Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Mezla 2


Once again I am representing the spiral energy of the Universe, this time as it flows between two spheres.

Following the method I found in the earlier drawings, I took the components of the first mezla painting and rearranged them and changed their relationships. Two hemispheres with spiralling energy flowing between them, and a universal grid formed by the radiations from the spheres (hemispheres but spheres are implied).



The underpainting showing the drawing faintly.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Drawings from 2000


In August of 2000, my father had died that Valentine's Day, and my mother-in-law had died the July before. We had had to put my mother into the county mental hospital geriatric ward; I felt my heart was a stone inside me and all the warmth of the sun could not get at it. I read some book about getting over artistic blocks, and it suggested I draw my problem. This is the drawing.

then it suggested I make variations ... this one is the stone heart radiating, like the sun.

the vesica pisces now encloses the radiating stone heart, the eye of the stone.

the stone sheds light

the stone connecting with the light

light inside the stone

the dark crystal expanded

the image reversed, the stone trying to reach the light

stone and sun combined
these are the negative shapes from the first drawing, variations. Some of these remind me of the Mezla painting. By the way, "mezla" means the spiral energy of the Universe.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Early Work



This floral still life was set up by my mother, and I remember the joy of painting it. She was limited by her illness, and unable to practice her own artistic endeavors in any consistent way, but she was one of the most important teachers I have had.

She taught me to use watercolors, charcoal, conte crayon. I recall many instances of her setting me up to draw something, and giving me very good constructive criticism on my efforts. In conte crayon she would have me do drawings using colored charcoal paper and white crayon only. What lovely effects that produced. She had a collection of porcelain figures, and I recall drawing them with highlights only, and the magic of seeing the entire piece appear as the eye filled in the rest of the figurines.

Mother taught me to see nuances of color in skin, though I was blind to them for years. She would say, "look, there is green under the chin there!" I would stare and see only plain skin. It was similar to looking at books before I could read. The type was a plain grey block to my eye. Then later, when I began typesetting, letter shapes began to be visible to me; rather than simply conveying their meaning, they were an art unto themselves!

Mother believed in talent and did not convey to me the need for consistent and deliberate practice. It is late in life for me, but it is well worth doing even now. I have a lot to build upon, and this practice will enrich my work and my life considerably.

Thank you Young Geoffrion for your comment and your post on practice.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Deliberate Practice



In his book Abstraction in Art and Nature, Nathan Cabot Hale (what American Revolutionary names!) explains to us that abstraction is the representation of the essence of things perceived.

He suggests graduated projects, starting from the very ABCs of drawing. That makes his book perfect for deliberate practice.

He points out that the line does not truly exist in nature (as Mother told me long ago), and then we practice the four basic varieties of line:

1. straight
2.
curved (PLUS 1,2 subsets: straight then curved, or curved, then straight)
3. broken
4. line
weights

Of course all these basics can be combined, and are, in drawing. I spent a very satisfying hour reading, listening to BrainBaths on the iPhone (Superlearning tone plus the sound of water), practicing drawing lines, stick figures, and finally my drawing projects, a quartz crystal and my hand, both of which models were willing and readily available.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Mezla Painting



I don't know if this is finished, or if I will add more. It started out (sorry, no pics) as the wavy lines the same width from top to bottom, to show the movement of mezla through everything in the universe. Then, because that was boring, I made it into a sort of horse's tail shape, and darkened the area outside the shape. Yesterday I decided to make it come from the hemispheric shape at the top.



I used the sun from this older painting to make the shapes.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Lighting Does It All ...



Here is the painting in its current state. It is nearly finished now, just a few tiny awkward spots.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Still Not Finished ... but ...



All the color has changed, even though all I worked on was the foreground grasses, which I made much less orange. I should cut that part out and fit it into the other photo but that is too much trouble. Still some awkward passages.

Grand Tetons I ...



Grand Tetons I, acrylic on canvas, 18"H x 24"W x 1.5"D. It is nearly finished now. A few awkward passages to rework, then I think I will let it be.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Grand Tetons I



I'll have to dedicate this painting to Young Geoffrion, because she said "a painter is someone who paints, so just start painting". I may have to split the dedication, because Torley's Talks on creativity also helped me a lot.

I did this underpainting this morning. As always I have changed the photo image, exaggerating certain shapes (photo on wall at right). I am using a double-complementary color scheme of Blue Violet - Yellow Orange and Blue Green - Red Orange (color combination basics below photo).