Category: Art Events Blog

Sometimes sitting down with a friend and talking about art and inspiration with an occasional focus into current art production makes for an interesting and joyful evening.  This is what happened at the February critique.  I was expecting a bunch of people given some conversations I’ve had lately, the interest in the critique group and an element of winter/spring enthusiasm, but alas (and to my delight) ‘all’ that showed up was Thom.  He brought two of his latest works that were deriviatives of the one painting he brought in for the February critique.

The subject matter is Global Warming for both paintings which place the piece within the fold of a narrative.  The narrative focuses on the affect from the Global Warming phenomenon on the human figure.  The figures are acted upon by an array of external forces graphically described with lines, and geometric shapes.  Since it was ‘just’ Thom and me, I will speak from the first person, I liked the division of space very much.  Both positive and negative space was well resolved thus leaving room for more or less emphasis with the context of the work.  There is a dialog between the figures and the geometry of the motif that still needs to be resolved to have a fully harmonist image. My suggestion was to either make the figures more dominant, or pushing the geometric partitioning of space more; the former would be preferred.  Greater emphasis on the saturation of color and building up of paint could add additional impact to the eye of the viewer.  Also, paying close attention to the values of the lines will harmonize the whole of the image by provide greater emphasis on the large shapes.  There is an interesting textural quality of the mark making that should not be lost with further working of the painting.

The second Global warming painting, though less developed than the first one, is beautifully laid out.  It has been worked on since the critique, so I was pleasantly surprised by the image that he sent and how it has developed beyond his first showing of the painting.  When Thom sent me the pics he wrote, “The second one is more developed from painting today, but still at stage 2.”]  I look forward to future stages, but for now there is greater distinction between the figure and the shapes than the first one.  This adds clarity to the theme and at the same time leaving some ambiguity that will challenge the viewer.  It will be interesting to see how it will develop in character, motif and color scheme from the first one.

I’ve been repainting the Shipley En Plein Air series as a preparation for a larger painting of the same Subject.  I try hard not to change the painting colors and/or values in any way, just add volume to the applied paint and clarity to the image.  When repainting an en plein air painting it is difficult to be exact, but in many cases the ‘muddied’ painted areas need clarification, with that in mind, I allow for some additional interpretation of the motif extracted from my memory and attempt to repaint from that memory.  In any case, Thom likes the repaints (I completed all 12 of them) and he is particularly interested in the deep shadows.  As a technical note, I prefer to use alizarin crimson and phalo green for my darker shadows and I modulate the warmth, and tones, by using cadmium red and/or ultramarine blue.  In addition, a large variety of mark making is lacking from the surface treatment which flattens the space between background, middle ground and foreground, alternately there does exists enough values shifts from those partitioned spaces to elude to the illusion of depth.

Many things are discussed at this particular critique, as two friends will do when the wine begins to flow freely; we covered subjects from painting techniques to spiritual development to healing through the arts, but all in all it was a great time.  We look forward to your comments and perhaps attending the next critique.

A friend of mine and I attended the Art Walk in San Pedro last Thursday night (2/2/2012) and I was compelled to write this blog.  I write this not because of the Artwalk itself; though it was an eclectic mix of contemporary, folk and decorative arts was worth the effort.  I’m not writing because of the rich cultural diversity of the art where combinations of Latino, Asian and European art can be found if searched for, and oh yes, I’m not writing about a lifestyle that was inspiring to see as Artist make their way in the art-world through loft living, studio working spaces and commitment to their vision.  What I’m writing about is this gem of an Artist whose use of mixed media materials are above all interesting and whose skill in three-dimensional work is admired by my friend and me.  The Artist’s name is Hiroko, and her Gallery is at 382 W. 7^th St, San Pedro www.hiroko.us.com .  In my eyes she is a deeply visceral Artist whose human figures exemplify our contemporary angst.  The elegance of the figure’s posture as it iseither fighting to free itself from some known or unknown constraint, or introverting within as the figure is burdened by an object’s weight or rope, speaks volumes for our times.  I’m embarrassed to say that this is the first San Pedro Artwalk for my friend and I, but after this discovery (and many other) it will not be our last.

We had another very successful evening of good art, conversation and critiques.

We started with my Still-Life tribute the Renoir’s nude.  This painting is now finished and I was looking forward to some input from the group.  The discussion was very encouraging; there were no suggestion of necessary chances or dislikes.  The group was particularly impressed with the detail in the flowers and the feeling of depth in the background objects.  I spent a lot of time rendering a color relationship between the Renoir photograph figure and the left side leaves;  I’m interested in sustaining a dialog between the two objects, and that did not go without notice.

This painting is finished, so two more to go to finish off the series.

Donna brought a large drawing of Devil’s Postpile which is still in progress.  We collectively agreed that this drawing, like the previous one, has tremendous potential.  The under-drawing is complete and the overdrawing is beginning to define the objects better.  The drawing has a very strong rhythmic quality due the vertical rock formations; thinner more delicate rocks have a very high visual key where the broader more robust vertical rocks have a slower lower key feeling.  I thought one should be cautious about the tree line cutting the drawing in half between the vertical rocks above and the broken rocks below, so I suggested some techniques regarding passage such as placing some rocks within the trees.  There was also some discussion about keeping the colors in balance and paying particularly close attention to values that could enhance the motif.

It will be interesting to see the development and progress in the piece at future critiques.

Thom has been very prolific lately and brought in a bunch of work.  For brevity I placed two of them in the blog.

The first was another painting of Linda’s that Thom is finishing.  This is a very sweat painting and has a lot of merit to the development of the subject.  The color scheme is very attractive and adds a sense of calm and focus to the motif. We felt that some of the drawing of the hands needs to be better defined and the structure in the back (an opened book) doesn’t necessarily read as a book.  There seems to be a lack of definition on the left hand and the fingers seemed large in respect to the face.  We suggested reducing the emphasis on the background book; this would help the figure stand out, but changes to the face should not be made; it was quite wonderful.

The second piece, I thought, was more identifiably Thom.  It is an interesting hieroglyph of a domineering female figure, a subordinate male figure and two groups of figures on a concave and convex arc.   Thom agreed that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done on this painting.  The dominate female is the most resolved object and has some very interesting cubist features.  The groups of figures are the least resolved and need work to either push it further into the background or flatten it into the forward space as a hieroglyph would do; currently it is a bit indecisive and ambiguous.  Suggestions circled around the drawing and rendering nature of the people and not on any color or tonal qualities.  This would have been too premature in its development to add any comments.

This painting is the perfect vehicle for what we are trying to do here, help each other grow in our work as a community of Artist with the goal of enhancing the experience and results of art making.

Hope you enjoyed reading this overview and look forward to any comments you might have.

Ron

A new member joined the group and brought in a wonderful painting of a figure transposed onto a black doorway.  It appeared to be a transcendental figure that seemed to float out of the picture frame; (I thought of Munch’s work when I first saw it.)  The light in the painting is ethereal and wonderful, accented by a strange candle like light to the right.  (My apologize to the Artist(s) for the lack in quality of the photo) There wasn’t much to add to the piece, we agreed that it was a fine work of art and a highlight image for the evening.

 

 

The next painting was a fairly large square painting of handball courts at Goldenwest College. The color structure within the work was very interesting and worked very well as complementary colors.  The mark making held the painting plain together as a cohesive image.  There was some polarity in the objects that drew the eye back and forth from court to court which suggest a need to add passages in the negative space that might lead one away from this visual trap.  It was really good to see how much work the artist is doing now and we all look forward to future work.

The next pieces were two prints that had bits of other print glued onto the surfaces.  These were organic and earthy in nature, with a whimsical approach to the space making for a interesting set of monotypes.  Some comments were made regarding the undefined background space which could perhaps be brought into focus by some additions or value shifts.  There also was talk of more overlapping of the foreground images, but nothing was conclusive.

I showed my latest still life which is still in progress.  I felt good about the background, but the critique mentioned that I needed to relook at the magazine edges on the top right.  There were also comments regarding the edge of the black cloth near the vertical center of the composition.  A softening up of these edges was help avoid the pittfall of taking interest away from the centeral subject.  I was encouraged by the comments regarding the details of the painting and the impasto use of paint.  A few more hours and I can wrap this painting up.

It was a fun night again of sharing our art and opinions.  We are always encouraged and inspired by eachother and look forward to what 2012 will bring.  Please feel free to comment and/or contact me for any additional information.

The highlight of the evening was Donnas’ large dessert scene, 48″ X 72″ that she had worked on for a few months.  It was agreed that there was nothing more to say other than ‘congratulation’.  It is a beautiful drawing with transitions of color and marks that give you the sense of the scene along with the appreciation of the piece as a work of Fine Art.

 

 

She shared her new drawing, roughly same size as the other, which is at its foundational drawing stage, so composition is critical. It was a view of a mountain side with vertical slates of rock that created a pile of rubble at the base of the mountain.   Given the drawing layout and the past drawing’s success we are all looking forward to discussing this new drawing’s growth.

 

 

Thom had been very busy creating a variety of artwork.   Posted here are these small mixed media works, approx. 14″ X 16″, which are whimsical and brilliant in color.  We discussed the difficulty of painting on such a small format and the necessity of keeping the composition balanced.   Some of these paintings were painted over a previous painting, but with the idea of keeping the under-painting as the general motif.  This adds complexity to the attempt to resolve the two styles; the original painted fruit and the over-painted table.  This is particularly apparent with the painting of persimmons.   We discussed how the three dimensional representation of the fruit somehow clashed with the cubist nature of the table.  All in all, we thought the transitions of light, the mark making and color composition made for a nice painting.

 

I showed both the October and November Shipley Nature Center pleinaire paintings, 14″ X 18″.  I had some good comments regarding the need to balance the color over the whole motif.   They were encouraging from the stand point of developing the series (see series Description ‘A Year at Shipley Center’) further (One more to go).

 

 

 

 

I also presented a painting in-work that continued with the compositional still life series (will add a series description soon) The painting is at stage two (basic values and color structure) of development, and the group liked what they saw, is 36″ X 48″.  Some attention will need to be made to the object’s edges.  This provided me with enough input help develop the painting further.

 

These critiques are not meant to give each other a ‘pat on the back’, but to give honest criticism, avoid ‘niceties’ and help to develop us all as Artist; I believe this was achieved.

If you are an Artist, and live within the Orange County area, please feel free to contact me and discuss attending the critique.  We enjoy growing our circle of friends.

It was revealing to revisit and display the collaborative between Tsubasa Berg, Ryan Melchor and myself completed a few years back.  These three collaborations documented relationships of new and old forces contributed to by “bouncing” off the other’s contributions.  Some obstacles were presented and interesting solution was found during this time.  Equally interesting was remembering how we came to those solutions through a process of integration.  As a result, we came together to build up each painting with layers of different ideas that work within a cohesive motif.  We all banded together to create three major themes: the rite of passage, the forces of nature and the power of the painted surface.  We grew through this experience and the work stands on its own as a testament to collaborations. 

Though the collaborative were the main focus of the show additional work was shown.  Some of these paintings were painting by Ryan or me as a direct compliment to the collaborative, while other sexplored science as art.  The complimentary nature of this worked add to the interest in the show. 

These paintings were shown one night only, but are available for showing on request.  Please sue the contact information and feel free to ask questions or request a personal showing.

SYNERGIZING IMAGES a collaboration of three Artists

J. Lewis gallery

906 E Santa Ana Blvd

Santa Ana, California 92701