SEMESTER 2: WEEK 1

OK. Here goes. Semester 2. Was decompressing a bit last week with travel and PRSD (post-residency stress disorder :)  Last week I met with my mentor David Feinberg from the University of Minnesota. I get to be a teaching assistant to his painting class on Wednesday nights. Our first critique is tentatively scheduled for next Tuesday. I also am auditing an Art History Class at the U for Contemporary Art/Painting. I am also a bit surprised but in my preliminary research for a Semester 3 mentor, I received a very fast reply from New York artist April Gornik. Looks like she will be agreeable to mentoring next semester! Finished up my Residency summary and emailed to new advisor, Oscar Palacio. 

Spent a lot of studio time this week getting some canvases ready. I sanded and gessoed a bunch of masonite boards. I have never painted on this, but it was a common suggestion at the residency. Also painting on some smaller canvases because of residency suggestions. More on these later. 

I was a bit stumped starting this week. There's always a lot of mixed messages at the residency. Usually I will try some different things, but stay close to my advisor and 1 or 2 other professors. These next 3 I think will be part of a very large work. They are smaller, but I want to do a bunch that will add up to an actual landscape/scene. Was sort of inspired by Oscar's work and some other photographers. I guess these are a bunch of snapshots that will add up to some sort of collage kind of thing. Skies are always a good place for me to start painting when I am confused or distressed and needing to get started with out a clear path.

This next one is a study for the following painting. This one is on pre-made gesso board from the art store (for comparison to my own home made boards).  I am trying to get a thicker painterly effect going on this one. Lots of texture and brush strokes. (This is something that former advisor Hannah Barrett suggested in our last meeting.)

This weekend is also my first Chicago trip. I plan to make at least 2. This first one I will most likely be trying to get through the 2 big museums. I emailed Michael Newman (AIB professor) about other places to be looking at for my next trip.

Weeks 18 & 19

All 4 of these paintings are very wet so I apologize for the flash in the middle of all of them. Felt like I finally moved off of those 3 or 4 bigger ones that I was constantly working on and refining. Don't know how happy I was finally, but I just had to move on for my own sanity. These next 3 are all Lakes and all at or just after sunset (movie makers refer to this as Magic Hour because of the warm soft light that is everywhere). This one above is Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis and will have some buoys/moorings in a white pattern on the water. 

I need to keep my edge. The large clouds/lakes/island one from last blog didn't say as much as I hoped. The first comments I got about it were, "what are you trying to say? it's not very interesting." Maybe that's what I'm heading into at the next residency...

This one should say something. There's going to be a small moon or two at the top. Haven't quite figured that part of it out yet.  I like the isolation at the top. So much going on at the bottom and then 1 small thing at the top.

This picture is very dark, but I think it comes closest to Jeffrey's summation of landscape: trying to capture the ethereal atmosphere next to the very rough earth. Have noticed people piling rocks to make little "people sculptures" like the Inuit. This is happening all around the great lakes on hiking paths, etc. they will show up at the bottom of this one.

And finally this one. my interpretation of "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. Don't know if I have a lot to say about this one. It just is. Tried to capture the light, vibrancy, and color of the original while being with my paint stroke.

Weeks 16 & 17

I was out of town last week, so this covers the week before that and this current week. Continuing to explore. Working with some more layers, smaller brushes, greater detail. Had a great meeting with my mentor Christine Wilcox and I think there's a couple of works we looked at that I will go back into. 

This one might kill me. I tried rendering every leaf. Not sure how those old masters die this! It also isn't quite working the way I hoped. I do like that this is a bit of a different perspective (point of view) than what I always do and was suggested by Christine.

What to say about this one. So far it's just fun. Wet on wet and I've only done the top half obviously. Was shooting for "magic hour."

I am continuing with my landscape painting class and learning the "prismatic" method. It is slow and frustrating, but it is good technical practice for my work. It is helping me in another way as well. The more I learn the more I realize what I am doing in my own work that is "breaking the rules" and creating work that I am interested in. Harsher lights and darks, rendering certain details that wouldn't be in traditional work, etc. Good points that I am sure will work into the thesis.

Weeks 14 & 15

Couple of larger images I am continuing to work on. (Patience is a virtue, that is a difficult lesson all on it's own!) Working on trying to capture realistic colors and light-patterns. My landscape painting class is not going as well as hoped. They are dogmatic slaves that copy photos and really don't create interesting images. However, I am learning what I don't want to do. I am learning a lot about the things I can do to make sure my works don't fall in this category. I use a lot more white and black and try to push the extremes of the color scale to create a lot of drama and tension in my work. So I guess it's not a total loss...

These clouds have been very difficult and I have had to redo them a LOT! Many layers, many wipe-downs and do-overs. I can say I am not totally displeased with this latest incarnation and I did some things technically I have never done before...

This stump one has been totally redone. I was trying to do a lot when I realized the stump was the star of the painting. I put it in the middle and gave it the detail I was trying to spread around. It feels alive now and I like that. (Just for fun I put a Sasquatch back in the trees.)

This last one I have worked on for a long time it seems. Continually changing things and tweaking colors. Tried to anthropomorphize the tree but not sure if it worked. It may not be done, and I may just wait to get comments from the next residency.

Week 12 & 13

This one is still in progress. lots of layers, lots of glazes. The water around the North Shore of Lake Superior gets very red/muddy like this in storms and it's not translating well to canvas.

Hard to tell in the photo, but I have pretty much completely repainted this one. Still working on a driftwood stump in the foreground. Lots of red in the blacks/greens. Very warm.

This one is larger. Very cool. Lots of layers so far. Want a very distant/realistic feel.

My next study of a master. I started redoing "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. Decided I don't plan to every paint in that style so I am re-interpreting this piece in my own style.

Started my painting class tonight. It's a landscape class taught by Joseph Pacquet. Very technical. Working with GOOD paints (expensive). He is teaching the "prismatic" method. Basically, I think it means more blue and less yellow as things go backwards, more yellow/red as they come forwards. It's hard and I don't like most of the work of the other students. A good reminder of why my landscape needs to be different.... Image above is the start of my underpainting. Hannah will be so proud!

Weeks 10 & 11

These two look done. Tweaked quite a bit. Left the figures in the first one as I want the Monsters opinions at the next residency. (That's our affectionate term for each other in group 1 soon to be group 2). Took the fox out of the second one. Now it has that, end of the world/what happened feeling that my critique group from last semester came to know me by :) The top one had a "Chupacabra" but he ended up coming out too.

The next two have always gone together for me. They are coming along but are in the "bad tree" vein of anthropomorphizing some trees in my landscapes. Giving them some life and interest in the painting. I added a ghost to the second one. Does it seem heavy handed? It sort of looks like lightning, but i like the relationship to the big, heavy, dark trees... below is a close-up of the figure which is vaguely reminiscent of lightning against a darkening sky.

Finally here is a new one. I've always wanted to paint a ship! Yes, cliche, but that will be my challenge to make it fit. 

Week 9

This one looks done to me. Had a great meeting with my mentor, Christine Willcox from Macalester College in St. Paul, this week. Talked a lot about some of the things that came up in the Residency. Also, she gave me some more practical ways to execute these ideas especially in the works I'm creating now like the one above. Talked about mixing colors, looking at edges, and trying to keep things simple. Looking at nature and photography, etc.

Working on trees. Lots of greens and blacks. 

These two sort of go together. Didn't realize it at first, but they both started off so similar and I'm working from photographs from the same day and place.

This one has departed from the Freidrich I originally looked at quite a bit. Took out the fox. Like the sparse, "end of the world," feeling here that was described by Eliza in one of my critiques! Thanks, E! Oh, and it is State Fair time here. I've always been bitter about never being accepted into the Art Contest. Next year I may change mediums and try out for the "Seed Art Competition."