determined by ones' personality.

Here is a off the top of my head list of things about his work that I like:

the detailed observation of everything included in the pictures
the brushwork that follows the skin's tactical sense, and plane structure of the body
the overall physical beauty of the work
the structural sense of the body:you can feel the weight, the sagging tits, the volume of the figure ,the big butt.
his ability to capture the textures of cloths,plants, wallpaper,wood,etc
the strong compositional sense -although it's a bit ad hoc
the non emotional use of color-it's not "expressive" of his own personality, nor a reading of the subject, nor his reaction to the personality of the sitter,but something he constructed to create the figure

as i study the work closer I'll add more

Things i don't like:

about the man(based on limited data-reading Hughes review,and a few others on the net)

the myth building, and self aggrandizement
I distrust almost everything he says about his methods, process, likes, dislikes , other people, and what he does and doesn't do in painting the figure
his career building even as he denies he's doing that

about his work:

his work seems uneven-some great pictures, some great landscapes,but also lesser works -

very good work(referenced to the book by robert hughes-lucien freud paintings)

paintings on pages 6,7,2135,37,3844,45,58,60,61,62,63,64,6578,80,81,82,86,92,94,98;

less successful paintings;90,89,83,79,75,66,50,49,48,41,34,33,32,3129,23,37,10,5-1.
the rest for me are somewhere inbetween.

Method of painting:

he seems to sketch on the canvas quickly and briefly, and then start painting with the eyes of face more generally and work out-- the nail approach I call it ;
the way he's had to add on small sections to larger work when the composition called for it suggests a lack of planning and ad hoc compositions;
the clogged up skin effect which seem in some cases to work very well; at other times seems at least to be a function of painting and repainting an area,rather than conscious plan to create skin texture effects;
the light seems arbitrary ;designed by the demands of painting from one area out, rather than reflecting the actual natural light effects;
the skin colors aren't local but done largely so that a sense of volumne can be created in a particular area;
sometimes the brushwork follows the actual skin texture, muscle stretching,or body planes,but other times it's appears made up--particularly in the use of greys and darker brown,or ruddy reds
enlarging the head, hands or feet, or making the smaller--or any body part he chooses to change
for mostly compositional sense that increases the sense usually of intimacy,or closeness;

Aside:
Friday morning,last night in bed I was reading Freud at Work, by Bruce Bernard and David Dawson. I starting comparing Sue Tilley posing for Benefits Supervisor Sleeping"page 83 with the actual painting on pages 84-5-Benefits supervisor Sleeping. The differences are quite amazing. Remember these comments are made from photos of work rater than real work so all statements are tentative. Reproduction in book are often inaccurate. The photo's of models here aren't in the first section very accurate I suspect.

The first thing I notice is in the painting how chalkie and rough the figures skin is. My emotion response to it is one of disgust. I have seen skin on people with serious skin conditions that has a similar visceral,or tactical feeling.

Second, the amount of distortion in the painted figure relative to the photograph-the painted feet are different sizes, the back left foot enlarged;the length of the torso shortened,the right breast enlarged ,the arm on the couch shortened,the mass of the stomach squenched up and pushed out, the gential area enlarged and textured,--these are a few quick observations

The third thing I immediately notice is the skin color changes more ochres than in photo

The forth thing is Freud,and I don't know how to talk about this--the photo has much less information about the figure in it than Freud has put into the figure. He can be seeing things that aren't there -facts which he adds from a theory, from anatomy information,from any number of non factual observations of a live figure, or what he has added might actually be there and the photo doesn't reveal these detailed facts, or a combination of both, or he could be adding factual information creatively, things he made up, things from accident or from tactual qualities of the paint or cumulative effects of his painting process. Who knows? Painting is complicated enough and creativity enough of a mystery that it s hard to know.

Many times the stuff he adds which isn't there factually help create his style of painting--I notice these added things in the shadows and subtle light and reflected light effects;

Needless to say, I myself am simply in awe of the degree of observation in the painting. I mean the floor, the couch, the back drop are simply so delicious -- lusciously painted-- it gives me chills just looking at it.Chills and feelings of wild admiration .

Goldens' new open paints offers the possibilities of mixing paints with the same degree of small Chance as oils do;on the other hand, with adding of mediums ,you can also get the "retaining of brush strokes" in the paint as you do with oils;

While he exploits the medium of oil paints, his work also depends extensively on drawing skills;

He also depends heavily on tonal values to create form and mass; his ability to distinguish between value differences is very great;

His ability to paint veins, ,to layer thin washes over color areas,to use brush strokes in the same direction as muscles, to pain the thinness of flesh,and other exploiting of the medium of oil;

Overall, he does something I like very much: that is, he builds a pattern with the highlights over the body;with the brush strokes;,with the shadows. He does the same things with the folds surrounding the figure-he masses the folds of blankets to support the figure.

He paints hands,faces,knees,and feet in great detail and amazingly differently;

He also makes sure where the volume changes hips meet stomach;arm comes out of shoulder--all these volume changes are carefully changed;

He in alot of his figure work-- brings the figure up close by a variety of means--enlarging limbs;head,by painting the public hair area large; at the same time, he takes a typical poses from a typical perspective; he also avoids the figure looking directly at you;

His color typically is non local; often when limbs overlap color changes in one;there are sudden areas in the limbs that are of darker value than in reality; he it seems to me has 2 or 3 figure color schemes;as well as typical background colors.

He throws in very odd things--a rat,chickens, odd feet or legs;eggs etc--seemly put in for mysterious effects or shock value--at least he hopes;I find them simply odd;

He has if you ask me a weird analysis of the human forehead; and odd sets of brushstrokes that don't follow the structural dimensions of the forehead;

It would be interesting to analyze his brushstrokes,or to take photos of 15 of his painted knees,and see if there is communality in their painting;similarity to look at his hands,fingers,eyes,his noses,etc;

To me, he seems to leave out alot of information about skin, facial hair,etc.

If i was going to organize these thoughts they would fall into these categories"

thoughts about his painting methods generally;
thoughts about how he uses the physical properties of oil paint;
thoughts about his painting of various body parts eyes,hand,ears, knees ,etc;
thoughts about his compositions generally;
thoughts evaluating his own self description of his career,and what he sees himself doing;

Well enough for this morning. I have been looking at Freud more intensely, and will have to modify some of these comments. Soon.

2009-04-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Four,or five new drawings. I'm experimenting with trying to make the space around the figure not only as important as the figure(i.e in the sense of negative space),but also make it function 3-dimensionally,and atmospherically,but also to be "alive"

In some of my drawings,the notational marks around the figure create a sense of space but also activate the space around the figure. These marks give the drawing energy.

In the new drawings, I simple mindedly smudged the charcoal rag n the surface of the paper to leave marks in hopes that they would activate the space. The results were mixed, take a look for yourself. What do you think?

I apologize for not blogging regularly. If people are going to follow this, I must write regularly.

I quit for a while because my drawing situation fell apart,and because I was reviewing all my drawings and reworking most.I'm done with the first run through of the review. Hopefully .I'll be drawing more.

I've also been working on my figure paintings.God what a mess. Right now I'm studying Lucian Freud in hopes a similar kind of tactical skin covering for the figure. I have a strong structural sense of the figure as evidenced in my drawings,but when it comes to painting the figure,I want my brush strokes to tactfully the skin of the figure. Freud does this and a lot of other things I love.
However, I have a lot of problems with Freud's work. I want to discuss his strengths and then my difficulties.

For the first time I can see my way through to my own individual figure style. It's a little embarrassing to be this old and only now solving this issue. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to create it.

2009-02-20T03:55:00.000-08:00

I need to have another try at clarifying what I'm doing.

In general, according to Fry artists before Rembrandt had codified a select set of visual and anatomical facts to represent the figure. Rembrandt reset the range of facts in that codified set by inventing new techniques ,seeing new facts,and generally opening up the data base.

Even though each individual must solve this problem for him/herself,most artists tend to accept whatever the current cannon is, thus avoiding the hard work of selecting their own facts.

According to Fry, modern artists have opened up the data base considerably.

Bay area figurative artists loosely speaking have codified a select set of data.

Manuel Neri tends to focus on gesture of the figure and gestures by the brush,or in his case of the sculpture.

If you look at his drawings and paintings, the space around the figure ,and its gestural environment are equally important. By leaving hands,faces,and heads out,he attempts to focus on what he hopes is universal in the gesture .That element he hopes carries not psychological import which he uses,but some sort of data about the general universal human condition.

He also uses color:hue,value,warm/cool distinctions to convey meaning,as well as traditional aspects of 3 d spacial representation.(use Cezanne's way of building space not traditional 3 d aspects.)

All of this is combined with A.E. gestural brushwork.

Each of the bay area figurative painters has a different combination of these factors to create their own version of bay area figurative paintings.

Artists to study:Park,Bischoff, Wonner,Cook,Diebenkorn,Brown, and Brown,and McGraw.

Terry St.John's work is interesting,but his lacks emotional depth.

Perhaps, like Diebenkorn, he really is an abstract painter,misapplying his talents to the figure.

So far in my drawings,I have in one narrow aspect, figured out how to work the figure and the environment,but in larger paintings haven't discovered how to create a"activated" space around the figure,and a activated skin on the figure .

The large b/w college figures created a strong space and figure. But I let a negative reviewer kill that trend,or stop exploration in the area. The next set of figure paintings barely started exploring in that direction when I gave up--I don't remember why. The mono prints started again but because they weren't positively received I stopped. The truth is

I need to explore non brush ways of making marks that convey meaning.

Tools to use: rollers,scrapers, printers, rags,fingers,string,etc.

I need to be much more explorative,and inventive. At the same time,I need to define the set of data I'll use both for figure and for space.

2009-02-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

Here are some more images. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to draw big--5 by 8 ft. I need large chunks of charcoal, good paper, and a flat surface.

2009-01-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

Remember I've talked about the triad or three point focus : artist and object ,artist and paper, artist and what going on in his/her head. Remember these are just convenient distinctions ment to get discussion going not absolutes.

Roger Fry, in his book Transformations, in his essay"On Some Modern Drawings", brings up several points I found interesting(pg261-65):--I paraphrase

" the artist of the Renaissance ...developed their view of the figure ..so that.. a certain select group of anatomical facts were regarded as fundamental and necessary. Any drawing of the figure ,it was thought, must at all costs display clearly the knowledge of these facts...The result was that it came to be regarded as of utmost importance that the artist should express a number of facts,some of which had been discovered by other means that pure vision.

Vision was distorted by outside knowledge.

This Renaissance system of figure drawing is a curious instance of a phenomenon which occurs again and again in various aspects throughout the history of art, namely that although the whole object and purpose of the work of art is the expression of the artist's peculiar sensibility--his own special reaction to vision-- both artist and amateurs find this so exacting that they continually invent methods of avoiding the effort which this experience by the artist and this acceptance by the amateurs entails. They seek to establish some code of shibboleths whereby the true artist can be unmistakably and demonstrably recognized and welcomed with becoming enthusiasm..

This stereotyped formula has become the mainstay of the student's curriculum.. This conception of artistic training has become the backbone ever since Michelangelo and Raphael consecrated it...

Rembrandt dared to claim for drawing a new freedom of expression and did in fact establish a new and alternative language of graphic statement."

Fry then goes on to demonstrate how modern drawing has expanded this graphic language.

What I find interesting in these quotes are several ideas: the idea that there can be objective facts; the idea that the whole function of art is to express the artist's peculiar sensibility; the idea that hard observation is terribly difficult; the idea that non visual information can get encoded into an artists' knowledge base so habitually that to the artist these bit of information seem to come from vision itself; the idea that certain subsets of visual and other data can get codified into a code for representing the figure ;the idea that Rembrandt broke this stereotyped code and enriched it.

For me, the point of drawing and painting is more complicated than the artist expressing visual facts simply through his peculiar sensibility. Artists draw for a variety of reasons. As an exercise, in competition, for money, for research, to express their feelings, in pursuit of a transcendental,etc At far as I can discern my own goals they are:to discover and express depth and range of feeling, and to discover and express certain small truths . I will have to explain each.But these two goals are only my conscious intentions.I am sophisticated enough to realize my motivational structure may be more complicated than what I am aware of ,or what I might be able to state in words. As an aside,I am deeply suspicious of all Freudian, or psychoanalytic explanations. explanations of personality, of creativity and artistic intent. Freud I regard an an intellectual fraud. The empirical evidence to support psychoanalytic theories at least up until the later 1980 seemed in my review of the literature very weak.(experimental evidence vs antidotal). For me, this means notions of unconscious motivations, precocious notions,etc are all suspect.
That being said:what does the notion of to discover and express depth of feeling mean.
First and for most, the feeling states I'm talking about are not simply an artist projecting his feelings upon ,or into his work.--however we care to characterize that feeling state or explain the mechanism of projection. Nor is an artist simply trying to plumb the models feeling structure.
On my view the feeling state we're talking about here is something like the claim that an artist like Francis Bacon can bring into the the public arena of painting new areas of feeling previously excluded from drawing and painting. For example, alot of human sexuality is left out of drawing and painting.
Not that some humans most likely haven't experienced the ball park of the feeling states he encodes in his paintings,but that in western culture they hadn't been allowed into art history. He brought them in.
There is two issues here: the feeling states and whether or not they have been expressed within art history.
I also think it is logically possible that humans have feeling states which haven't been trapped in paint and I'm more certain there are states which haven't been allowed into the cannon of art history.
An artist might through his creations trap them in paint and make them accessible to viewers of his work. For example, minorities in a culture being defined as non human. An artist painting some minority as human and removing cognitive stereotypes. Or for example, animals--where they move from being pets to being other species we care for.
Some of the feeling states I tell myself I'm hunting I hope are universal conditions of being human. for example, existential conditions. But I intellectually know there are for example no universal ethical norms --norms that all cultures at all times viewed as ethical rules. However I would like to believe there are existence states common to all humans by virtue of simply being human and alive. What these are I don't know.And I'm certain I haven't captured any of them in paint,except perhaps one.
At other times, when drawing and painting the figure I seem to follow the golden thread of the creative experience as it leads me through the activity of painting. At times, the anxiety of keeping the painting open is what I follow, at others vague remembrances of images from art history, at still other times self talk to keep going, risk it, follow that wild hunch, leads me on. At still others I discover what I'm after from the visual clues in the motif, or on the developing paper.
All of this time I'm in an altered state--not "flow" but something more complicated. Its recognizable by an internal body state that I try to stay in.
Perhaps I mean to say the feeling states seem to be internal to me,at time objectively on the developing paper, at times as potential in the motif.
One important issue that interests me is what set of "facts" in the motif am I picking out to trap in the visual painting--they seem not all to be merely about visual information,but also about sounds, smells, tastes ,senses of humanity within the model .
Another point is given I have picked up on certain "facts' for lack of a better word, how do I encode these facts in paint,in marks from a brush,pencil,charcoal, scrapper etc.
This is what I don't know how to explain in words. Perhaps that's why it's a visual experience.
The feeling states could also be what Matisse brought into drawing and painting .
Matisse's new explorations of color, and his own color sensibility were unique.
The colors he created existed logically.They may have even existed historically in the sense that it was possible to mix them long before Matisse,but it took Matisse to create them empirically.Without Matisse,they may not have ever been created.
Reflecting upon the actual activity of drawing, the feeling states that come up during the process of drawing simply complicates the explanation. During the activity there is a certain overall feeling state--a mixture of excitation,anxiety, awe, fear -going on during the activity as well as a wide varieties of self talk.In my case, this whole process is conditioned by listening to music and associational patterns-images, vague ideas, memories,etc come up concurrent to listening to the music and concurrent to the actual drawing process. This can be as simple as telling myself to ease up on the pressure when I'm using a very soft charcoal. Or to suddenly having an remembered image of a Degas drawing pop up into my memory. Or to suddenly say to myself" oh shit, I forgot to check the length of the arm,' and then work more intensely. Or to suddenly ramp up everything when the model says:Two minutes left". At times, the expression of the model-tense muscles, a look in their eye, will spark an internal feeling/cognitive state that suddenly reveals the paintings motif in Cezanne sense.
At times, the feeling state isn't about the human dimension but about something new the materials themselves reveal. Here I can only point to example-Diebenkorn Ocean Park series where he is exploring something about the fluidity of light as created through the medium of oil paint.,Or M's David, the way the human presence seems to emerge out of the stone with the lightness of living flesh.
I guess what comes of my sloppy thinking at this point is this: feeling state first --the word --isn't accurate because the actual experience is a complex mixture of cognitive, body states, and internal feelings --that the distinction between feeling/cognition perhaps isn't useful and a new language needs to be invented or found when we're talking about what the artist goes through in the acts of creation.
Some of those same states may be called out in the viewer when they observe the artists work if they look longer than a glance.
But some of these exist external to the artist in the real world. conditions about human existence, feeling states about human emotions(sadness,anger,etc),culturally existent states that might be tabooed in the culture(non racist stereotypes), new states created by new materials( Matisse use of color),experiences brought out by the materials per say-- the implications of the way oil paint can clog up, or be transculent,new marks made by charcoal,etc.states that the viewer can get to only if they look long enough at the art work.
Anyway, that's as far as I can get with this line of thought tonight.

2009-01-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

Here is another four. The figure leaning to the right with alot of lines I realized is suggestive of the new way. The swirl of lines can break up not only the space but also the figure and open new possibilities for psychological complexity. Like G's sculpture , the viewer can fixate on some subset of data within the drawing to get one sense or presence and on another set for a different set. The problem is I don't know how to erase, blurr, smudge or darken the lines to create that psychological depth. But I will learn.And if I have the figure long enough to draw from perhaps I will be able to get enough facts to create those presences.

2009-01-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Here are four more images.

2008-12-28T20:11:00.000-08:00

Here are four more drawings. I have been going through all my drawings and throwing out quite alot. One thing that strikes me is how hard it is to find non- studio/drawing group poses. Almost all the poses look studio based.

Looking at them you would immediately guess they were from a drawing group. Few of them feel like they came from normal natural life. Partly that's due to the environment around them--few natural backgrounds in the sense of a table,chair you might find in a normal house.Few of them involve two models since the cost of two models is quite high. How to get natural poses in natural environments seems to be a hard nut to crack.Most likely, I'm going to have to create that environment in the studio, or bring the model into the house. (please note: the photos are out of focus,and not taken under the best lighting conditions)

A couple of days ago, I drew two models and got completely lost in detail ,but I made interesting discoveries-most about how to activate the space between the models and about how difficult it is to get the big picture in twenty minutes. The models were good, but I'm going to have to be more directive to get interesting poses with unusual two person poses. Even Pearlstein typically just has two models posing beside each other as opposed to having them create some kind of interaction that activates the picture.

How to get interesting natural poses? The quick way is to rule out sets of poses--e.g.ballet,yoga, boxing, karate,etc--poses with a vocabulary of stereotypical movements. To also exclude sex stereotypes--like pin up poses--those you'd see on men's calendars,or women's mags, and most likely poses that are from porn,or soft porn. I'd also want to exclude the historical and typical male poses.

What does that leave?

And how would I recognize it?

The criteria== liking it when 'I see it, it feels natural and un posed, poses that tend to have interesting planal relationships,poses that are visually complicated ..I'll have to think about this more.

The other interesting idea is the use these drawings are put too. Most people I draw with excluding several of the bay area figurative artists simply use drawings as an exercise,or as preparation for paintings,or to keep their hand in ,or to help master skills of likeness, light etc. That's different from my approach which is researched based-- I'm looking for a new way to construct the figure, and the figure in space -actually to reinvent the whole way western art conceives of three dimensional space. G leads the way here-as does Ann Gale in Seattle. At the same time, I'm looking for new marks never made before, that carry information that's new, and peculiar to the medium of drawing.

New poses and two models seem to offer the possibility of discovery. I'm probably wrong,but often when working in charcoal I subjectively feel like I'm working in clay or stone and not on paper.I get the physical sensation of moving space around,large chunks of space --like a three dimension jigsaw puzzle

2008-12-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

Giacimetti's drawings interest me. Here's one famous quote of his : "Drawing is everything" .
I want to look at his drawings in detail. One problem is that there aren't any actual drawing available to me where I live. Reproductions are dangerous because they vary so much in quality. Sometimes they are even cut down in size to fit the format of the book they're in, or the budget the publisher has for "color"separations is small and distorts colors . Get five or six decent coffee table art books on Monet and compare the reproductions of the same painting. You will see what I mean.
I will post several drawings and then take some time to look at them to get my thoughts clearer.

Off the top of my head, my thoughts are(1) he seems to have a lot of self aggrandizing self talk,so that I don't necessarily trust what he says. Myth or legend building,or perhaps marketing when you are as famous as he was;(2) he simply may not be an accurate describer of his internal processes as he thinks he is ,even assuming he's being honest;(3)I was deeply moved by some of his sculptures several years ago-not all his figures but some and even less moved by his non figurative ,or non objective pieces;(4) what interested me in the pieces that moved me was the sense that they had a "being" in them, a presence , that changed over time.(5) he did that I think by what information he selected to present to the viewer.

Giacometti by Amarche Vadel, published by Konecky and Konecky,1989 ,English edition is the book I'm looking at.
The early drawings pages 26-27 show me someone searching out the plane structure on the surface of the figure. The figures aren't set in an environment; the shadows aren't done completely,or simply left out. The figures do capture the gesture and roughly the proportions The later drawings and paintings ,the author of the book contents,are trying to capture that moment when the artist and the model meet. Not for the first time, as friend or employer and hired model but and here the language gets sloppy,romantic , and mystical--but as beings, as presences,two different humans meeting.

Not easy.

The interesting thing for me is that to me some of his sculptures had a presence in them. I've seem the same thing in Rembrandt's self portraits,and Velazquezs' portrait of the kings' midget.
These things stare out at you from across the centuries with a living presence. How does G do that?
First off, there is very little of a certain kind of detail.From the millions of bits of information available-he selects very little. He focuses on the face,the eyes in particular, not the hands,or detail like hair,or color.

Second, while seemingly unstructured, they are highly structured i.e. figures placed in a 3 d space--only using only enough details to suggest a wall,a corner, a stack of paintings,the floor,or the figure in some kind of isolated but highly congested space created by the artist.

Third, there's a lot of suggestion of depth by the use of scumbling, or over painting.-changes in tonal values that suggest depth,--here they remind me of Diebenkorn's Ocean Park Series,and the way he created depth in those painting. Also the nuanced brushwork attracts the viewer simply because of t he subtle changes over a 5 or 6 square inch area.

Fourth he leaves the brushwork traces of his struggle-painting strokes,black or white lines, painting over them,subtle tonal changes, layering over that,and on and on till these changes themselves create an interesting and unexpected sense of form,and of solidity and light.

This reminds me of working in charcoal and blurring and working over on something again and again.

Fifth, in one painting I love (Diego reading in the Studio pg 95 ) he simply lets the paint smear into each other so somehow the information is trapped in paint without the clues of edges,or 3 d qualities.

Lucien Freud does he same thing in another way with thick paint in some of his figure work

It's as if he was like Cezanne--every brush stroke has to carry a bit of honest,true sensation--for G -- not sensation , but "presence'- reality if you will- otherwise it was erased-subtracted from the picture not only because it was false but also because it wasn't needed.

2008-12-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

I need to post these ideas so I don't forget them. Currently, I see my drawings having the following directions to go in(1) the direction of using the lines around the figure to create an environment;(2) the direction of exploring further the Bay Area Figurative tradition,and its emphasis on the figure in context; (3) simply exploring further the isolated figure on a white background using smudges,etc to create context,(4)a reexamining of the basic notions-gesture envelope,contour,light to create volume,and mass to milk each for new directions--I'm currently doing this with gesture,(5) a direction that allows my figure painting to feed into the drawing exploration more consciously(6) some kind of hard examination of Ann Gale, and Jock's drawing to see how they divide up the space in and around the figure,(7)keeping on top of Terry St John's figure exploration and how he uses space,(8) continue exploring with the model non sexist approaches to the figure of women drawn by men,and men drawn by men;(9) similarly attempting to find poses that haven't been drawn before,and (10) the on going struggle to find marks that haven't been made before --with charcoal,pencil,etc--different media,(11) figuring out somehow ,how to get a broader sense of the range of ways the figure is currently being drawn and painted..( This I find particularly difficult. There is no decent survey I know of)

2008-12-07T20:21:00.000-08:00

2008-12-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Here are four drawing done this week. Each has its own problems. This crouching figure with hands on the floor: light on the hair, shadow around the knee, drawing around the folded leg.-- to mention a few. I kind of like the folded leg because it feels folded yet the drawing aspect doesn't strictly add up.

Here is a figure lying on its side. I like that I framed it with it with what is supposed to be a mirror but the hand hanging sown across the floor needs work,and I wish I could figure out a fuller environment around the figure.

In this seated figure, the breasts need work,and the right leg near the ankle needs perhaps a shadow.

For me, this figure not only was difficult with the butt and the twist and the plane of the arms, but two different people gave me their advice on how to improve it. and the advice was radically opposite ways to improve the same aspect that needed correcting.

One person suggested I enlarge the sagging stomach,work on the curve of the right cheek, and widen the lie from the shoulder to the left cheek.

The other person suggest just the opposite: that the shoulder ,face and arms were to small for the size of the butt, and hence the lower torso area needed to be smaller. I tried each:made everything bigger,liked it for one day, and then made everything smaller and liked that even more.

The issue here not only is about how to use criticism you trust,but what does trust mean in this context, and how to discover the "voice" of the drawing or painting.

The notion of the voice of the drawing or painting came from Elmer Bischoff's figure drawing class. I still have the notes from that class. Not that it made such a lasting impression but I've used those notes as the basis for my own teaching of "figure drawing" I'm sure Bischoff isn't the first person to talk about the letting the drawing lead to our aesthetic direction. The biggest mistake I find students making is that they superimpose their ideas of the way they want to draw onto their own work,perverting it,without literally seeing their own developing aesthetic.It's a problem rampant everywhere but particularly so in the sticks. But almost any art department where there are "star" faculty,or dominating teachers it occurs.

For students just beginning, drawing,or painting like their idols is probably a necessary part of maturation,but in old farts like me, it's embarrassing. Usually,students outgrow it a few years after their MFA.-if they survive that long.Remember, 10 years after graduating, most "artists" are no longer seriously exploring the world or reality through their art,or even trying to make a living doing their art. Most have just quit. The odds of lasting in exploring art as a creative journey, a vehicle for self knowledge, and/or most importantly as a means of discovering small truths are worse than trying to make it into the NBA, NFL. At UC and Stanford, there are "pick up" games i.e. small groups of people that love the activity of drawing but aren't actively challenging themselves or pushing themselves. Talented but not living up to their potential. I view myself that way but I haven't given up the struggle.

One pat of the this issue is the question of artistic renewal ,and in my view,while environment affects you alot, personality style dominates. Few artists are like Matisse learning from everyone, and growing to the day he dropped dead. Most I think are like Clifford Still-they have one style and paint it all their life.

For me,one of the biggest issues in this question is how to bring myself under control.

About these points, I have included a series of quotes which I will post in my next blog. I put them up in my studio to help keep me on track. Another big part of the question for self renewal is the question of self deceit,self knowledge and honesty. Creating an environment of honesty, and the serious pursuit of "truth" I find extremely difficult. C. W. Mills' quote helps me in this regard. It's taken from his book "The Sociological Imagination" the appendix on " Intellectual Craftsmanship".

I read this book 30 years ago and it changed the course of my life.Of course, if I read it today, I might have a different response-I'm older and hopefully wiser,my life situation has changed, and social conditions have changed. But I recommend it to people who want to do intellectual work. I view creative activity in drawing and painting as serious intellectual activity.For me, it's the main way I know reality.-I will have to explain and modify that comment later.

2008-12-07T19:13:00.000-08:00

Here are four more drawings.

2008-12-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a view of my studio with landscapes I'm working on.

2008-11-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

These two drawings by Richard Diebenkorn (in The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn by John Elderfield, pgs132,141,Museum of Modern Art,New York, 1988), I just love. For me, both are painterly:one, on the left ,acrylic and charcoal, and the other ,on the right, charcoal.
What do I like about them?
First ,I love the effect of light. Second,I love their quiet moodiness. Third. I love the obvious struggle to get the volumes and mass the artist went through. Forth, I love the intellectual honesty to leave the traces of that struggle without "cleaning" up the struggle--in these that honesty may in part be due to the paper i.e. he couldn't erase the charcoal back to the original white of the paper. But he chose to keep these drawings and allow them to be published. Fifth,I love that while beautiful, there are still mistakes in anatomy, and lines smudges left on the paper. These mistakes don't add up to a strictly scientific rendering of either the figure or the illusion of three dimensional space. These marks are about the formal aspects of drawing and painting. The aesthetic in each piece isn't simply that of "optical accuracy or photographic realism"Finally,I love that there is a delicacy of touch mixed with a clumsiness or awkwardness that keeps surprising me visually and tactically.
Let's examine number one-- the light effects. There are few darks , and mostly mid light values with white. The light is a soft gentle light paralleling the psychological pensive mood of the figure. But the light on the shoulders , on the forearms, the legs, the wall behind the figure and the face doesn't add up to one consistent light source. It's almost as if he pieced together different light sources.
The structure of the tonal values are quite beautiful: subtle and weighted to the lighter side.
The grey values behind the head,shoulder,hip, thigh ,and elbow create planes for the figure to sit,or rest on. I suspect they are there because he struggled to find the right placement of the body,not out of a plan unless they were added at the end of the drawing process.
For me, the right hand and the struggle to locate the right hand make the drawing interesting.Others may find the struggle a distraction. I love the left leg for similar reasons. It seem off in terms of anatomy.
The greys within the figure -the skirt,the front of the dress, the greys around the arm-all have very subtle greys and value changes that indicate plane changes and direction or movement .
The figure "sits" properly,rests convincingly.

2008-11-27T11:47:00.000-08:00

I'm going to photograph some drawings and include them.

In my discussions remember, the distinctions I draw are loose,only signposts,not ment as ironclad distinctions,but are designed to help orient people.

This first distinction is an idea I think I first read in a discussion Terry St. John wrote about his drawings.

He said there are three focal points in drawing: first, the relationship between the artist and his model;second, the relationship between the artist and what he working on i.e. paper or canvas; and third, the relationship between the artist and what's going on in his or her head as they work.

Overstress,the first and you get academic drawings,in a negative sense.

Overstress the second, and you get purely formal drawings.

Overstress the third, and you get excessively expressive drawings.

In my creative processes, (and note processes not creative process,singular), there is a dance between all three focal points. My simple minded analogy is to a quarterback in football.

He sets up, gets set, and goes-snaps the ball. The ball is snapped. Many times the "play" unfolds quite differently from the quarterbacks playbook. He's forced into "open field" scrambling,trying to make the play work according to his plan, but also taking advantage of whatever comes up.

My drawing processes are something like that.

I set up in an open field beneath El Capitan, or before the model. the process begins, and the dance begins between these three focal points. Later, I will define and explore each seperately and in more detail. For now,it is enough to note that a big variable for me is that I carry in my head what I know of art history. Images form Matisse, Diebenkorn, Beal, Lorrain,and others come up . In addition to my self talk.

You have to remember that all of this is going on within the time of 20 minutes of the models'pose. Charcoal breaks,phones ring, you sneeze on your developing drawing, the doorbell rings,and eraser rips the paper, you spill ink,hair comes off your brush,etc.

In a landscape, the entire process is occuring out of doors with light conditions changing and the weather changing.

It's almost infinitely more complicated,but this may give you a simple idea of some of the complexities. A lot of how the process goes is structured by the artist's intent-conscious and outside of awareness.