Praeterita

It's nearly the official end of summer here in the United States (Labor Day, September 3rd), and I've been looking back over the photos I've taken in my studio in the last three months. Here is a small oil painting (24" x 18") that I started at the beginning of June: A month later, after getting rid of that brown mountain and adding brambly-looking bushes, it looked like this: A few weeks later, the main areas of the painting were in place, and I was just working up the different areas with more paint, smeared or dabbed on the canvas with cotton rags: The next photo has lots more dark passages to increase the sens of depth and to make the lighter areas stand out: In the final session I lightened that pink cast in the sky, and added a few final highlights in silvery-white paint: The wonderful thing about oil paint is that you can make substantial changes to a picture in a way that doesn't stand out by the time you say you're fi...

After writing a 1,000 word piece about  Winslow Homer's  eighteen month stay at an English fishing village, I'm writing a series of primers about other artists who made similar journeys. John Marin, Headland, Cape Spit, Maine , 1933, watercolour and chalk Who John Marin (1870-1953), American painter. Coastal association Maine, in northern New England: first at Phippsburg, then Stonington, and finally bought a home in Cape Split. First coastal visit The coast of Maine in 1914. Reasons for visiting Like his near contemporary Marsden Hartley, he loved Maine because it was so remote from the art world that he felt he could make the subject matter his own. Marin also hated New York City in particular, and felt very much drawn to the tradition of artists finding 'truth in nature.' He also wrote: "Seems to me the true artist must perforce go from time to time to the elemental big forms To sort of retrue himself up to recharge the battery. For thes...

In March I revealed two things that most people tend to keep to themselves for fear of being cast out of polite society: a) I only listen to opera; b) I belatedly began liking some of Wagner's operas. After five months of listening to virtually nothing but Wagner, and even seeing some of the music starting to seep into my studio work, I suddenly remember a series of etchings by English artist Christopher Le Brun that I saw more than 20 years ago. Le Brun was a passionate lover of Wagner's music, and in 1994 he made a set of eight photogravure etchings titled Wagner . The names of the individual works -- Fafner, Siegfried, Brunnhilde -- indicate that his inspiration was the Ring cycle. Christopher Le Brun, The Valkyrie , etching and aquatint, 1994 Back in 1998, I didn't like Wagner's music and hardly knew anything about it, so I looked at these works purely from an aesthetic standpoint. As I consider them now having listened to more of Wagner's music, wh...

After writing a 1,000 word piece about  Winslow Homer's  eighteen month stay at an English fishing village, I'm writing a series of primers about other artists who made similar journeys. J.M.W. Turner, Margate , c. 1822, watercolour Who J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), English painter. Coastal association Where to start? Water and oceans were his chief inspiration, comprising the central or supporting subject of many of the 20,000+ paintings and drawings he created over a long life. But mostly he painted the waters around the English coast, either directly in his sketchbook, or in his studio-produced oil paintings. First coastal visit 1786, Margate, on the north-east coast of Kent, when he was 11 years old. Reasons for visiting Many reasons, both personal and artistic, that interlock in complex ways. His earliest visits were because his parents packed him off from London to spend the summer with an uncle. During his apprenticeship as an artist, he was influence...

After writing a 1,000 word piece about Winslow Homer's eighteen month stay at an English fishing village, I'm writing a series of primers about other artists who made similar journeys. Claude Monet, Regates a Saint-Adresse , 1867 Who Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter Coastal association Normandy, France. Reasons for visiting Monet spent his childhood in Le Havre, Normandy. Dates visited Almost his entire life from 1840 to 1926. First visit 1845, aged 5, when his family moved to Le Havre. As an adult, after working and gaining some success in Paris, he spent the summer of 1867 painting in Sainte-Adresse, near Le Havre. Effect on Work His earliest plein air paintings were made near Le Havre when Monet was 16, under the guidance of Eugene Boudin. Ten years later, Monet's time at Sainte Adresse moved his work away from 'salon' style subjects of bourgeois life to a deeper consideration of how to use pure colour to capture the light on ...

The best open studio for artists is the one where they sell a lot of work. I mean, really, what else would qualify? Maybe having Person Famous in the 1970s come through the door and respond very positively to a series of etchings (actually happened). (Although he also left without buying anything, so...) But I would say that one of the best open studios (the second best one, perhaps) was the one where I premiered a six minute stop motion animation film. Here in fact is a clip from that film: I worked on it for six months in 2013. It was the first thing I completed in my new studio in the Cornelia Arts Building . I felt the need to explore subject matter and imagery related to my childhood in an English mining town, but in a medium other than painting or printmaking. A medium where you could tell more of a story, a continuous narrative as opposed to a static moment. I was pleased with the film, and invited people to come and see it for the first time in an open studio at the be...

Most open studios are notable for nothing really happening. You sit there waiting for people to come into your studio, eat all your nibbles and guzzle the free drink, and then leave after a cursory glance at your work. Usually, the worst thing that happens is that you get stuck in a boring conversation with a dull person, But there was one time a few years ago when I got into one of these conversations, and quite quickly the person I was talking to started to make homophobic remarks about another artist in the building. After a few minutes, I decided I'd had enough and asked him to leave. He seemed genuinely surprised that I had any objection to what he was saying, which in retrospect makes me even angrier if he thought he had a sympathetic ear. He asked me why, and I told him I didn't like people talking that way, and I said: "This conversation ended 30 seconds ago." So he left. So, nothing dramatic like Jackson Pollock getting drunk in a fancy New York ap...