Archive for the ‘Expressionism’ Category
Fooling Around
Robert Genn, Canadian landscape painter, wrote a letter on “The fine art of fooling around” this week. Here are some of his ideas.
Fooling around is a vital part of the creative process. As artists, we have accumulated technical skills, understanding and knowledge that there are a variety of ways to accomplish the same ends. We need to give ourselves permission to just “do it.”
Reverse, or at lease vary, your usual order of starting. If you have a tendency to finish certain areas, leave them unfinished with the knowledge that you will return to them. Leave your options open – make it up as you go along. Don’t obsess about things – back off, move around, loosen up. If your painting is not going well, count your blessings, get an optimistic spirit. Don’t get too serious – ask, “How can I play here?” Take chances – you can almost always cover up your mistakes.
Creativity, invention and exploration all stem from the same root. To keep both yourself and your viewers happy, the making of art needs to be a dynamic evolving event, of joyfully trying this and that!
Maryland
When I reached Maryland, I was still in the mountains. This is ski country in the winter and with wonderful vistas in the summer. I traveled over several mountains, some at 2700-2800 feet high. (These are not the Rockies, folks, but very old mountains.) What amazed me was that the Eastern Continental Divide was only 2600 feet high where I crossed it.
The most beautiful mountain was the last one I crossed – Sideling Mountain at 1269 feet. Here engineers have blasted through the rock and I could see the layers of various colors as the mountain had been pushed upward thousands of years ago. What a treat for a landscape painter like me!
Goin’ Home
On Friday, I left Dayton, OH, bound for Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The land in western Ohio is very flat with trees here and there. After all, this is the corn belt, wonderful farming land, but east of Columbus it becomes gently rolling with more dense, fluffy deciduous trees. By the time I reached the eastern border of Ohio, I was in the foothills of the Appalachians.
My journey takes me through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, WV, again, then to MD. In WV, there is always an extra lane going up the mountain for slow traffic, and it ends at the top. Then there is a warning sign, a 5% – 7% grade for 5 or 7 miles. The longest one I found was a 6% grade for 13 miles! Going down, frequently there is a runaway truck ramp off to the right, paved with gravel, hopefully not needed, but available just in case.
It is exciting to travel through the mountains and the scenery is beautiful. For one who does landscape paintings, it is a feast for the eyes.
The Class Reunion
This past weekend was a class reunion for graduates of my high school. On Friday afternoon we met at the country home of one classmate and his wife for a picnic. His land is worthy of a landscape painting with its large circular pond and a fountain in the middle, a nearby gazebo with comfortable chairs and picnic table, and a garden of sunflowers nearby.
On Saturday, a few of us visited the new, modern high school built since my class graduated, and even enlarged since then. We also visited a museum with the biplanes used in WWII which had been built by a local company.
Saturday evening we had dinner at a nearby restaurant and continued the visits we began the previous night. It was good to see my fellow classmates and old friends again.
Illinois
The land along I 74 in Illinois,where I am traveling, is very flat. Years ago, the glacier smoothed it and left it in wonderful condition for growing corn, wheat, beans and anything else one would care to plant – and trees here and there. Only along he rivers can one find thickly wooded areas. As one who does abstract landscape painting, I am thoroughly enjoying the fluffy deciduous trees, scatterred with abandon across the land.
Also, along my travels are some wonderful names like Galesburg (why not Tornadoville or Stormburg?), home of poet Carl Sandburg, Spoon River, Knoxville, Peoria, Normal, Bloomington, Le Roy, Mahomet, Lake of the Woods, Champaign, Ogden, Fithian, and Danville. I wonder who named those places.
The Weeping Hemlock Tree
Yesterday, Thelma and I painted at the home of Beth, a retired teacher, who lives in a lovely home with a large yard. The yard is about 3 acres in size, full of trees and gardens and lawn.
One of the trees is a weeping hemlock, some of whose branches hang down to the ground. The area inside the weeping branches is about 15 feet in diameter and Beth has hung tea lights on the branches. The “ceiling” is about 5 ½ feet high – enough that children love going in and feeling like Alice in Wonderland after she went through the looking glass. Beth’s grandchildren love playing inside the tree where it is cool.
Thelma does expressionism art and last week painted from a photo taken from inside the tree. Yesterday, she painted the weeping hemlock from the outside. She, also, loves the tree!
Trees
I love trees! Could you have guessed? And the more odd and gnarly, the better! These are the old soldiers with personalities! In my neighborhood on the Eastern shore of Maryland, there are very many “Christmas tree” pines as well as the tall loblolly and slash pines and deciduous trees, and I love them all! Unfortunately, my neighbor has lost 5 pines due to the pine borer. I’ve lost 2.
On my trip west, along I 70, the highway is often lined with dense forests of tall beautiful green pine trees, giving me a luxurious feeling. Further west along I 68, are mountains, ski resorts and a variety of deciduous trees.
Ohio and Indiana have mostly farm land with trees here and there, but north of Chicago there are many lakes and the trees are often pine, but many others as well. I drove past one stretch, about ¼ mile in length with one beautiful large weeping willow after another!
As one who does abstract expressionist art and loves trees, all these trees are truly a feast for the eyes!
Debbie
Debbie is my eldest daughter. She is a very creative person and lives with her husband, George, in Ingleside, IL, in Lake County, north of Chicago.
Debbie has a degree in Graphic Design from the University of IL, but has never worked as a graphic designer – too much stress. She is interested in photography and has worked for a photo studio, vegetarian grocery, vegetarian diner, and as a nanny. Her boss, Barb, sells commercial real estate and Deb has worked for her since Barb’s older child was 3 1/2 years old. The children are now 18 and 13.
At this point, Deb must think of the future. She is interested in combining her interest in rescuing cats with her interest in photography. A few years ago she helped her cats do paintings for a fund raiser for her rescue group. They were abstract expressionistic paintings and one was a big orange self portrait by Colonel Mustard! Some of those paintings sold for up to $150. Deb now has a new Photo Shop program for her Mac computer, so I hope she can learn ways of helping the cats and herself financially as well as finding a satisfying vocation.
Richard McKinley
Recently, I read an interview with plein air painter Richard McKinley. The following are some of his thoughts.
As artists, we are very visual, and any form of painting is visual. Our visual patterns were etched in our psyche in childhood; the colors and patterns of our childhood are the ones with which we are most comfortable as adults.
Every landscape painter paints the body of water or the road winding back into the distance. These have a sense of mystery. The artist tries to make the landscape a little more poetic.
Painting provides a challenge – the intellectual and emotional stimulation – that an artist needs. The painting is like a dance partner; sometimes it steps on the artist’s toes, sometimes it’s the other way around; sometimes we barely make it to the end; sometimes we quit midway because it isn’t working. And sometimes it turns out great! It’s the partnership that keeps the artist coming back.
Violet is the magic tone in the landscape. Whether it is warm or cool, it serves as the perfect bridge between the worlds of weather and light conditions, and it’s everywhere. My own teacher, many years ago, advised,”When in doubt, use purple”.
Art after the Impressionists
The Post-Impressionists were very influential to the first art of the 20th century – Fauvism and Expressionism. Three of the most influential of the Post-Impressionists were Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne.
Gauguin’s clashing color patches and flattening of space, van Gogh’s expressive use of color and line and Cezanne’s method of reducing nature into its geometrical components (cylinder, cone and cube) appealed to both groups. All three artists expressed their own feelings on canvas instead of painting traditional historical and religious art for public spaces.
In many ways, the Fauves and Expressionists picked up where the Post Impressionists left off. They believed that they should express their personal visions in art rather than cater to public taste – and in the process, with their abstract expressionism, they set the tone for modern art.