A Post Without a Picture

  I do not paint by (or live by) any hide-bound formulas. I cannot copy someone else's color palette or mixing formulas and make it work for me. I find that my paintings cannot come from the outside --  they must come from the inside – from what is not entirely visible to anyone else. What I have learned over the years has now become second nature, and much of the time I could not begin to tell you what I am doing as i paint or why. And absolutely whatever I have learned and internalized is the result of MANY failures, which still happen with much regularity, probably because I do not use any formulas!  I paint like I cook.  My color awareness is intuitive. I would be hard pressed to write down any formulas or exact proportions.  It's like cooking to taste rather than following a recipe.

Perhaps because I am so recently returned from the red rock country of Sedona, I am feeling the need to play around with earth tones in the studio this week. I have not yet begun a painting of the scenery we saw in Arizona, but I am working with  that palette in my latest  painting which is an abstracted close-up composition of unglazed terra cotta ewers and pots.

I am reaching back to what I learned in my color theory class those many years ago at Skidmore (most of which I have forgotten)  as I mix my terra cotta  reds and the complimentary greens and blue greys ---  one pot will be a warm, dark earth red with a tendency towards blue; another with hints of viridian in it, and another almost white. You can buy pre-mixed tubes of paint with names like red ocher, red oxide, Mars red, terra rosa, red earth, but I am just using cadmium red medium cadmium yellow medium for a warm oranges, and adding hints of ochre or burnt sienna, and using complimentary  greens to pull out the brightness of the terra cotta. 

For this painting, I have on my palette a warm red and a cool red (Cadmium red medium and Alizarin); a warm yellow and a cool yellow (Cadmium Yellow Medium and Light and also Ochre); a warm blue and a cool blue (warm is Ultramarine, and cool is Cobalt) as well as staples Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Titanium white. But then I added a few more --- as far as I am concerned, using only a few or using a lot of paint colors is neither a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes a few extra colors already in the tube can help you save time you need to get a painting that really sings. In this case, to my basic palette I added Viridian green, Old Holland’s warm grey, a translucent lake orange and before I end this painting I will be mixing something to get black--- maybe two complimentaries like Alizarin and Viridian, or Phthalo blue and umber, not sure yet, but I will be needing some very dark  “lowlights,” as my hairdresser says, in this painting. I find I'm constantly discovering more nuances and colors with my mixing, and I begin to think after 55 years of oil painting that the combinations and possibilities are inexhaustible!

I like to use a lake paint for the final glazing.

I most often build my paintings from dark to light because I find that applying purer light colors over the darker glazes, when done successfully, creates a warm luminosity in paintings and makes them zing.  However, in this particular painting, the white pot was done just the opposite--- dark over light. I guess I am not very good at living by rules. The result is a continuous accidental learning which constantly shapes my life! Many of my successes I term "happy accidents."

The painting is not yet ready to show by a long shot. But it will appear here in due time. Because I am going down to Connecticut to a family wedding this weekend, and because the gardens are needing me right now whenever it does not rain, it may be a while before I have progressed enough on this painting to show it to you.

Your Voice Might Change

As I find myself finally evolving into another painting style, I have been thinking a lot about consistency. There is this notion of the “consistent body of work” that artists are supposed to produce – gallery owners and critics pigeon-hole artists and sing the praises of  great consistency in the work of one artist, and dismiss another artist for being “all over the place.” They want you to establish a voice that embodies your unique artistic vision, and then  build a body of recognizable work. I have worried about this in the past when I was one of those all over the place artists, and have been talking to some friends about this. Some of them ask  “Why do we have to be consistent as an artist? Why do we have to present a unified body of work, each piece easily identifiable as one’s own? “ And after thinking it over, I feel that there are some ready answers. 

For artists struggling for recognition: You will definitely find that if you are interested in getting into commercial galleries, you will probably need to create a body of work at least to present to the galleries that shows a consistent, identifiable style that the gallery (and thus collectors) can recognize as your work. They would like to see that all of your work appears to be done by the same person, utilizing the same technique or combination of techniques and color palette that makes your “body” of work cohesive. Think of Rothko’s instantly recognizable color field paintings!! Think Renoir, Modigliani, Turner, Constable, Van Gogh, de Hooch! Think of Jim Dine’s bathrobes! Look at any one of these artist’s works, and you know immediately who painted it, at least in a certain time of their lives. And I think of my artist friends Henry Isaacs, Ashley Bryan, Michael Moore, Micki Colbeck, and Catherine Kinkade who have done this so successfully: (You can find examples for most of them of their work in the blog listings to the right on my blog.) So yes, you will need to present a portfolio of your work to a gallery, probably about 20 pieces, with a consistency. If you work in several media and a variety of styles, then make several different portfolios for different galleries/ purposes. And if you frame your work ( a lot of the edgier galleries today do not require frames) by all means use similar frames for paintings to keep the work from looking disjointed.

For established and successful artists: It is often just easier just to keep turning out your work in a certain way, knowing that it will continue to be praised and bought. A lot of artists do this. But I think of Eric Aho who developed a very distinctive style painting plein air landscape as well as larger studio works that drew inspiration, mostly from direct observation. His spectacularly sky-heavy, windblown landscapes done in bold, minimal strokes full of mood and heightened detail are expressed so simply, a glint of light here, a slash of color , a perfect little detail there. They captivated me. I become breathless when I stand in front of his work. This work catapulted him to the being one of the top landscape artists in the country. He could have continued to turn out that wonderful work forever, and amass a fortune, with galleries selling his work for many thousands of dollars.

Earlier style: "Late Squall"  by Eric Aho 

Current work :"Occurrence" by Eric Aho

But then he GREW and changed his focus, turning away from his expressive narrative works!  He said in an interview “I’m not looking at grand vistas, anymore, and more pastoral landscapes, like I had done in these views over the river. I’m actually looking down, more at my feet, into the river – The Saxton’s River, which I’ve been watching freeze and thaw in successive winters now for the past few years.” As well as his expressive oils, he does prints (his original medium actually) these days, and has become more and more abstract, irritating some of his past collectors. His new works are often wild and chaotic but they beautifully capture light, air, fire, ice  and land. A critic of one of his recent shows said  “Aho’s abstract paintings are evolving right in front of us.”I remember the shock of seeing this new body of work, and how long it took for me and other viewers to accept it. I can imagine him just being tired of making those beautiful paintings, and wanting to shake things up a bit-- a lot! But most likely, his VISION --  HIS VOICE -- JUST CHANGED!
 The same with my old college friend Lucretia Robbins who has through her career moved from one stage to another with ease--- most recently from exquisite jewel like abstracts with luscious brushwork (see below) 

to a recent large series of painstaking, elegant drawings of birds’ nests! 

Artists such as these have had the courage to persevere, and hope that the their “new” work will gain its own followers.  And I believe that even when you do grow, or change your focus, you can continue to present a unified look to your work, even if it is a NEW look, even if temporary. Creating a consistent body of work does not mean that you have to always paint the same things in the same ways in the same palette, forever! For most artists, that would simply be impossible anyway, and would make the creation of art a burden and a bore. If you do not grow, you become a hack. Exploring new and differing ways of expression is a constant and a necessity for the artist. Or so I believe.


Sadly, the need for consistency rules the all too commerce-centered art world. There is this perhaps erroneous feeling that gallery owners, and often art school admissions folks, have that if you present a “wide range of styles”, you are showing them that you have not yet settled on a style you can call your own. This does probably mean that when I present twenty pieces to a gallery for consideration, I must make sure that those twenty pieces are consistent, make the same statement, and set the same mood. (For example, if you work mainly in gentle earth toned colors on small canvasses but include one or two huge pieces in bright primary colors in the portfolio, this will not look cohesive. But if you want to do a series in the primary colors for another place to consider, by all means go ahead.)  And I should probably edit my website to convey this consistency, somehow.  

But a forever consistency can kill creativity. Consistency can cripple. What’s wrong with experimentation? With GROWTH? Rothko, recognizable as his work is, went through a long process to get to his final step, which involved only his shimmering, emotion-laden large colored shapes. Would you ever recognize these as Rothko's work?? 

  
  The older he got, the more simplicity he sought. Since he is one of my favorite artists, I am VERY glad that he evolved, VERY glad that his vision and painting style changed to this--- (but you really need to see his work in person, it CANNOT be well produced.)

Picasso did not stay in his Blue Period forever  -- he marched right into Cubism, and beyond. And what about Phillip Guston's abstractions? His career was filled with evolution! Starting out in the 1930s as a social realist painter of murals, he ducked into a sort of cartoon realism, and finally rose to the top as one of the key Abstract Expressionists. Ya' gotta  follow your muse, and paint what you want to paint, and not worry too much about where you end up. Finding your voice only happens after MUCH experimentation: it is not a quick and easy activity, it can take a long time, even many years and involves much thrown away or painted over work. And anyway, like an adolescent boy about to have a huge growth spurt, your voice might change! Twice maybe, three times, or more! And each time, with a struggle, but a GOOD one.

I am in the process of doing just that right now. I cannot paint as I did three, four let alone 30 years ago. Jackson Pollack once said “My opinion is that new needs need new techniques." I continue to evolve, to change as a person and as an artist, and I know that this makes me a happier artist. Hopefully it also makes me a better artist as well.

Here is another example of the new technique I have been using over the past year or so. I still find myself wanting to slip back into my old dripping and glazing style, but I am resisting. I am looking for simplicity. It is definitely still in progress, and not going quite as well as the last one. In real life, the sky in the painting is not turquoise as it shows here, and the other colors are brighter, especially some of the greens which look so dull here. I will get a better shot of it when I finished with it. It needs focus, and some value work, as well as the suggestion of a few houses upper right.

Wauwinet Road 

As an artist, your tools are important. Over time you will find which paints work best for you, and which medium, which brushes. I use oli, and not even the new water-based kind. I just am used to them, and like how they work, feel, and the natural colors they impart. Acrylic seems too bright and feels "fake" to me! Tubes of oil paint are NOT all the same. Talk to your friends, google it on line such as the forum WetCanvas, and learn about the attributes of each hue, each brand. 

Most artists are also very fussy about their brushes – the springiness, the shapes, etc. I am as well, but cannot afford really expensive ones because I am very hard on my brushes. And of course I often paint with, and scrape away with, my painting  knife. And do try out different grounds--- besides canvas (and do you prefer cotton duck or the finer more expensive linen?) there are boards--- masonite, clayboard (which I love), etc. The paints work differently on all of them. And try painting oil sketches on gessoed paper for a new experience.

Some artists limit themselves to only three or four colors when painting. I am not one of them. I arrange my paints on my palette the same way I did 57 years ago back in New Jersey, the way my first oil painting teacher, Edwin Mott, taught me to do when I was 13 years old (see photo left, me with another one of the fledgling artists in Mr. Mott's class in front of his studio in Caldwell NJ, on a sunny Saturday morning circa 1956). The portrait is the first one I ever did when I was in high school -- and still under the tutelage of Mr.Mott -- taken from a baby picture of mine and was a gift for my mother. 

These days I use a large disposable palette pad instead of my trusty old wooden palette from the fifties, because it is easier to clean up. But the paint gets arranged on the pad basically the same way in this order: --- 

My original basic palette was always as follows, and probably back in the day, all Windsor and Newton brand, but no longer:


Basic Palette--- where I try to have a warm and cool shade of the basic colors--- red, yellow, blue, green and brown  I could indeed use only these colors for any painting. But often I don't.

Titanium White (I like Permalba)

Burnt Sienna (any brand)

Burnt Umber (any brand) essential for "dulling down"

Yellow Ochre (I now use Old Holland Gold Ochre and                   

        Old Holland Naples Yellow as well) This has replaced the 
        Raw Ochre of my past

Cadmium Yellow Light or Cadmium Lemon (Windsor

        Newton) or a new one I just heard about-- Nickel Titanale

Cadmium Yellow Medium (Gamblin) or Hansa Yellow Light (Gamblin)

Cadmium Red Light (Gamblin)

Rowney Rose (Rowney) just because it is a color I CANNOT seem to mix

Cobalt Blue but not Cobalt Blue HUE (any brand) 
Prussian Blue now known as Pthalo Blue as well (any brand)

Ultramarine Blue (any brand) for a cooler blue

Permanent Green Light (Gamblin) (or Rembrandt’s Per. Green Dark)

Viridian Green
 

Landscape Essentials --- Over time, I have added a few colors I need for landscape work. I do not use all of these on every painting, but have them available as needed. 

Van Dyke Brown

Sap Green which I find essential for landscape work – a dark earthy
          transparent green with yellow undertones

Old Holland Geel Yellow

Old Holland Warm Grey (I cannot live without this for seascapes)
 I am told I should have Chrome Oxide Green and  Sevres Blue (Rembrandt) but seem fine without them.

Optional Greys ---  And just because I am lazy, I do often use one of the other greys--- don't tell anybody
Old Holland Warm Grey light 

Old Holland Shev. Warm Grey

Payne’s Grey really a way to cheat when you need a near black hue

Glazing --- transparent or lakes, I LOVE these, use them rarely, but they work wonderfully. 

Indian Yellow — warm yellow makes painting look lit by sunlight

Transparent Orange — warm orange for sunrise/sunset

Transparent Earth

Shevringen Blue Lake (Old Holland) I actually like ALL lakes!

Alizarin Permanent A MUST and really should be part of my basic palette
            (Gamblin), and sometimes Red Madder, and Quiniquidrone Red

Quinicridone Magenta (Gamblin)

Orange Lake (Old Holland)

And after a tip I have just ordered  Gamblin’s Manganese Blue Hue — a cool (toward green) transparent water blue and their Phthalo Emerald — a warmer, more natural looking Phthalo Green. I just ordered them from Cheap Joe’s Art Supplies.

The medium I use is Gamblin, both gel in a tube and liquid in a bottle. It helps the paint dry faster, and leaves a lovely sheen almost as if painting has been varnished. I use turpenoid for keeping my brushes in during a painting session, and to mix with paint for an underlayment-wash. And sometimes for "dripping" though I have to be careful of lean over fat, and try to add some linseed oil to the turps when I do that .

If you have any favorite tubes of paint, add a comment and let us know! Just click on "comment"

Things I Have Learned

Here are some things I have learned in my many years of painting, which might be helpful to some of you out there who are trying to create oil paintings. Or good reminders for you established painters. In fact, send me YOUR hints and I will add them to the list. These are things that I have learned from others, and/ or just learned by doing.

1. Be disciplined, and paint as often as you can. When you stop for too long, it is as if you have to reinvent the wheel, and start learning all over again -- at least for a little while, and then it comes back BUT NOT SO EASILY. Like anything else, you have to PRACTICE -- the more you paint the better you become.

2. You can paint the same thing over and over, and learn something each time. Artists often do studies of paintings before embarking on the “big one.” I do not have the patience for that, but I do sometimes paint the same subject more than once, almost like practicing. I find the second time around I begin to internalize the subject, the values, the refinement of the composition. I have painted the view from my windows over and over, and each time it is different.

In Just Spring   oil on canvas with tissue underlay

Glimpse of Glory     oil on clayboard

The triptych above, three 8" x 8" blocks, and the next painting are just two examples of paintings I have done of the view from the house. The triptych is the image I used for a show postcard some years back. Both of these pieces sold at different galleries.

3. Get away from your work--- move back and view it from a distance as often as possible. That’s why it is better to stand than sit to paint, but with some stenosis problems, I cannot do that too often. Turn your piece upside down at look at it, viewing the masses, the colors, the shapes, hues and values instead of the subject matter. Squint and get a hazy, value-blocked-in view.

As a corollary, look at the big picture, and try to stay clear of minutia, tiny details, which really do not matter that much, unless it is the final highlights that can really pop the painting. I find that by standing back and painting, I free myself, and use my arm and eye rather than my hands and fingers to paint. Another thing that has freed my eye is to paint triptychs--- somehow the idea of one panel flowing into another, without the confinement of edges, is very liberating.

October Silence     oil on canvas

 Above is asmall triptych, three 4" x 4" blocks. It was in the show at Skidmore's Tang Museum and featured in the college on line newsletter with my website selected by an art faculty member as website of the month. I was very pleased! It is currently in the Gilded Edge Gallery in Hanover, NH.   In any case, an example the freedom that this form allows me. 

4. Never ever underestimate the power of composition in a painting.  . No matter how well a piece is painted, without a good composition it will fail.

5. Keep two or three paintings going at once, so that one can be drying as another one is being worked. When working on a number of paintings at the same time, they may be painted simultaneously but they are frequently dissimilar, taking off in completely different directions. It keeps the mind active!

6. Every now and then, try to get out of your vacuum. Artists work alone, and often lack the input and valuable give and take that is so important to their work. Gather a few artist friends and get together and critique each other’s work, or hire an art professor to come in and do it for a small group. Bring in your problematic pieces, and let him or her have at them. Another good idea is to create an art blog such as this one and post your work, and ask for feedback.