Painting in Concert

orpheus

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:42:00 +0000

Orpheus (fragment)

waiting for this one to be done at the framers.

this is a fragment because i still haven't got
that digital camera yet.

Sun King, back from the framer.

i figure these paintings have to earn their keep...
pay for their frames, and earn enough so i can
paint in oil and photograph them properly...
until then it's crummy acrylic and the scanner.

it's been a rough two weeks. last night i saw a metal
frame leaning into the canvas of one of the framed paintings
and i felt i myself was being pierced.... it took me hours to get
over this feeling.

i have to fight back against these feelings that work is my
worth and the paintings are my body and/or my life
last week i fought back by painting a painting just for me.
it worked.

Here Comes the Sun King

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:28:00 +0000

Here Comes the Sun King
Abbey Road Medley
June 2007

Here Comes the Sun King begins to have the figure of the Sun King himself..

The chord structure is E C A… yellow green to red orange to yellow green.

I began music painting in 1998. The list of music painters is actually quite long. Kandinsky, Klee and Roy de Maistre from Australia.. these three were painting music in the 1930’s. Walt Disney included an abstract music animation in “Fantasia” 1940.

The scales of color music go back to Pythagoras, from whom we get the seven modes of music. Newton, Goethe, Beethoven all had a system of color music scales.

I developed my color music scale in 1998, when I was playing violin. Rather than synaesthasia, I think my practice of music painting goes back to my first childhood colored xylophone.

I even pasted in a little color music scale into this painting… a few bars of “God Save The King” by Edmund George Lind, 1900.

Sound has form. I am interested, of course, in the developments in the field of music visualization by means of computer. This is performance art. It goes back to the color organs of the late 19th Century. Easel painting still has its own place… no many how times it has been rendered insignificant in the last 40 years, easel painting still holds an advantage over conceptual and performance art… Painting is for those who meditate.

Painting in Concert -- Find Yourself in the Rivers of Tradition

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 01:40:00 +0000

"I think that every painter is more or less obligated to re-enact, very rapidly, the entire history of painting in his or her own development - that is to understand and pass through classicism, the 19th century, the Harlem Renaissance, impressionism, surrealism, and abstraction. Contrary to the myth of the artist as an exceptional being neither parents nor conditioning, I am persuaded that there is a precise theoretical logic in the history of painting.

"The most important dimension of painting lives in the zones of silence, emotions, and mystery created by the forms, the lines, the colors, the materials, the brushstroke, and the frailties forged by chance. No one would dare say that a painting by Rembrandt or Monet is not an accumulation of abstract passages even if there is a figure. You need simply observe the picture surface to understand the extent to which, if you isolate any given square centimeter, you are immersed in an abstract canvas."

Artist Statement of Milton Bowens
Photo of Milton Bowens from 2006 exhibition catalog

I was plodding along when a young New York artist contacted me about the stages in development of my Easter mural, "The Battle Between Carnival & Lent." He said:

"I enjoyed seeing your mind work as you showed us the stages of your work. As I invite you to view my work, I have definitely enjoyed learning of your creativitiy. - TMNK"

I went to his site and found: Nobody Was Here - A Day in the Life of an Artist

TMNK

Knowledge is King

TMNK

and

Pest Control

TMNK

and

Million Dollar Baby

I wrote to the artist who calls himself "nobody." He leaves his art all over New York City, and sells his art for as little as $16.00 on ebay.

dear tmnk

there are some painters i think you should look at:

you are not "nobody" but are somebody working within a tradition of art made by "somebodies"

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (July 31, 1901 - May 12, 1985)

Debuffet

Vampire Slayer

Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960-1988)

Basquiat

Untitled, 1984

Romare Bearden, (1911-1988)

Beardon

Tomorrow I Might Be Far Away, 1966-1967

Milton Bowens; http://www.milton510.com/biography.html

Bowens

Strange Fruit, 2003

and, by a strange coincidence your shoe series is reminiscent of Andy Warhol's commercial graphic art

TMNK

Shoes

"Fetish"

Andy Warhol

Shoe Advertisement

these are your brothers in the art world, your comrades. out of all of them I would pick Romare Beardon as a teacher and mentor for you... even though he is no longer with us, his work and words and teachings live on

now get yourself to the Art Student's League, and to the public library study these artists, keep working, and stop calling yourself "nobody" you are a member of a remarkable art family

sincerely,

dgr.ptr

TMNK, or The Man Nobody Knows, will continue to call himself "Nobody" as long as he likes, and continue to leave his artworks around New York City with the tag "Nobody Was Here." He will continue to sell his art on ebay for as little as $16.00 as well.

As I looked at his work I found very strong correspondences with some very important art traditions that course like a river through art history. And I came back to that statement from Milton Bowens:

I think that every painter is more or less obligated to re-enact, very rapidly, the entire history of painting in his or her own development - that is to understand and pass through classicism, the 19th century, the Harlem Renaissance, impressionism, surrealism, and abstraction. Contrary to the myth of the artist as an exceptional being neither parents nor conditioning, I am persuaded that there is a precise theoretical logic in the history of painting

It occured to me that it is important for the artist to place himself/herself within that river that runs through us...the great traditions in art... I was sad that an artist would call himself "nobody" and sad that art is being discarded like trash on the streets of New York. His statement on ebay: "As an artist you're nobody, until somebody buys your work. Yet, I hope I have created something that somehow connects with you. Thanks for making this "Nobody" feel like a somebody. Your support and encouragement is sincerely appreciated."

Someone on the outside of the art scene might think that TMNK is terribly pathetic and self-serving in his statement. But if you look into the work of Martin Irvine [http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/Institutional-theory-artworld.html Institutional Theory of Art and the Artworld] you might find that TMNK's statement is not that far out.

The artworld also provides the structure of value, prestige, and many other intangible factors that are fungible values--exchangeable for money.
What makes something an artwork is invisible: there's no "there there" outside a position in the artworld network.
What makes something an artwork is not an observable property in an artwork itself.
The work is a node in a network of forces without which it would be unrecognizable-- literally invisible

By this theory, as long as TMNK works outside the art world network his pieces remain invisible.

I really think TMNK is seriously mistaken. As an artist you are somebody, independent of how the market values you. And the work of art has intrinsic worth, regardless of the price tag, or market history. The work of art does not change in value if it is, say, given away, stored, or sold for several million. But the value of the artist in society? That's another matter, and I think TMNK makes this message clear each time he gives to the New York Streets another piece of art gone unrecognized.

What TMNK said about "Pest Control"

Black Men: As Dangerous As Deadly Mosquitos

That’s what I surmised was the thinking when Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Black man was gunned down by the New York Police in the doorway of his home. Sprayed with 41 shots.
Exterminated like a damn mosquito. The Same year, New York’s Mayor Giuliani
ordered the mass spraying of toxic chemicals to exterminate mosquitos carrying
the deadly West Nile Virus. Yet it was reported that only 2% of the mosquito
population carried the deadly virus.
I believe that it was this same
erroneous perception of Black men as all being violent, deadly, that led to
Amadou Diallo being exterminated much like those "damn mosquitos". Thus, the
inspiration for the painting "Damn Mosquitos." One of the details of the
painting, is a torn page from a legal pad affixed to the painting. On the
painting written, as though in Diallo’s own handwriting, "My name is Amadou
Diallo, I’m a human being." It is written over and over, reminiscent of
elementary school punishments (i will not talk in class, I will not talk in
class, I will not talk in class.) I am a human being.
Damn Mosquitos is
therefore, not a painting about race or racism. It’s an observation, a
discussion about humanity (or the lack thereof). You the viewer are now invited
to join that discussion. If I may, I’ll leave you with this closing
thought:
look inside me.
deep.
neither black nor white.
deep.
neither
straight nor gay.
deep. not jewish.
not christian.
not muslim.
not religious.
deep.
not a boy or a girl,
or a
mother, or a
father.
deep.
within me,
i am human.
i am just
like you
man.

TMNK:5150 - nobody did it

The late Kurt Vonnegut's statement at a 1997 exhibition of his graphic work:

"I asked many people more committed than I am to the making of pictures by hand when it was taht their art gave them the most satisfaction. When it was framed and exhibited? When it was published or sold? When it was praised by loved ones or an important critic? When? Three of those I asked were my own daughters Edith and Nanette, and my son Mark. Few I asked were world renown.
All replied without hesitation that they were most at one with the universe when making a picture in perfect solitude. All the rest was by comparison annoying balderdash. I say that, too."

And I say that, too.

The Graphic Work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:17:00 +0000

If you visit KurtVonnegut.com you'll find just one of his images... the bird cage with the open door. An appropriate image for a sad commemoration.

© Kurt Vonnegut, Joe Petro III

The rest of the website is (temporarily?) disabled, but you can still see the graphic work of Kurt Vonnegut through the Wayback Machine.

The overview of the graphic work of Kurt Vonnegut can be found here:

Less generally familiar than the fiction, however, are Vonnegut's creations in the graphic arts. These reveal the same postmodern heterogeneity of mode and subject found in the fiction-realism and abstraction, the fantastic and the mundane, sentiment and irony, humor and melancholy.

Kurt Vonnegut at an exhibition of his work:

And here's Vonnegut's statement on his graphic work:

I asked the famously effective satiric draftsman Saul Steinberg if he was gifted. He said he was not, but that the appeal of many graphic works of art was the evident struggle of their creators with their obvious limitations. Put another way by me: We like some works by some artists who couldn't do what Michelangelo could do, but who damn well made pictures anyway.
I asked many people more committed than I am to the making of pictures by hand when it was taht their art gave them the most satisfaction. When it was framed and exhibited? When it was published or sold? When it was praised by loved ones or an important critic? When? Three of those I asked were my own daughters Edith and Nanette, and my son Mark. Few I asked were world renown.
All replied without hesitation that they were most at one with the universe when making a picture in perfect solitude. All the rest was by comparison annoying balderdash. I say that, too.
And let me add that the pictures in this catalog are the works of two persons, myself and the silk-screen virtuoso Joe Petro III of Lexington, Kentucky, each of us working alone, and experiencing from time to time almost indecent ecstasy.
-- Kurt Vonnegut
August 23rd, 1997
Sagaponack, NY

On November 11, 2002 the Mayor of New York declared it Kurt Vonnegut Day to mark the writer's (and artist's) 80th birthday. It's a laugh to read it...

And so it goes.

Dark Hazel ... Moonlight

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:58:00 +0000

Second try. Underpainting in purple and prussian blue... again.. it breaks the rules... and I am painting the flesh blue... how far can I go??

picasso blue period

celestina

The blue painters of the Viennese New Art Group... Klimt and Schiele used blue, or green underpaintings with cool flesh tones... Goya used cerulean blue in the underpaintings of the flesh tones in his tapestry studies.

I've gone about as blue as I can go... now must recapture drawing.

The next challenge is the light source, and the time of night... moonlight.
I can go warm or cool in the flesh tone glazes.... she's either going green or purple... or a combination of both.

Moonlight... the only indication of the direction of light I've got is the arch of the brow and the nose... she's nearly back lit... which means she has to be darker than the background.

What I think the direction of the moonlight is:

The direction of the light tells me I need more deep shadows on her chest, and to define her shoulder area.

Maggie on the Moors at Midnight

Not quite Caravaggio

If I had a model, I would place her hand holding her scarf against the chill. Her eyebrow looks anxious/worried... all too Harlequin Romance for me... maggie on the moors at midnight...

However, I looked at about 200 paintings of moonlight, and most of them cast a warm hue... I added some burnt sienna to her skin, but she's still trés trés bleu...

There are some good things about it.

Painting in Concert -- Heads Up

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:26:00 +0000

This is a really fast painting. Based on the portrait of Lady Hazel Lavery wife of the painter Sir John Lavery, that later was used to grace the Irish note. Thing is, she wasn't Irish.

I start with a hopelessly bad reproduction:

Which itself is a hopelessly bad reproduction of an overly sentimental original:

Of a person who was most intriguing:

Provocatively, after her death Shane Leslie discussed Hazel Lavery's relationship with Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins and wrote:

I have been talking about your proposed life of Hazel Lavery with my hostess. We agree that it is an excruciatingly difficult book to write especially as so much MS material has disappeared...

We think that much is quite impossible to tell. Remember Miss Collins is alive and the widow of Kevin O'Higgins.

If Hazel's correspondence with those Irishmen Collins and Kevin were published or even their relations were truly portrayed there would be woe in Dublin and much protestation. Both were hopelessly in love with Hazel in the style of Tristram with the wife of King Mark because they had drunk a poisonous drug not intended for them...The Republicans intercepted her letters to Collins & decided to shoot them both...[10]

Speculation about the relationship between Collins and Lady Lavery led a newspaper of the day to refer to her as his "sweetheart", an issue Collins wrote his wife about. According to the Sunday Independent:

Even more than 80 years after his death, speculation is still rife over Michael Collins's love life and whether or not he had an affair with society queen Lady Hazel Lavery

We are left with one conclusion, Lady Hazel was a friend to Michael Collins and aided the Irish resistance, who was later memorialized on the Irish note.

Step One:

A quick pencil sketch... positioned to the left, rather than center, as would be if it was an oval picture. I lay in my dark side in Prussian blue... this breaks the rules. it is the coldest darkest blue, and the most permanent but I like it, and seem to be getting away with it. This step is lightening fast... five minutes tops.

Step Two:

Some definition. A good picture, for what it is.. a sketch. This picture is just ten minutes worth. It's sober looking and a little mysterious.

Step Three:

What I want is the light over her arched brow so I've darkened her face, and now it's muddy clay color... yuck.

Step Four:

The antidote: a glaze of yellow green. If you go too far one way, give it a transparent glaze of its opposite. I use a lot of medium and my trusty kitchen sponge for this.

Step Five:

It's always good to know what you're going for. I want a darkened face at twilight, with that light on the brow, then hitting the nose. that's all the light there is. There's a patch under her eye that's yellowish that's working a lot better than the rosy pink I tried, so I'll go for a cool yellow light. If I work the nose lip area any more, it will call attention to the flatness of the face so I won't. All I want is that light over the arched brow.

Step Six:

All that's left is to correct my values and drawing the part of the hair defines the shape of the head... I want to keep as much of the original freshness of the sketch as possible, so I'm going for a loose rendering of the drapes of the head scarf, the sea, the horizon, etc etc.

Good enough to give to my brother in law for his birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Jim!!

The Renaissance:

I'm always going back to the painting techniques of the renaissance... I went through my Italian painting book last night to try to find a portrait head with the sense of mysterious atmosphere I'm after...
Only Leonardo for me captured the ambiguity and mystery through the opposites... dark and light, male and female, sacred and profane...
Lady Lavery was a racy socialite... but in my picture I have her looking both suggestive and chaste... it's the head scarf that does it....
I could have gone a lot darker...

But to do this, my drawing would have to be a lot more exact than the very bad original I worked from... I'd have to have a live model... or work a lot harder to construct a three dimensional head in space with an oblique light source

Maybe i'll try a Caravaggio rendering of the same subject... another day

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:07:00 +0000

Artists Are Losers ...... NSFW

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:53:00 +0000

A graphic rant against the Catholic League's war on art and artists, which pits the president of the Catholic League and mayor of NY against the sculptor Cavallaro, the CODE PINK girls, Sinead O'Connor, John & Yoko and other free spirits.

In Michelangelo's time another fiery Dominican held sway: Girolamo Savonarola insisted on strict cleanliness and purity, was excommunicated, and preached against vanities bred in a world of hypocrisy, domination and greed. In 1497, Savonarola organised a giant bonfire of all those things that proclaimed vanity - masks, gowns, gluttonous consumption, art that portrayed nudity - in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Even Botticelli threw what might have been some of his greatest works onto the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' as it came to be known. Michelangelo did not join this purging extravagance. But the fad was short-lived and Savonarola and two fellow monks were put on another bonfire in the same square the following year.

Michelangelo Memo Makes $576,000

The violent rantings of a lunatic bully over a chocolate Jesus:

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League: But you know what bothers me? It's not even the artist. I mean, we have a lot of these loser artists down in SoHo and around the country. What bothers me is that this guy Knowles, who is an artist in residence, the owner, the president and CEO of an establishmentarian site, the Roger Smith Hotel, 47th and Lexington, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, that is what bothers me, because now we have the establishment kicking in.

And to put this out during Holy Week, on street level, when kids can walk in off the street, these people are morally bankrupt. And my goal is to make them financially bankrupt.

Detail: Battle Between Carnival and Lent: Pieter Brueghel; 1559

Battle Between Carnival and Lent (for Bill Donohue); dgr; Easter 2007

Panel One:

Transsexual in Mardi Gras parade, CODE PINK dancing girl, photographer Renee Cox, CODE PINK woman in Muslim headscarf, playful Pope Paul II

Sinead O'Connor makes the scene, smoking a very politically uncorrect "fag" (cigarette).. You Go, Girl!! Mardi Gras transsexual shaping up.

Panel Two

Grumpy clown, sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro with "My Sweet Lord" nailed to the barrel he's riding, two nuns looking at it with amusement/repugnance at Jesus' junk, Prince at the Superbowl

Panel Two: Prince has got some company

newcomers to the Carnival: the poet Alan Ginsberg with his lover Peter Orlovsky from a photograph by Elsa Dorfman that was published in the Village Voice last year..

next to make the scene: John and Yoko from Two Virgins

John & Yoko; Two Virgins; 1968; from Canadian cover as the US judged it obscene.. so they did a back view.

Panel Three

Papparazi, figure with I Love New York sign, gaunt and weak Rudy Giuliani in wheeled chair

Four Cardinal Virtues make the scene

Four Cardinal Virtues from Victorian era print... also used as symbols by the Masons.... oh wierdness

Panel Four

Catholic League President Bill Donohue with Jack in the Box head holding sign "Artists Are Losers," the Michelangelo sculpture Risen Christ later defaced by the Church by affixing a gold loincloth, the Monkey Pope painted by Titian in the 1500's in another wheeled chair, a banner overhead that reads "Catholic League for Rudy 2008"

Ominous doings on the Lenten side:

Bush praying with Cardinal Egan of New York. Bill Donohue has lost his Jack in the Box head, and is more nearly his rabid self.

Cardinal Egan and Holy Child

The banner now reads "Catholic League for Decency" as it's pretty clear they haven't come out, and can't come out, supporting Giuliani.
Detail:

Just to prove I can paint:
Detail of the cardinal's left hand resting on the child's head.

My Easter Mural shapes up:

This is a painting in progress. Tune in for more changes as I post them here.

Painting is another way to rant (editorialize.) I'm really pissed off that Donohue would say "Artists are losers. They're morally bankrupt. I intend to bankrupt them financially."

Really, really pissed off, Bill.

The Battle Between Carnival & Lent (for Bill Donohue)

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:19:00 +0000

I thought I got it out of my system when I wrote "Following the Naked Christ" in a tone I thought was most objective. But the ire in me rose and I thought of Brueghel's "The Battle Between Carnival and Lent" So I figured I'd paint a picture of this modern battle, pitting the modern day Savonarola that is Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League versus the sculptor Cosimo Callavaro.

On Brueghel's Battle Between Carnival & Lent:

It is one of the central emblems of the early modern period, most famously illustrated in Peter Brueghel's eponymously named painting of 1559 in which pale, censorious Lent, virtually done in by its austerity, battles corpulent Carnival revelers in the streets of an imaginary Flemish city. In Brueghel's sixteenth-century interpretation, we have no doubt who he believes is winning the contest. Like his contemporaries Erasmus and Rabelais, Brueghel clearly understood the power of the ludic over its graver alternatives. And yet it is the coexistence of these two themes that he celebrates and immortalizes. Carnival has no meaning without Lent; locked in an eternal contest, they enact the battle between passion and reason, appetite and intellect, pleasure and piety, excess and scarcity that encompasses so many of the questions that guided and shaped the lives of early modern Europeans.

Paula Findlen

My painting would follow this format:

It turns out that Cosimo Cavallaro and Renee Cox are very civilized people. Both artists have been targeted by the Catholic League. And it turns out that the president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, is a rabid madman.

How could I say everything I want to say in a painting? What technique could I use?

Because my painting would be about the war of the conservative nutjob rightwing extremists against art, artists, culture... which is the Culture of Value, the Culture of Life, the Culture of Diversity. The Culture that Celebrates Life.

So I took Brueghel as my starting point... now this was getting easier, as Cosimo Cavallaro is a beautiful person,

as is Renee Cox.

© Renee Cox

So I put them on the Carnival side, the celebration of life. On the other side, the Lent side, I had Donohue, who looks like a pudgy nothing,

but then I had Rudy Giuliani, the gaunt opponent of the arts in New York City... the mayor who has targeted both Cox and Cavallaro...

unfortunately he's looking something like the vampyr in Nosferatu.

On the Carnival Side, there's the Dixie Chicks:

And, I suppose Madonna,

but I much prefer Sinead O'Connor:

The Lent side is mighty lean, so I'll go for that horrible monkey pope? cardinal? painted by Goya? Velazquez??

can't find it.

Aha!! It's Titian!!

The Monkey Pope

But I'd like to include this of the Life Loving Pope on the Carnival side, of course:

On the Carnival side, I must include these women from CODE PINK:

And because he is/was a beautiful person who I never forget, I'll put Harvey Milk, who was my Supervisor in SF, on the Carnival side:

Phew, tall order.

Now, I know WHAT I want to do, the thing is HOW can I do it?? In the manner of Brueghel (doable) or in the manner of Romare Beardon (doable)???

How??

Step One:

Cosimo riding a barrel, on his "spear" three roasted chickens... perfect for the food artist.

Step Two:

The gaunt mayor Rudy Giuliani, a figure with a I Love New York Flag, rosary beads on the chair's platform. This figure is too weak to joust.... dunno if I should include Rudy G for 2008, or how he's earned the Catholic Vote...

Step Three:

CODE PINK girls Renee Cox and the goofball Pope

Step Four:

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and the Monkey Pope, also on a wheeled chair... these Catholic leaders are looking very weak and frail.

(Pope Paul III 1468-1549)
"He also incurred virtual war with his own subjects and vassals by the imposition of burdensome taxes"

Step Five:
In order to keep the panels scanner size (8x10) I've done them separately.
Now it's time to tape up.
I use blue painter's tape, to put all four panels together... the joint is loose enough so I can continue to fold and scan.
The challenge is to get all these figures to share the same space.
Brueghel used a perspective from above to get his panoramic scene.
My viewpoint is only slightly from above, and in other places is dead on.... will have to work this out.

Step Four A:
Bill Donahue:
Donahue's head is so round I've given him the golf ball head of the advertisement for jack in the box
I pasted in the Michelangelo Risen Christ ruined by the church with a vulgar brilliant gold codpiece arrangement.

now we're having fun.

Step Two A
Mayor of New York and Presidential Hopeful Rudy Giuliani

Step Three A

CODE PINK girls, Renee Cox YO MAMA!! and the goofball Pope

Step One A

The sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro with a copy of his "My Sweet Lord" on the front of the barrel he's riding. Two nuns look on in amusement/fascination/condemnation/horror. "I can see our dear lord's junk!!!"

This is a painting in progress.

Stay tuned, as I continue to post the stages of this piece as I am working on it. I plan to have it finished by the weekend. Another way to editorialize is to paint.

Following the Naked Christ

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:09:00 +0000

Today would have been the day that the LAB gallery, a subdivision of the Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York, displayed the work of Cosimo Cavallaro, “My Sweet Lord” a six foot anatomically correct sculpture made out of chocolate.

Although the Catholic League (with 300,000 members) rallied their case through emails to 500 religious groups of all denominations and effectively shut the show down, there is a tradition of the Naked Christ in art that goes back hundreds of years.... at least to St. Francis of Assisi. in 1200.

St. Francis: “Follow the naked Christ”
The tradition of following the naked Christ goes back to St. Francis who stripped himself naked in the town square to announce his intention to follow the naked Christ:

St. Francis is quoted as saying: Nudus nudum sequi Christum, “Naked to follow the naked Christ.”

St. Francis saw Christ as naked, as did these artists:

Giovanni di Paolo 1200’s

Ravenna Mosaic

There's nothing in art history to compare to Cosimo Cavallaro's Christ until Michaelangelo's wooden Naked Christ of 1494:

The Catholic Church and Nakedness

Many historical church leaders have disassociated nudity with sexual immodesty. St. Thomas Aquinus, for example, defined an immodest act as one done with a lustful intention. Therefore, someone who disrobes for the sole purpose of bathing or recreating cannot be accused of immodesty.

Pope John Paul II writes: "Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness. . . . Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person, when its aim is to arouse concupiscence, as a result of which the person is put in the position of an object for enjoyment. . . . There are certain objective situations in which even total nudity of the body is not immodest." ref

The Naked Christ in Modern Art
These artists had to battle for the authenticity of their work:

Naked Christ: sheep bones, scrap metal, scrap wood

The sculptor Michele Coxon who lives in Wales, says she drew inspiration for her Naked Christ from sheep skeletons, abandoned machinery, and river flotsam. “I wanted the image of a man who has suffered and whose earthly body is decaying.” Naked Christ

This sculptor had to battle the church over this naked Christ in the stages of the Cross:

Llew Summers; Naked Christ; Stages of the Cross

A beautiful Naked Christ by the sculptor Bill Hopen:

The strongest expression of the Naked Christ in modern art is that of the sculptor Subirachs, on the Passion Facade of the basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The sculptor was completing the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi who designed the building 123 years ago.

Josep Maria Subirachs, the sculptor chosen in 1986 to execute Gaudí's plans and initially known to be an atheist (he is the author of statements such as "God is one of Man's greatest creations..."), now confesses to nothing more virulent than a respectful agnosticism.

Known for his easy-to-identify hard-edged and geometrical interpretations of the human form, Subirachs has stated that he was "born nine months after the death of Gaudí." When multitudinous demonstrations of artists, architects, and religious leaders called for his resignation in 1990, Subirachs replied, "My work has nothing to do with Gaudí."

The casus belli at that moment was the anatomically complete rendering of a naked Christ on the cross, which Subirachs defended as part of the stark realism of the scene he intended to portray. Contracted on the two conditions that he be allowed complete artistic freedom and living space at the work site, Subirachs eventually prevailed, and his work is now virtually undebated. "I intended a contrast with Gaudí's more baroque style," explains the sculptor, "with a harder vision and a brutalization of the stone itself."
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia]
Website of Josep María Subirachs, Sculptor

The Naked Christ

For more than 800 years there has been an art tradition of portraying the Naked Christ. Some of these are depictions of the baptism, where nakedness was the practice. But the strongest expressions of Christ's nakedness and humanity have been that of the crucifixion... these are, in my opinon: Michaelangelo, Subirachs and Cavallaro.

The Christ figure is naked because he has gone through days of torture and humiliation before being nailed to a cross. What astounds me, after all these hundreds of years, is that the Church and the public do not protest at depictions of torture, including the tortured Christ, but react with horror at the Naked Christ.

Detainee at the Roger Smith
"Detainee", a mixed-media, action oriented and interdisciplinary collaboration will be presented at The Lab, from Monday, January 29 through Friday, February 2, 2007, during the hours of 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. Detainee links the image of the United States of America with its recent decision to implement the Military Commissions Act of 2006, focusing within this performance work on the absolute power that the State has determined is within its moral and political prerogative to hold over any individual. David Duckworth, as a bound and blindfolded detainee, becomes the paintbrush with which interrogators paint the American flag on the floor of the gallery

Just two months ago this performance art was shown at the same LAB Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel that cancelled the exhibition of Cavallaro's naked Christ, "My Sweet Lord." Perhaps the public did not raise the hue and cry because the detainee depicted was not naked, or maybe Americans have become used to images like this.

Painting in Concert -- When Is a Work Finished?

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:39:00 +0000

If you watch the video The Mystery of Picasso, you'll see some pretty disturbing stuff... if you love paintings of what is beautiful.

He paints more by destruction than construction, and even articulates his theory:

With me a picture is a sum of destructions. I make a picture, and proceed to destroy it. But in the end nothing is lost; the red I have removed from one part shows up in another.

Pablo Picasso

While I watched "The Mystery of Picasso" I saw a work so striking I had to screen capture it, before Pablo had his way with it:

How very interesting that I am showing you a Picasso that doesn't exist... that never existed except for an instant in time, before the artist changed it altogether.

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought. . . . Every act of creation is first an act of destruction. . . I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. . . . I do not seek. I find.

All this is a preface to what I have done to my Cosmos painting. Destroyed it? Finished it? Changed it altogether?

Here it is in its present state. I've flipped it back to its original orientation. The creation of the cosmos, division of the firey waters above, the colder waters below, and the "vault of heaven"...

well, I had some considerable trouble with the vault... all I found out is that a vault is an architectural construct supported by arches, and is used and has been used to express the cosmos.

Here is part of an Englishman's journal from 1853, on the Moslim interpretation of the vault of heaven in architecture:

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah

I can say that I missed all of that in my picture, but that a lot of it is nascent (coming into existence; emerging) in my picture as well.

So when is a picture finished?

* when you have said everything you had to say

* when the piece reaches a cohesive "stasis" balance of elements, while retaining the tension of opposites,

* when you can't go any further without developing yourself more, which needs to be done in other works

* when you get sick of it

* when somebody likes it

* when you like it enough to show to somebody, give to somebody, sell

or all the above... and no, although my Cosmic Vault picture might meet many of the above, as far as finish it is "close, but no cigar."

I was stressing out about this the other night, but then I said, "So what, it's only a picture. It's a thing, not an issue."

But I would be remiss if I didn't include here something about the profound and mysterious process of how a picture comes to be:

the beginning

in the beginning there is the impulse. usually in response to the beautiful, it strikes a chord within. it is in that response to beauty that the artist identifies with the subject? an arrangement of form and color that carries a deep significance. so to begin there is the search for the means to express that significant beauty in bringing it into existence. Let's say you gaze on a plant that interests and intrigues you. In creating an art work of that plant you have not one plant now, but three: the subject, the artist, and the painting.

To paint the plant, mountain, person, you must become it. More than imitating surface of nature, you must go deep into it to explore light, form, space, gravity, and compose your picture as a musical sonata. rhythm, contraction and expansion of forms, intervals of notes, chords and harmonies (or disharmonies) the purpose in bringing the art work into being is to create that response to beauty, to bring that experience of deep significance to the viewer. and the viewer, like the artist, is an active participant.

first there are three players, (four if there's a photograph)

the subject

the object

the actor/artist

in the beginning the subject is the master, and the object is in a state of development, while the actor searches for the subject in form and color.. this stage is loose and the paint has to be free and open

as the painter strives for mastery of form and color it is like striving for mastery of self.

then, the turning point when the object takes over.

this is a mysterious process? when the art object has a life of its own, and lays down the conditions under which the painter must find the way to refine the means.

The laws of light form and color are universal, but the individual art work has its own conditions. for example a warm or cool palette, and technique -- hard edged, realism, impressionism, abstraction, etc. As long as the painter insists on dominance in the struggle to bring into reality something that was not there before, the more the painting suffers.

When the painting calls the shots, you're in the home stretch. This patch needs a little yellow, this section needs to be redrawn. The artist's intent yields to the demands of the piece.

painting oneself out of the picture, so to speak

now the fourth player enters. The viewer. the painter and the viewer become one, as the artist must find the means always to give the viewer the same experience of oneness as he/she experienced in the process of finding form and color and bringing the art object into existence.

I'll pick up this theme again when we explore the role of the artist in society: Rich Painter, Poor Painter.

Painting in Concert -- The Cosmic Painters

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:26:00 +0000

Yesterday my family and I watched an old 1967 video of David Attenborough in his BBC series "The Tribal Eye." Attenborough interviewed a member of a tribe of aborignal artists in Australia who consider themselves co-creators of the universe. The artist could paint the creation myth, but not speak aloud of it... "Why?" asked Attenborough. "It's a secret. They are listening," and the artist pointed to the sky.

DaVinci understood something of this as well. When writing of which was the supreme art.. painting, music, sculpture, or poetry.. he said painting was supreme. da Vinci said that the painter is like the Creator when he creates the worlds, "In art the painter is the grandchild of God."

Here are some paintings from around the world --cosmic interpretations of the birth of the universe and the "vault of heaven":

Here's one of my favorites, The Geometer:

The Geometer

Geometry, as performed by the ancient Greeks, was the study of spatial order through the measure and relationships of forms. The geometer allowed his/her mind to become a channel through which the corporeal manifestation of "earth" could receive the abstract, cosmic life of the heavens. In geometry, the cosmological dualisms were resolved. Geometric practice provided an approach to comprehending the order and sustenance of the universe through integration of an individual soul with the World Soul. The contemplation of figures as still moments revealed continuous, timeless, universal truths generally hidden from sensory perception. Thus, participation in geometric activity was viewed as an avenue for intellectual and spiritual insight. Xenophon's early education led him to view geometry and number as the simplest and most essential philosophical language. This view was fundamental to the origins of ancient balance. Sacred Geometry and the Ancient Greeks

Here's another, from The Tres Riche Heures of the Duke de Bury.

You can see in this detal from this Book of Hours painted in the 1300's the position of the heavens in the month of March.

Paint Project: Paint the Cosmos

Creation Myth: The Second Day; Day, Night, the Vault of Heaven

Our teachers and guides: The Aboriginal Painers of Australia

Photo from the Hubble Telescope

Genesis

And the Creator said, "Let there be a firmament (vault of heaven) in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And the Creator made the vault of heaven, and divided the waters which were under the it from the waters which were above it: and it was so.

And the Creator called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Tahitian
He was. Taaroa was his name.

He stood in the void: no earth, no sky, no men.

Taaroa calls the four corners of the universe; nothing replies.

Alone existing, he changes himself into the universe.

Taaroa is the light, he is the seed, he is the base, he is the incorruptible.

The universe is only the shell of Taaroa.

It is he who puts it in motion and brings forth its harmony.

Give it a try.

Paint the cosmos.

Step One:

I've got some swirling going on, and a suggestion of night and day, a suggestion of arches for the "vault of heaven". In the creation myth the sun hasn't even been created yet... just the waters above, the waters below, and the "vault of heaven"... Let's see what I can do...

Step Two

This is really step three, but drying times prohibited my scanning the second stage. I created some strong warm color, and worked texture into the wet paint with a pencil. When that didn't work, I used my fingernail. I've worked into my swirls, created some stops and starts and flow throughs for energy, brought compression and release through the concentration of large and small shapes. I flipped the canvas because it's weighted at the bottom... so daylight is coming from bottom and night at the top... I see a three headed beast there... let's see what I can do.

Step Three: Cutting In

One of the most powerful techniques for developing a painting is a combination of thin glazes of color building up forms and cutting in to define shapes. Here you can see some cutting in. Très intéressant.

When you work this way you will see in development your signature elements, style and form. Just as your handwriting is unique, so is your vocabulary of shape and form. You can't fake or imitate this sort of thing, but if you practice drawing all the time, even aimless pattern and design making, you will develop a personal vocabulary of shape.

When all else fails, throw a sponge against a wall:

Leonardo on Finding and Creating Form:

“The person who does not love to the same degree all things present in the art of painting will not be a Universalist; It is the same with the one who does not like landscapes and considers they merit only a brief and simple study. As the master Boticelli stated, such a study is useful because just by throwing a sponge soaked with various colors against a wall to make a stain, one can find a beautiful landscape. If it is true that in this stain various inventions can be discerned, or rather what one wants to find in it, such as battles, reefs, seas, clouds, forests and other similar things, then surely, this is like the ringing of bells in which one can understand whatever one wants to. But, even though these smears of color provide you with inventions, they also show you that they do not come to represent anything in particular. And this painter produced very sad landscapes...............”

A Way to increase and bring out the genius in some of the inventions

“I will not forget to insert into these rules, a new theoretical invention for knowledge’s sake, which, ,although it seems of little import and good for a laugh, is nonetheless, of great utility in bringing out the creativity in some of these inventions. This is the case if you cast your glance on any walls dirty with such stains or walls made up of rock formations of different types. If you have to invent some scenes, you will be able to discover them there in diverse forms, in diverse landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, extensive plains, valleys, and hills. You can even see different battle scenes and movements made up of unusual figures, faces with strange expressions, and myriad things which you can transform into a complete and proper form constituting part of similar walls and rocks. These are like the sound of bells, in whose tolling, you hear names and words that your imagination conjures up.
Don’t underestimate this idea of mine, which calls to mind that it would not be too much of an effort to pause sometimes to look into these stains on walls, the ashes from the fire, the clouds, the mud, or other similar places. If these are well contemplated, you will find fantastic inventions that awaken the genius of the painter to new inventions, such as compositions of battles, animals, and men, as well as diverse composition of landscapes, and monstrous things, as devils and the like. These will do you well because they will awaken genius with this jumble of things. But, first you must know the components of all those groups of things you wish to represent, such as the members of the animal kingdom, as well as the components of the countryside, such as rocks, plants and similar things........”
Treatise on Painting

Here is where I'm at:

The more you work, the more decisions you have to make. I have some "organic shapes" developing.

I hated to inroduce some straight linear elements, because my conception of the cosmos does not include any lines or straight edges... but without straight edges... of which the four sides of my canvas are the first most prominent... I couldn't say what I wanted about stopped and started energy... we'll see how many lines survive the creation/destruction metamorphosis.

Step Four

I don't need to say everything, but I must say something... and be bold and definitive about it.

Now I am going for definition, in form and in value. The darkest darks I've introduced must be balanced overall, or the tensions I've introduced from form, value, shape must be deliberate. Do I want the dark shapes to jump out and overpower the orange arc/swirl? Well yes, actually, I do. Let's see what I can do to finish my picture.

Painting in Concert -- The Ides of March

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:26:00 +0000

A bad day for dictators.

On this day in 44 BCE Julius Caesar was assassinated by his former friend Brutus. Later Brutus struck this coin to commemorate the event:

Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 BCE

The Ides of March denarius, struck by Brutus in 43/2 BC, is easily the most famous of Roman Republican coins. It was famous in antiquity -- one of the few coin types mentioned in an ancient author (Dio Cassius), and imitated a century after its issue to celebrate the murder of Nero.

The reverse is the more striking face with the plain reference to Caesar's assassination -- the legend EID MAR with two daggers --, and the meaning of the assassination -- the liberty cap, worn by slaves on the day of their manumission. The importance of the cap here derives from the Republican claim that Caesar was aiming at the kingship, since in Roman political terms the relation of king to subject was that of master to slave. The murder of Caesar has set the Roman people free; and the multiplicity of the heroic murderers is indicated by the daggers which are always unalike. When the type was copied after the murder of Nero the legend read LIBERTAS RESTITVTA.

But the later coin bore the head of Libertas on the obverse, where here we have a portrait of Brutus himself. This is a great surprise, since the head of a living Roman had never appeared on coinage until Caesar introduced himself in 44 b.c., and then it was connected with his assumption of supreme power as Dictator Perpetuus. What is Brutus up to? A famous assassination of a kingly pretender had been achieved by one of his ancestors, who was portrayed (ideally) on Brutus' own coin when he had been a mint official in Rome. Here he presumably equates himself with that great forebear, but the implied reference to Caesar is very insensitive.
from the Fitzwilliam Museum, UK

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, I, ii, 32;

Painting: The Ides of March
after a photograph "Ides of March" by Dave Richey

Step One:

Tone your canvas or panel (I'm using a scrap of mat board with a smooth finish) with a medium tone. I used gold, as the lights that will be coming through are gold. I put in the broadest strokes, cutting the composition off at the bottom, which is the blackest black in the photo.

Where is the horizon????

Word to the wise: put it above midline or below midline, but don't put it, or anything else for that matter, in the dead middle. It will stop your painting from being interesting, freeze expressive motion, produce static.

My horizon is going to be low, so I can paint the sky.

Step Two:

Going after the middle rose tone now. Broad strokes, indication of composition. Sky horizon sea... that's it.

Step Three:

Go for the darks. At this point you can go for the darkest darks, or the lightest lights. As we learned in the first installment of this series:

Work in the shadows to create form in the light.

I'm going to use a color that is harmonious with the first two colors I used. I mix cobalt blue into the gold and rose and get a deep moody grey. I'm after an ominous "Beware the Ides of March" atmosphere.

I've used an inch wide brush and my trusty all purpose kitchen sponge to get some texture and to scratch suggestion of the lines in the water.

Step Four:

I have a choice here... go for the lights, or go for the middle darks. The orange is not yet rose, so I'm going to go for that. But first I'm going to give it a coat of gloss medium... so I can glaze the heck out of it without the color absorbing into the mat board. (And because I like a shiny surface.)

OK, I definitely have some sunset stuff happening. Now I have a choice...

Am I going for the literal truth or the figurative (suggestive, expressive) truth?

"Eggs on Leonardo" was enough to do me in for realism for a while. I'm going for the figurative expressive truth. I see something dagger-like and menacing in the patterns of the reflection in the water.

I'm still holding out on painting the lightest lights.

Step Five:

Go for form, pattern, direction, texture... expression.

OK, I've got some spooky stuff goin on now. I didn't have a pocket comb, so I used my hair brush to inscribe the scratches in the ocean.

I used interference red on the rose... this is a really wierd series of Liquitex colors:

Liquitex® Interference Colors are colorless, transparent paints made from titanium coated mica flakes rather than traditional pigments. They are also
known as "Opalescent Colors." They change their color (exhibiting a metallic
look and color shift) depending upon the viewing angle. As the light hits the
mica flakes, it either bounces off directly, reflecting the labeled color, or
passes through to another layer and bounces out at a different refractive index
displaying the complimentary color. The effect is visually similar to a thin
coat of oil floating on water. Liquitex® Interference Colors are non-permanent/fugitive and should not be used for work that is meant to be permanent.

Step Six: Let There Be Light

This is going to be a very cool light, and not that bright either... It will seem bright only in contrast to the darks, but after I'm done I'll show you a sample so you can see how dark my lightest light really is.

By cool I mean I will use a cool yellow... primrose yellow, hansa yellow light... (definitely not a cadmium... cadmium colors are really hot)

To mix I'll use Titanium white and Parchment white my original gold, and pale yellow... going for the cool light.

Well, not bad, not great. It will have to wait till tomorrow... I'm painting in the dark from a photograph on the computer monitor... weird.

fun stuff to do with a painting using microsoft paint.

_________________________

Was it good for you?

1. Did you learn something?

2. Were you able to do something you never did before?

3. Did you create something new?

4. Did you enjoy yourself? Did you experience the peace of painting quietly while the world carries on without you?

If so, you've made a great piece of art!!

_________________________________________

Have a good Ides of March. Unless you are a dictator -- if you are, beware.

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

Tempera Tantrums - Cross Hatching and Rotten Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 02:17:00 +0000

If you go to the Web Gallery of Art and look up the painter Sandro Botticelli, (1445-1510) you will find that all his paintings were done in tempera. Leonardo (1452-1519) did his paintings in oil. What is tempera?

This is what it looks like when it's done well:

Detail from Botticelli's Primavera

Egg tempera is an amazing medium. Until the time of Van Eyck all paintings were done this way, and after 600 years they still glow like jewels. Especially religious icons which are still, in many parts of the world, painted with this difficult medium. If you've ever left a dish with the remains of a fried egg, you know that sometimes the yolk is like a hard baked enamel... very hard to clean off the plate. It's the albumen in the egg yolk that makes it an eggselent medium for pigment.

Egg tempera is done like this: separate an egg, yolk from white. When the yolk is reasonably clean of the white, take it very gently in your hand. Pass it hand to hand until the surface is dry of the white its dry and sticky rather than slimy.

Then pierce it and let the yellow yolk run out into a clean cup.

Mix with some water until it is not too thick, not too thin about one tablespoon of water. Have another cup of water to mix the tempera on your palette and a third to clean your brushes.

Now this is the medium you're going to use with your pigment. For our purposes you can use a child's tempera paint set, or even your precious water colors.

Build your painting in layers of cross hatches. These are very thin parallel strokes layered one way, then another way. As each layer dries a fine pattern of cross-hatches builds up the form.

Georgia, egg tempera by Antony Williams RP

You can see the cross hatches here, in this portrait by Antony Williams of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. Every pore, every blood vessel, every fine line portrayed by the build up of microscopic layers of paint. This model reflects the strain of sitting for an egg tempera painter. Is it just me, or does this look like a study in existential angst?

Fred Wessel: "Alexis," 2005, egg tempera, 26.75 x 17"

This is typical of the modern egg tempera artist. Obsession for pattern, detail, and hyper-realism. You can have this painting for $25,000 if you like. And if you do like this sort of thing, you can have it.

From time to time you will find artists defending egg tempera as a medium that is not fussy. Don't believe them. Egg tempera will drive you mad. Why spend an hour per square inch? And, after three days, even after refrigeration, the egg tempera medium will stink like rotten eggs.

If you ask me egg tempera just plain stinks anyways -- and that's my tempera tantrum for today.

_________________________________________

1a. Renaissance Glazes -- Eggs on Leonardo

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:23:00 +0000

The first painting we made was a monochrome, just one color. During the Renaissance these kinds of paintings were worked out in complete detail before color was added in thin glazes.

These underpaintings were sometimes called "grisailles" meaning done in shades of gray.

Here’s “Eggs on Leonardo” as I left it off last time.

Why did they paint this way during the Renaissance? One reason was the prohibitive cost of paint. During the 1500's (Leonardo's time) the most expensive pigment was Ultramarine Blue, as it was made from ground Lapis Lazuli. When a painter made a contract for a commission to paint a decoration for a church he would contract for the amount in weight of ultramarine blue to be used in the painting. Likewise gold leaf.

One of the cheapest pigments during that time was burnt sienna and venetian red. Cheap as dirt, as it they made of iron oxide... something like the red clay of Wyoming.

Here’s “Eggs on Leonardo II” with glazes for “local color” Local color means color confined to a locality… but as we know from our visual experience, and from the art of the Impressionists, there are all colors present in one color, all colors present in black, all colors in reflection. I've used thin glazes on the eggs.

To make a glaze use very little color and a whole lot of medium. You can build up your glazes in thin cross hatches to build form. You can also use a dry brush and drag it lightly over the surface... this is called scumbling.

Leonardo was a thin thin glaze man.

Rembrandt was a scumbler.

Screw the eggs!! What's this I see in Leonardo's drawing? Another way that he achieved mystery is ambiguity... mixed messages, a blending of contrasts between the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine.

I've gone back in this version (spotted with coffee stains) to study out Leonardo's "Study for the Virgin and St. Anne." There's definitely an impish smile in the original drawing, and, while the figure is wearing a veil there is definitely the suggestion of a crown of laurels.

This is Leonardo's prototype head... he used it over and over, for the head of Christ, for mother of Christ... interchanging one for the other.

I've lost my "sense of proportion" in the search for the features, but I'll get them back. Also you can see that the head is quite egg shaped, fitting in with my theme.

Back to work...

that's better.

1. Painting in Concert -- Let There Be Light

noreply@blogger.com (dgr) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:50:00 +0000

Creation myth for an unpainted canvas:

"In the beginning was the void and formlessness, mysterious, dark and grey... out of the chaos the painter brought form, created by the contrast of dark and light."

Paint Project: Separate Light From Darkness; Paint Something Round

Subject: Paint an Egg (or an apple, or a lightbulb, etc.)

Our Teacher & Guide: The Master of Shadow & Mystery... Leonardo

Creation Myth: Genesis, the beginning:

First The Creator made heaven & earth. The earth was without form and void,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of The Creator was
moving over the face of the waters. And The Creator said, "Let there be light";
and there was light. And The Creator saw that the light was good; and The
Creator separated the light from the darkness.

For our beginning we'll be using a monochromatic pallete, so you can find out just how much color there is in the least amount of color. Take Paynes grey and White.

(don't panic!! you can use black and white, burnt sienna and naples yellow, raw umber and parchment white, or graphite gray and white, or any really dark color and really light color. Stay away from complimentary colors to begin with, unless you just must use deep hooker's green and light pink... If you must, then you must... But our Creator in the myth above didn't get around to color for a few days.)

In the creation myth above you'll see that the Creator began with formlessness and void, darkness was on the face of the deep.

How we'll interpret that here is that your canvas begins with formlessness -- grey.

Mix a Middle Gray

On your pallete on one side put a nice big pile of white, on the other side a nice big pile of paynes gray or black, and in between them mix a pile that is half white, half black.. to a grey that is just between them in value... not too dark, not too light.

Take time in this step. Mix a good pile of paint that is middle gray. Put it right in the middle between your black paint and your white paint.

Later we'll mix other piles midway between these first three piles, giving five total values.

Black, Dark Gray, Middle Gray, Light Gray, White

Step One:

So mix a grey that's midway between your darkest dark and your lightest light, and prime your canvas with that.

I like to prime my canvas loosely, rather than one flat color, and I use a brush and a kitchen sponge. I use sponges during the painting to wipe stuff out, to create texture, to blend tones. Sometimes I use my fingers as well, to blend, to paint, to rub in areas.

After I have toned my canvas with middle gray, I use a soft charcoal pencil to sketch in loosely.

All the following stages took about 10 minutes each.

My subject is four eggs and a fork on an open book of DaVinci's drawings

I've toned the canvas, and drawn in a very sketchy manner the forms of the objects.

Step Two:

Establish some of the dark areas and some of the light areas. Now you're coming out of the chaos into order... let there be light... and let there be dark to contrast with it.

Out of the middle grey I've established some the darkest darks and some of the lightest lights. If you can't tell, squint your eyes at your subject... the darks and lights will pop out.

Mix grays between your piles of paint, so you now have five values from white to black.

Black, Dark Gray, Middle Gray, Light Gray, White

It's really important to keep your brushes clean. Don't mix colors with your brush, use a pallete knife, or a small putty knife. Trying to paint color into color to mix color on your canvas at this point will get muddy results

Step Three:

Continue to develop your forms and refine your drawing.

I've continued to develop the forms, but an egg has gone missing. The angle of the book edge on the left has changed as well. Because I started very sketchy, and didn't take a lot of time with the drawing, I've now found that I need to go back and really study what goes where and how. Not a major disaster if you're willing to work it through.

Form is in the Shadows

Leonardo wrote SIX BOOKS on Shadows. He considered development of shadows as the primary means to describe form.

Shadow is the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different tone from themselves. And therefore in my first proposition concerning shadow I state that every opaque body is surrounded and its whole surface enveloped in shadow and light. And on this proposition I build up the first Book. Besides this, shadows have in themselves various degrees of darkness, because they are caused by the absence of a variable amount of the luminous rays; and these I call Primary shadows because they are the first, and inseparable from the object to which they belong. And on this I will found my second Book. From these primary shadows there result certain shaded rays which are diffused through the atmosphere and these vary in character according to that of the primary shadows whence they are derived. I shall therefore call these shadows Derived shadows because they are produced by other shadows; and the third Book will treat of these. Again these derived shadows, where they are intercepted by various objects, produce effects as various as the places where they are cast and of this I will treat in the fourth Book. And since all round the derived shadows, where the derived shadows are intercepted, there is always a space where the light falls and by reflected dispersion is thrown back towards its cause, it meets the original shadow and mingles with it and modifies it somewhat in its nature; and on this I will compose my fifth Book. Besides this, in the sixth Book I will investigate the many and various diversities of reflections resulting from these rays which will modify the original [shadow] by [imparting] some of the various colours from the different objects whence these reflected rays are derived. Again, the seventh Book will treat of the various distances that may exist between the spot where the reflected rays fall and that where they originate, and the various shades of colour which they will acquire in falling on opaque bodies.
Leonardo da Vinci
The Notebooks

The more you work to develop the shadow side of your egg or round object, and explore the cast shadow, the more I think you will come to appreciate and understand why Leonardo, the master of shadow and mystery, considered shadows to be of the greatest importance in building form.

Work in the shadows to create form and light.

Step Four:

Continue to develop form, drawing, value, and texture. Pay attention to the edges of objects... where are they hard and clear, where are they diffused and softer? Shadows are diffused and softer. Pay attention to the light reflected shadow on the bottom of objects on the dark side of them, the side away from the light. Painting this reflected light will make the forms more real looking.

There, I've found the missing egg. I've also corrected the axis' of all the eggs so they're pointing the right way. I've three brown eggs and one white, so the tonal relationships are going to be really important.

Step Five:

Try to bring your painting together by developing the whole thing. Foreground, subject, and background should all be developed.

From here on in, the devil is in the details. I'm not fretting so much about the daVinci drawing as I am the tone of that leftmost egg. That circle shape underneath it is a quarter I used to balance it on the book.

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OK, now paint an egg. If you want paint several eggs. Use black and white to do it. Keep the size of your painting about 8x10 inches.

When you're halfway through scan (or use a digital camera) your results and show them to the group... this way we can all learn from what each other is doing.

When you're finished, or nearly there, scan (or use a digital camera) your results and put them up. It's okay if it takes you all week. Just make a start.

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If I can answer any questions, or if I haven't made myself clear, or if you wish to critique my "Eggs on Leonardo," I'll be happy to hear what you have to say. But most of all I'd be happy to see your egg paintings. Have fun!!