Clementine

12/12. Clementine, oil on linen panel, 4x6 in.



It seems as though everyone has painted a peeled clementine at one time or another so I thought I'd try as well. Again I photographed the very beginning stage and it shows how unpredictably I start to work sometimes - I was a little sad that I had to get much thicker with the paint.

I took a break last night from painting and instead wrote some of the thoughts I'd been having lately (after which I meant to post this piece but I didn't get that far). To the previous post I feel I should add that those "other" ideal qualities to strive for in painting were only the ones that came to mind the most easily to me. Also, in having the opinion that I do I might only keep myself from attaining the level of discipline needed to begin mastering those other qualities. Yet, I believe all of those things will just manifest themselves more and more with time, simply as a result of being productive and acting on inspiration, being viscerally receptive to paint's little accidents.

I must surely come off as offensive any time I suggest simply that some painters are a dead master's wannabes (I think they would easily outpaint me, as true wannabes have incredible discipline). Now couldn't someone say the same about me, based on everything I've said about Bonington? Yeah, maybe I'd give a body part or two to paint as well as he did, but if I suddenly could I still wouldn't reproduce his way of "seeing" and be attracted to the same things he was, composing pictures the way he did. Especially as I have my own quirks, as do most painters. And of course most aren't wannabes (and, like me, have wide ranging influences), yet there are so many who try real hard to turn into the next Sargent, say, and just become indistinguishable from all the rest. Well at least they employ a consistent "style," so who am I to say anything?...

Onion #4

12/11. Onion #4, oil on linen panel, 4x4 in.

I attempted to paint roughly, scumbling and scratching a lot, to match the skin of this onion. It was dry and dirty in places and unappealing, but it seemed to radiate all these clean colors which I don't normally see in onions. The first bold mark I made was the transparent crimson edge at top, and once I put some green and purple around it it felt alive like a slippery koi in a pond.

This isn't the best painting nor the most instructive experiment, but in it are some interesting things. I've been thinking a lot lately about why I paint (and why I'm so glad to be painting again after so long) and what it is that's so interesting about doing little studies which don't deviate much in composition. Maybe this goes for most other oil painters who aren't concerned with the avant-garde (there's no such thing anymore), but for me it's simply got to be the nature of paint and the experience of color on the eyes, the almost musical play of pigment floating luminously next to, around, and beneath airy veils and dense tapestries of color. I wish I could describe it more eloquently. Although I wasn't yet ready for the journey at the time, perhaps I had decided years ago as Markowsky was encouraging us to exploit it in painting class - but especially when I first saw paintings by Bonington in a book - that my goal should be to find the balance between transparent and opaque. That's all.

By this I mean: not to dance around that point, emulating Velasquez, where at a certain viewing distance the image comes together and is no longer a chaos of disparate strokes. Nor strive for Rembrandt's light, or some "secret" process or medium of his - he had none, just skill and patience. Nor, as I've started to realize more and more, attempt to "transcribe" nature the way Liszt condensed Beethoven's giant symphonies to be played on a piano - though that's not a feat to laugh at. Sure, all of these things together are ideal, but I just want to be there when the little mysteries in the paint reveal themselves. Like when oil mimics watercolor and changes back again. Bonington made paint sing - his sketchy pieces still kill me after all these years (and I'll have to scan some pictures from a book next time to justify my obsession, since you can't find any good examples anywhere else). Sargent did it too - but I believe what I'm talking about isn't what his wannabes today are emulating (flashy brushstrokes that sculpt a face or a hand or the lapel of a jacket with as few notes as possible). Well ok, add that to the list of ideal things, as Bonington was a master of economy too.

But those things are all human things, the craft side of painting, like the way a chef puts the food in little stacks on a rectangular plate and drizzles the sauce over it in graceful zigzags. Or like the way a carpenter shapes the wood. Bad comparisons perhaps? Before constructing the joints or "plating" the food, there are the different woods, the ingredients of a dish, and their wondrous qualities. So, although I have a lot to learn about the craft of painting, what's always more interesting is what the paint does to me and not what I can do to it.

Bunch of parsley

12/10. Bunch of parsley, oil on linen panel, 4x5 in.

I took the first photo when I realized I was working in a new way, that is I used a cool color to rough out the form (very rough) and stain the canvas - I don't know if it was simply because the dominant color here is green or if it was a subconscious experiment - but the surface seemed to have infinite potential once that amorphous shadow was sketched in. In some recent pieces I had thrown in some bluish-white at this early stage to get some of the "air" along the edges, though not here because the parsley isn't a solid form with a turning edge. In this case the blue went into the bulk of the parsley, more as an effect of the light than atmosphere. But I found as I went along that it was good to have the initial rough stage as a foundation, something to play off of for subtle space around the parsley. Normally I had used a brown all over for blocking in shadows etc., even in the broccoli piece, because I was so used to it.

(One of these days I might try something else novel, that is go to bed early so that I can think and write in the morning and am not like a zombie with a blog.)

Persimmon #2

12/9. Persimmon #2, oil on linen panel, 4x4 in.

The leafy junk on top frustrates me, as I can't always tell what's going on with the forms and the colors are unusual. Overall this piece isn't as airy as yesterday's, but the persimmon color seems a little truer - I say seems because there is more of a dirty yellow in actuality, but I think I've made my color convincing.

Persimmon

12/8. Persimmon, oil on linen panel, 4x4 in. SOLD

Why have I been repeating the title under each piece when it's already titled at the top? Who knows.... I think I've only ever tasted a persimmon when I was a kid. This one is of the Israeli "Sharon" variety, classified under the most common species (Diospyros kaki) that includes the widely grown Japanese "hachiya" and other types. A related persimmon variety is the Diospyros lotus, or "date-plum," which to the ancient Greeks was called the fruit of the gods, according to Wikipedia - Dios pyros, lit. "the wheat of Zeus" - and (this is one of several theories) it is the fruit mentioned in that brief scene of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus and his men

landed in the country of the Lotus-Eaters, who live on a flowering food, and there we set foot on the mainland ... then I sent some of my companions ahead, telling them to find out what men, eaters of bread, might live here in this country.... My men went on and presently met the Lotus-Eaters ... But any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of lotus was unwilling to take any message back, or to go away, but they wanted to stay there with the lotus-eating people, feeding on lotus, and forget the way home. [Translated by Richmond Lattimore.]

Odysseus "took these men back weeping, by force," to the ship and tied them up under the rowing benches before getting the heck out of there. (Then came the mess with the Cyclopes.) So my persimmon isn't this "lotus" type, but I found it all very interesting.

Golden Hubbard squash #2

12/7: Golden Hubbard squash #2, oil on linen panel, 6x4.5 in.

This was a compositional challenge as I was stuck with a panel of the wrong format. I think it works though, tight as it is. I had some fun with the colors - I don't use crimson much, especially in large areas, and it's refreshing to kind of bathe in it like this. This is sketchier and not as solid as yesterday's, but the thing that really bothers me is that I gave too much contrast to the little hole in the stem.

Golden Hubbard squash

12/6: Golden Hubbard squash, oil on linen panel, 6x5 in.

My wife and I both doubted the sticker on this which said it was a Hubbard, thinking instead it had to be an ambercup or some other pumpkin-like variety. But there is a variety of Hubbard squash that is smallish and gold and not blue or green, though most pictures online show the skin being very warty; and of course the people who'd put the sticker on this thing in the first place would know what they had. Whatever it is, it's great - and I felt I struck a coup this time (at least in the beginning) when I reached a magic balance of opacity and transparency, and the edge transitions began to really define the space. Some of this ideal quality I lost, as invariably happens, but some I found again and pushed further, so in the end I'm quite pleased with it.

Bartlett pear #3

12/5: Bartlett pear #3, oil on linen panel, 4x5 in. SOLD

I've been letting down the two or three people who care, by not mentioning how long some of these pieces have taken. This one was about 45 minutes. (I think the one before was more like an hour and a half.) The yellows and greens of these pears are annoyingly much more vivid than I can paint, but I hope I've been getting some sense of them. To me this one is a little better, as I think I'm getting back some of my own vividness and clarity of color which had been a little more tepid lately.

Old English word of the day:

pere [pĕr'-ə]: pear.
(perewós: perry, a cider-like drink made from pears; literally "pear moisture/juice.")

From a history of pears and perry in the UK, by Gillian Grafton:

Tacitus implies in some of his writings that pears were cultivated in Britain at the time of the Roman occupation. Charlemagne (circa 800) issued a list of plants to be cultivated which included pears. In Britain however, definite records are not available until after the Norman Conquest. The Domesday Book of 1086 mentions old pear trees several times as boundary markers, implying their cultivation before this period.

Court accounts in the reign of Henry III (1207-72) show that pears were imported from France and for many years French varieties dominated English orchards. Pears were imported from the La Rochelle area of France which was famed for its pears.

Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, developed extensive orchards and there is a record in 1262 of the court gardener planting six Cailhou (Cailloel) pear trees. Eleanor of Castille, wife of Edward I, was a keen gardener. In the court accounts for 1276-92 the following pear types were noted: Kaylewell (Calswel); Rewel (de Regula); and Pesse-Pucelle. Kaylewell was a synonym for the Caillou and was seen as a pear fit only for baking but was very popular with the royal family at the time. Other pear varieties noted at this time were: Martins; Dreyes; Sorells; Gold-Knopes; Regul; and Chyrfall.

Sometime before 1388 the first important English pear variety, the Wardon, was introduced by Cistercian Monks at Wardon in Bedfordshire. It was widely used for pies, which became known
as Wardon pies.

Bartlett pear #2

12/4: Bartlett pear #2, oil on linen panel, 4x6 in.

My painting of the light has been different lately even after I went back to painting on the easel, and I'm not sure why. Sort of blotchy and all over the place like Renoir, but without the greasy stringiness. I think he's the one I was thinking of. I never liked Renoir - but if someone else would say this has kind of a Renoir feel I'll take it as a compliment.

Bartlett pear

12/4: Bartlett pear, oil on linen panel, 7x5 in.

I'm still here. I was going to post something about the Paint Out but was too tired after the reception, and on Sunday night had some kind of stomach bug that still had me feeling weak yesterday. (Maybe it was just real bad indigestion, made worse by my ignoring my wife's advice to lay off dairy and other stuff for a while.) Anyway, I haven't been at the computer much and haven't responded to anyone, but thanks to those who wished me luck the other day. I struggled at the Paint Out, as I will write about later, but I'm proud of myself for taking part and it only made me want to do more plein air work. Nevertheless I'm really glad to be back at my chunky easel, and for now there will be more small fruit.

Lately I started making my panels using Yarka extra fine grain linen glued to hardboard with a liquid hide glue, spread with a brush or roller. There are a few more irregularities in the linen than the Old Holland brand I was using at first, and the priming is stiffer. But I love its funky sizing smell, and the feel and look of it being made by hand, like they just sliced a length of it off in their cold Russian workshop and mailed it to you. I don't know how this brand compares to a roll of Claessens, but I read that it was a great value and it really is. So far I haven't had much trouble with the linen being slick - maybe I am working better and am more in tune with the surface.