New Work

I haven’t posted here in a while but I have some new work to share.

My part-time classes at The Atelier in Minneapolis have significantly improved my portrait work. It really is the best investment I’ve made in my arts education.

I feel that I have a more complete understanding for charcoal now, and I can use it in a way that is more masterful than I ever learned in my liberal arts degree.

Oil paint is the next medium I will tackle in class. I can’t wait to take up a brush and apply these same techniques.

This is a portrait of my husband:

Portrait of M by A.M. Downs
Charcoal and chalk on tinted paper, 10 x 12 inches.

(See a larger version BY CLICKING HERE.)

I have been working on two projects lately with my favorite model, each with a different medium.

Watercolor:

Not Afraid of Snakes, by A.M. Downs
Watercolor on paper.

I love watercolor for its instant gratification. Watercolor is all about transparency and interplay of light and dark. The layers build up in luminous washes of pigment. I take time to plan ahead where I’m going to put each layer of color; it’s less forgiving than oil in some ways and requires a different sort of concentration. I can’t sit around and think about each brushstroke like I can with oil paint. Watercolor spreads quickly and dries fast. I would definitely say there is a ‘sketchy’ quality to it but the watery, pooling finish makes me happy with the results.

My other project is an oil painting, an ongoing project with the same model:

It is far from finished but it’s going in a direction I like; it’s a learning tool. I am adding layers gradually. I’ve been working on this for about 2 months and the model is patient and good at standing. That sounds odd, but it’s harder than you might think. She’s an artist herself and knows what is required for this kind of pose.

Though I enjoy both watercolor and oil, I will produce more watercolor paintings simply because they have a faster finish than oil for me. I’m going to keep pushing at the oil paints though. I love the viscosity of oil and the work involved.

Atelier Update

Winter is a hard time of year for me. I live in Minnesota and though I love the snow, I lose a lot of motivation in favor of sleep and trying to stay warm (because it’s cold and dark outside, dontcha know!).

With all the preparations for the upcoming Christmas holiday, my hands are in about 20 different projects and none of them are paintings. But I’m still doing what I can with what little free time I have available:

I’m making gradual progress on this drawing. The measurements are correct and I’m beginning to add details. Every curve, shadow and nuance is an effort to commit accurate values to paper.

This is how I began, back in July:

It grows slowly into something more ‘real’ as I work on it. I used to be easily frustrated by the slow process. As time has passed, I’ve realized that finishing the drawing is not the point. The learning process is more important.

I know students at The Atelier who have been painting the same canvas for three years or more. Every session yields a small change, sometimes a step forward and sometimes a step back, but there is always something to be learned.

Any great endeavor takes time, effort and constant adjustments. This applies to anything truly important, whether it’s cultivating a healthy long-term relationship, creating a brilliant painting or learning to read. Being “done” is beside the point. There is no “done” until you’re dead.

Excerpts from “Twilight of Painting”

I’ve been reading Twilight of Painting by R.H. Ives Gammell. Gammell was a painter who taught Richard Lack, the founder of The Atelier where I’m taking art classes. The book is astoundingly relevant to Art, even today, fifty years after its publication.

The passage posted below resonates with my learning experiences. I’ve been surprised by the leaps in skill I’ve experienced since beginning formal training (even part-time makes such a difference). My observation of others’ art is developing in tandem. I can pick out ‘good’ passages vs. bad ones in a portrait or still life. I recognize superior workmanship now in a way that made no sense two years ago. Now if only I could bend paint to my will and make it do exactly as I wish…but that will come in time too.

In painting, esthetic perception and the ability to execute develop almost simultaneously, the one only slightly in advance of the other. For instance, as a painter learns to perceive shapes correctly he acquires the ability to render them correctly on paper or canvas. At about the same time he becomes aware of the degree and quality of the correctness of the shapes made by other painters and realizes how imperceptible these differences had previously been to him. [...] A student’s progress seems to him like the falling of successive scales from his eyes. [...] It is, in fact, only after his eyes have acquired a fairly high degree of sensitivity, which is to say, when he can paint fairly well, that a student realizes the overwhelming difficulty of painting.

Art lovers today often forget that pictures were formerly painted to fulfill certain specified requirements, such as telling a story, recording the appearance of an individual or enhancing the interior of architecture of a building. The pictures most successfully fulfilling these or similar requirements are the ones which were later rated as works of art. The working methods traceable in the pictures themselves, the surviving records, and the traditions of the studios, all indicate that the men who painted these pictures were chiefly concerned with turning out good jobs. If any of them were consciously trying to produce ‘art’, they held this as a secondary objective. Painters learned to consider pictures in terms of good and bad jobs before even raising the question of their being good or bad art. […] Pictures which fulfill their purpose supremely well – in other words, the good jobs – have a way of coming back in favor again and again. The bad jobs disappear at the first shift of fashion and do not return.

That is why workmanship, in the fullest and broadest sense of the term, remains the persisting factor common to all the pictures which have been highly prized as works of art over long periods of time, regardless of when or where they were painted.

I don’t agree with every observation that Gammell presents but most of his arguments resonate with thought, experience and a sense of history that most Modern and post-Modern ‘art critics’ have missed. Art is, first and foremost, defined by superior workmanship.

Finished drawing.

This is finally finished:

E’s Back, by A.M. Downs
Charcoal on paper, 14 x 17 inches.

I’m mostly pleased with this drawing. The hair turned out well. The fabric seems a bit cartoonish but I didn’t want to overly-refine it since the focus is the model’s back, not the drapery. I love this model. She’s totally comfortable with me and knows how to be a ‘presence’ in a room without looking unnatural.

This will become a painting soon. I liked making the drawing so much that I want to dive into a colored canvas immediately. The pose is simple but the lighting lends a mood that appeals to me; melancholy and intimate, like the viewer just passed a doorway and caught a glimpse of her figure.

I’ve been reading a lot about ‘classical realism’ lately and have decided I like the term ‘optical realism’ because ‘classical realism’ is at odds with itself. The original Classicists idealized the human form and the world they observed. They used natural elements but erased all flaws in pursuit of an Ideal. True Realists balked at that idea and sought to portray reality with all the grit of daily life attached. They didn’t want myths, they wanted reality in their art.

I like beauty for beauty’s sake. But I also live in this time and place, so I can’t help but portray the reality of this experience…here and now. Human experience is common across the centuries. We love, we ache, we tire, we fight, we dream of noble things while we live primal lives. I want to paint those themes of human experience through the filter of how I live in this time.

Close observation has always been the root of great discovery. It is how science, history and art have been established. If you toss out observation, you are left with a muddy un-truth. I want to paint my truth.

Charcoal, how I love thee.

My art has improved in leaps and bounds since I began classes at The Atelier last fall. I’ve been drawing plaster casts in class, using charcoal as a medium. Though I haven’t participated in drawing live models at The Atelier, I’ve been working in my home studio with models and the same techniques apply. My goals lean toward portraiture and figurative work so I’m digging in with both hands.

My college education allowed me to work with different media in a broad sense but no one ever showed me the nuances of working with charcoal until now. Suddenly, a medium I hated in college is my new best friend. I’ve learned to be patient, use a light hand and think about each stroke I put on the paper in relation to the whole picture.

I’ve been working on a variety of drawings as preparation for paintings. Painting is my ultimate goal but I’ve been enjoying working with charcoal so much, color is almost beside the point. I want to give my drawings the same attention to detail and form that I would a painting. Lack of color doesn’t mean a lack of detail. Values need to be established first and the rest will follow.

This is still a work in progress but I’m enjoying the play of light and shadows on the figure. The light in her hair presented new problems for me. I’m very happy with how I worked the shadows to create an illusion of platinum blonde spikes of hair. The rough background gives a sense of movement. I want to refine it further but not to the point of deadening the space. I hope to make my drawings breathe and move a little.

Blue skies

I’ve been working on and off since July on this painting and finally arrived at a point where I’m happy with it. After two more years of atelier training, I’ll probably cringe at the sight of it. But for now, I’m very pleased with the color and style. The background began with a bright base of phthalo blue. It was too vivid so I glazed with ultramarine mixed with a hint of yellow and Payne’s gray. The clouds are a variation on these tones with more white added.

The photo here is top-lit so the color is washed out a bit near the top of the canvas. I will wait a few days for this to dry, then coat with retouching varnish to check the colors again. I want the feet to really pop forward.

My grandfather passed away in March of this year. We were very close. I was in the thick of painting a Vanitas which was suddenly depressing subject matter for me. I needed to make something uplifting, to ruminate on brighter thoughts after wallowing in death and sadness. What could be more whimsical than feet?

There is a quote in Room with a View that is my favorite:

“My father says that there is only one perfect view, that of the sky over our heads.”

“I suspect your father has been reading too much Dante.”

Clouds represent freedom to me. I live in a flat place with no mountains to obstruct my view. The sky is limitless, vast and ever-changing. I have hope that heaven is like that too. The next Great Adventure.

…Now to corner my toddler for some reference photos for child’s feet. I’m going to experiment with mood, colors and more people hovering in the sky.

Emily.

My friend Emily, a portrait sketch:

I am going to refine the glasses perched on her head and her shirt but I like the unfinished, quick quality of the charcoal here. Her face is smoother than the rest, giving some focus to the drawing. One of her eyes, plunged in shadow, is just barely visible. I also want to add her signature earrings; she has a dozen silver hoops at least.

I’ve been obsessing over John Singer Sargent lately, reading biographies, historical accounts and staring at drawings and paintings until my eyes blur. I have a crush on a man long-dead (nothing new, it was Aubrey Beardsley in college). Sargent’s work is still fresh and relevant today. That’s how every artist wants to be remembered.

Right now I just want Emily to like her portrait.

Portrait beginnings

One of my best friends has agreed to sit for me for a portrait. I sketched her, took reference photos and began working with a pose I liked with high contrast in the values. This is the preliminary sketch after about seven hours of work:

I will spend many more hours on this sketch until the lines are smoothed, the values accurate and the facial planes are familiar. The left side of her face is plunged deep in shadow but there are still hints of her features emerging on that side. If I can capture it in charcoal, then I can begin thinking in terms of color for an oil portrait.

Atelier classes.

I’m taking a class at The Atelier in Minneapolis.  My first class there culminated in this drawing of a plaster bust of Caesar. I completely enjoyed the learning experience and my painting and drawing in my home studio have improved dramatically.

I’m currently working on a new drawing at The Atelier, a bust of the Virgin Mary:

Obviously, it’s far from finished. This will eventually build from a drawing to a painting. It may take several years to complete but that is the nature of this type of class. I’m excited to see how this intensive study will change and improve my style.