Cell Phones

This painting was finished earlier this week and is based on several drawings I made last August. The five central figures create a circular motion within the overall square and hopefully give the picture a quiet stability, while a lot of triangular geometries give a contrasting energy.

Cell Phones

15" x 15"     oil on linen     2012
Private Collection, Massachusetts

The composition originally began with just the two women in the foreground, but as the image evolved, more figures appeared. The two figures in the upper corners arrived last, one of which I changed while painting. 

Cell Phones, drawing #2

7 1/4" x 9"     pencil on graph paper     2012

Cell Phones, drawing #4

15" x  15"     pencil on graph paper     2012
Private Collection, Massachusetts

Cell Phones, drawing # 7

15" x 15"     pencil on paper     2012

Sophie

The last bits of sky and final glazes were done on Monday, and my work on this painting is finished.

Sophie

42" x 27"     oil on linen     2012

I'd originally thought to have fewer oak leaves, to have more sky, to have some green leaves along the bottom as in the final drawing in the previous post. However, as I added the oak leaves, they seemed to keep calling for more, descending downward and becoming more dense behind the figure ... and not for any narrative reason, but because the painting wanted all the red.

Her blouse changed too. I'd always envisioned the blouse to be grey with a few small dots scattered about as in the drawing, but the dots became too busy against the backdrop of leaves, and the color too heavy, so I went to blue with a simple geometry to the pattern.

Sophie, in progress

I've been working the last several weeks on a painting of a young woman standing against an autumnal background of red oak leaves. All has gone well so far; the figure is fully painted as well as a good number of the leaves, though there are still plenty of those left to do.

Here's a photo of the final drawing that was used to transfer the image to the canvas. 

Sophie

45" x 27"   pencil on paper with pastel on the reverse  2012

The original drawing (pasted below) dates from five years ago and it's been pinned up on my drawing wall ever since. I liked the composition and have wanted to paint the image, but the viewpoint -- looking down on the woman as she lay on a blanket surrounded with fallen leaves -- was too problematic and made little sense logically. Turning the drawing so that the right side became the bottom didn't help either and actually made the situation worse. I kept looking at it, and then a couple months ago -- when I wasn't thinking about it -- the obvious solution arrived: have her in the same pose but standing, and move the leaves from the ground to a tree.

Sophie
20" x 18"  pencil on paper  2007

Coffee

This diptych was started in early May, then ran into problems and got sidetracked by the arrival of all the hat paintings. When work resumed on it, I decided to go with a very neutral palette, keeping to warm subdued tones ... perhaps I needed some quiet after the colorful hats, perhaps it just suited having coffee in the morning. The blue sky is the single significant cool note, hopefully bringing life to the grays and pale ochres.

Coffee

each half is 6" x 4 1/2"     oil on linen     2012

This painting did not begin as a diptych; the original drawing was square with a man facing the woman from the front.

Coffee 
6" x 6"     pencil on paper with pastel on reverse   2012
Private Collection, Massachusetts

I painted the woman, her hand and her cup of coffee, but the man proved resistant, becoming a nuisance and creating a major problem. While the drawing works well with him there, the painting thought better of the idea. Have mentioned before that they have a life of their own. The painting was put aside.

Left:   Coffee in progress      6" x 6"

Right: Coffee in progress      resized to 6" x 4 1/2"

When I brought it back to the easel a couple weeks ago, I decided to get rid of the troublesome man, to change him to a profile view and move him a bit away from the woman. The painting was on a piece of unstretched linen and the image could have been extended to the right with no problem, but I realized the composition would also work very well as a diptych. An inch and a half was taken away from the right side, and a new "panel" was started for the man.

The diptych has always been an interesting concept for me; each half being distinct from the other, yet usually closely related. One of my favorite paintings is the double portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, by Piero della Francesca.

Battista Sforza and Federico da Montefltro
Piero della Francesca
each panel 18 1/2" x 13"   tempera on panel  ca. 1465
Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482), Duke of Urbino, was both a successful warlord and a great humanist. His odd profile is the result of a disfiguring sword blow during a tournament that cost him his right eye and part of his nose. Some accounts say that he had the remaining bridge of his nose removed surgically, to improve his field of vision to the right. He commissioned a number of portraits … all in profile from the left side.

Battista Sforza (1445/1447-1472) was the second wife of Federico da Montefeltro, marrying him in 1459 at the age of thirteen (or fourteen); she died in 1472 a few months after giving birth to her seventh child … or ninth … sources on these dates and facts seem to vary. She was a highly educated woman, fluent in Greek and Latin, and acting regent of Urbino when her husband was away at war.

Red Beret

With all the recent hat paintings, I thought I was done with hats for a while, but one more came along ... a "spin-off" from the woman wearing a blue hat in my previous picture, Hat Party. I liked the gesture and the reflection in the mirror, and thought the two elements with some changes would make a good composition on their own. 

Red Beret

5 1/2" x 4 1/2"     oil on linen     2012

I'll add another image, of another woman in a red beret, painted twenty years ago. Perhaps an interesting contrast between the two, visually and psychologically: one an analogous harmony of warm colors ... the other a complementary harmony of green and red.

Portrait: Woman in Red Cap

5" x 3 1/4"     oil on linen     1991

Hat Party

Hat Party

7" x 8"     oil on linen      2012
Private Collection, New York

Hat Party is done and awaiting its frame.

In my previous post about this painting, all the hats were finished except for the woman's on the right and I was about to decide on the color of that hat: blue or orange, or -- as suggested in the comments -- purple. I'd also made a decision that the woman in green would be holding a mirror, not a drink.

The drink had not felt right. I'd vaguely been considering whether to give her some sort of noise-maker to hold instead, or a party horn, but resolving the problem was not yet much on my mind. The mirror idea suddenly arrived out of nowhere, in a blink, and was the right solution. It worked both in the abstract -- allowing me to add an interesting shape and an extra note of color -- and in the narrative -- connecting the two women with a certain logic.

As for the hat, when time came to paint it, I went straight to mixing blues and found the right tones fairly quickly. I never seriously considered orange ... or purple, though that could have worked fairly well too. I like the triangle of bright primary colors -- red, blue and yellow -- spinning in counterpoint against the green.

Below is a comparison I made this evening using Photoshop; the only difference between the two images is the color of that one hat (and it's reflection in the mirror). It's always interesting to me to see how the change of a single color can dramatically alter the look and feel of a painting, can shift the visual experience.

More Hats

Hat Party is moving along well. All four faces and three hats are done and I've decided to replace the left-side woman's drink with a mirror. My next decision will be about the color of the remaining unpainted hat. A bright blue would create a triangle of primary colors to play off the green note ... or ... an orange (or another red or yellow) would create a triangle of warm colors, playing off the cool green in a different way. The first choice would probably turn out more vibrant and energetic, the second more subtle and enclosed. Will see. 

Hat Party ... in progress

7" x 8"

Meanwhile, I've finished two more small paintings involving hats. Between these two, and the above, and the recent Party Hat and Man in a Yellow Hat, I think I'll be done with hats for a while!

left:     Pastry Chef        5" x 5 1/4"                      
right:   Gator Hat           4" x 5"
both oil on linen, 2012  

Party Hat

After finishing a large complex painting like Blackjack Players, I usually go to a smaller, simpler composition, and this time went to a place I've been thinking about for a while, party hats:

Party Hat
6 1/2" x 5"     oil on linen     2012
Private Collection, New York

I'm now about to start a slightly larger painting (7" x 8") on the same theme; a composition involving four people in various odd hats. The initial sketch, below on the left, was made two years ago and has been floating around my drawing table ever since. I can't remember what inspired the idea -- was probably dreamt up while doodling -- but have always liked it. The drawing on the right is the final drawing, finished this afternoon.

left: initial sketch, ca. 4" x 4 1/2"  ink on paper, 6 July 2010

right: final drawing, 7" x 8" pencil on graph paper, 23 - 24 May 2012

I never wear a hat, but they can be very excellent in a painting: creating interesting abstract elements in a composition and allowing bright notes of color to enliven figures, singly or in lines and crowds.

Rogier van der Weyden utilized head wear to perfection in his masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady at the National Gallery of Art; the painting is brilliant in its fundamental abstract qualities. His work has been a major influence on me, and taught me early on that all great paintings, representational or not, are always founded on a strong abstract base.

Portrait of a Lady
ca. 13" x 10"    oil on panel     1460
Rogier van der Weyden
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Blackjack Players

Blackjack Players is finished.

Blackjack Players
28" x 42"     oil on linen      2012 

After some of my recent quieter color harmonies, this painting takes a different path with a rich green note amid bright reds and warm deep tones. I started the painting with a vague notion of going to red for the table, but didn't really know where the colors would take me; had no idea the woman's blouse in the center would be green. I never know these things in advance. My work may look premeditated and well-planned, but it's not as it seems; I believe the working process needs to allow the painting to freely go where it wants to go. 

As for the narrative, I'm a bit amused that the expressions of the three main players may perhaps accurately reflect their feelings about the cards they've been dealt. The woman in green has a total of 13 to 16 and little hope of winning with the dealer showing an ace ... she probably should have taken one more card. The man has a 6 or 7 which may or may not turn out OK with an additional card or two. The woman on the right is in good position with a 20. Was definitely not my intention to give a lesson about blackjack and human emotion; the faces were painted before the cards were thought about ... and the individual cards were chosen purely for compositional reasons. Again, paintings have a funny way of living their own life, of knowing what they need and where they want to go. Sometimes my role seems not to create a picture, but rather to bring a picture that already exists to light.

Arnolfini Wedding
ca. 32" x 24"    oil on oak panel     1434
Jan van Eyck
Collection: National Gallery, London

One of my favorite paintings is the van Eyck above ... and maybe the beautiful green of the bride's dress surrounded by the reds and dark warm notes, gave me the subconscious inspiration to give the woman playing blackjack a bright green dress as well. I saw the van Eyck on my first trip to London in 1972 and at the time it hung in a room illuminated with a skylight. The day outside was sunny, though large fair-weather clouds occasionally crossed the sun. When I went up to the painting, the sun was behind a cloud and the light subdued. After a few minutes I'd become totally lost in the picture, when suddenly the cloud passed and the room instantly filled with brilliant light. The color of the woman's dress exploded into the essence of pure green, intense and infinite ... was an incredible experience.

Blackjack Players, in progress

An "in progress" photo of the blackjack painting, upper right quadrant:

detail ca. 14" x 20"

Woman at a Window

In this little composition I'm playing with a simple harmony of blues that complement the warmth of the woman's skin and her red lips.

I'd originally thought to make her dress a deep ultramarine, but decided instead to go with a much lighter blue. That allowed the shape of her dark hair to become an important and distinct element ... becoming a counterpoint and balance to the shape of the curtain.

Decisions like that are not the result of much premeditated thought ... they just seem to come along as one paints and they feel right. Realizing how or why it works only comes after the fact. An odd process.

Woman at a Window

7" x 4"     oil on linen     2012
Private Collection, Massachusetts

Man in a Yellow Hat

Man in a Yellow Hat

4" x 3 1/2"    oil on linen    2012
Private Collection, New York

Blackjack Players, final drawing

This is the final drawing for my next large work. I transferred the image to canvas today and will start painting tomorrow. It will take a couple months to complete, though I'll also work on other (smaller) pictures during that time. 

Blackjack Players

28" x 42"    pencil on paper     2012