topography and landscape

[^ Landscape with Warehouse. watercolor on T.H. Saunders 90 lb hot press paper. 5 x 7". December 2011.]

"Topography has been defined as the portraiture of places .... whether it be a group of mountains, a stretch of pastoral country, a street in a town, or a gentleman's country seat and will record its features for posterity. Landscape is the imaginative manipulation of natural features such as hills, trees, rivers, fields, clouds, and so forth, into a composition which will be aesthetically pleasing or otherwise impressive. The distinction is one of aim, and in theory it is sharply defined. In practice it is not always so easy to make. Both elements may exist in the same artist, even in the same drawing."
- Iolo A. Williams, Early English Watercolours (ch. 1), 1952

One of the real joys and advantages of watercolor painting is the ability to see results and work through to completion in a relatively short amount of time. It allows for immediacy and directness, with no long waits while layers of paint dry or "set up" as in most oil painting techniques (alla prima being the obvious exception), and no slow layering as in egg tempera. Watercolor allows constant and fast work that only acrylic can match, but with a surface quality I believe is superior for its elegance (apologies to you acrylic painters). Also, I am working within small dimensions which certainly speeds things up. The end result being that I am very happy making these small watercolor paintings depicting specific, recognizable places or vague, perhaps imaginary, impressions --- and sometimes these things merge, as you know --- in colors that can glow like jewels and subtly shift into murk and shadow.

I've been trying my hand at hot pressed watercolor papers, resisting my usual preference for cold pressed, and working through the angst and frustration that this surface causes. The disadvantages it creates can lead to some interesting results and makes me rethink my tendencies and habits with a medium I've learned much about over the past year or two.

it's always there

^ [Port Crane, Brooklyn, NY. watercolor on T.H. Saunders 90 lb cold pressed paper. 5x7". August 2011.]


^ [ Landscape of Shadow and Light. watercolor on T.H. Saunders 90 lb cold pressed paper. 5x7". November 2011.]

^ [Plein air study of New Jersey seen from Brooklyn. Oil on Art Board panel. 5x7". October 2011.]

^ [Plein air study of Brooklyn waterfront landscape. Oil on Art Board panel. 5x7". November 2011.]


"I learned that there's no such thing as a place without a motif for painting: it's always there, and sometimes you have to force yourself to find it instead of having it scream out at you."
- Richard Crozier, Inventing the Landscape: From plein air study to studio painting. Watson-Guptill Publications, 1989.

I have been making a pretty regular habit of plein air painting this summer and autumn, and have a growing amount work to show for it. I know that I am not up to the speed or level of practice that other, more experienced, outdoor painters are at. However, I am steadily gaining more skill at working directly from nature. The four pieces above are some of my efforts. Over the winter they may be the basis for other work. With Tracy's help, the portfolio is being narrowed down to about 15 images to be sent to galleries and to publishers in the hope of gaining freelance work. Both oil and egg tempera paintings will be included alongside watercolors and drawings.

inanimate things

^ [Heirloom Tomatoes. watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold pressed paper. 7 x 10". October 2011.]

^ [Red Cup, Gourd & Seed Pod. watercolor on T.H. Saunders 90 lb cold press paper. 5 x 7". October 2011.]


"By expressing himself through the image of inanimate things, the painter shows his art in all its power. For unless he deliberately charges these things with a symbolic meaning, still life provides no food for the spirit of anecdote. Nor is the painter himself helped out by the associations of ideas which are born of movement - in landscape they spring from the very image of a tree or a cloud - and which propose to the mind a semblance of action."
- Charles Sterling, Still Life Painting: From Antiquity to the Present Time (rev. ed., 1959)

I have had an easier time of it lately with painting and my efforts to tell what I see with a brush in my hand. For me, painting is both recording and interpreting, and it is always interesting to me how these seemingly contradictory approaches combine. I spent a number of hours painting the heirloom tomatoes (shown above), with a gradated saturation of high-keyed color and a birds-eye view which is unusual for me. The second painting, with the cup, was executed quickly and I was pleased with the effect of the contrast between this cheap red plastic cup alongside these natural, organic shapes. I am more comfortable working quickly than I used to be and am more confident putting down a color and leaving it undisturbed. Both methods - gradated washes and the immediate application of one color - are both important techniques that I've been trying to master. I'm slowly getting there.

constantly missing the sight

^ [A Building Is A Ship (work in progress). watercolor on paper. 12x16". September 2011.]

"We are constantly supposing that we see what experience only has shown us, or can show us, to have existence, constantly missing the sight of what we do not know beforehand to be visible : and painters, to the last hours of their lives, are apt to fall in some degree into the error of painting what exists, rather than what they can see."
- John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. I, Ch. II: Truth Not Easily Discerned (1894, 3rd ed.)

An occasional but continuing error of mine in watercolor is a heavy, opaque handling of the paint, which is counter to the transparent nature of the medium in particular and to the subtle, delicate effects atmosphere has on color in particular. I end up painting what I know to be true rather than what I see. A red wall of a building seen at a mile's distance is unlikely to appear as a true saturated red because atmosphere, even on a clear day, is likely to influence the perception of color and shape, softening them if only a little. Adjustments to color, tone (where it falls in relation to light and dark), and shape --- more specifically, the edges of the shape --- are necessary to properly render optical distortions caused by distance and atmosphere.

This watercolor is an attempt to paint larger than I often do. It is of a building visible from the apartment window facing approximately south-west, a subject I keep returning to. I'm always looking at it, this big awkward building that looks very solid and fortress-like, the exterior weathered and stained and ugly. But while I still cannot paint trees, and my depiction of buildings is sometimes clumsy, my continuing efforts to render atmosphere and its effects on distant objects are with some success. Since this painting is now overworked, I'll leave off it and start another of the same subject. It's not a complete loss, though, and is worth posting here, despite it's being incomplete.

Bullock Online takes off the month of August. See you in September.

all things as they recede

[color study: marshes and industrial landscape, North Jersey, May 2009. watercolor on paper. 4x6"]


"We have said before that all things as they recede from us into the atmosphere become (generally) lighter and cooler. This truth is very easily observed in this flat plane, and is of more importance in this plane than any other. You might find (to your satisfaction) that some distant patch of flowers or a grain field would look very warm or very red. Paint it very warm or very red, by all means; but since you are trying to paint a receding piece of ground in a landscape, rather than the still-life of the patch of flowers in the distance (or the individual field), be sure to make it stay back where it belongs, even if you have to resort to stratagem."
- John F. Carlson, Elementary Principles of Landscape Painting, Ch. IV: Ariel Perspective (1929)

I found this color study from 2009 of an area in North Jersey, possibly around Secaucus. This is one where I had some success in reducing the view before me into a coherent relationship while remaining truthful to visual facts. The painter's responsibility is to edit the overwhelming amount of visual information in front of him to reveal what would otherwise be lost amid the confusion. Some subjects make this an easier task than others. Physical distance alters perception and simplifies forms while introducing atmospheric influences. The painter simplifies these changes further in order to show them. And when things don't follow the normal rules of optics, for instance when visual distance does not immediately result in a fading and cooling of color and form, then some interesting challenges result.

WordPress Premier of Bullock Online

“What’s gonna happen?”
“Something wonderful.”
- Space Odyssey 2010

Just a quick note to start off the month of June, letting everyone know that I will now also be blogging on WordPress, a site I have been visiting a lot lately and really admiring, so as to come in contact with many more people and also to take advantage of the great services and design that WordPress has to offer. I emphasize the word "also" --- I want to point out that I will continue to blog here on Blogspot. The two blogs will contain almost identical content. The Bullock Online website may be relocated to WordPress soon, after I look a bit more at their software. My current site host has not been satisfactory.

In the next few months some exciting things will be happening. I’ve lost employment and housing, but not opportunities or shelter or love, and so much is up in the air right now — for a lot of people things are pretty rough. But, running headlong into the darkling veil I asked of my future what was going to happen, and it replied “something wonderful”. Selah.

truth

[Pinecone. charcoal on paper, 2007. 5x10"]

"The great artists of all periods, though they have the highest regard for truth, have never regarded truth as identical with deceptive imitation."
- C.J. Holmes, Notes On the Science of Picture Making, Ch. XVII: The Painter's Aims and Ideals (1909)

While packing and moving, I had the chance to go through boxes of sketch books, drawings, and color studies. This charcoal drawing I did four years ago caught my attention. I remember doing it. It's an enjoyable way to pass an hour --- find an object, pick up a pencil or whatever, and draw. Working directly from the object sharpens perception, stimulates the imagination, and should encourage a process of paring down a subject to its essentials. This is, in essence, a form of abstraction, based on observation and knowledge. A realistic abstraction, as such, because all great painting or drawing represents Truth, which need not be expressed (in the words of one critic) in "slavish rendering of surface detail".

the subtlest pleasures of sight

[Seed Pods (Ordinary Objects series). water color on paper. 5 x 7".]

"There is no china painting, no glass painting, no tempera, no oil, wax, varnish, or twenty-chimney-power-extract-of-everything painting which can compare with the quiet and tender virtue of water colour in its proper use and place. There is nothing that obeys the artist's hand so exquisitely; nothing that records the subtlest pleasures of sight so perfectly. All the splendours of the prism and the jewel are vulgar and few compared to the subdued blending of infinite opalescence in finely-inlaid water colour; and the repose of light obtainable by its transparent tints, and absolutely right forms to be rendered by practiced use of its opaque ones, are beyond rivalship, even by the most skillful methods in other media."
- John Ruskin, Letter to the Times, April 14, 1886, reprinted in A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water Colour Pigments, Winsor & Newton, 1887)

I am enjoying working on my little water color paintings these past few weeks, even the failures. Applying myself to a few specific concepts and staying within fairly limited means is yielding some positive results. Water color on a small scale with a minimal palette, of specific subject matter --- either basic still lifes for my Ordinary Objects series (see last month's posting for more on that) or the ever present landscape. Unavoidable circumstances I first saw as restrictions are providing limitations that I needed to come up against so I could get my bearings. Within these circumscribed boundaries is a freedom I was missing in all the endless choices that are otherwise available.


[Landscape: Brooklyn & New Jersey. water color on paper. 7 x 5".]

the form of the idea

[Mason Jar with Plant Cuttings (Ordinary Objects series) 2011. watercolor on paper. 5x7"]


"If we start from the principle that painting cannot be the exact reproduction of nature and that art is essentially a choice, it is evident that the non-essential must be sacrificed to the essential, the form of the idea."
- J.Martin-Barbaz, The Holiday Painter

The other day I was sitting on the sofa and kept glancing at this mason jar in which I've rooted cuttings from one of my plants. It was there on the windowsill and looking quite ordinary. I gave myself about an hour to paint it, and for a while it was not coming together. Several contrasting aspects made it both interesting and a bit difficult to render --- the clear glass mason jar with its highlights, varying thicknesses, and impressed patterns, holding a twisted network of fecund roots, and stems and leaves of rather delicate shapes and colors --- a composition of opposites. The small dimensions and short time frame provided limitations I enjoy working within, and forced me to put down on paper only those elements that were essential to what I saw.

imagine my surprise

On a technical note, I recently discovered that I had mislabeled a color in my 8-color watercolor palette (which has since increased to 12 colors). Imagine my surprise.

This will be of interest only to other painters, perhaps, but since I specified the colors in a previous post and even went so far as to give their manufacturers' product numbers, I need to point out that the red is not Schmincke's Alizarin Crimson (which I had mislabeled as #353, besides calling it the wrong name) but, rather, their Permanent Carmine #353. Their Alizarin Crimson is given the #357 and is a very beautiful color, but not light-fast (being derived from plant material). This is one of the few instances where I make the jump to a modern substitute. It is pointless to pass up an obvious improvement that will help ensure the physical stability of my work.

some prattle

"I always make written notations of the colors: the fundamental local color tones, the color-textures, and jot down some ideas for the use of color sequences --- some prattle about my feelings for the scene. "
- John Sloan, The Gist of Art

Sketches and watercolor studies get down pertinent information about a subject in a brief amount of time. They are a type of shorthand --- information collected quickly to be reworked in the studio at a later date. I sometimes write directly on the watercolor paper and paint on it later, as shown above in the third picture. My notes include abbreviations of colors and a number indicating gray scale tone (1 = white, 10 = black). I keep a #5 gray indicator in my sketchbook to gauge things against. Vocalists find their pitch, we painters find our tone.

Scattered among these flannel days of winter have been some tremendous sunsets, the day's death in pretty colors. At first, I hesitated painting these, but I look to Thomas Cole, Caspar David Friedrich, and other idols of mine, for whom intensely colored sunsets were legitimate subjects --- the Sublime, not Margaritaville.