For a long time, I’ve been so unhappy in the studio, and with my work. In fact, feeling miserable was the primary motivation for starting this blog a year or so ago. I wanted to do something that made me feel that I was at least a little bit connected to the outside world, that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘working from life’
Moving House
Posted in Thinking Things Through, Work in Progress, tagged connection, fairfield porter, hopeful, working from life on November 2, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Getting it Wrong
Posted in Thinking Things Through, Work in Progress, tagged fairfield porter, getting it wrong, hopeful, working from life on October 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
My painting is bad enough to warrant constant practice.
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Jack is Back
Posted in Work in Progress, tagged "Jack", alex kanevsky, plants, working from life on May 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I got a new plant to replace the mysteriously blighted vine I was using as a model for this painting in its earlier incarnation. It is a kind of camellia that can grow into quite a large shrub or even a small tree, and which one sees in yards all over Portland. It has dark [...]
Jack & the Beanstalk
Posted in Work in Progress, tagged "Jack", plants, problems, working from life on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I finally started work in earnest on this diptych that I began last fall. I had been waiting till I found and moved into a new studio, because I didn’t want to get all set up and then have to move, which would’ve been disruptive. However, I’ve nonetheless been stymied by an unexpected consequence [...]
Working Methods
Posted in Thinking Things Through, tagged process, working from life on March 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Until recently, I have considered the one of the most important aspects of my work to be the contrast between the smoothly rendered body parts and the more expressionistic passages, what a friend described as “your combination of brushless articulation and gestural painting.” But the more I compare my experience painting in these different ways [...]
Contingency Plan
Posted in Thinking Things Through, tagged working from life on March 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As of recently, I have found working from life to be vital and nourishing in a way I have not previously experienced in my studio practice. Standing there, looking at a plant and making marks in response to it, I am just so . . . happy . . . that it occurred to me [...]
Everything In Its Place
Posted in Thinking Things Through, Work in Progress, tagged still life, working from life on January 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Last week, I started work on a still-life of the stolen apples, and stopped after several hours, in frustration. The set up just wasn’t quite right, the composition did not feel inevitable, and most importantly, I didn’t have that poised but relaxed feeling in my belly telling me that all was well, that I had [...]
Less is More
Posted in Finished Work, Thinking Things Through, tagged watercolor, working from life on December 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am enamored of this greenish yellow color, which goes from a pale verdant gold to a murky, dark algae.
Working in watercolor is good practice for me in doing just enough. In holding back. In stopping. In conceiving something clearly at the outset, and carrying through, not second guessing myself if the process unfolds more [...]
