On my first trip to the Louvre I was amazed seeing artists set up throughout the museum copying various works of art.  I remember feeling their concentration, the stillness of the gallery, the magnificent artworks inspiring them.  

Now here I am spending countless hours doing the same as those artists but in my studio.  The magnificent high resolution of Vincent Van Gogh's "Roses" that hangs now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., available through my computer screen with such clarity that I can see every stroke.  The concentration and stillness in my studio echoed that which I remembered from years ago. 

I chose to crop Van Gogh's original work, the right upper and lower quadrants.  The evolution of the process actually surprised me.  I learned techniques that I had not known before and therefore could not expect.  I have painted many florals, but here I used the lens of Van Gogh and filtered, interpreted that knowledge in my own brushstrokes, choice of color mixtures, unraveling, deducing, problem-solving.   It was a rewarding experience.  How deeply one can feel what he was trying to paint by closely examining his brushstrokes, the choices he made in composition!  My heart is filled with respect and gratitude for Vincent Van Gogh.  How many artists he has inspired.  Over 130 years after he finished this painting I thank him for teaching me more about the wonderful medium of oil paint and expanding my artistic vision. 

A fantastic and important exercise.   Copying the masters lets us see through another artist's eyes, a great artist's eyes.

“It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.” Vincent Van Gogh

"Roses," Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

My project this week is to copy one of Van Gogh's paintings.  As a warm-up I chose one of his drawings to study, attempting to enter his mind a bit, how he interpreted the world and distilled it in his artwork.  His drawing style in his later years is what appealed to me.  After two years in Paris, Vincent longed for "some place of retreat," arriving in Arles in February 1888.  His devotion to the land, those who worked it, his "longing for the infinite, of which the sower, the sheaf are the symbols," led to the creation of many drawings and paintings of the harvest in the summer of 1888.  Over the years Van Gogh had developed a shorthand, the invention of a mark-making which he organised into patterns that later he used to convey color and texture with his oil pigments.  He utilised linear demarcations, hard contour lines, directional hatchmarks, stippling, curvilinear strokes, very graphical marks.  

In the drawing "Farmhouse in Provence," which Van Gogh did in early June 1888, Vincent's tools were reed pen and ink over graphite.  I opened my new set of Faber&Castell sepia artist pens, doing a quick practice of making marks with the four pens (superfine, fine, medium, brush).  The drawing was more difficult and took me longer than I anticipated, and still I did not do it justice, leaving out many of the grasses, getting lost in some of my spaces and proportions.  But an effort well worth making.  After establishing some important landmarks and intensely trying to "copy" what Van Gogh had drawn, I began to feel the energy of his marks, the expression in them and purpose, that he wasn't trying to get down exactly what was there but more what he felt personally upon seeing the scene in front of him.  His fervent desire to express this are in every mark. And that's really the point.  We study the masters to learn their techniques and then building on their foundation let them go to allow our own voice be illustrated through the tools we have learned.

Now to the painting...

Images below include the drawing and painting "Farmhouse in Provence," Vincent Van Gogh, June 1888

Quoted material from "Dear Theo:  The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh."

I have been meditating for a while on the idea of painting a series of small floral arrangements.  So beginning today, luscious colors ready on my palette, I'm painting alla prima, wet-on-wet, to see where this will take me, to explore, to go out of my comfort zone, but mostly to paint what I love to paint so much.  I often spend a week, sometimes more, discovering the nuances of petals and leaves with brush and pigment.  Painting directly, without waiting for the under layers to dry, pushes me to seek the essence of the flowers before me, attempting to capture their feeling more than their exact appearance.   This bouquet of beautiful sweet peas is the first of the group.   I'm excited to see where this will lead.

Fresh flowers are the best to paint, of course, but at this moment in my little town in Spain there are few to find.  I will make my daily walks now flower-searching excursions.  Another source will be the many interesting photographs I have taken from over the years.  

"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."  Luther Burbank

In January I was interviewed by Joumana Koulach for her blog Bring Your Art (BYA).  I share it here with you.

BYA : Would you briefly present yourself?

LAURELLE :
I was born in Santa Monica, California in 1955 with all that that implies.  I’ve been seeking answers to who I am and what are we since I was probably ten.  As horrible as this life can be, I am still awestruck by what is beautiful about our existence and our little planet.  After a very winding journey I am now in a seaside town in Spain.

BYA : What originally drew you to art?

LAURELLE :

I’m now in my 60s and have had a bit of time to reflect, and by luck of the die I was born to two parents who encouraged me to follow my passions.  My mother filled our home with art and color.  Visits to museums and exhibitions were not unusual.  When I began to show some real interest for drawing and creating, I had access to art classes, and there I discovered a second home. 

BYA : How do you choose your subjects?  What inspires you the most?

LAURELLE  :

I see paintings everywhere.  I take hundreds of photographs and spend hours looking at them.  Something will click that that one particular one calls me more than the others and that becomes the chosen subject.  I am inspired most by the human figure, the human face.  I am you.  You are me.  Our commonality, our sameness, our pathos, our human-ness intrigues me.

BYA : What are your favorite mediums? What made you choose this style?

LAURELLE :

Oil, hands down.  I will do watercolor again, acrylics, charcoal, but oil is sensuous, it’s exciting.  You press out the pigment from the tube and dip your brush in and apply it to the canvas, and there’s simply nothing that compares.  Style…no style, every style.  I have a million personalities, I’m full of contradictions, feelings, moments.  I just paint.

BYA : Another question. Is there an art style or subject that makes you feel uncomfortable? 

LAURELLE :

I am uncomfortable with digital art.  I know this will get some people’s dander up or hair rising on their neck, but, remember, I was born in ’55.  My personal history is you draw with a pencil or charcoal and paint with pigment on an actual brush.  I am still a child of that trajectory.

BYA : What other art you relate to? Music, poetry…?

LAURELLE :

A life without music is impossible for me to envision.  I play guitar, listen to all genre but right now mostly Cuban jazz, classical, fado…right now Jesse Cook is playing.  I enjoy poetry but have never seriously attempted to write any.

BYA : What would you like to communicate with your art? 

LAURELLE :

Difficult question.  I don’t know if I think of art as communication.  Yes, it happens,  But I paint because I need to do it and when I do it, it is a very solitary action.  To know oneself takes a lifetime and we all discover different methods to do so.  One of my methods is to paint.  But, yes, thinking about the question, sometimes I have an artwork that has a deliberate intention, something I saw in a moment of inspiration or even a dream, something I feel strongly about.  Human beings are such labyrinths of contradictions.  We are unique, yes, due to no one has the same exact personal history and background, but we share so much more than we differ.  I would hope to communicate that.

BYA : What was the most rewarding experience you had as an artist?

LAURELLE :

When I first moved to Spain, I entered my first ever plein air competition in a small town in Andalucia.  I got permission from the local police to set up on their building’s porch because it gave me what I thought was a unique perspective of the town’s iconic church tower.  They even suggested the best place to set up since the sun would be constantly moving.  A wedding procession passed, a busload of British tourists visited, the mayor of the town and his associates spent 15 minutes conversing and watching my brushstrokes, a local TV station filmed, and various photographers snapped pics.  The feedback was wonderful and encouraging.  It was very, very hot and by end of the permitted period to paint I was completely exhausted.  But I felt so satisfied.  Plein air is incredibly freeing. I was completely exposed.  I had to go with whatever happened.  The resulting artwork was okay.  But it was an awesome experience.

BYA : Have you ever stopped doing art? and what were the reasons?

LAURELLE :

Yes.  Life takes so many turns and you have to respond to them, and sometimes there simply is no personal time for art.  You have to work.  You have to raise your child.  You have to take care of your parents or loved ones.  You yourself become ill.  All those things have happened.

BYA : Which other artists influence or inspire your art ?

LAURELLE :

I recently visited Sorolla’s house/museum in Madrid and I was in tears.  He was a master of light and the figure.  Even his small landscape vignettes are gems.  But, truly, I am inspired by so many.  The art I see from my contemporaries in classes or even on Facebook and Instagram, a visit to a museum and seeing Santiago Rusinol or Picasso…we live in an amazing time where we have access to so much fantastic artwork.

BYA : What would you like to experiment as in artist? Like, what more would you like to do/ try?

LAURELLE :

I feel honestly I’m just beginning and so I have so much to explore.  I would like more space because I would really like to paint on very large canvases.  I enjoy very much experimenting with texture in the underpainting.  I primarily paint figurative work and am curious to explore landscapes.

BYA : Finally, what advice would you like to give to new artists?

LAURELLE :

Everything without exception in this life is practice.  If you want to get better at anything, one has to put the hours in and work at it.  When your non-art life takes over and there’s very little for what you really want to do, keep a sketchbook, draw a doodle, anything while you’re sitting in a waiting room for an appointment or riding on a bus or on the bleachers.  Look at art in your free moments.  Take art classes, all kinds.  Life drawing is everything and more.  If you can, carve out some time, any time, but make it a regular practice, and create.  I also think it’s better to buy three quality paint tubes plus white than many colors of student grade.  And do not listen to people who say good brushes do not matter.  A quality brush is a very wondrous friend when you are trying to say something with paint.

The full interview can be found here 

These are quite a departure from my usual subject matter of portraits and figurative work and favoured medium of oil.  I decided to do a series of still life and embrace the love/hate relationship I have with acrylics:  love that they dry so quickly; hate that they dry so quickly.

As I do with most of my work, I am always seeking new combinations of colors and forms which satisfy me.  There is a tension and energy between what I have before me—a setup, for example, of coffee mugs—and what I have in my head of those same objects, mostly having to do with the color relationships that will create a new way of seeing the subjects being painted.  I am fascinated by the appeal of pattern in art and found it interesting in the artworks included here to find a way to incorporate different repeated decorative designs without having them take away from the main focus of the painting.  But it is always evolving and changing.  My intention with the floral bouquet was also to add a design in the background, but during the painting process the dark indigo background begged for me to allow it to remain and contrast beautifully under the hues of the flowers.

"In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions." Marcel Duchamp

So pleased to be asked by UK's leading art supplier Jacksons Art to contribute to their blog article about what it is like for artists to paint portraits via livestream/Zoom/internet during this COVID19 period. The results have been unexpected and quite creative for many. I am honoured to be a contributor to the article alongside some truly amazing artists. Check out their wonderful art and what they have to say HERE

A genuinely creative environment would have to include all we do in whatever environment we are in. Creative-doing would have to be made a priority! We can do this by seeking a creative solution to every challenge that comes our way. (Artist/author Jerry Wennstrom) 

Continuing with my exploration of the face’s terrain in color, with this portrait I wanted to capture Rob Rinder's lively mind, thoughtful and thought-full, as I participated in Sky Arts' Portrait Artist of the Week's livestream of former winner Gareth Reid as he sketched in charcoal the TV personality and UK barrister.  I felt as if I had received a gift being able to listen in on Gareth and Rob as each described their own creative processes, pushing each other for deeper understanding, finding kind humility in both. What lingered while I put brush to canvas this week was Rob’s deep listening as he pondered the concept of preconceived knowledge that Gareth had described of how many art students are not able to achieve a good likeness because they have fixed ideas of what an eye is, a mouth, a nose, and how that affects one's approach to seeing a face (and--I thought--our understanding of so many things in life).  It was a reminder that what we truly need to “see" is what Zen describes as “beginner’s mind."  

We are so bombarded with imagery today (TV, internet, smart phones, etc.), addicted to looking at things and human beings.  We've become numb to the immensity of it all, and paradoxically we "see" less.  Returning to our original source, our child's eye, our beginner's mind, is where we begin to discover again the truth of what it is we are looking at.  When we look as if we've never seen something before, now that eye is not something named "eye" with all our locked-in ideas about what that is, but a shape, light, dark, color, relative to something else next to it that we are seeing anew.   We want to try to go beyond the condition of non-seeing, of no longer seeing.  Not only does this help with achieving a likeness, it also brings a freshness to the process as a creator.  Maybe the artist does not even want a likeness, but now can "see" the object that we term "eye" as something else, spurring innovation.  

So I attempted to carry that spirit in my rendering of Rob Rinder's portrait, hopefully bringing a freshness, a new "look" to what we think of as portraiture.  

If this subject interests you, my blog post "Truly Seeing" goes into this a bit more.  I would be interested to hear your comments.

"There is no large no small

Infinity lies before my eyes."

Seng-T'san, sixth century

There's a stillness that falls around one during the painting process. I don't mean simply as a result of working alone, but it occurs after quietly observing a subject that is being painted for an extended period of time. A dynamic balance, an equilibrium comes into being between the work and the artist. I have moments of this in each painting I do, but some works seem to embody this feeling throughout the whole process. My recent painting "Flores del Sol" is one such work. The symmetrical petals of the flowers and their varying shades of yellows and subtle oranges, the nuances of the light and shadow among the leaves...it became meditative to try to capture them with my brush and pigment. The intricacies of the ginger jar at first appeared daunting and then became a pleasure to create something so beautiful. The swirling patterns of my imagined tablecloth were a natural response as to how I should complete the composition.  And throughout, a stillness, a welcome antidote to these momentous times.

One of the best moments of painting is when you sometimes reach the stage that magic happens. You know it’s not really magic as if it’s something outside of this world’s logic because it took you hours of work and struggle to get there, but still “magic” seems to be the only word that encompasses that feeling of what just happened. Markings and color become a leaf, scratches of light and shadow become an eye of a sunflower…wait, oh wait, is that cad yellow lemon with a touch of burnt sienna and perm red and ultramarine blue where a petal begins…magic. It’s intoxicating.
Work and magic in progress:)

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."  Roald Dahl

A unique commission came my way.  One of my collectors sent me a sepia-coloured photograph of his great-grandmother who died in 1861 giving birth to his grandfather.  He was curious if I would be able to paint her portrait.   Nancy Ann had lived in Ohio, was of Irish descent and had blue eyes.  She was wearing a headdress of that era, pearl earrings, a dress of heavy material with contrasting collar, and although her eyes were not distinct it was clear she was looking straight at the photographer.  The nose and mouth were overexposed and therefore practically nonexistent.  What an interesting challenge!  First I did an internet search to get a sense of the fashion of that day, what type of headdress was worn in that era.  I found very few examples, but at least it confirmed that it was a headdress she was wearing with possibly some of her hair showing.  From the photograph I was unable to distinguish where hair and head covering began and ended so I decided to leave it ambiguous in the painting.  Collars of all types were very commonly added to the dress a woman wore.  

Sevillanas are an original dance of Seville that are sung and danced according to the structure of the seguidillas (one of the many rhythms of flamenco).  There’s countless schools of sevillana, each one with its own unique take on the dance.  They are differentiated by the song’s melody and its accompaniment, but still maintaining the actual structure of dance which is formed by four couplets of steps.  It’s one of the easiest forms of flamenco to learn and so it is danced by many.  The beautiful dance and its colourful dancers and lively music are a wonderful inspiration for the artist.

The figures were painted on an underpainting of unique markings and pigments.  The scripted words of the poet Federico García Lorca can be still seen in one dancer's dress and in the background.  Lorca's love for the music and dance of Andalusia inspired much of his great poetry and writings, and in turn flamenco and "cante jondo" composers were inspired by his words.  For an interesting essay into Lorca and his impact on flamenco, you can go to this link:  http://www.sanfranciscoflamenco.com/blog/2018/5/21/lorca-and-flamenco-by-carl-nagin.

How does one paint a portrait...oh, let me count the ways. No matter how I start, what technique I use, the process is enticing...starting with first image that for some reason has captured your inspiration, then the big shapes, introduction of color, smaller shapes, fixing, finding, fixing, something beginning to be revealed...and then, even if it's not perfect, something of that reason why you wanted to paint it in the first place is present. It's like finding treasure after the hunt. It's awesome.

"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old."  Franz Kafka

"I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.  Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open."  Mary Oliver, poet.

Are there any better words than those?  Isn't that really what life, full life is about...looking with open arms...not prejudging but really seeing things as they are.  It is highly probable that my attraction to painting is just that; it causes me to stop, look...really see.  If I am going to  transfer what I see through a medium such as paint to canvas, then I must open my eyes, my mind, my heart to what I am seeing.  We talk endlessly about technique and we learn diligently how to draw a nose correctly anatomically or how to mix the right color for a dark area of the neck, but are we seeing, truly seeing...This portrait I did of the young girl in Otavala cannot be successful if I see her mouth as "mouth."  I need to see it as if I've never seen a mouth before.  If I want to capture her eyes full of hope, innocence...then I cannot see "eyes."  I have to really go beyond that.  And then, of course, yes, I must have the knowledge of technique to give my "seeing" a form, which can only be achieved through practice.  Years ago I received as a birthday gift --thank you, dear Randi-- the book "The Zen of Seeing, Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" by Frederick Franck, a powerful book, a book that can change you.  Every word in the book still rings true for me today.  It made me reflect on being "in the moment" long before it was a popular cliche.  It also woke me up to the fact that maybe I was looking without really seeing.  But it is a practice, a daily practice, and one sometimes forgets or gets lost or caught up in our daily routines and we stop looking, seeing.

So for me, as an artist (in life and on canvas) that is really what I am striving for:  to see, to really look and to combine that with greater knowledge of the materials and technique I wish to use.  It is a daily practice, a life practice to reach the stage where, as the Zen Master Sengai said, "Every stroke of my brush is the overflow of my inmost heart." 

I took a photo of this scene while we were on a road trip from Cataluñya to visit my nephew's family in Merida.  I was snapping photos constantly because the area was so picturesque along the route.  When I saw this charming town with its whitewashed buildings, we stopped for a brief moment so I could capture it on film.  It was cloudy that day and the shadows not very intense, but there was something about the town's positioning, peeking out through the foliage, that appealed to my artistic sentiments, and I imagined it in bright sunshine.  My vision and the reality of the painting are at odds with each other at the moment, but I would like to post it for the Saeta challenge.

On Saturday I spent the day in a figurative workshop with Master Artist Osamu Obi at the Museu Europe d'Art Modern in Barcelona.  This beautiful place is where I also take classes.  Osamu Obi gave an introduction to how he became interested in oils as opposed to the traditional Japanese historical inclination to use watercolor.  His father, a professor of European history, would expose his own children to the great art of Velasquez, Rembrandt, Rubens...once a week with slides and readings.  Osamu was so struck by one of Rembrandt's self-portraits that he felt he must learn to paint in oil.  He gave a brief slide show and when he zoomed in on the nose, eyes, mouth of the Rembrandt painting you could understand his excitement:  the brushstrokes, the colors, the energy.  

The video here shows Osamu Obi demonstrating the medium which he creates himself.  He beats the yolk of an egg with vinegar and linseed oil until it is the consistency of thick mayonnaise.  It smelled like Spanish alioli!  This is what he uses at certain stages of his process.  After first preparing his substrate with his own gesso, he applies an earth color to the entire surface (imprimatura).  This is allowed to dry completely.  In the demo he began with Van Dyke brown thinned with turpentine to scrub into the dried surface to make it more porous and absorptive for the next layer of paint.  He then sketched the figure in with paint.  At home in his studio he will do a detailed drawing in pencil, fixing it with a thin glue layer, and then apply the imprimatura.  The imprimatura not only allows for the artist to place down more accurate tonal values, it provides a luminosity to the final painting as the first color reflects through the succeeding paint layers.  He stressed while sketching the model that one should not just focus on the figure itself but the space around the figure.  There were 20 people in the workshop and we had two models.  We all used his medium to paint and I enjoyed its consistency and flow quality it gave to my paint.  I spent most of my time watching him paint instead of actually painting myself.  He uses lead white and joked that he does not eat it and in 30 years has never experienced any effects from the toxicity.  He used Silver White pigment made in Japan.  He mixes his medium into the white pigment and then began to paint.  Watching his strokes was mesmerizing, meditative, inspiring.

"Accomplished artists are those who have proved themselves to be the best at what they do. 'Master' is the title often given to such a person, and rightly so: They've established themselves as worthy of the title through many years of study, and devotion of their lives to their craft." Daniel J. Keys, artist

"It liberates me not being encumbered by technical proficiency."  Alexander Gorlizki, artist 

My primary interest in this composition was the beautiful strong lighting on the red robe.  It had a strong, graphic visual effect that I wanted to capture on canvas.  Red has a special quality in that it reads as dark even in its lighter shades.  My palette of reds in the robe consisted of cad red medium, permanent red, and alizarin crimson mixed with ultramarine blue and viridian for the darker areas.

“If one says ‘red’ – the name of color – and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.” – Josef Albers, artist and educator

In life drawing class we had a marvelous model, Francisco.  As soon as I saw how the instructor positioned him seated at a table with props of a book, holding a pen, and that glorious red robe I was captivated.  The lighting was strong and created beautiful shadows. It had the potential of a dramatic composition.  I had to be efficient with my limited time.  I knew that I would have the most difficulty with the folds of the robe and tablecloth.  So after sketching and determining the figure's proportions and putting down my darkest darks I blocked in the deepest recesses of the folds.  I then endeavoured to capture the features of his face and the values in his chest.  Then I ran out of time.  Today I painted the mid and lighter areas of the robe and draping and was able to successfully capture the turning downward of his face.  It still needs some detail.  I am regretting not spending more time on the hands when I was in class.  He had his fingers within the pages of the book. It will be interesting. 

"The act of trying keeps me excited, looking, asking questions and learning."  Doug Dawson, artist

I am in a life drawing/painting class weekly in Barcelona, which is 45 minutes by train from my home in Villanova.  There is nothing that compares to the feeling of being in a studio with other artists as we gaze together upon our model muse and create art.  It's the connection, the energy that is present between the model and the artists that makes it special and the camaraderie of the artists as we share the experience.  I always wonder about the model's lives, their thoughts.  We tend to look longer, more intensely, at a live subject than a photograph.  Even though they apparently have not moved, I see hundreds of faces.  Which one to paint?  The class is a mere three hours, flying by, time to draw the proportions and hopefully block in values, eyes, nose, lips.  Many commence with painting immediately.  Some actually finish.  The models are generous and allow us to take a few extra photos in order to continue our work in our home studios.  

This painting was a particular challenge in that the model was backlit and also had strong lighting in front.  When I first began to work on the hair, she actually looked like a woman with a bridal veil.  For a while I thought about developing that concept, but then decided to continue to strive for the feeling of bright illumination behind her.  I wanted her to have a sense of mystery...what do you think?  Is she fearful? wary? uncertain?

"A painting is never finished.  It is quietly abandoned."  de Vinci

This month's Saeta challenge of painting every day for 30 days and posting it really forces one to let go of the painting and accept it (let others see it) as it is.  But I admit it goes against my grain.  I like the chance to live with a painting a while, to set it aside, even turn it against the wall so I don't see it, then look again with new eyes a bit later, seeing it a bit more clearly.  Objectivity can truly be lost when you are completing a painting in one day.   And since I am primarily an oil painter, a medium that really flourishes in stages, each stage guides you to the next.  Each time I do the 30-day challenge I begin with paintings completed every day and then gradually those paintings become two-day sessions, three-day sessions...old habits die hard.

"I don't want to sign the work until it looks like it has been lived on, until I have violated the open white space and created something that can become independent of me and fend for itself."  Dion Archibald, artist