A Foreign Song II

I had a moody marshland on my mind.  Early morning in bed I was looking at some of my old sketches and paintings and I got this idea for a square format painting – somewhat unusual for me. Here is a quick sequence of photos showing how this painting unfolded:

I work directly on a white canvas in gray-blue that is heavily diluted with Gamsol. The paint is thin and I can control the darkness quite easily. I try to set up and keep a rhythm in the brushstrokes and abstract design. Music helps a lot!

The design is set up…

When I am satisfied with the abstract design and balance (above), I need to start thinking about key color notes or highlights. Since this is an invented landscape, I am free to do what I want in terms of color and value. I try to find a few strategic spots where I can plonk some color:

The key color notes go in…

With that warm orange red and the complement in the blue sky, I feel happy with where the painting is going. The challenge now is not to get to precious and lose the spontaneity in the brush-strokes and design.

The plot thickens…

I have introduced some greens and grays. Here and there I knock down the reds and oranges that are too strong. I start bringing the sky to completion, I carefully watch the values and shape of clouds to contribute to my abstract design.

I also work on the edges of some brush-strokes to direct the eye and preserve harmony. This is the hardest part and takes the longest…I can easily overwork the painting or lose the plot somehow.

A hour or two later, and I am calling this one done. The image makes me feel melancholy-sad-happy, so for my purposes it has succeeded.

Today I spent some time looking back at earlier blog posts. Somewhere in December of 2016 I wrote the following in a blog post entry:

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I have been revisiting John Gray’s book The Silence of Animals. Beautifully written, full of soul but also utterly breaking down the popular Utopian myth of progress and hope.

From my own sporadic journey into meditation, I know that something exists beyond thought-made meaning, beyond words. Gray discusses this from another angle in his chapter “Beyond the Last Thought”:

Accepting that the world is without meaning, we are liberated from confinement in the meanings we have made. Knowing there is nothing of substance in our world may seem to rob that world of value. But this nothingness may be our most precious possession, since it opens to us the world that exists beyond ourselves.

Gray quotes parts of the poem “Of Mere Being” by Wallace Stevens, which elegantly supports his thesis. Here is the entire poem:

Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Wallace Stevens
(this copy from Poetry Foundation)

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Thanks to all who have encouraged me with likes and comments. A special thanks to those who follow my blog . I wish all of you happiness and contentment over this festive season!

If you are interested to see more of my work, follow me on Instagram (@fritzjoosteartist), or to view or buy my work, please visit my gallery on Daily Paintworks.

 

Taken on Trust II

The painting above is yet another view of the road down to my neighbor’s driveway. The photo below shows the source image that lead to this painting.

I pass this scene several times every day – every time I exit our own driveway; but also, my studio door is only about 20 yards away from where this shot was taken. The mountains in the back are known as the Hakarimatas. The play of light and shadow at different times of day under changing light and passing shadow is an endless source of ideas.

For this particular painting, the evening light was so warm and beautiful, particularly the shadows it made on the giant poplars toward the end of the road. I felt this had all the stuff for a striking painting.

I know from experience that if I take a photo or computer into my studio and use that as a reference while painting, I tend to clamp down and become too realistic and controlled. I cannot stand the paintings I produce in that mode!

So my rule – which I keep to about 76.3% of the time – is never to take a source image into my studio. Instead, I study it very carefully beforehand, (outside my studio, normally using my iPad), and note mainly the structure and lie of the landscape.

I also feel into the “emotional concept” I want to convey – in this case (in order of importance): (a) warm sleepy light on waving grass;  (b) mysterious mountains where childhood dreams are awakened again; and (c) deep shadow.

In my studio, I cut a sheet of drawing paper from the 50 m roll I have standing by. I tape this to my easel back-board. This board has dried Gesso and paint on it – so that drawing with this backing is like drawing on rough tree bark. In this way it is absolutely impossible for me to get stuck with detail – I am forced to focus on composition using light and shade.

Here is the drawing – I use only thick charcoal and some grey and white chalk to bring out highlights. The black spots is there the rough backing presses against the paper:

I am quite happy with this image which recalls the essence of my source photo. Sometimes I make four or five of these before I give up or get one I like. In this case, the first drawing attempt is merciful – it suggests to me the focus for the painting, which is the spot of light at middle right where the sun hits the grass as it slopes upward.

Unfortunately I do not have any process shots of this painting, but the very first paint that went down was warm yellow and orange right where my focus point should be. With this down, I put down the dark areas in very rough lines. I get the painting done in about 2 hours, though I am not sure. I tend to completely lose track of time while I work, which is why I forget to take process shots!

Oil on Canvas (11″ x 14″)

On a less practical note – summer days are here. The evenings are longer and I have more time to paint. I continue to ride the alternating waves of confidence and doubt that is life.

Forever wondering about my art, why I do it, what the future holds. I am learning and appreciating the play of doubt and confidence on the heart, just like the light and shadow on the Hakarimatas….

Every day – some days more than others – I have to trust that my paintings, my little efforts, have some meaning.  Trust is a big word in my world. That life could have evolved in a way that it could trust is stupendous.

From a 2016 blog post, two excerpts on trust, from poems I know:

For the mind in harmony with the Tao,
    all selfishness disappears.
With not even a trace of self-doubt,
    you can trust the universe completely.
All at once you are free,
    with nothing left to hold on to.
All is brilliant,
    perfect in its own being.

(from The Mind of Absolute Trust, by Sent-Ts'an;
from The Enlightened Heart)

Schubertiana
...How much we have to take on trust every minute we live in
  order not to drop through the earth!
Take on trust the snow masses clinging to rocksides over the
  town.
Take on trust the unspoken promises, and the smile of
   agreement, trust that the telegram does not concern us, and
that the sudden ax blow from inside is not coming.
Trust the axles we ride on down the thruway among the swarm
  of steel bees magnified three hundred times.
But none of that stuff is really worth the trust we have.
The five string instruments say that we can take something else
   on trust, and they walk with us a bit on the road.
As when the lightbulb goes out on the stair, and the hand
  follows - trusting it - the blind banister rail that finds its
  way in the dark.

Tomas Transtromer (translation Robert Bly), from
The Half Finished Heaven. (Line breaks here are my own).

 

Thanks to all who have encouraged me with likes and comments. A special thanks to those who follow my blog . I wish all of you happiness and contentment.

If you are interested to see more of my work, follow me on Instagram (@fritzjoosteartist), or to view or buy my work, please visit my gallery on Daily Paintworks.