New Work in the studio

Here's a couple from the new Italia Series, acrylic on paper.

I was inspired to name this series after listening to Chris Botti's CD "Italia". Check him out

How big a role does music play in your studio? For me it's huge. I listen to a wide variety of music and often work on a series based on a piece of music. I'm likely to have a Johnny Cash piece playing right after an aria by Placido Domingo.

Music truly does calm the savage beast, but it also wakes up my creative beast!

Using the Old Masters for Composition

As an abstract painting teacher, I am often asked by my students "what should I paint?" I like to use the world around me as source material and in particular the Old Masters. Old Master paintings by Rembrandt or Titan or Vermeer can provide a wealth of composition exercises to get your brain working. Here's an example of how I use these. First, take the beautiful painting "Saskia" by Rembrandt.

Now, I've cropped a piece out.

Then after manipulating it in Photoshop this is what it looks like. Now granted this isn't the best abstract painting I've ever done, but it gives me something to work with. I could use this painting and build an entire series from it, doing several paintings as an homage, if you will, to Rembrandt. Try this for yourself and see. Pick any artist you admire and crop small pieces out of their painting. Then manipulate it and work on it to make your own vision from it. This is an old and honored tradition among artists, re-interpreting their ancestors.

Take the work below by Picasso "Portrait of a Young Girl" Now look at the inspiration for this piece by Cranach the Younger. The possibilities are really unlimited. Find your inspiriation wherever you need to!

Using the Old Masters for Composition

As an abstract painting teacher, I am often asked by my students "what should I paint?" I like to use the world around me as source material and in particular the Old Masters. Old Master paintings by Rembrandt or Titan or Vermeer can provide a wealth of composition exercises to get your brain working. Here's an example of how I use these. First, take the beautiful painting "Saskia" by Rembrandt.

Now, I've cropped a piece out.

Then after manipulating it in Photoshop this is what it looks like. Now granted this isn't the best abstract painting I've ever done, but it gives me something to work with. I could use this painting and build an entire series from it, doing several paintings as an homage, if you will, to Rembrandt. Try this for yourself and see. Pick any artist you admire and crop small pieces out of their painting. Then manipulate it and work on it to make your own vision from it. This is an old and honored tradition among artists, re-interpreting their ancestors.

Take the work below by Picasso "Portrait of a Young Girl" Now look at the inspiration for this piece by Cranach the Younger. The possibilities are really unlimited. Find your inspiriation wherever you need to!

Looking for the "look"

Having made it thru the summer with a couple of big curves thrown at me from the Universe... family member's really serious medical stuff, moving Mom in to live with me.... I'm now back in the studio and painting. Not as much as I should but it's happening. And the object has completely disappeared from my work. I knew it would happen but I just didn't expect it so soon. I've been moving into color field work at a snail's pace really. I spent several years working on the Big Street Series and all of a sudden...poof! no more object on the picture plane.

It reminds me of when I made the final leap from abstract landscape a la Diebenkorn to abstract flattened space. The horizon line starting creeping up the canvas and eventually disappeared entirely, so there was no more reference to a landscape on the painting It really surprised the heck out of me. That darn horizon line just fell right off the canvas. Now all the objects have fallen off the canvas. It's a little disconcerting actually. Once again I'm faced with that bugaboo about a "style" or a "look". If you look at the work I was doing last year this time, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the three paintings I'm working on currently. So I have to wonder, what the heck does that mean? Do I have a short attention span? Am I "stylistically" challenged? Do I get bored easily?

What I really think is...I'm restless and curious. Or at least I hope that's the reason. I feel as though I always have a new path to explore and I get a big kick out of finding out what's around the next bend. What if I did this? What if I started painting by piling loads of paint onto the canvas and dragging it around and over and beneath?

What I'm finding out is: first, it's a lot harder to paint without an object reference than it looks. How do you hold the interest of the viewer? Heck, how do I hold my own interest just moving paint around. Actually I'm fascinated by it. The way it blends and the colors moving into one another. I have to really stay on top of my color game when working this way. There is no accident happening here. It's thoroughly planned out. And I have to use a very tight palette, two maybe three colors, no more. Of course, the layers are key. One color on top of another and blending into the one beneath. It's actually an exciting way to work because it requires so much concentration and so much technical thinking. I can't just fling paint around and expect it to work.

So, I guess I'm just a formalist after all. Ha! And all this time I thought it was about process. ;-)

Looking for the "look"

Having made it thru the summer with a couple of big curves thrown at me from the Universe... family member's really serious medical stuff, moving Mom in to live with me.... I'm now back in the studio and painting. Not as much as I should but it's happening. And the object has completely disappeared from my work. I knew it would happen but I just didn't expect it so soon. I've been moving into color field work at a snail's pace really. I spent several years working on the Big Street Series and all of a sudden...poof! no more object on the picture plane.

It reminds me of when I made the final leap from abstract landscape a la Diebenkorn to abstract flattened space. The horizon line starting creeping up the canvas and eventually disappeared entirely, so there was no more reference to a landscape on the painting It really surprised the heck out of me. That darn horizon line just fell right off the canvas. Now all the objects have fallen off the canvas. It's a little disconcerting actually. Once again I'm faced with that bugaboo about a "style" or a "look". If you look at the work I was doing last year this time, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the three paintings I'm working on currently. So I have to wonder, what the heck does that mean? Do I have a short attention span? Am I "stylistically" challenged? Do I get bored easily?

What I really think is...I'm restless and curious. Or at least I hope that's the reason. I feel as though I always have a new path to explore and I get a big kick out of finding out what's around the next bend. What if I did this? What if I started painting by piling loads of paint onto the canvas and dragging it around and over and beneath?

What I'm finding out is: first, it's a lot harder to paint without an object reference than it looks. How do you hold the interest of the viewer? Heck, how do I hold my own interest just moving paint around. Actually I'm fascinated by it. The way it blends and the colors moving into one another. I have to really stay on top of my color game when working this way. There is no accident happening here. It's thoroughly planned out. And I have to use a very tight palette, two maybe three colors, no more. Of course, the layers are key. One color on top of another and blending into the one beneath. It's actually an exciting way to work because it requires so much concentration and so much technical thinking. I can't just fling paint around and expect it to work.

So, I guess I'm just a formalist after all. Ha! And all this time I thought it was about process. ;-)

In the Zone... sorta

Under intense pressure to meet a deadline, I managed to amaze myself recently. I was cooking in the studio, working 10-12 hours. Painting like a real fiend. Then I hit the wall. Oh, I got all the paintings out on time and they looked damn fine, if I do say so myself, but I blew a really important meeting. Just completely mixed up the day, time, everything. Hit the wall doing 90 miles an hour. Ouch.

So, now I have picked myself up, dusted myself off, and started painting again. When you hit the wall going that fast, you have to get up and check for bruises. So far, so good.

Being a working artist is not for sissies!

In the Zone... sorta

Under intense pressure to meet a deadline, I managed to amaze myself recently. I was cooking in the studio, working 10-12 hours. Painting like a real fiend. Then I hit the wall. Oh, I got all the paintings out on time and they looked damn fine, if I do say so myself, but I blew a really important meeting. Just completely mixed up the day, time, everything. Hit the wall doing 90 miles an hour. Ouch.

So, now I have picked myself up, dusted myself off, and started painting again. When you hit the wall going that fast, you have to get up and check for bruises. So far, so good.

Being a working artist is not for sissies!

Art: The Great Communicator

I received a comment from a painter, Julian about my post on the Myth of the Artist (see below). Julian lives and works in Texas and in my opinion, is a talented painter. Julian and I are about as different as you can get, yet we are corresponding simply because we are both artists. Art has the power to transcend boundaries of gender, geography, age, religion, race, you name it. It can even transcend fear. Here's how I know:

Back when I was in grad school, one of my teachers told me I had to do an internship as a teacher in the community, some sort of community based program. I ended up at the old Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco. Somehow I got into the Radiation/Chemotherapy Program for cancer patients.
All sorts of people were there; women and men, children with their parents, husbands waiting for wives. The same folks showed up for chemo or radiation on a regular basis. Some of them didn't come back after awhile and I would find out that they had died. It was hard to keep going to the clinic, but I was determined to complete the internship.

I diligently schlepped all my art supplies into the clinic every week and set up a table for the patients to paint at. No one came to my table. Every once in awhile some brave soul would sit down and doodle on a piece of paper. I started schelpping less and less stuff each week. Finally, I showed up with nothing but a sketch pad and a pencil. I sat in the plastic patient chairs, next to the folks getting radiation or chemotherapy and I sketched the nurses' station, over and over again. The same computer monitor and potted plant.

The people sitting next to me would invariably ask me what I was drawing, looking over my shoulder. And we would chat about my drawing at first, then they would talk to me about their wife or husband, or their child, getting treatment. They spoke about their fears, their anger, their frustrations. I just kept drawing, the same plant and computer over and over again. They told me about their anniversary party, their kid's baseball team. All sorts of little intimate stories. And me, a complete stranger, a safe ear, I just listened and drew. Would they have talked to me if I had been reading a book? Probably not. That's a closed door. But the drawing was an open conduit and they just talked and talked.

Try it for yourself. Take a sketchpad and pencil to a coffeeshop or a park, see if someone doesn't come up to you and strike up a conversation about your drawing or painting. It happens all the time to painters who paint on location. Why? I think it's because art is the great communicator. What do you think?

Art: The Great Communicator

I received a comment from a painter, Julian about my post on the Myth of the Artist (see below). Julian lives and works in Texas and in my opinion, is a talented painter. Julian and I are about as different as you can get, yet we are corresponding simply because we are both artists. Art has the power to transcend boundaries of gender, geography, age, religion, race, you name it. It can even transcend fear. Here's how I know:

Back when I was in grad school, one of my teachers told me I had to do an internship as a teacher in the community, some sort of community based program. I ended up at the old Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco. Somehow I got into the Radiation/Chemotherapy Program for cancer patients.
All sorts of people were there; women and men, children with their parents, husbands waiting for wives. The same folks showed up for chemo or radiation on a regular basis. Some of them didn't come back after awhile and I would find out that they had died. It was hard to keep going to the clinic, but I was determined to complete the internship.

I diligently schlepped all my art supplies into the clinic every week and set up a table for the patients to paint at. No one came to my table. Every once in awhile some brave soul would sit down and doodle on a piece of paper. I started schelpping less and less stuff each week. Finally, I showed up with nothing but a sketch pad and a pencil. I sat in the plastic patient chairs, next to the folks getting radiation or chemotherapy and I sketched the nurses' station, over and over again. The same computer monitor and potted plant.

The people sitting next to me would invariably ask me what I was drawing, looking over my shoulder. And we would chat about my drawing at first, then they would talk to me about their wife or husband, or their child, getting treatment. They spoke about their fears, their anger, their frustrations. I just kept drawing, the same plant and computer over and over again. They told me about their anniversary party, their kid's baseball team. All sorts of little intimate stories. And me, a complete stranger, a safe ear, I just listened and drew. Would they have talked to me if I had been reading a book? Probably not. That's a closed door. But the drawing was an open conduit and they just talked and talked.

Try it for yourself. Take a sketchpad and pencil to a coffeeshop or a park, see if someone doesn't come up to you and strike up a conversation about your drawing or painting. It happens all the time to painters who paint on location. Why? I think it's because art is the great communicator. What do you think?

Looking for the finished painting...

There is a moment when the painting is finished and I recognize it. I'm not sure I can put it into words - but it's a recognizable feeling. Like finishing a good meal. There is a sense of satisfaction. In order to catch the moment though, you have to be watching for it, looking for it.



Too often I see students painting for the entire three hours of a class. Layer after layer of paint, putting it on, scraping it off, putting more on. I'm sure that many good paintings get painted over in this fashion. Because after all, as painters we like to paint! I love moving the paint around, getting excited about getting just the right color, the right shape. But, unless I'm very careful and watch for it, I will miss the completion point of the painting and paint right over it.



So, my recommendation (to myself and anyone else who cares to listen) is paint less and look more. Spend at least as much time looking as you do painting, and probably more. More time looking, less painting. Seems strange for a painter to look more than paint, but really, if we don't slow down, we could just miss the end of the painting.

Looking for the finished painting...

There is a moment when the painting is finished and I recognize it. I'm not sure I can put it into words - but it's a recognizable feeling. Like finishing a good meal. There is a sense of satisfaction. In order to catch the moment though, you have to be watching for it, looking for it.



Too often I see students painting for the entire three hours of a class. Layer after layer of paint, putting it on, scraping it off, putting more on. I'm sure that many good paintings get painted over in this fashion. Because after all, as painters we like to paint! I love moving the paint around, getting excited about getting just the right color, the right shape. But, unless I'm very careful and watch for it, I will miss the completion point of the painting and paint right over it.



So, my recommendation (to myself and anyone else who cares to listen) is paint less and look more. Spend at least as much time looking as you do painting, and probably more. More time looking, less painting. Seems strange for a painter to look more than paint, but really, if we don't slow down, we could just miss the end of the painting.

Art and Surrender

I teach a class called "Painting from the Soul" it is my favorite class to teach. It's a 3-5 day boot camp for creativity and I have seen it change peoples lives. I get fan mail and love letters after people take this class. And I'm only the gate keeper. I just open the door. You can do this for yourself if you have the courage to surrender. Isn't it funny that surrendering requires courage? It really does though. What is it about us as artists that makes us so afraid of failure? After all, it's only paint on canvas. It can always be painted over, gessoed over, cut up and thrown away.

So I'm asking you to play along with me, suspend your judge and jury and go into the studio and dance yourself silly and play with your paint and brushes, lie down on the floor and paint with your toes. Whatever makes you happy. Just surrender.

Let me know how it goes.

Art and Surrender

I teach a class called "Painting from the Soul" it is my favorite class to teach. It's a 3-5 day boot camp for creativity and I have seen it change peoples lives. I get fan mail and love letters after people take this class. And I'm only the gate keeper. I just open the door. You can do this for yourself if you have the courage to surrender. Isn't it funny that surrendering requires courage? It really does though. What is it about us as artists that makes us so afraid of failure? After all, it's only paint on canvas. It can always be painted over, gessoed over, cut up and thrown away.

So I'm asking you to play along with me, suspend your judge and jury and go into the studio and dance yourself silly and play with your paint and brushes, lie down on the floor and paint with your toes. Whatever makes you happy. Just surrender.

Let me know how it goes.