a multi-disciplinary dialog
I have been placed under oath to endeavor a cleansing of my own Augean Stables. There’s a lot of stuff around that could cause my heirs a world of headaches if left for them to handle.
To that end I have been rooting things out of their various hiding holes and exposing them to the light of day, thereupon to pass judgment. One category of item is cast plaster of which this is a gathering.
I’m back from the road trip, muddling about until my body decides it’s home.
Muddling about includes mulling over ideas, thoughts, notions, and niggles that life has handed me. Here’s a set of thoughts that I’ve maundered through in the last few days.
People, making conversation with the plein air worker, often ask “How long have you been painting?” My stock answer is “Oh, about 5 years.”
But I was cleaning up some old piles of stuff today, and ran across a whole covey of watercolors and acrylics that were dated 1999. Now my math is bad, but not that bad. Somehow time, or memory, had gotten short-circuited. I remember the class now; it was “painting the figure in watercolor,” and I stumbled into it by mistake, much, I suspect, to the horror of the very nice instructor.
Rosie, Winter, 1999, watercolor, 15 x 22″
Steve’s recent post: “Light, Dark, Figure, Ground” presents a fine example of dappling as the tree in question seems to dissolve in patterns of light and shade.
The name “Forest City”, applies well to large areas of Greater Cleveland. Our property in Cleveland Heights is rather woodsy and can produce an array of shadow effects. This dappling is a constant source of fascination and subject matter. This morning it was the side of the house.
I’m on the road with Jer, working on painting scenes from many tiny hamlets in the high desert of eastern Oregon. We started on Monday, it is now Thursday, and I have eight 12 x 16″ plein air oil paintings in my boxes in the back of the Honda. I also have a peeling nose (in spite of all precautions against the sun) and a whole set of images, some photos, some memories, of Oregon’s outback.The paintings are too raw to be shown right now, but here are some photos of things I painted:
The Heppner, Oregon, courthouse and uplands
The Condon Library and Lennox Heating and Cooling Store (circa 1903, erstwhile bank and saloon)
Allow me to report on my progress, or lack of it, with the question and answer theme.
The idea has been to create a chain form, corresponding to a sequence of events; in this case questions and answers.
Scattered about my workplace are various takes on the letters “a” and “q”, done up in a number of fonts, sizes and materials. These have been strung together in attempts to find the right combination of variety, legibility and sparkle.
Early attempts emphasized strong interactions of color and form. They were entertaining, but the underlying call and response theme that I was after tended to get lost in the visual noise.
In this iteration I’m trying to standardize somewhat by choosing block letter forms and a monochrome finish. Last I counted there were three of each letter, which when tied together creates a tight mass.
The Clarno Palisades and Ranger Station, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, oil on board, 12 x 16 , May 2008
