Reasons Not to Post

Today is February 27th, and this is the longest gap between posts that I can remember. So, I'll follow it up with the longest post ever (in three parts) to overcome my posting withdrawal (and hopefully yours).

Then again, you can skip to Parts II and III - they're shorter, and fun. Or you can just look at the pictures. There are three - two drawings and one photo - around and beyond all those darn words.

PART I. THE PLANKTON SWALLOWED THE WHALE.



Despite the gap in posting, I haven't stopped drawing and painting. And my hunger to do art still exists. In fact, I am famished. This time, though, the meal was me.

Raena said recently that she is following my advice of a long time ago: quantity, not quality. But that's not the whole of the advice, exactly. At least I don't think so.

I told her of an anecdote in a great book, "Art & Fear", by David Bayles and Ted Orland, about a ceramics teacher that divided his class into two groups. One group was to be graded on the quantity of their work, and the other on the quality. On the last day of class he would weigh all of the pots of the quantity group to determine the grade. The quality group would only have to produce "one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an 'A'."

Who made the best pots? The quantity group. They were learning from their mistakes each time, whereas the quality group, as the authors described it, "had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

[If you're tingling with excitement right now because you love discussions like this, visit Katharine Cartwright's blog, who dishes this out virtually every day.]

So I, like Raena, have been following this example. I draw or paint in every spare moment. I have many things going. As Wil says, "when I'm sitting I'm drawing." But I don't believe that quality is ever far from any of our minds. I, for one, would like for each drawing or painting to be a masterpiece, but of course it won't be. And I'd like a nice easy upward linear transition to excellence, and it's not like that either.

I don't think the "quantity" potters would have learned from their mistakes if they were not also concerned with quality, do you?

I drew the above band in my new Moleskine at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival on a beautiful day a few weekends ago (my apologies to Diahn who's been weather-oppressed). I drew in pencil for a change. It was great fun. At one point a gentleman, who was videoing the event, panned his camera over my drawing. What a hoot!

Then came the painting. I worked in layers of light washes, building up the musicians, but the paper seemed to suck up each layer and seep the life right out of them. I even compared the book to my old Moleskine to see if the paper was the same. It was. I have no idea why the painting remained so light with successive washes. My color choices, perhaps. Maybe the colors were too diluted.

This was just a Moleskine page. One 3" x 5" page. But I was obsessed with getting it right. It was as though the plankton had swallowed the whale. I was going to finish.

Then I painted the vegetation in the sign behind them. Suddenly the color of the sign was so strong that it overpowered the musicians. So I had to dampen it back with a wet cotton ball and with some lifting with a brush, which, to my relief, worked. But then, of course, the page was insipid again.

This picture remained in its gangly adolescence during virtually the whole process. Finally when I began doing the boxes and shapes in the back, I was able to play a little with color and shapes - almost creating an abstract - and the little picture seemed to come together.

Then I went to scan it. And the scan changed the colors a bit (as they tend to do). And made the picture a bit more lively. The value contrasts were better. I liked the scan better than my art! And I began to think, I can change that, and I felt myself being sucked in once again. But then this post would never have been done, would it? So I'll probably try another time.

PART II. I AM A VULNERABLE GOD.



Sometimes art is frustrating, but that's okay. Because on the page, I am a god, though in an ancient Roman or Greek sense, I think - all-powerful, though vulnerable.

At the art festival, I drew this old guy in pencil. He was stretched out on the lawn in an odd position, reading the paper. He didn't look to comfortable to me, but eminently drawable. And he had a backpack at his feet, like a 20-year-old.

I painted him in drybrush. As I understand it, drybrush is done by thoroughly covering the brush with watercolor, and then squeezing the water out. This is my first attempt. It seems that with more pigment and less water, the colors are more vivid. Also it seems good for detail work. I think it would work well for details over watercolor washes as well.

Then I decided to paint a loose wash around him: the green grass below, and the blue sky above. Both washes came out fine, but I did not like the way I had shaped the curve of the sky above. I couldn't post that. But, of course, I am a god. So I made the sky into mountains. But the mountains also displeased me. I didn't want to post them. So I turned the mountains into a wall. And had to add a window. More delay, but that's okay. I am a god. On paper, anyway.

PART III. FRUSTRATION

If you are ever frustrated with your art this is what you can do: grab a square of toilet paper, and then draw on it - maybe the view from above of a person diving, or a fish, or something else suitable - and toss it in the toilet bowl just so, and then flush. This is - take my word for it - great fun.

Or you can just take a shadow shot, for Shadow Shot Sunday:

We Must Dance, You and I

I drew the girl on the left in July of last year. After that, I went every so often (over a matter of months) to the same Quiznos restaurant where the drawing was done. When I could, I would sit at the very same table, and paint on location. [The manager now greets me as a co-conspirator. He smiles and asks, "So who are you going to draw today?"]

In those days, I painted using a Koi watercolor brush set with nine colors. I never finished though. I'd painted all but the girl. So this weekend I painted the girl with my Winsor & Newton paints and a traditional brush.

More recently, I drew and painted the picture below, with a similar color scheme.






We take steps forward, and we take steps back. Learning to paint is nothing, if it is not a dance.

In this instance, while I appreciate some aspects of these sketches, there is so much I would like to do better. That's the way it should be, I guess.

This weekend I attempted to paint wildflowers for Valentine's Day. This, as you probably know, is not my usual thing. Suffice it to say that the weeds took over the field. Then they reached out from the paper, as weeds will do, and finished me off.

The weeds strangled me.

My final thoughts were these: It's happened again! I've forgotten how to paint! I never knew how to paint! I only know how to color! I should use crayons!!

I have since recovered with, by the way, a newfound respect for those who do that sort of thing. And I will try again.

In any event, my computer has H1N1 or some other virus, and I am sending it away for repairs. So I missed Shadow Shot Sunday, and Valentine's Day too. Today I am posting with another computer.

So belatedly I offer one rustic rose for the occasion.

Take it.

Place it between your teeth, and dance. Take one step forward and one step back, as all artists do.

And when you do, although math would seem to contradict, you will not be in the same place as before.

I was at an art show today. One artist offered this advice: "Stick with it."

And I will.

Blue Skies

If any of you have wondered why I have been away from this blog since the 3rd of January - making this only my second post of the year - there is a reason.

It's because I have only just thawed.

South Florida temperatures have finally eased their way up into the 70's and 80's. I can move again.

I know that it has probably been much, much colder where you are and may even still be. I know that if you have a blog, you have probably not missed one single post. You may even have ventured outside in 15 below weather to do fun stuff like paint in watercolors and see it freeze, or to dance or something.

This, of course, is impressive, but there are perfectly reasonable explanations for your ability to handle the frigid temperatures, and South Floridians' inability to handle merely cold weather.

Firstly, I have it on good authority, that South Florida's cold is different from your cold. I am quite sure that none of the hundreds of visitors to the University of Miami Beaux Art Festival this year were South Floridians, except my wife and I. We felt adventurous that day. But even visiting artists were chilled to the bone. Case in point: I met an artist couple from Vermont, Christopher Castelli and Christine Brenner. In my opinion their work was the best in the show. Their website is here. They do en plein air paintings.

Anyway, Christine Brenner said she could not wait to get inside because of the cold! Not one to mince words, although we had only just met, I taunted her, saying: "What?! You're from Vermont!" She said that she had been in 7 degree weather in Vermont that was more tolerable than our 20-plus degree weather. She blamed our humidity.

See? You can handle your cold, sure.

The other reason is that the people and all of the other creatures of South Florida are simply not made for temperatures that drop as low as the 20's. One person I know here in Miami said, before her hibernation, "I can't stand these extreme temperatures!"

During the record breaking cold-snap, the beautiful iguanas that hang out in trees here, froze in position and fell to the ground. Large turtles had to be rescued and laid out on blankets, their legs splayed in exhaustion. In Central Florida Manatees swam into shallow canals, 30 or 40 at a time to cuddle against one another. Here in Miami, they swam to the power plants' warmer water I am sure. In short, these temperatures turned South Florida residents into refugees. Our habitat was gone.

We are back now.

I have been getting somewhat acquainted with my new Winsor & Newton watercolors, and been trying to color neglected drawings in my Moleskine. I feel I need to get them out of the way before I can move on, you know? The above drawing was done in September, and colored a few days ago. This gentleman was in Einstein Bagels. I decided to put him on a train traveling cross-country through Arizona. I have no idea what the interior of such a train looks like, but he looks comfortable enough.

For Shadow Shot Sunday, I contribute an old warehouse and the setting sun:


A final note: I am so sorry for the terrible tragedy that has struck the people of Haiti, and extend my deep sympathy. One of the true reasons for part of the delay in posting on this blog was because I wanted to paint a special tribute to the Haitian people before continuing my usual frivolity. But I could not think of what to paint. I scrolled the web for ideas, exploring Haitian culture and landmarks and history. Nothing. If a picture paints a thousand words, for this event, there are no words. My sincere wishes and hope for the recovery and success of the Haitian people. If inspiration strikes, I will offer the small gift of a picture, for what it is worth.