Precious Ambiguity

The Set Up

The Drawing . . .andWork In Progress

The Painting . . .

"Precious Ambiguity"

watercolor, 15 x 22 inches

As a person with an analytical mind and a nature for curiosity and understanding through logical process and detail, I have had to build the right side of my brain. That process hasn't been easy. My nature is to crisply copy what is in front of me. And doing otherwise has been more than difficult.

Merging shapes, distorting ideas and color for the sake of making something a bit ambiguous is a process which must be learned. That goes for losing edges, creating color harmonies, assigning values . . . .all stuff which is outside of "reality." For the person of logical mind, these things can be daunting to learn. But, if making art is the goal . . .and fine art at that . . . . .then they MUST be learned.

Someone once said, "Irritatingly precise - Charmingly incorrect." I think that says a lot about making art that is magically attractive. Those four words hold much wisdom, I think.

The above process shows how a piece is developed to deliberately create ambiguity and hold a viewer's attention. It is a terrific way to create 'shapes' that would otherwise not be possible via sudden epiphany. In this process (also see last post) the overlapping of multiple line drawings makes for serendipity discovery. And, believe me, it is confusing, but truly fun!

Working Mulitples

"Rotating Still"

watercolor, 15 x 22 inches

This vase has been in my family since 50 years. And the lil rascal has been taunting me to paint her in an extraordinary way. You have probably seen a few versions . . . .the last post not withstanding.

An artist friend told me how he taught eighth grade kids about cubism. He put a still life set up in the middle of a square table, asked the kids to sit on one side, and draw the subject in a five minute time limit. Then, they would move to another side for five minutes . . .and so on until they completed superimposing drawing over drawing over drawing on four sides of the table. Then he sent the kids home to “fill in the spaces.”

The vase and the little pottery piece have been begging. So, today, after a dozen different drawings, I decided on doing the above exercise . . .in four non similar view points . . .sitting at different angles and slightly different heights to draw the still life (vase and jug) sitting in front of a large brass lamp four different versions superimposed one over the other.

At first the lines are confusing . . .and after a spell, it becomes exciting to play with different, nonsensical combinations . . .filling in spaces, varying colors, putting the wrong things in different places . . .building a combined composition that is pleasing.

I had a blast! I could hardly put the brush down today. It was sooo much fun!!

Comments

The embedded commenting arrangement I set on this blog a few days ago is not working. So, back to the regular old way.

Stretching Muscle

"Shards"

watercolor, 15 x 11 inches

When we don’t exercise, muscles atrophy. Not good. Exercise is important.

There are times in the studio when one needs to exercise the creative muscle, if, for nothing else, to regain it’s strength . . . . . and to experience something new . . . even if it doesn’t come out right.

Early yesterday morning, I was busy working on a lesson for a class. This idea came to mind as a way to break open barriers to doing something new and different. My classes are encouraged to CREATE. And I attempt to give the participants access to some possible paths they might employ to start the creative thought process. Those hints lie in the seven elements of design, Line, Size, Shape, Direction, Color, Value and Texture.

In this exercise, I took each of the elements and asked myself “What could I do with______? (Insert one or more elements). First, I decided on a dominance which had to pervade the picture space . . . .that, of course, sets up the environment for contrasts and harmonies. Here I chose a yellow green dominance (color) with violet contrasts. Also, I sought an angular dominance (line and shape). By subdividing the shapes into angular ‘shards’ (shape) I created a repetition which set texture dominance. You can also see a diagonal dark crossing the vertical composition which adds other contrasts (value, color and direction).

Some wonder about the disappearance of ‘spontaneity’ in this kind design planning. All the above paragraph does is set a framework under which the artist can explore different design choices. By doing so, the artist assures a degree of success while stretching the imagination. The outcome is that the artist can see more easily the results of interrelationships of the elements. It is in that stretching, exploration and acquiring new experience that can contribute a spontaneous insertion of *knowledge* into future works. All paintings cannot be masterpieces, but they can certainly be part of the cumulative experience which leads to anticipating outcomes and, thus, mastery

Digging in For Better

"Big Boy"

Watercolor, 15 x 22 inches

Well, here is this morning’s effort. Yes, I have accomplished the need to create a greater feeling of enormity by setting up scale comparisons with the background suggestions, the palms and the little cars. It is much more difficult to suggest rather than delineate (at least for me). The urge to describe something like the little cars more fully is something I must constantly resist. After all, when seeing a car from the distance show in this painting, they would be nothing more than a mere shape. (Gotta give up what we think we know, right?)

As for the lighting . . .I sorta got it, but feel that I could have been less timid. I wanted a yellow / orange sky, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get the superstructure of the ship to read as white when I put the shadow. The actual image in the photo reveals that structure to be quite dark against a light sky. That’s no problem, but the colors proved difficult . . .so I resorted to warm light / cool shadows with warm reflected light in the shadows . . .what I know from landscape painting. I guess I have to dig some more. . . . this is the last of this ship for now. I have to work on my “Miroir d Eau” painting. I am planning to use that as a demo in some upcoming workshops. Wish me luck!

Notice Changes ?

A few changes in this blog are afoot . . .and the obvious one is right in front of you.

Milind mentioned that the previous template was to visually confusing . . .so I took his advice. Thanks, Milind!

Another change is I have made it easier to comment. No page changes are necessary. The comments show right below each article. I hope you will feel invited to join me by commenting here.

Back to The Drawing Board . . .Literally

This morning I couldn’t get to the studio quickly enough. Yesterday’s painting had so many things WRONG that I was chomping the bit to make some sense of this subject.

When I thought about it, I had to ask WHY was I painting this subject . . .(the big ship) ? It was the immensity of it that grabbed me, then the light and how that golden morning set colors into a different world. It sure as heck is NOT about the details or correctness of the ship.

So, back to the sketch book! . . . . and to play with some color ideas. The reason for the color investigations is that the superstructure of the bridge of the ship is white . . .but against the sky in that light it was actually quite dark. So, how do I put that rascal in the painting, make it dark, and still get it to read as white? Now there is a question for you!

To get this painting on the right track, for once I actually have had to resort to perspective and vanishing points. I need to exaggerate the perspective to make the blocky nature of the bridge of the ship more interesting. It’s a shape thing !

Then I MUST put scale to work. So, I have decided that rather than having a path in a park like I had yesterday, I should put in a road with cars travelling on it . . . .and the comparison of those . . .and a few palms . . .will send a clear message of enormity.

It has taken me several sketches to come to these conclusions. I can feel it now. I am getting closer. Now that I have this in mind, I must decide on technique to fit the mood. I still have more decisions to make and challenges to resolve. Does this EVER get easy???

Another Shot At It . . .

"Floating Horizon"

watercolor, 15 x 22 inches

After dreaming all night about yesterday's painting, I still wasn't satisfied. So I took another shot at it. Since I usually attack these paintings as an experiment, I went at it with multiple goals in mind.

I still haven't captured the scale of the ship. I suppose I will have to put another boat in the piece for size comparison . . .or something that shows comparative measure. But I was able to reach a few of the goals I set out to accomplish.

This time I decided to reduce the size of the relective surface of the water (the white area) and to make it the center of interest, silhouette the bridge of the ship against the sky using value counterchange and to subdivide the large foreground shape using strong shadows from off the picture plane. And . . .I pushed the value contrasts to give the sense of distance to the ship and to enhance that reflection of light off the surface of the water.

I really worked at pushing the darks in this painting, also. As most watercolorists do, I have struggled with my darks over the years. It is imparative to make them full of color and to have them appear fresh. I think I may have a breakthrough in that area in this painting. It peculiar how we do the same things over and over and over again, then, one day, something clicks and we change. That happened this morning.

While I am also working hard at teaching value design to my classes, I figgered I had better put the lessons to work. I employed a very dark foreground shape to set up the contrast of light and medium values in the piece. (I wonder what the next one will look like.)

A Weekend Away . .

"San Pedro Morn"

watercolor, 15 x 22 inches

There are times when the easel just has to wait. This time, it has been too long.

As you may know, I have two classes for which I must prep . . .and some other workshops I am getting ready for . . . and now, a new assignment on a board of directors with an organization out of town. That assignment has me visiting southern California occasionally. This last weekend was one of those visits. A short flight to LA then on to my hotel near the Los Angeles Harbor.

Wow! What a place that is. I had the chance to go for a few walks in the early morning and a long one on Sunday. Huge ships, tug boats, beautiful golden light, and apparati for loading and unloading ships that would boggle anyone's mind. They are absolutely enormous (tens of stories high!) and the horizon is littered with them. They are rather strange in appearance and remindful of the "Star Wars" movies.

Here is an image of one of the large tankers parked in the morning light in one of the harbor channels. The colors, the different values of the two shores and horizon and the golden light had me stopped in my tracks more than several times. After taking over 150 photos, I had to hurry to the easel to get something down in paint. A very interesting trip and painting project!

A Fourth Mood

"Fourth Mood"

watercolor, 15 x 22 inches


Working from a class demo, I Re-worked the problems and finished this piece in a nocturnal mood idea. I had messed up some of the light values in the back and had intended to silhouette the rear boats and buildings against a lighter sky. Having messed that up, I took a reversed track and dropped the surrounding values (sky) way downward to bring the boats and buildings into an altogether different lighting situation.



While doing this I am also running a second class where discussions are afoot about clear separtations of values between light and shadow. I'll be posting early next week about that here, also. Meanwhile, I am still messin' round with the reflective piece of Miroir d' Eau.