Studio Diary of an Artist

The Difficulty of Flying Kites with Boxing Gloves on, 29" x 23" (74cm x 59cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol

Edna Casman and Chuck Dunbar have had one of their collaborative drawings chosen to be in the 27th Annual International Exhibition at the University of Texas at Tyler.   The juror for the this exhibition is Karl Umlauf.  The exhibition will hang until March 9, 2012.

Whirligig #58, 31" x 10" x 24", aluminum, brass, asst, hardware, adhesive vinyl

Whirligig #58

Loopy, Unpredictable Action

See it move on You Tube

Painting 122, 24″ x 20″ (61cm x 51cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 124, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 125, 30″ x 22″ (77cm x 56cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 126, 30″ x 22″ (77cm x 56cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 127, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 128, 24″ x 24″ (61cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 129, 22″ x 22″ (56cm x 56cm), acrylic and glitter on canvas

Painting 130,24″ x 24″ (61cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 132, 40″ x 30″ (102cm x 77cm), acrylic on canvas

THESE nine paintings are from the last several weeks.  We have been working on three or four canvases at a time.  (The missing numbers are my failure to count correctly, but let some future art history major figure it out.)  

Painting 122 developed into a building enveloped in flame.

We don’t have an explanation of Painting 124, but we liked it.

The sexual content of Painting 125 is fairly evident, but we tamed it to a dancer in a tutu.

Painting 126 became a reference to Ingres’ “Grand Bather” with her hair down.

Painting 127 captures a large bird descending.  The space is more opaquely painted here than we normally paint.  The opaque grayish colors flatten the picture putting the bird in an ambiguous space.

I pointed out to Edna that we had done a number of animal sacrifice themed drawings earlier in the year, but we hadn’t used the theme in any paintings.  We used a canvas with a painting that had ground to a complete halt.  In about half an hour we put a squawking chicken on an altar.  Voila, Painting 128.

Painting 129 has a different flavor from the rest.  From time to time we find ourselves at a point in a painting where the center is empty.  This painting is a jokey attempt to address the problem at the start of the painting.  I thought, well, maybe this is an arcade game.  Then we thought that might be an interesting series of paintings – referencing carnival midway games of skill and chance.  

Painting 130 is not a bird about to be sacrificed.  It has maintained a commanding wing flexing indifference.

We had worked on Painting 132 over the course of three or four sessions.  We liked the cloudy skies that appear in several drawings and paintings.  Here is the sky over a what? – rocking lamb?

Painting 118, 30″ x 22″ (77cm x 56cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 119, 24″ x 24″ (61cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 120, 20″ x 24″ (51cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 121, 24″ x 24″ (61cm x61cm), acrylic on polyester

These are collaborative paintings from the past five or six weeks.  We’ve been painting one day a week.  As I wander through this image menagerie we’ve created since July, I’m not sure what to say.  Paraphrasing from a book of poetry Edna recently read, she asked, “what kind of person would paint such paintings?”

Painting 115, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 116, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 117, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

THESE three paintings – 115, 116, 117 – are from the last three sessions, September 20, 22 and 29.  There’s a crudity to the paint application that appeals to us.  I can get too tender with the paint, which diminishes the power of the imagery.  When that happens it’s better to paint out the pretty area and start again.  Sometimes Edna saves me the labor and paints it out for me.  At this stage in our collaboration, preciousness is nearly gone.  We have confidence after 340 drawings and 117 paintings, that the fertile field from which we draw our inspiration won’t fail us.  If something doesn’t work, no matter how nifty it may appear, paint it out.

As I noted before, we mostly start making marks without premeditation.  Maybe there’s a shadow of an idea from a drawing or previous painting.  If the idea disappears, too bad.  We still attend to the business of composition.  Controlling the viewer’s eye is important.  

The leaping creature appears a couple of times here.  It may appear again.  When it first appeared leaping in front of the distant green Alps of Painting 115, we thought it was a brave, serious little creature participating in a humorous Olympian leap of faith.  The creature got bigger in Painting 117.  Making him/her larger made it appear to lie flat distressed as if it were the next course in meal – maybe a heavy breakfast.  We still wanted it to leap rather than be eaten.  Darkening the area around it created a space that is more atmospheric.  It seems atmospheric means horizontal more or less.  One doesn’t think of atmospheric as up or down, except maybe, at the foot of a cliff or the edge of the Grand Canyon.  

We seem to have an unerring sense of the “middle” of things – the canvas, and an edge, a line, a shape.  We constantly have to adjust away from a “middle” somewhere.  From time to time we get away with it, but rarely.

Painting 112, 40″ x 30″ (102cm x 77cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 113, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 114, 24″ x 24″ (77cm x 77cm), acrylic on canvas

THESE three paintings are from the last two weeks.  While circling the subject matter for Painting 112, we completely painted out our initial effort except for the curve in the upper center, the “s” shape in the lower left and the clump of “fruit” in the lower right.  Borrowing some mysterious objects from an earlier drawing,

we portray what seems to be an obscure alchemical process.  We used them again in Painting 113, in an unexplained, puzzling juxtaposition with a running leg.  Obviously, there is a lot painted out here.  We’ve come to understand our failed paintings as preparation for the next painting.  As I’ve mentioned several times, we paint out with great care.  When we paint over an old painting, the traces of what is left affect the new painting and add to its complexity.  Painting 114 is another flower painting.  We’ll admit painting number 114 took about 45 minutes.  But what the heck.  We’ll take them anyway they come.

Painting 106, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 107, 30″ x 22″ (77cm x 56cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 108, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 109, 30″ x 24″ (77cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 109, 30″ x 22″ (77cm x 56cm), acrylic on canvas

Painting 110, 24″ x 24″ (61cm x 61cm), acrylic on canvas

HERE are six more paintings from recent weeks of painting.  In Painting 106 (The numbers continue from our painting project, which ended with number 101.  We don’t title works until we have an opportunity to show them.)  the upper right figure is as Edna painted it originally.  We ended subduing the lower right figure.  As the painting’s “story” evolved, the two figures on the left clarified themselves – an aura surrounded cat contemplating a standard household toilet, but maybe not. 

Painting 107 is based on this drawing.  We thought the drawing was amusing and maybe potentially tragic at the same time.  Is he getting a better look?  Will he fall off? 

First the “palisade” went.  The he-she-it moved right.  We distinguished the character with spots and a livelier outline.  The lower right needed something, which something became some grayish blobs.  (Blobs are good, but they don’t have the redemptive power of polka dots making them, the blobs, lower order shapes in the hierarchy of shapes.  Just imagine how much more impact Christ would have in Western art had he been depicted wearing a polka dot robe.)  In the lower shape some yellow green and a touch of red, orangier than the red violet around the figure above, gives it some presence.  The sky got blue.  Still the painting didn’t quite work.  Edna saved the effort by painting out the head and “collar” of the bending figure. Tweaking up the chroma of the green in the upper figure finished the painting.

The drawing above became Painting 108.  We wrestled a lot with this painting over several weeks.  I think the difficulty lay in the way the space of the drawing – flat – changing into the space in the painting – atmospheric.  The water moved from below the horizon to above the horizon – like looking first from a boat to the land, then from the land to the water.  The clouds as drawn didn’t have pizazz in the painting.  Not that clouds are pizazzless, but the painting was on its way to late 19th Century France.  I emphasized a couple clouds.  That brought it back from the French beach.  The next session, in a fling of “why not,” Edna gave the painting an orange beach(blanket) with spots/circles.  A few more adjustments and it was finished.

The next three paintings are a continuation of the triangles-from-the-side theme from the entry before, as well as from several drawings. That last painting is dark, at least for us.  The thing about the triangles-from-the-side is that they don’t read as mountains or teeth or stalactites or stalagmites or saws.  They read as something pointy entering the picture.  Pointy things may be dangerous, of course.

Painting 102, 40″ x 30″ (102cm x 77cm), acrylic and charcoal on canvas

Painting 103, 40″ x 30″ (102cm x 77cm), acrylic and charcoal on canvas

Painting 104, 24″ x 24″ (61cm x 61cm), acrylic and charcoal on canvas

Painting 105, 24″ x 24″ (60cm x 61cm), acrylic and charcoal on canvas

THESE are recent paintings from July and August.

THIS is the plan for Whirligig 58.  The blades do not rotate, but swing back and forth.  When the back swinging blade reaches a certain point, a trip will turn the blades 90 degrees.  Then the opposite blade will catch the breeze, swing back, trip and turn in a dizzying repetition of maniacal mechanical joy – at least that’s the plan.  It will take a few weeks to make this.

MY grandson, Alex, is visiting this week.  I helped make a wooden box and a stand for his trumpet.