Our local Restore, Habitat for Humanities resale shop, has a tons of bad, faded art in beautiful frames. I scooped up this ornate beauty for $11, painted int with gold enamel and then a black rub. I think it fits this little Vanitas painting beautifully. You can see this piece in a group show at the Grand Opera House in Delaware this October. Show runs through January.
Peonies (Memory of Spring)
2021, 21 x 38 inches, oil on panel
This painting took about 6 weeks so complete. It started from a photo which I took of a bouquet, I had the print enlarged to the size of the canvas, traced it, started painting, then changed almost every element of the photo. The photo which I intended to reproduce exactly, (which felt like cheating…I’ll get back to that), didn’t work and flower by flower I replaced all but one of the original blooms. What looks good in a photo will not necessarily look good in painting.
Many artists, including the masters, have used reproduction methods to complete paintings. Photo projections, camera obscura, tracing, are all methods used to get the image onto the panel prior to painting. Vermeer, Carvaggio, Rembrandt were all likely users of camera obscura and yet this is looked down on? does it diminish the final work because a photographic method was used in the creation of a painting? I used to think that an artwork had to be done by hand alone from start to finish, but I have given up on that. If I can use a method of getting my idea on the panel or canvas faster then I’ll use it. I know I can draw free hand from start to finish, but how does this benefit me if it takes me 3 times as long? Anyway, every painting I’ve done using a projection or from a tracing, I have ended up changing so much it didn’t really resemble the source material anyway, so why not cheat a little. Using a reference or source material is necessary whether it’s from life, memory, a photo, or another piece of art.
Peonies - 2
Another attempt at painting peonies. It’s June, peonies are in season. I took about 50 pictures of these flowers, some of a bouquet from Whole Foods and some at the NY Botanical Gardens. I had one picture enlarged that I liked with the intention of drawing and painting it, but quickly swapped out some of the blooms for better ones. ….every painting is like a puzzle. Trying to figure out what is going to work and how to make something I like given a set of set of parameters. Parameters like, size, palette, content, what I can do with my current skills.
3 Moods of Medusa
Medusa's Dream - Asbury Park Mural Project
Medusa’s Dream is a painting from my Gods and Monsters series that I made about 5 years ago. It’s born again in this Asbury Park mural that can be found on Cookman Ave. near Main St. 14 artists were selected to create murals for the city. It was a fun weekend making this vibrant Goddess. Worth the trip to Asbury to see these new murals and the existing ones on the boardwalk and around town.
The third picture is the second version of this image, painted in oils, 3 x 3 ft. Soon to find a new home.
The current state of my bedroom
Peonies
Flowers, nothing but flowers. A subject I have consciously steered away since I started making art. Yes, in some of my recent Vanitas and still life paintings flowers are there as an accent but I can’t think of a piece of art I have done that was just flowers, front and center. I think it’s pretty obvious that flowers have been done and done, from Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, to Joan Mitchell’s giant messy scribbles, Mapplethorpe’s high definition bouquets, and O’Keefe’s lurid blooms, it didn’t seem that there is any room left for the floral.
For some reason, I’ve taken a like to peonies, I remember them growing ragged and unkempt in the yard of my grandmother’s house. As a 5 year old, they made little impression, so I don’t know why I’m remembering them now. I’m not even sure how I know they were peonies. Maybe it’s this little mystery that’s caused some of the attraction. Physically they are just a ragged mess, and that I do like. Despite their seeming disorder, they are beautiful, as if they don’t care about the order of nature. As a scientist, I know there is an underlying order to their structure, and even a reason for their appearance, but on cursory inspection, they look like beautiful mess.
I like this painting, and I liked doing it. It occupied my hands and mind through a period of both physical and emotional pain. The positioning of each blossom was a bit like a piece of a puzzle as to the overall balance of this painting….and it’s not perfectly balanced. There’s not a little thing up here and a big thing down there. In other words, it’s not perfectly symmetrical, but I think that adds something to the energy.
Another Koi exploration - Koi and Lotus
Getting a little painterly with this one. Looking down on a koi pond with some lotus and pads. It’s not too fussy, meaning it’s more impressionistic than I have been painting lately. Nice to let go a bit. Maybe even channeling Monet.
