Sketching

Watercolour and pencil sketching whatever comes to mind, with more or less concentration ... the mind wandering .. the hand and heart moving ....
Practice and seeing ... the colours, the mood, the rhythm, the light, the shadows - the feeling!
Here a selection from this week's dabbling.

In a dream

There is one storm outside and one inside. The heart and mind separated. I search for the light in the dark abyss. I slowly work my way towards it. Like in a dream I paint ... memories of fragrances, feelings, laughter, and precious moments lingering in a forest ... followed by the banishment to an eternal winter.

Inspired by the skillful Michael Karst (active in Limburg an der Lahn, where I visited his gallery the other day) I tried my hand at his emotionally expressive and abstract style. I did it in 110x60 cm and pastel, but clearly this type of work should be done in acrylics or similar.

Embracing

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec re-visited, so I did this quick 60x40 pastel study. The way he captured the sensual intimacy of two beautiful loving people embracing one another is fascinating. His loose approach to the soft bedcloth they are wrapped in, the colour of their skin, their excitement and warmth visible in the tone of their ears and hands. He slightly dominates her, holding his arm across her, yet she is the one pulling him towards her and exposing her beautiful neck line to the viewer.

Better to have loved passionately and lost than never to have felt love at all .. but one can miss such an embrace for a lifetime.

Moving emotions

Listening to Ray Charles. Men have lost fortunes, started quarrels, fights, even wars .... for the attractions and influence of that ONE woman. Powerful forces at work,  ... Here a quick inspired soft pastel study of a woman's seductive force ...

At the same time it's been a good chance to think of the importance of rhythm when painting; the speed of the movement of that hand, the length of the stroke, the pressure applied and the general tempo ... Gainsbourg, Ravel's Bolero, Prince, Jackson, Houston, or  Marvin Gaye ... or nature ... what is the subject, mood, impression and rhythm of the day ...?

The creative process

This may be an odd posting, but I realized it is also part of the creative process and my journey - the mistakes and the abandoned projects. I started this pastel study and was interupted in the middle. I now have difficulties starting again. I am bewildered by my own reaction. In a way I think it is an interesting picture, with the cool and warm colours, but at the same time it is not a very realistic depiction of what it would be like at the top of a submarine tower. Taking the sun heght, followinging a convoy, on even the best of sunny days, one wouldn't wear the parade gear ... the other problem is the approach I took: does one start with the high lights and the dark areas, or the far away and the focal areas? Do you build the picture in layers or in sections? There are so many ways to approach a picture, but for it to work, it needs to resonate within you too, and this one didn't ... so I stopped.

Emotional and sensory curiosity

I just finished reading Osborne, Sturgis and Turner’s excellent book Art Theory for Beginners (2006). It is an excellent work and which got me thinking and going. So after a quick digital art try-out (yes I know it’s a bit XXX, but what 'art' isn’t these days …?) here are my quick reference notes from the book:

• Is it “l‘art pour l’art” or does it and should it serve a higher purpose?
• Why is it that we humans spend time making, and spend time with things that to us are holy, beautiful or important? Doesn't it raise our sense of life (“lebensgefühl”) and make us feel better? Doesn't it make us feel more alive? It is lke the music we listen to and create, like the experience in the moments of intimacy and sublime presence ...
• Art is what moves us within (Diderot)
• The objective validity of aesthetic judgments, is the claim that the pleasure produced by any beautiful thing is such, that any being equipped with the perceptual and cognitive faculties of a human being, would experience this pleasure.  Thus it depends only on the general structure of the human mind. Aesthetic judgments can though not meet the rigorous standards for empirical knowledge (Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason)
• Art depicts the various stages of development the world’s spirit (Hegel)
• Art is constructive – the artist creates beauty, he does not merely reproduce it. It is made up of light, colours and shadows. (Goethe)
• Art Washes Away From The Soul the Dust of Everyday Life (Picasso)
• Beauty is a promise of happiness (Stendahl)
• Beauty is thruth (Earl of Shaftsbury)
• Art mirrors in an illusionary way how society sees itself (Marx)
• How surreal to be able to see the whole universe in but a weed, dada leaving us with nothing to help us though. High or low forms of art, or decorative qualities – what do I aspire to and want to spend time on? Beauty, function, cultural context and technical proficiency – it’s all down to emotional and sensory curiosity (Storm)
• “In the work of art the truth of an entity has set itself to work.” (Heidegger)

So art is an experience, and a craft, an intellectual and emotional phenomena - all at the same time. It allows us to come closer to the truth of our existence … allowing me to deconstruct myself, my thoughts, my emotions, and my mind …

Quotes here are my own free ones, from memory of the text, and not double checked. The digital art piece, a photoshop study of erotica/sex, Pollock (who sees that link I wonder?) and Warhol.

Never too late

"A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to." (Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings). My beloved daughter reminded me of this quote, I came a little late to the table for our Sunday tea and scones. She had prepared it, and I excused myself. She proceeded to correct me by having me repeat the classic Gandalf retort. :-D)  Thanks C! This also made me think of this sketch I did some time ago, and which I suddenly wondered if I mixed up with J.K. Rowling's Dumbledore for some reason. But I hadn't. This is a charcoal and white crayon work, which I did in a whiff. I have read the Tolkien stories several times, and the power of our imagination, the darkness of evil and the tenacity and strength of the good people never fail to impress me. Like Obama said in his Presidential acceptance speach 2012 "I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting." Another favourite guiding quote of mine is Napoleon's "Leaders are dealers in hope" (...des marchands d'espoir) - without this we succumb, and humanity wouldn't be so great if we didn't have this wizardly ability to keep believing ...

Homage à Degas

Oh, why is it so difficult? A life time's work will be needed ... and there is so little time it seems. Edgar Degas is so inspiring in his treatment of the human skin and pastels. Here a study of another artist (lost who this was unfortunately) and an attempt to try Degas' approach to create that special glow of the skin of a woman when ... :-D

Walking in the rain

Autumn is here. Leonid Afremov has found a tantalizing approach to capture the feeling of rain drenched streets, and walking along them under an umbrella with someone ... I long to start to do more acrylics, but here is another pastel study insipred by Afremov.

Jealousy

Here another pastel study in the spirit and along the lines of the great illustrators of the past. As mentioned earlier, I tremendously admire the works of Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker, Charles Gibson, Gil Elvgren, James Avati, and many many more. This 60 by 40 cm illustrates very well I think the tension between the different people meeting; the appreciating look of the man, the jealous stare of the woman on the right, and the self-assured aloft look of the man's woman/wife, the joy of the elderly couple in the background in seeing each other ... The colours were well chosen too,  rendering depth and portraying the feelings of the people involved in the little drama. Don't we recognize ourselves?

Art nouveau

Here a 70 x 40 cm red crayon study of the classic 'art nouveau'/'romantic' painting by John William Waterhouse. red crayon, ink, dark pencils are a joy. This one is actually not finnished and I will not leave it framed, but Boreas as the original is called, depicts the great angry wind of the North - he is said to have abducted the beautiful red haired daughter of the king of Athens ...

the Storm family coat of arms

Here an adorned version of the Storm family coat of arms. Heraldry is an ancient art, if not a science, that have thoroughly looked at the effects of form, colours, contrast and symbolism. Here the Storm family shield is adorned with our motto "Amour, verité et diligence". The classic supporters are a lion rampant et guardant, and the red dragon simply rampant. The family colours Argent (silver) and Vert (green), the latter the symbol of hope, joy and loyalty in love. The blazon: on argent two juxtaposed swirls, between them depicting "S".

Choice of subjects

Here a marine marine pencil drawing I did many years ago, but which I somehow managed to keep and which recently turned up when cleaning out the house ahead of the move. I remember that when working with it I wondered what subjects I like. I am sure it changes over time and with one's mood, but I always come back to people. Landscapes can be beautiful, scenes interesting, and trying to capture the light on glittering waves can be a fantastically beautiful challange. But I always come back to people somehow ...