Flowers

    The Winter months usually bring a temporary halt to painting outside in the landscape, even though I love the light and muted colors I see everywhere. To keep me busy, I've been working on some paintings of flowers that are around our house (courtesy of my wife, Faith Evans-Sills) These are mostly small, quick paintings, something that I can finish in 1 sitting, usually around 3 hours. The high key colors I find exciting, with the reds, pinks and yellows something that normally doesn't sneak into my paintings. Who doesn't need more flowers in their life?...

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on paper; 12" x16"

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

Winter still life

     Every Winter we pull some of our plants inside, the ones that are in containers, where we can shelter them from the colder weather. The larger ones usually make their way into my studio, because of the free space and the natural light. Over the past few years, I usually paint or draw them here, and about a month ago I started this painting. A lot of these plants we've had for a long time, where they pop up in different paintings over the years (I recently found an old drawing with the rubber plant in it from 2003) There's something about the idea of a container that I'm attracted to, or maybe it's a vessel...how something 'boundless-ness' can be 'contained'. I like tracking the growth of these plants through paint.
     I painted over this painting turned on it's side from a few years ago, which I was never able to resolve (the symmetry and the space never 'clicked', and the paint application got too 'finicky'):

25" x 22"

     Before I jumped into the painting, I started by sketching out a few different compositions:

     I settled on the symmetrical composition again, probably unconsciously leaning this way from the previous painting that I was covering over. I don't usually like working over other paintings, but it does happen from time to time. The painting underneath had probably been drying for about 2 years, so I took a razor blade to it and tried to level off as many ridges of paint as I could.
     My first layer is usually applied with a palate knife, but in this case, it felt like I was plastering over an old wall. I've been specifically trying to work more broadly in the beginning, and using large brushes, or in this case, a palette knife, forces me to focus on the big shapes and how they relate to the rectangle. (basically, the Charles Hawthore color-spot approach). From there, I can progressively hone in and articulate the spaces between the big shapes, which is what happens in this sequence:

   I've taken a break from this one over the holidays, but it's nice to have a painting to work on at all times. I've enjoyed exploring the patterns on the rug with paint and how they relate to the shapes of the leaves. The bright cobalt rectangle serves the practical function of keeping any water and dirt off the rug, but within the painting it functions as a compliment to the orange of the wood and breaks up the receding floor plane. I'll probably continue to fiddle around with it until the plants go back outside in the Spring...

Flowers

     Recently, I've been making a conscience effort to bring some more of the aspects that I like about drawing, into my oil paintings. One of the things I like about drawing, is the ability to make a continuous mark, which for me is usually in charcoal or pencil. There is a certain feeling of 'flow' for me in drawing materials; you don't have to stop and reload a brush. There is a certain energy I feel that gets transferred into the drawing because of this. Also, the space of the paper feels different to me, than a canvas....more of a field to pull things out of, rather than an object bound by edges.
     Perhaps the first step I thought was just to start painting on paper. I knew I was going to travel this summer, and needed a painting support that could be compact and light. The local art supply store suggested a new oil paper from Arches. I bought a few sheets and decided I'd try it out by painting some of the flowers that were blooming in our yard.

15" x 22"; Oil/graphite on paper

     This was the first one I did, and I liked it immediately. When doing these quick 2-3 hour paintings, if it's going to be a good one, I always get a feeling within the first 10 minutes. It definitely happened on some of these.  Working on the paper, turned out better that I expected. I really like the absorbency of it; marks 'freeze' when you want them to and I'm able to work back and forth between the pencil and the brush. I can incise marks into the wet paint or scrap it off to reveal the paper. With the paint thinned out, I can work the surface similar to a watercolor, or go on thickly with a palette knife.
     I ended up doing 6 of these, over about a week. One a day, usually for about 2-3 hours in front of the motif. It was amazing to watch the different flowers change, not only day to day, but also through the length of the painting session. The leaves and petals are continually drooping or moving because of the light. I was able to track all these minute movements while trying to complete the painting. They were all then quickly framed up and sent to Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont for inclusion in her summer show 'Cool and Collected'. Here is a review that appeared in the Wall Street International magazine.

Hibiscus blooming; 22" x 15"

Hibiscus; 15" x 22"

Lily blooming; 22" x 15"

Lilies; 15" x 22"

Petunias; 15" x 22"

Flowering bulb (finished)

Here it is...the 'Flowering Bulb' painting finished. I thought it would be a quick 6 hour painting; it turned into a 6 week painting. The flower I did rather fast, because of it's blooming cycle, in a 2 hour sitting. I actually wanted to work on it some more, because I wasn't entirely happy with the way it came out, but when I returned to paint it, it had already started to wilt and die. It's window of time for me, and the painting, had come and gone. I actually enjoy moments like these when I paint. I've got this small opening to try and capture what's before me, maybe 20 minutes or a few hours, and then it's gone. All that's left is the residue of a vision, a fleeting chance to capture some moment of truth passing before me. Even if there's only just 1 square inch of the painting that works in the end, it's all worth it.

Flowering bulb

I started a new painting a few days ago, depicting a flowering bulb on our kitchen table. There are 5 flowers ready to bloom and, as of now, only 2 are fully opened. I'm waiting for the pinnacle of it's growth to paint that part, which should be in a few days. This probably means I'll have to get the flower done in 1 painting session, because of it's transient nature. Until now, I've mostly been working on other aspects of the painting, like the light and the space. It's really exciting capturing these slow, incremental movements of a plant's life cycle through time. (see the post I did about the banana palm painting) I'm beginning to feel Nature's slow, almost imperceptible growth all around me, through the paint.

The idea to do this painting came quite suddenly last week, after my wife Faith, moved the bulb from a corner of our kitchen onto the center of our table. I had sort of forgotten about it, as it had been slowly incubating there since Christmas. I'm always really impressed by her love and appreciation of plants, as well as, her excellent horticultural skills. Growing up as a kid, I was used to my mom placing plastic plants in unseen corners of our house where they would slowly accumulate dust (not such a green thumb). I love watching the slow passage of movement in a plant's growth cycle, as well as the bursts of bright colors that are sprinkled throughout our house and yard. It makes me aware of how dense and full of life the world really is.

I didn't do any prep studies for this one, but just grabbed a canvas I had in my studio and started painting. Usually I like to do some drawings and sketches first, to determine the composition and size of the painting. Recently, I've been determining my canvas size through drawing; working out from my field of vision, rather than having to fit what I see into the parameters of a pre-determined canvas size. This one is an unusual proportion for a still life, 14" x 22". Last Fall, I made a bunch of wide canvases like this to use for my quick, plein air landscapes. I like the wider format, as it is helping to re-emphasize the sweeping expanse of the horizontal table in front of me. I'm recording the slight bend and sag of the table as it sweeps away from the focal point of my vision, the flowering bulb.

Behind the bulb, is one of my wife's paintings. An initial impulse in painting this scene was how the flower was eventually going to mimic the colors and forms in her painting. We both feel that it's one of her best pieces, which is why it hangs over our kitchen table. By including her work in mine, it is bringing our paintings into a new dialog; a fuller relationship of the interconnectedness of our art and life together.

working indoors

Now that it is too cold to paint outdoors, I've started a few paintings inside. Besides being more comfortable, I've found that it's much easier to paint when I'm in control of the light source (lamps). As I've described previously, working outside puts me at the mercy of the weather and the variables of sunlight, so these new paintings are a welcome relief.

The most recent painting I've completed, is of a banana palm plant that is in my kitchen. During the winter months, my wife and I take many of our plants from the deck, indoors. Besides giving our house a lush, tropical feeling, it also protects them from the elements. One that I repeatedly find most annoying to deal with is the banana palm. First of all, it's now so heavy and bulky, getting it indoors is a 2 person job, requiring a dolly and some cursing. Secondly, the only spot for it is in our kitchen next to a window, which is just to the left of where I keep my laptop computer and our toaster oven. It's now about as tall as I am, and given the small space in New York living quarters, it sometimes feels like we've added another member to our family. It's leaves fan out over and in front of the window, and I find myself always bumping into it while checking my email or making toast. So after much procrastinating, and before the first frost, a friend and I finally pulled it inside. Looking to continue my work through the winter, I thought I'd somehow redeem my annoyance with this plant by doing a painting of it. I was struck by the towering grace-fullness of the plant, bursting out of it's heavy aluminum base. I also liked the idea having my computer in the painting; the organic next to the machine.

I did a sketch and a larger charcoal drawing, then determined that the size of the canvas should be about 18" x 24". One thing that fascinated me as I worked on the piece was how fast the plant was growing. Having scrutinized and observed it for about a month, I noticed how rapidly the plant's leaves were unfolding before me. There was this very slow, but perceptible rotation upward and outward of the plant reaching for daylight (phyllotaxis). I found this completely amazing, but also frustrating in regards to working on the painting. Having picked something to paint which I thought was static (a still life), I found myself painting a moving target again. It forced me to render the leaves' positioning in a one-shot painting session, usually about 2 hours. A few days later, when I returned to work on the painting, I found the position of the leaves had changed, forcing me to destroy and repaint it anew. At a certain point I was happy with the way the leaves were painted and worked on the rest of the painting. After about a month, I thought the painting was complete and took it to the studio to put some finishing touches on it. A few days later in the kitchen, I noticed that one of the large, lower leaves protruding out into the space in front of the plant, was beginning to slowly change color. The fresh, 'ripe' leaves, all have this dark variegated green with purplish splotches, which was was a thrill to paint. The dying leaf in the front was slowly losing that deep viridian color, turning yellowish-orange from the tip on upward. This last element is what finally tied the whole painting together for me. The new yellow-orange in the leaf mimicked the yellow orange of the floor and cabinet to the right, and added a focal point to the sprouting jumble of green leaves in the middle of the painting. I brought the painting back for one last sitting and repainted the front-most leaf in one shot.

It's moments like these that remind me of why I enjoy painting from life. There's no way that the dying leaf would have meant that much to me if I had just taken a photo and decided to do a painting from it. I had observed and witnessed the birth and death of this plant's life cycle over the past month. The course of the painting contained a succession of frozen moments which were seen and recorded. The unfolding of growth and decay; from the striving fresh shoots in the middle of the plant, to the dying leaf in the front. It is by this slow, sustained looking at things which allows me to see and know the world.