the realm of observation

Paint what you know. - Andrew Wyeth

Here the danger to be avoided and overcome if it arises is the inevitable temptation to neglect some aspects of the object and to modify others in order to 'impart health to form', which is the beginning of art. We are in the realm of observation and of the mind's effort to describe it.
- Etienne Gilson, Forms and Substances In The Arts

(Still life) does not invent things for its own sake, or indulge in fantasy or caprice. The constant return to familiar things is a mark of sobriety and self-restraint, a refusal to enter into flights of imagination; on the contrary, their aim is to dispel illusion and remind vision of its actual place and powers.
- Norman Bryson, his essay Rhopography in Looking At the Overlooked


I thought these two egg tempera paintings would be an appropriate way to end the year. I was motivated to work in water-based media, specifically egg tempera and watercolor, after moving into a smaller space two years ago. My bedroom is at one end of the room, my work area at the other - - - the typical New York City compromise. So I was forced by necessity to work at a smaller, more manageable scale and to re-orient myself to how I work. The lives of painters can be an unreasonable balancing act, with the artwork always getting too little attention. And periodically we drop out only to resurface later. I have yet to hit my stride but continue to work at this and am making progress. I am pleased with these two paintings (the one of the pine cone is not finished yet) and I am happier with where my efforts stand than I was two years ago. Or even one year, for that matter. But Art is a hungry beast - - - the more you give it the more it demands. With more space, I suppose I would try bigger paintings, but I once had a separate, bigger studio and never got a damn thing done, anyway.

And I used the term "Art" a moment ago. I always found that term a bit pretentious but don't have another to use right now. For me it's Painting, for others it's something else.

But back to my previous comment - - - I started focusing on water-based painting media and really enjoy the control egg tempera affords. I make it fresh with egg yolk and dry pigments and have not developed beyond the initial baby steps. There is a painter by the name of Robert Vickrey whose work in egg tempera is really amazing. And he has completely broken free from the tight, fine cross-hatching technique that has been employed for centuries. To look at his work, you would think it's airbrushed or something, but it's not. I have both his books on egg tempera technique listed in the Materials & Techniques section of my other blog, Bullock Online Library (the link is included nearby). I have started with the traditional process of making the paint fresh in the morning before starting work, developing the slow, patient cross-hatching to render the image. It is time consuming but, also, meditative. If you are not in the right frame of mind "meditative" turns into "maddening" very quickly. If you click on the images, the brush work is magnified.

So this will be my last blog entry for 2008. I hope you all have a blessed and safe New Year.

let alone the sun

Painting is, and must be, a sacrifice of less significant truths in order to obtain truth as a whole. How can we, with our poor pigments, represent the luminous and the infinite gradations seen in nature, either of light and dark or of colour? Black and white, for instance - the pigments which represent for us the extremes of light and darkness - what relation has white paint, seen in the subdued light of room or gallery, where pictures must be seen, to the bright light on the rolling cumulus in the summer heavens; let alone the sun, the source of light, or its reflection on streams or from polished surfaces? Or black, to that intensity of darkness when from sunny daylight we look into some deep cavernous gloom? The same may be said of all pigments which represent colour; they all are sorry substitutes for nature's hues.
- Samuel & Richard Redgrave, A Century of British Painters, 1866


My watercolors tend to be fairly small and immediate. Most are done on the spot with an intuition that can be lacking in my larger, more "finished" work. Beliefs about good painting versus bad can, potentially, morph into an abandonment of instinct, if one is overly conscious of them. The beliefs aren't wrong, just potentially cumbersome. It is terrible to discover your best efforts leading you away from where you want to go. In painting, theory and intent can be your compass or your ball and chain.

Currently, I am at work on a watercolor painting that measures about 19 x 27" - - - the largest I've worked in watercolor. I want to see what I am inclined to do and am able to accomplish at this size. When it is finished I will post it - - good or bad. In the meantime, I don't want to show it "in progress".

The images I included here today are some watercolors I did this summer. Two were done on the spot. The other, the Brooklyn waterfront viewed from lower Manhattan, was started on location and finished in the studio. I'm pretty happy with it. It has a crispness and accuracy that I wanted without losing a sense of atmosphere and ease. I may do a larger version of it later.

learning to see

"We have no visual knowledge of any kind except that of form and space. The dimensions of space determine the world in which we move and live; and space, in turn, is established and defined by the objects or forms that occupy it. The artist, concerned with giving graphic expression to his perceptions and his creative imagination, cannot avoid re-creating form in space, for there can be no visual communication that is formless and spaceless - there can be just nothing at all."
- Graham Collier, Form, Space, and Vision (2nd edition)

"Drawing is learning to see. When we begin, we draw what we think we see..... As we look more closely, we begin to recognize shapes and relationships accurately; we engage with the subject and we begin to read and interpret the marks of the drawing itself, and we allow the subject and the marks of the drawing to guide us through the process. This is the beginning of drawing and learning to see."
- Margaret Krug, An Artist's Handbook: Materials & Techniques

"Form, line, texture, value, and color are the plastic means by which the artist can express graphic ideas. Although the term plastic denotes something formed or molded, as in the three dimensions of sculpture, the draftsman can, by a skillful use of line, texture, and value, create a very real sense of plasticity within the two dimensions of a flat surface."
- Bernard Chaet, The Art of Drawing


I am out and about most days with my sketchbook and nerdy mechanical pencil, finding in groups of buildings and other objects the arrangements of forms and colors that excite my imagination and lead to further study, sometimes resulting in the final layout for a new painting. Recently, I've become really intrigued by egg cartons, of all things. The logical, simplified forms and their relationships to each other in such close proximity was a lot of fun to draw. They are, in essence, architectural. I'm continuing to work on this and have some ideas to do a painting in, of course, egg tempera.

In the above quote, Graham Collier ignores color as part of our "visual knowledge". I don't know why he does. Color affects perception. The appearance of shapes and masses depends, in part, on their color - advancing or receding, standing out in sharp contrast or blending in with the overcast sky. It is an important part of visual knowledge. Sorry, Mr. Collier.

the task prescribed

"Anyone who looks with a pure spirit, with eyes not obfuscated by intellectual passion, could see in a part of nature the 'eternal norms' .... To such a one was evident the 'law according to which the rose and lily blossom', the animal 'type', the leaf, the slow transitions of metamorphosis, the providential memory of Biblical creation. These were the sublimest images that had ever populated the earth. Man must continue to shape, develop, and enrich them within himself, draw them in pictures and books, even if, around him, the elements unleashed their fury.

"The task prescribed for man was to overcome the violence and arbitrariness, sterility and absurdity that accompanied nature, making shine out everywhere the law of the rose and the lily, the perfection of metamorphosis, the harmonious sound of spheres." - Goethe, a biography by Pietro Citati


I work from nature quite a lot because of everything that it throws out at me. I enjoy the weird chaos, even if it's on a low level, of having to contend with the fact that something is in front of me. Which may mean ignoring it, as I sometimes do. Decision making is part of a painter's working process and there is a balance between trying to pack in everything that I can observe, on the one hand, and eliminating the extraneous - - - "what to leave in, what to leave out". These paintings are small and are not much more than note-taking, a kind of short-hand, and are only a step toward an enlarged, reworked, maybe altogether different painting hanging out there somewhere in the future.

Painting at home, I am guilty of being somewhat lazy and habit orientated. Working outdoors can be unpleasant and inconvenient, which is why I do it. It puts me on the spot and forces me to contend with arrangements, patterns, masses, colors, and all kinds of other things that won't come together for me that way when I'm at home and sitting in my chair. There is a whole elemental level that I can start to sink into as the minutes and the hours slip away. I come home afterwards with these little watercolors that I cannot anticipate in the morning.

tardiness will not be tolerated

I was very slow in announcing this blog to family, friends and colleagues and have been spoken to about the importance of staying on top of this now that the blog is up and the website is in preparation. I have received the appropriate punishment and will try to do better in the future.

in a plain way

"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one." - John Ruskin


I did not know who John Ruskin was, and what his work had to offer, until after I left art school (damn you, Tyler!). This was a great shortcoming of my professional education. Ruskin believed that art, craftsmanship, and living are all parts of each other and that only with truthfulness can creativity really be effective. He placed great value on skill, but still greater value on truthfulness. I always keep his writings in mind when I am at work in the studio.