Sunset Drawings

Here are a couple of drawings I did several years ago while trying to organize the painting which appears in the previous posting.  I especially like the charcoal.  Also, I've got several ink and colored pencil drawings I did prior to beginning the picture which I'd like to share later in the week.

Charcoal portrait with Red

Soft pastel and charcoal/18" x 24"

Drawing with charcoal and pastel

Pastel and charcoal on paper

This piece is about 18" x 24" and was done recently.  She's seated on an invisible chair and surrounded by an aura or field of extra energetic random squiggles which seem to keep her from falling.  More really soon.

Work on paper

18" x 24"

I'll post some oils from November soon.  Saved too many drawings!

More from "Productive November"!

The top drawing (charcoal and pastel) seems to me energetic and simultaneously still.  I'm captured by the ambiguity and feel satisfied that I have recorded myself in a moment I wasn't fully aware of at the time I did the picture.  Not to sound like a tired beer commercial but it actually doesn't get better than that.  Reminded of what I didn't even notice!  Or didn't dare consider?  A little like living on the edge.  That explains the energy part.
The oil portrait might have something going for it, I'm not sure.  This is how it looked about two weeks ago; I've made revisions since.  Although it isn't as loose as I might like, I've obviously taken license with color and line to fracture some of the reality....the structural, material reality...in an effort to plumb myself in the dynamic and capture something ephemeral. In my mind more important, more significant, more elusive, more satisfying than a life-like rendering.  More satisfying?  Well, maybe my satisfaction is in trying to obtain the short-lived experience and making it last.......which isn't all that different than what the representational realist has in mind but I want to remember how I felt, my emotion, my awareness.  That seems much more "active" if you will.

A feeling too rare; incentives

18" x 24"
charcoal/pastel/bee paper

These two images have, both of them, enlivened my picture making practice and I hope set me firmly on a path more consistent with my seemingly waxing and waning desire to make expressive pieces in the tradition of the modernist, expressionist painters I so admire.  The portrait/figure above was a short exercise recently undertaken and one I am entirely pleased with.  The photo I've posted isn't too bad, save for the visible clip; can't say that about the oil.  Sorry!

Oil on canvas
18" x 18"

The landscape is a representation of a beautiful view on property where we lived  for about ten years in Duxbury, Massachusetts beginning in about 1996.  I recently found a photo I'd taken sometime ago and was inspired to use the scene as the foundation for the piece.  I've started several others with reference to that property and some from recent photos of the area where I now live.

Morrissey/Manchester/Sunday

Given the probable confluence of events over time, my time anyway, it is likely I won't see Morrissey perform in Manchester, ever but when I watch this I wish, wish I could have that experience.  I wouldn't say he informs or inspires my work but I embrace his barrier bending and breaking and I derive an energy and widened perspective from who I think he might be, what he does and those who would surround him.......almost makes him sound like a god!!

Oh, and here's a picture from a recent Sunday likely done while listening to, well, you guessed it!!

Newer drawing

18" x 24"
Charcoal and pastel on paper

Charcoal/pastel figure

18" x 24"

Mixed media/sketch

18" x 24"
Charcoal and water color
on paper

I've been cruising around gallery websites and reading about marketing strategy for would-be professional picture makers.  Don't know if I should feel discouraged or not; there's a certain "finish" lacking in a large portion of what I do and nothing seems to go in a straight line.....I guess that's what I see on the gallery sites: a polish or finish to the work displayed and lots of the same technique.  Anyway, I like doing what I'm doing and I learn from the work and I think I grow in the process of it all.

Stretched out

Charcoal on heavy Bee Paper
18" x 24"

Drawing with charcoal + gouache

Charcoal Drawing

My favorite from the last Artspace life drawing session I attended earlier this month.  Charcoal on mat board, c. 10 x 12.

Recent work/oil/charcoal

The volume of recent work posted here has been pretty slim lately.  But not for having anything to show, just too busy making it, slow getting it photographed and posted, pulled in another direction, etc.  So, over the next several weeks I will try putting something up here every day or so.

Bullit Reservation
12x12 oil on canvas

Oil Figure
12x12

Charcoal Figure
12x16

Charcoal and oil

While speaking with an artist acquaintance last week the subject of working in a series became part of our conversation.  For whatever reason I have chosen to work on individual pieces with a rather random, perhaps whimsical approach.  The fellow I was speaking with offered a suggestion that I think I might try to implement.  He offered that if I were to choose a subject and purchase a sufficient quantity of paper or canvas I'd have an easier time and an opportunity for efficiency in the work.  He offered that many gallery directors prefer to exhibit a series of related works.  That certainly sounded reasonable.  So, I think I am going to work on that.  Maybe I'll start with 25-30 or so sheets of exceptional paper, lots of really good charcoal and a few soft pastel sticks.  

Faces and figures

I like the way it sometimes feels that artwork can suspend time, but alas it really only records it. That's better actually because with time one can grow, positive change can occur, knowledge can be increased.

Charcoal drawing

Work from summer 2009 and earlier

Ink.

Ink.

Ink.

Charcoal on paper.

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on paper.

Watercolor and gouache on board.

Watercolor and gouache on board.

Watercolor and goauche on board.

Watercolor and goauche on board.

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on paper.

On October 12, 2008 I posted several sketches representing an idea I had for a painting based, in part, upon a short story by Raymond Carver entitiled "What we talk about when we talk about love". The image above, with two couples, is the almost completed piece that I was attached to with my brushes for most of the month of July. When not concentrating on that image I managed to find the time and energy to work on the other pieces posted here.

Recent charcoal drawings/figures

Charcoal drawings may be an end in themselves or preliminary to a work in another media. Actually, I like to hold on to all of my charcoal pictures and have so many hanging in a closet, poorly stored in the basement and in huge improvised cardboard "portfolio" folders that I think an inventory should be started sometime soon. Maybe toss some out? That will be difficult, I think.

The image of the group sitting at a table is a progression of the Carver-based painting I hope to execute, or at least begin soon. Something about it confuses me; the table legs are too short or the table top should be lower or the chair legs are too short.....maybe all three of the above.

Anyway, it's "What we talk about when we talk about love." If I knew how to send this posting to his first wife I'd do it; I think she might appreciate how someone attempts to interpret her late ex-husband's word-pictures.

The reclined figure (pastel/watercolor) is quite large (30" x 40") and is as yet a work in progress which I am hopeful may be finished in time to exhibit at an upcoming figure show at Artspace in Greenfield.

The other drawings are from the life group I belong to and draw with every couple of weeks. For the most part they were done in fifteen to thirty minutes on white acid free drawing paper.

Summer slipped away

It's been since June that I've posted to this blog of mine?!?! The time seems to have slipped away but I plan, at least, to revive my activity here...well, I will revive my activity here! This place provides a reference point, along the path of my artistic activities, which I find helpful to turn to and work on.

So, during the summer months I've allowed myself a break from Brushwork to, ah, get some sun, clean my brushes, contemplate? I guess, to a certain degree, but I've mostly been painting, planning my future work, looking at various gallery websites as I consider how best to market the work I am now organizing along something of a planned theme...and while doing this I've also tried to keep a journal record of all of it. I've participated in two summer exhibits organized by the Deerfield Valley Art Association: a summer show open to all members as well as a "new members" exhibit, which is still running at the Association's temporary home in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts through September 28th.

In July I spent a day or two at Old Deerfield painting and taking photographs for future reference. I've completed five oil pictures inspired by my visits there and anticipate several more will evolve from that effort as well. I am organizing twelve to fourteen pictures as more or less a "collection" of similarly executed pieces done in the realist style I enjoy working through these days. Not that I've perfected this style or indeed even settled upon exactly how I ought to render the image I decide to begin to execute.......there is something ambiguous about being a painter; something ambivalent about "style". (I will photograph and post the work here shortly.)

The owner of a local cafe has asked me to exhibit in October; I'll push myself a bit (not really, 'cause I love doing it) to have ten or twelve new pieces (since July) and chose five or six to show.

While considering my "portfolio" these last few months I've tried to evaluate my own work and set up a presentation package to present to potential agents, representatives or gallery managers. Self-evaluation of work product is really a tough challenge but I think the exercise might have been productive.