Tag: drawing

October 5, 2016

Color My World

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.

Al Hirschfeld

I’m about to admit to a not-so-secret secret, a guilty pleasure I feel no guilt about, and just the thing that takes the sting out of summer slipping away, making the shortening autumn days more bearable. My secret? I have my very own Time Machine. It’s yellow and green and it can teleport me to the past, put me down in the present, or slip me forward in time. My time machine is a brand new box of crayons!

In elementary school, we usually got the 8 crayon set. If we were lucky it was Crayola brand, with the recognizable yellow box, the flap that lifted to reveal the crayons in a row, like soldiers, alert and waiting for our commands. They stood, sharp and unbroken, the enveloping paper not yet torn and discarded. They represented the magnificent drawings that were the future. They were the perfect partner to our coloring books, like Tom and Jerry, only better. Teacher told us to write our name on the box, cautioned us not to break the crayons in half, to make sure they got returned to their proper place, and never rip off the paper covering. There was something pure and holy in that experience.

What a lucky day, birthday or Christmas, when in place of the 8 crayon box there was the 24 crayon box or even better, the 64 crayon box that came with–oh, be still my beating heart– a sharpener! Round and round went the crayons in the little plastic sharpener, small slivers of crayon shavings everywhere.

And the smell that is so recognizable that it cries out: CRAYONS! To this day, when I open up a new box of crayons the first thing I do after admiring their perfection is to lift them up to my nose, close my eyes and inhale deeply. There is magic in that smell, the perfect art perfume.

Written on the side of the crayons were names like Maize, Blizzard Blue, Thistle, all colors now retired, and new names added that are as fun to say as to use: Purple Mountains Majesty, Jazzberry Jam and Timber Wolf. As society’s expression grew to reflect the country’s diversity, the names of some of the crayons changed; the funky peachy color that was called Flesh and a reddish-orange color known as Indian Red were justly renamed. Thank goodness, because how can the multiplicity of the beautiful colors that make up the human race ever be confined to only one or two crayon colors.

Eventually our brand new crayons became broken and worn, and they were tossed in boxes and bags, melted for other art projects, or just neglected until they were thrown out by parents and teachers. I have such a box in the studio and classroom, and regardless of their state of being, their immediacy and simplicity makes them the perfect drawing tool. The bonus is that they play equally nice alone or with other art media. Often I like to combine them with mono prints, such as in my piece, “Comin’ Thru the Rye.”

Comin' Through the Rye — “Comin’ Thru The Rye” etching ink, soluble wax crayons

Lest you think crayons are just for kids and students, think again. I’m not the only artist that finds crayons a handy medium for expression; even the great Pablo Picasso used crayons to draw. In fact, at a recent art auction in South Africa, a crayon drawing by the Maestro fetched 3 million Rand, or about $220,000 US dollars. Think about that the next time you tape a crayon drawing by a young budding artist to the refrigerator.

So let’s celebrate our creativity this season by treating ourselves to a new box of crayons and going on a little time travel. Go a bit crazy and get yourself the big box with the sharpener, spring for bling and get some glitter crayons, or try out some of the many different shapes, colors and types of crayons that are out there. I can’t wait to see how you color your world!

This Week in the Studio

Spending time working on paintings for the 2017 November Exhibit at the River’s Edge Gallery. Never too early to get behind!

Next week I’ll return with a post about building a painting, as Munninn, Hugin and Minnin are coming along nicely and my painting about Thought, Memory and Desire is just about done.

September 7, 2016

A Letter to a Student of the Humanities

The calling of the humanities is to make us truly human in the best sense of the word.

J. Irwin Miller

Greetings!

It was several months ago when we first met, me presenting the whys and hows of our pledged encounter, you unsure and doubting of your decision. I could sense that you wondered if this was the best way to spend your time, together two days a week for several weeks, sacrificing a portion of your long awaited summer. Not everyone in a commitment such as ours sticks it out and many fall away. But you, you stayed all this time, and aren’t we both the better for it?

You began our relationship only wanting to know how to get what you desired, that perfect affirmation, that A+ grade. Oh, I sensed your skepticism when I explained that our journey was bigger than that, that we were going to spend time exploring what it means to be human. I wanted, and still want, more for you— for your third eye to open and for you to view yourself and the world differently.

So I’ve played Scheherazade, telling stories about how a grouchy Renaissance genius sculpted, from flawed marble, an enduring symbol of pride for a small city-state. How that same artist not only depicted the moment of animation of the Biblical first man, but how he also slyly showed Eve already formed and tenderly sheltered in the Creator’s embrace. That led to a discussion of time as being experienced simultaneously, in the present now and the far distant past, and that led to more talk about physics, time, and creation.

There were stories of an artist whose tortured sense of self meant his actions kept him away from the one thing he truly longed for— to love and be loved; and how he turned that ache into paintings and drawings and all kinds of wonderful things like stars that spun in the sky and planets whirling and whirling and whirling.

We looked at a painting that showed the fate of a teacher from Ancient Greece, a gadfly, who insisted his students question everything. I joked that whenever anyone asked me what I did for a living that I answered that I corrupted the youth of Detroit, and we laughed, because you understood what that meant; we all agreed that I shouldn’t face the same end as Socrates, and I remain pretty confident that I won’t.

Like giants we stepped from continent to continent, and like time-travelers we went from prehistoric caves in France, to Imperial China, to revolutionary France, and back home again before we took off on another world tour. All creative doors were open, and if sometimes the folks we met were different than us, that was okay too, because they were honest and interesting and very human.

Then one day we stepped outside the classroom to visit our local museum. It was there, in front of a painting that you had first seen in our text book, by an artist who had been sorely misused, who dealt with her pain and injustice with story, legend and paint, that you said the very words every humanities and art teacher longs to hear from her students:

“Art is about more than just paintings and drawings, isn’t it? It’s about things that happen in real life.”

It was then I knew that, although our time together would shortly come to an end and other commitments would soon take precedence, and in time you would turn to others in your quest for knowledge, at this moment you really understood what I was trying to show you. You understood that art is not a frivolous pastime or a casual undertaking; that to study the humanities is to connect to others through time and space, and to truly see you need only open your third eye, and your mind and your heart will follow.

Wishing you much wisdom and continued insight, I remain yours truly,

Martine

March 11, 2016

The Sometimes Long and Winding Road

“Art results when there is nothing that can be added, but when there is nothing that can be taken away.”

James O. Collins

“Professor MacDonald, how long will this painting take me to do?” Now and then one of my students will ask the “how long” question. I know they are hoping that the answer is going to be “oh, not too long at all!” Instead I tell them about the time, when I was in school for my formal art training, I worked on a drawing assignment that took 16 whole hours to finish. Man, oh man, did I think I was something! Little did I know that was nothing compared to the amount of time I would spend on later work.

That was especially true when I was working in colored pencil, a medium that practically lays down and rolls over for the obsessive artist. I once calculated that I could tear through a colored pencil work at the speedy rate of one inch an hour! Work like Time Traveler, seen here, might take several months to a year to complete, with the finished size measured in inches rather than feet.

In fact the slow methodology of colored pencil made me feel that I couldn’t get my ideas out fast enough and I eventually turned to painting. If I thought I could just hurdle some paint on the canvas and call it a winner, I soon learned otherwise. Most of my paintings still take several months to complete, only now I obsess on a larger scale. Sometimes, there are those magical paintings that take just a day or two, such as Promise, seen here, a 3′ x 4′ landscape of a Texas field. But then, to keep me humble, I’ll go ahead and do something like Bone Breakers, a piece I wrote about in an earlier blog. This painting wonder, 2′ x 3′ in size, took about six months or so to complete.

And what have I learned from all of this? That the creative process, like household renovations, always takes more time than the optimistic artist thinks they will. That the final size of the work really doesn’t matter; small paintings can take just as long as larger ones. That you can’t go against your fabric and if you work slow, then slow is how it is going to go. And of course the most obvious lesson of all, the one I give to my curious student, is that it takes exactly as long as it takes. As artists we work until arriving at that point when neither adding more, nor presenting less, makes a better picture. Sometimes that process is measured in minutes and hours, sometimes in months and years; but we get there in the end, we surely do!

This week in the studio

Continuing to work on a new piece, and hope that by the end of next week I will have something of interest to share. Until then, keeping it a little bit under wraps.

As far as the self-portraits go, I finally figured out why the black paint wasn’t drying. It seems that the masking tape I used to block out the grid actually left behind a gummy residue that when combined with the paint resulted in a non-drying medium. I had to carefully scrape away the grid and am at the repainting stage. In my perfect world I may be almost finished by the end of next week.

Oh seriously, who am I kidding. It will take as long as it takes. In any case, pictures next week!

March 5, 2016

Watch the Birdy!

“Beep, beep.”

The Roadrunner

When I was pulling together the Mixed Media Gallery, I was surprised by the number of times, and the diverse ways, that I have used a particular subject matter. Among the many instances is this mono print, and a three-in-one colored pencil drawing:

Plus, there is this gallery installation, and then this guy shows up in a mixed media piece, and here’s a fellow incised in stone.

Oh, there’s more, lots more. All I can say is, great balls of feathers, I think I’m going to the birds! While I haven’t deliberately set out to be a bird illustrator, (that I will leave to those who follow in the wingspan of John James Audubon), it appears that I have come down with an avian attachment of sorts.

Artists commonly produce multiple works of the same subject matter. Think of the magnificent Georgia O’Keeffe, repeatedly using flowers and bones as subject matter, playing with composition, color and scale, series nested within series. Still, why do artists perseverate on a theme when there’s an infinite number of subjects to tackle, notching each completed image as a tick on a bucket list?

Sometimes the subject is one that resonates on a symbolic level with the artist. So the moon becomes a stand-in for the Feminine Divine and the painter explores several versions of what that might mean. For another, form has a strong pull on the artist’s sensibilities, therefore she completes several drawings on the mutable of clouds to fulfill that urge. Or it can be something more indefinable, such as the quickening “oh my” when encountering the beauty seen in the structure of trees, and there is hunger to capture that time and again.

Keeping that one constant, the repeated image, allows freedom to explore, and the subject, like a music motif, dances, changes, circles back around, spins off into new directions. And so I’ll keep flying with birds, symbols of strength and delicacy, seeing where they take me as I venture into new places in 2016.

Meanwhile, this week in the studio:

I felt very productive as I finished preparing cradled boards for upcoming projects, going so far as to actually apply a cadmium red ground on them. Oh, joy! Oh, red!

As for the self-portraits, they continue to vex as the painted grids remain wet, preventing cleaning up the interior of each rectangle. Perhaps it’s a combination of Mars black with too much oil medium and the cool studio air temps. I’ve decided to set them aside and let time take care of the curing process. But the hats are done! Huzzah for small victories!

January 22, 2016

Hitting the Hi-Whirl Button

“Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day & trying.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Every 15 weeks my routine goes awry in a big way. That’s when a new semester begins and, with the craziness that is life, it sometimes feels as though everything is being dumped into a blender and we’ve hit the hi-whirl button. The part-time teaching gig, with regular hours and scheduled days, serves as an anchor for the full-time job of studio artist. Hours that form the “professional” work are fluid in duration and focus, requiring a self-motivation to attend to tasks that the teaching, with its static parameters, doesn’t need.

Trust me, there are days when going to “The Office”, feels like work. It’s pulling on boots, packing the lunchbox, greeting the wintry chill inside the studio, confronting a painting in the not-going-great stage, and knowing that the Mountain of Need-to’s is waiting at home to be conquered. Without a sense of routine (“Tuesday, teach until 12, work at The Office until 6”), it’s über easy to make excuses for not dealing with the real work.

One resource I’ve found for guidance in these situations is The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. I read this slender volume every semester as a reminder of what it means to be a professional artist and to treat my time and commitment to my studio practice in such a manner. I recommend this book to every creative; and if you haven’t read it yet, I hope you do. I would love to know what you think of it.

Virgo Rising-detail — oil on board, metal leaf

Now back to this week in the studio. The winter routine is slowly getting established. I was able to clean up edges on the metal leaf on “Virgo Rising” (seen here and on Instagram.) However, by midweek I found the sides of the self-portraits were still too wet to handle and I was at a holding point with “Virgo”. That day I was determined to stay at the studio until I got something done. Grabbing pencil and drawing paper, I sketched a raven, part of an idea for my next best painting. After posting it on Facebook, my stats indicate that the “get something done today” drawing is a hit! I think I’m on to something that would never have happened if quit work early in the day. Stay tuned to see where this may lead!