Flying Torpedo

Finished:

Flying Torpedo

2019, oil on linen, 36" x 48"

The colors of the individual torpedoes required considerable thought and experimentation. The ride that inspired this composition had alternating red and yellow cars, but I made numerous studies of different color combinations and sequences. All red or all yellow seemed promising, just red and yellow too, and then there was blue and green. 

In the end, I felt the three primaries - red, yellow, and blue - were the best choice, creating the most energy and movement. They are counterbalanced by the secondary colors - green, purple, and orange - in the clothing of the riders, and by the triangle of the three white shirts.

The final challenge was the background. Night or day? I started to paint a dark sky, but it didn't look right. A light sky blue was immediately better. Next, how to create the impression that all was airborne? Painting small people down below, or buildings or tree tops, made the composition seem too busy and precious. I decided the best solution was an arc at the bottom in a neutral color over stripes; stretching from side to side it would symbolize a structure below the ride. 

small sketch for the lower background

2019, pencil on paper, 2 1/4" x 3"

When I started to paint it, however, the idea of a winding line quickly took over. One more time the subconscious knew better.

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Sisters

Work is progressing very well on the large painting of Bahareh and Farzaneh Safarani in their studio.  

The hands and faces are finished except for some minor glazing. I was about to begin painting the clothing next, but instead I felt a clear need to add a large face to the reflection in the window ... the face of a woman that "watched" over the composition. She was not in the original drawing, but when I drew her, she arrived quickly, fitting in as perfectly as if she'd been there from the beginning. I smiled with the thought that she was the sisters' muse. Little did I know ...

in progress

30" x 38", oil on linen

I wrote the sisters about the addition and Farzaneh replied: " ... there is like another person who oversees us and lives with us in our world. This person is like a mutual ego between me and my sister. In our paintings even though we do paint portraits of one of us - which is often me - but we try to portray that person who is someone between me and my sister. It grows with us and we both contribute to her being. She is the actual subject of our works. We try to to represent her through ourselves."

That thought provoking insight into their work is one more uncanny item to add to the ever-growing list of positive outcomes when letting the subconscious dictate the painting.

The dresses are next to paint now, though first have added the bright notes of a pencil and a brush on the table.

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Chocolate Truffle

I've been working on two paintings ... two versions of the same composition ... a woman about to eat a chocolate truffle. In the larger one (12" x 7 1/4") she's wearing a dress and in the smaller (6 1/4" x 5") she's not. The larger also includes a table with a box holding three more chocolates; I didn't think those additions were necessary in the smaller one. 

left:  12" x 7 1/4" pencil on paper with dark ochre pastel on reverse 2013

upper right: 4 1/2" x 3 1/4" ink on lined paper 2011

lower right: 6 1/4" x 5" pencil on paper with red ochre pastel on reverse 2013

The idea originally came to me a couple years ago and I made a very quick and simple sketch at the time, top right above. The sketch floated from place to place in the studio until a week ago when it resurfaced on my work table, catching my eye. After that, the final drawings came together fairly quickly.

I've often noticed that an initial idea can remain dormant like that for a year or two or more, before it's ready to become a fully worked out drawing and then perhaps a painting. I've never been able to figure out the reason for this long wait. Maybe the image needs time to flow around the subconscious.

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.

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.

Sonny Rollins

Listened to an interview with Sonny Rollins tonight. What he said below is what I'd say about painting too ...

Sonny Rollins:

“What happens when I perform … what I do is actually what I don’t do. I don’t think about the music. I just get into the moment and the music sort of plays itself … so the secret to improvisation … the kind of music that we play … is not to think about what you’re doing. The music plays itself. You just want to reach a subconscious level where things happen much much better … much more than I can think about it.”

17 March 2010 radio interview with Tom Ashbrook ... On Point, National Public Radio (WBUR) .
Sonny Rollins was responding to the question: " [on stage] … what’s going through your mind?”