Category: General

Pastel at the cove…

A quick post from a favorite location. I’m at day two on this pastel painted on the beach at Halona Cove, also known locally as Eternity Beach. It is, as I’ve said, something like trying to paint the inside of a washing machine, but so beautiful that you simply give it your best.

We’ve had the finest three days of weather imaginable, and I’m loaded and ready to go back to work on this today at 2:30. The light drops off quickly down here after it passes behind Koko Crater, and there’s a lot to do on this yet.

My goal is to keep this painting fresh and true…my relationship with pastel is changing some, I’m after a broader look and more energy these days, though I’m uncertain how it’s going to play out. I want to do with a couple strokes what used to take many, which is perhaps impossible. Going to try, anyway.

Halona pastel

untitled 14 x 18″ pastel on paper

I’ll see about getting some work in progress shots today.

Cast painting in oil, revisited

Coming across this beautiful old plaster cast kindled the desire to revisit the discipline of cast drawing. It’s a training exercise for refining one’s ability to see truthfully. The cast itself is a large one from the old days, over three feet across, and molded originally from the South Frieze of the Parthenon, if I’m not mistaken.

Elgin Horse cast Parthenon cast, oil 22 x 24″

I haven’t really touched anything like this in many years, but I do enjoy the discipline and so happily devoted a number of Friday afternoons at the Honolulu Academy school to making this study, for me a rare opportunity. Tall windows cast daylight on the cast and my canvas, which was a good 12′ or more away from my vantage point. The softness of the daylight, as opposed to the hardness of artificial light, comes across in the painting I think.

I decided to approach this as I’d paint any other subjects, because I wanted to see what I’d learned since the early nineties (when I last did this) so I allowed myself to be selective to the degree of “finish” in the study. The background is appropriately sketchy, and the paint is handled as I would in a landscape or portrait, with a varied handling reflecting my effort to capture the true, big look of the object in space.

Well worth the time.

An Old French Pastel Set

Back in the days when I was searching for my direction as an artist, I began to visit the collection of the Portland Art Museum, which my school at the time, the Museum Art School, was conveniently attached to. Among the pieces that caught my eye were two beautiful pastels by the French master who would become among my favorites in the medium, Léon Augustin L’hermitte.

L'Hermitte The Man

I trace my interest in the pastel medium back to that very pair of pictures. There is a richness of color, sophistication of composition, and tenderness of touch in his pastels, many painted before nature, that I admire more now than ever, and my one existing color catalog of his works is sadly worn because of this.

With all of this in mind, imagine my recent excitement when a friend called and mentioned a recent acquisition … a pastel set from France, from what appears to be L’hermitte’s own time, the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

pastel set

The first thing that has surprised me is the size and the beautiful colors. Sharpened, I suppose, by the prior user, they are firm in consistency, rather like a Cont’e crayon. The markings don’t give an indication of an actual manufacturer, just some references in French to two Paris Exhibitions of the century. And my generous friend has allowed me to borrow the set and paint some pictures using it. More on that when I get something worth showing done. A portrait sketch of his wife is already intended.

And that led me to a bit of a quandry…how wise am I to actually use them? It’s a bit like when some scientists found a frozen Mastodon, and then ate it. You get a once-in-a -lifetime experience, but at a price. Thoughts?

French Pastels

Makapu’u-Evening Sea

Further work and enhancements. Almost finished, I ‘m looking forward to some glaze work in the foreground rocks. Some slight adjustments to tones and simplifications need to be made overall…I’m spending a lot of time looking at the painting upside-down and in the mirror. What can I do to keep it moving? Where is the water getting held up, and why? Moreover, where can I simplify without loosing the look?

Makapu'u Makapu’u-Evening Sea oil on linen, 32 x 36″

Makapu’u-Evening Sea

A quick post on a current work-in-progress. It’s a 32 x 36″ oil, studio painting from a quarter-sized plein-air sketch.

Makapu'u Evening Sea

Makapu'u pencil Demo1 First sketchbook indication.

Drawing, because

I’ve had studio visitors lately, and sometimes when that happens the flat files get opened to a collection of drawings in a variety of mediums, some that have rarely seen daylight in years. This accumulation is to the point where I now am regularly surprised to uncover pieces I’d forgotten about.

Drawing was my first love in art. I imagined just “drawing” as a profession long before painting began to come into the picture, and I return to it as often as I can in some form or another.

Often if there is an emotional upturn or downturn in my life, I’ll eventually find myself drawing somewhere. Alone with a tree, a person, or other subject, drawing centers my attention outside and away from myself. That’s a very good thing, a creative and constructive place for that sort of emotional energy, and it leaves something tangible that may be of value to others.

Tree Study Conte Crayon on paper

Trees are great subjects for learning to grasp the large shapes (something I struggle with) and for experiencing as beautiful, living forms. I draw them out of a desire for the discipline that accompanies outdoor drawing, done carefully but not with tedious detail. When one draws something with a certain degree of fidelity, it’s most certainly not “slavishly copying” but absorbing the subject, bringing it into cognition at an intuitive level. Inside one of my watercolor palettes, I have written a three word maxim: ” Suggest, don’t explain”, which applies to drawing as well as conversation. Don’t we all know the person who, when asked a question, offers far too much information in response, to the point where you’re sorry you asked? To be able to distill a paragraph into a sentence or two has so much more gravity. I think it works that way in drawing and painting.

Here are some other examples I hope might be of interest, graphite pencil on Strathmore drawing paper, 11 x 14′ or so, and drawn from nature for various reasons.

The ocean pieces are especially challenging because it’s moving, and you have to harness that somehow, make it intelligible by giving it direction. The values are pretty high, and the usual line conventions can’t tell the full story. Homer (Winslow, not Simpson) worked wave themes out in black and white on toned paper, as painters so often have.

With enough practice, you begin to anticipate certain characteristic motions in the sea, and once it gets under your skin a bit, your ability to recall it increases. I don’t know that you can develop that sense with photography. I’m reminded (and invigorated) by that great story about Frederick Waugh being able to draw a wave at any point in it’s progression convincingly out of his head, the result of the effort he put into studying them while living on the island of Sark in the English Channel.

Architectural subjects are always great to sharpen my eye, almost the opposite of the wave drawings. The visual measuring was a real difficulty, but I love this old steeple and wanted to work it out with a “loose correctness”. That required a lot of seeing past and through the details, finding the big blocks they’re covering. Just like the figure, come to think of it.

Speaking of which, here’s one of a number of the figure drawings that I work out in my figure classes, and there’s no end to what can be studied there. Just showing up, as in so many things in life, puts you on the right track, and the incremental investment over time of studying the live model is invaluable.

Last night, I was just rereading the Drawing chapter in Birge Harrisons’ classic “Landscape Painting” (1910) where he wrote the following:

“…you will find it difficult to place your finger on the name of a really fine landscape painter who is not also a fine draughtsman…inquiry will disclose the fact that the best of them have devoted at least four or five years exclusively to the study of drawing. This is none too much. But the best place to acquire this knowledge, even for the landscape painter, is not out of doors before nature; because it is so much easier to study drawing indoors from the nude.” (p.81)

So, I guess we know what we have to do. It’s endless, thankfully.

Drawing from life- some pieces from Linekona

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I love drawing.

I love the discipline mingled with the exciting possibilities, the reminders that occur as I examine how wonderfully we’re put together. The lines, shapes, the unbelievable functions, and how they complement one another. The economy of it all. We’re vessels in many ways, vessels that house a soul and spirit as well as mechanisms. What better use of time than to spend an evening each week drawing the figure of an enthusiastic model?

My usual practice is to use a good quality paper, and draw the sequence of poses on one or two sheets. This can result in a more interesting final piece, if things work out. That’s the point of using a decent paper, I want something archival for those times when I get something truly worth saving. One never can tell when that will happen.

For the gestural poses, those five minutes and under, I look for the relationship of the three main masses and a line of action. Sometimes I use block forms, sometimes not. I compel myself to do things that are not the usual, like beginning with the placement of the feet and working up the figure. or making all of the quick poses tiny, and creating a montage of them in serial form, arranging them to create a pattern on the page. One can do whatever one wishes, and for a professional artist it’s great to be able to play with no strings attached, no public to please.

For longer poses, those up to one hour, I simply do as much as I can. “Seeing the whole”, measuring well, finding better ways to express a form, and hopefully creating a palpable image…. these are my goals.

Here are a few of the things I’ve done in the last six months or so. The bad ones get tossed, and believe me, they are plentiful. But some evenings, you pull something together with some quality that you are pursuing, and it’s delightfully rewarding.

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If you’d like to join me and some like minded enthusiasts, I conduct a life drawing studio class at the Academy School at Linekona. Call 808.532.8742 to get enrolled. It’s great, and it’s open to you.

Life drawing Honolulu Academy

Upcoming Show “A Sideward Glance”

I’m busy photographing the 14 or so pieces for my show at the end of the month, and thought I’d post the final version of this painting, which I introduced in a post a ways back. I’m still debating a title, but the work is finished and ready to be placed in it’s frame.

The Laysan, Kewalo Basin “Kewalo Basin, the Laysan” 24 x 18″ oil on panel

I hope that it somehow captures the truly remarkable color and light that one is dealing with at this place, and without overstatement, which I always seek to avoid. I would guess that the painting was developed over about a dozen visits to the location, but I always forget to count after about five, because it doesn’t matter.

My students were around several evenings at this location with me, and I’ll be interested in hearing their opinions of the final work. Am I practicing what I preach?