Return of the Floating Heads

Wilfred at Carving Paper says, "When I am sitting, I am sketching." I've sort of adopted that as my motto as well.

But last month I decided to sketch while walking at the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Walk, and this is the result.

I have always thought of the awareness ribbons as symbols for causes. I have come to understand, though, that behind each ribbon - whether for breast cancer, soldiers abroad, autism awareness, or something else - there is a whisper of pain and of fear, but also a defiant shout. I admire all those who stride forward in the face of the frightening unknown.

People differ in their experiences and their reactions to them, but they are remarkably similar as well, of course. I don't know if it is because of their exotic differences or common humanity, but observing people is interesting to me, and I am compelled to draw their faces. So here is a sample from last month's sketches, recently colored with watercolors, in my new Strathmore watercolor journal.





















Faces appear to be my "default". When I am too busy, or tired, or just lazy, faces are what I draw. At the beginning of this blog (before my discovery of the wonders of watercolors), faces were all I drew. I called them "floating heads". (You can click on the images for larger views).









If you have ever tried to figure me out, psychoanalyze me, or have just been plain curious about who I am, I offer you this glimpse into my subconscious, also sketched in the Strathmore journal. This, then, is my "bar code".

So after studying it a bit, or scanning it in a reader, I ask you: are we the same, you and I, or different? Or maybe, just maybe, you'd rather not think about it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Nowadays when I see a film portraying time travel, I laugh.

It is a knowing, arrogant laugh. Loud and annoying. This is because I am an expert in time travel.

I am an expert in time travel because I have drawn a two-page Moleskine spread outside Starbucks. (Double-click for larger views).

It's not the trip back in time that bothers me. It's the return trip. The return trip in any self-respecting sci-fi flick is imprecise. And I'm okay with this. The travelers return to a date and time a minute, an hour, or a week or two from their starting point. They return to the point of origin, and everything is as it should be. And this is when I laugh. This is when other moviegoers throw popcorn at me.





I didn't have much time to spend during each visit to Starbucks. I added to the pen drawing whenever I returned. But things moved. The first thing I noticed - the potted plants. Everything else the same - only the plants moved. Large plants in very heavy pots. Why on earth would anyone bother to move the &*%^*) plants? Then subtle changes - the tables rearranged, the bench gone. These I could handle. Finally when I returned one day everything had changed. The decals on the windows were gone, and the outside and inside tables and chairs were discarded in favor of entirely new furniture! Tall stilted uncomfortable table/chair combinations outside, and all of the cushy chairs removed inside. The modern definition of progress.

I will not be satisfied until a time traveler returns to find himself standing in a potted plant.

[Segue starts here.] We resist the inevitable changes and this is the source of much of our stress. 100 years from now we probably would not recognize much. 200 years, nothing at all. And xx years ago, my mother was born. On November 7th. Happy Birthday Mom!

Something compels my mom to create art. The same virus I've been infected with. And there is no cure. She will create even if a very few see her creation. Its something she returned to after her retirement. It brings her joy. But she has no blog. So on her birthday, I present her international debut! She works in acrylic, and here is a sampling. The flowers at the top of this blog were painted by her (yes, I am cheap - presenting her with her own flowers), and these. Feel free to let her know what you think in your comment.











And this beauty is hanging on my wall. I stop and look at it again and again.



:: Mom, to me your paintings are happy and beautiful. They portray your joy of life, your enthusiasm, your steady and uplifting encouragement, your compassion, and your love. But since I am your proud and very fortunate son - who loves you ever so much - I am biased, what can I say? Happy Birthday from all of us. And many more.. Keep painting.;) ::

So Tired.

I'm tired today - can't think of much of anything to say.
Not a single thing. Not even these words. The thoughts fly away
Like sound-startled birds. Like wind-blown balloons
That follow no path, that delight or confound, maybe usher a laugh.
The thoughts don't know when. They don't even know how.
I don't know what I'm saying so I think I'll stop now.


[Psst.. that's right. My poem has absolutely nothing to do with the ink and watercolor sketch of this poor, unsuspecting family above. It just goes to show - there is truth in poetry. .. Now, off to bed.]

Explorations

September trudged by and became this blog's first (and hopefully last) silent month. Blogs, as you know, should not be silent. Blogs should be boisterous.

So here I am - boisterous.

Although my September brain couldn't seem to wrap around blogging, I never stopped breathing or sketching or painting - this body's essential functions. See, for example, my contribution at my joint blog with Raena, 2'nFro, if you haven't been there already.

I was attracted to the above still life because of the challenge of the transparent and white objects. Most of the objects were painted on site, but since I didn't have time to finish I snapped a quick photo and completed it last week. Lucky for me, this week's Everyday Matters challenge is "Something Made of Glass".

This is how it went down. I was visiting family in Central Florida. At my brother's lively home, my nephew Jake and I planted ourselves in the kitchen. He set up a tomato to paint with his watercolors, and I put this complicated arrangement before me. In 10 minutes - poof - Jake was gone, painting done, and onto his computer, and I was still absorbed in the process of drawing the arrangement. During the ensuing hour or so, my brother Neil, my beautiful nieces Emma and Ashley, and my sister-in-law Denise all swirled around and about me, visiting, talking, eating, and occupying themselves in a flurry of other activities. Delightful.

About halfway through this little watercolor, there was a drip of purple stain in what was meant to be part of the uneventful background. It could not be removed, and I just kept painting. I'd worry about it later. There are no mistakes - only occurrences I can use. Concealing that stain ultimately resulted in the three frames outlining the still life, which makes the piece more interesting, I think.

As you know from the last post, I read the book "O'Keefe" by Britta Benke. I was struck by how she would create near-abstracts from reality. Georgia O'Keefe's magnification of familiar objects had made them almost abstract. I had never looked at her paintings in that way before. One sketch I did in my moleskine under the influence of her book, is this one. It is hardly abstract, but a closer perspective on the tree than I might have done otherwise:



In 1916 O'Keefe was told about a book just translated into English, and she was still referring back to the same book at age 97. So I just had to purchase it , and I found it on Amazon for 98 cents (yes, you read right). It is "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wassily Kandinsky. I am not sure that I would recommend it. It is a lofty, egotistical, rambling, opinionated historical manifesto at the birth of abstractionism. Kandinsky discusses the "inner need" which I can relate to (as a "hunger", more like). Towards the end of the book, he said:

"The artist has a triple responsibility to the non-artists: (1) He must repay the talent which he has; (2) his deeds, feelings, and thoughts, as those of every man, create a spiritual atmosphere which is either pure or poisonous. (3) These deeds and thoughts are materials for his creations, which themselves exercise influence on the spiritual atmosphere. The artist is not only a king, as Peladan says, because he has great power, but also because he has great duties.

If the artist be priest of beauty, nevertheless this beauty is to be sought only according to the principle of the inner need, and can be measured only according to the size and intensity of that need.

THAT IS BEAUTIFUL WHICH IS PRODUCED BY THE INNER NEED, WHICH SPRINGS FROM THE SOUL."

Observing O'Keefe's works with some better understanding from the reading of this book did something to my head. I had taken the following photo for Shadow Shot Sunday:

I was attracted to the shapes and fields of color and felt compelled to paint it in my moleskine, the idea of abstract from reality and simplification floating around my mind. Nevertheless, at this point in my development I am a representational artist and couldn't resist molding the tree and adding texture.



My MVC ("Most Valuable Critic") had a visceral reaction to this one. She said it looked like it contained blobs, mistakes. That I could do better. In truth, I didn't want the words "Lab Tests" (I mean, who would?), and did exactly what I intended to do. My MVC is right, of course, it doesn't work. But experiments and explorations don't have to work. They can even be ugly.

I have spent the better part of September and into October reading a wonderful book that had been recommended and reviewed by Katherine Cartwright (my art philosophy guru), at her blog. It is "The Art Spirit" by what I imagine to be the most wonderful teacher of painters ever, Robert Henri. He is the opposite of Kandinsky in philosophy, but there are similarities too, and we can learn from both. He says:

"An artist's warehouse, full of experience, is not a store of successful phrases ready for use, but is a store of raw material. The successful phrases are there, but they have been broken down to be made over into new form. Those who have the will to create do not care to use old phrases. There is a great pleasure in the effort to invent the exact thing which is needed. Use it. Break it down. Begin again."

And off we go!

Yeah!!

I did a two-page spread in my Moleskine. This one, folks, took a while. So long that I began wondering why on earth I would spend so much time on two pages of a Moleskine. ("Because!" I say defiantly.)

The front part was drawn in bits and pieces during several lunches at Qdoba in South Miami, except that the old man was snatched (kicking and screaming - and still he didn't wake up!) from Einstein's Bagels in Coral Gables, and the blond's legs were borrowed from another person in another restaurant altogether. This is because the blonde didn't cooperate and walked away before I was done drawing, inconveniently taking her legs with her! I had to find people sitting in the positions I needed to complete the drawing. More recently I decided to finish the sketch, adding the background scene and walkways. Everything, as usual for me, was done in pen on site. And this week I painted.

Since the two page spread doesn't display too well, I've split it up for you. (Of course you can always click on the pictures to see larger versions as well).

Rather than have broad fields of grey for the roads, I mixed the much more satisfying complimentary colors permanent magenta and permanent sap green. Even that would have been boring as a plain wash, so I added splashes of each color for interest.

I used pure colors rather than combinations for the front figures so they would stand out, and as always I try to be creative and a bit playful with color and to balance the colors throughout the picture.



I'm reading a great book on Georgia O'Keeffe by Britta Benke. I was surprised at how many of her thoughts about painting, and the thoughts of individuals who taught and influenced her, resonate with me even with regard to how I planned the humble spread above. For example, O'Keeffe said: "It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint."

To that I can only say, "YEAH!!"

The Infinite Game

I was introduced yesterday to an idea of James Carse, that there are finite games, and there are infinite games.

Finite games, by Carse's definition, are games that have a definite beginning and a definite end. There is a winner and a loser, like checkers or war.

Infinite games, on the other hand, never end. Play continues for play's sake. No loser, no winner.

I just learned about this concept and don't know the ins and outs. But Mr. Carse thinks that the only infinite game is "life".

Forgive me, Mr. Carse, I am not a philosopher. I am an artist. Z'Artist. And life seems to me quite finite. Especially now.

But within life's parameters, there is creativity and there is art. This is a game with no rules except to continue. There is no regard for winning or losing. A success at one endeavor only leads to the next. A failure the same. Art is the game where you can scan the horizon, or even a room, and find the game pieces. You can use them or not. Creativity is the game that will never end, unless you let it.

It is all in the way you look at it, Mr. Carse.

Unfortunately today's post is very different than it was going to be, some heartbreaking news about someone I know, and what that person and family must now face - the fear, the long road. It is a reminder to play the infinite game while we can, because that, Mr. Carse, is life.

The drawing at the top of this post has been lurking in my Moleskine for some time. I only just colored it. It is the waitresses' station in a a barbecue restaurant. This is what happens when a man does watercolors. What can I say?

The bookmark on the left was a bit of a surprise. I drew this a long time ago in an idle moment with a Pilot Precise V5 - a wonderful pen to draw with, but it is not waterproof. The other day I decided to color it and watch it smudge. What the heck. It didn't though, not one bit - go figure! This was also a very thin paper that took the watercolor beautifully and hardly buckled. The paper has a beautiful texture, so I will have to explore this further.

And my shadow shot of the day, for Shadow Shot Sunday..this is what it is all about I think. When you come across a scene like this that takes your breath away. And you stop. And see. This is a beautiful building with delightful colors and paintings on the side. And a tree that was planted there. I am sure this was all envisioned by some creative soul, an architect/designer, and I am the beneficiary. Now it becomes a photo. Later perhaps a painting. Or an inspiration. Or an idea. In the infinite game.

Let's play.

Painterly and Sketcherly and Shadowly (Sort of)

I felt "painterly" today (when don't I?). I caught Terry Madden on public television effortlessly laying down color after color with watercolors so that they would bleed into one another. It made me want to do it. So I pulled out a small sketch that I had done at the Miami Book Fair International last November and let the watercolors flow. I love how watercolors create patterns that I never could have planned.

This was done on 5" x 7" watercolor sheet that easily slips into the small carrying case that I use for on-site sketching. I should really use them more in the field - the size is better than Moleskine size, and I can choose whatever paper I want.

At the trip to Central Florida last month, I sat in the back seat as we drove up A-1-A through Cocoa Beach. I sketched snippets of what I saw along the way just for fun. The middle house is a composite, and, okay, I made up the boat and the water and the bird. I could start a new trend with this size: 7" x 1" - like a bookmark only skinnier. "Waste not, want not," right?


This week, for Shadow Shot Sunday, I cheat and provide a reflection. In justification of the shot, I refer you to dictionary.com here, and definition no. 9 of "shadow" which is "a reflected image". Hah!