Surface Matter(s)

After staring at this on my studio wall for almost 2 months, it is "done"..
It was a fun process working with this image, covering the canvas, working on it right side up, upside down, sideways, a small area at a time, everything at once.. Always learning. The challenge was making it work (for me) .. Noticing how the image is realistic and abstract at the same time..
One of the things I love about painting water is that it is such a fluid process..(no pun intended) Observation, painting, decisions.. Flow. Something mysterious is at work here. if I knew what it was I would write about it.

"Surface Matter(s)" oil, 4'x3'

In the studio

Sneak peek

A large canvas is quite an undertaking, and I am painting a water surface that is not so familiar to me. Turns out if the surf is down and/or the weather is stormy, I spend more time painting.. Even lost myself a few days, which is rare for me.. It feels near completion, but that could change in an instant...looks like next week will bring some waves (at last!) so I better get back to work...stay tuned...

Up to three colors + white!!

I don't know what it is about glassy water.. the calming effect, the light, the motion, the mercurial element. (quicksilver!) What I do know is that I want to keep painting it...This painting started out as an experiment, months ago, in glazing (layering thin glazes of paint, intended to create a luminous quality ) but since I had no idea what I was doing, I just now painted over it.. It's oil, 8"x10". Ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, and white...



Finally got one of those "miscellaneous" ideas out of my head and onto a board (9"x12")...(probably because I got out of the studio and onto a board.. hehe) .. it's one of those beautifully lit Bolinas mornings, off shore wind, perfect conditions, with a nice swell, but closing out on the sandbar at low tide... darn! From a photo by Jesse Wagstaff..
I find that as much as I love waves, I am much more attracted to what "makes" a wave...water, form, light, color and movement/energy....I'm not particularly interested in painting the perfect waves, although I dream of them all the time and love seeing photos.. however, I do need to do a wave or a surf scene every once in a while just to get it out of my system.. voici!

Living dangerously

Cruising on the momentum of having a pallette full of unused paint as well as a gessoed and sanded board, I just went at the surface unprepared and uninformed..usually I spend a lot of time preparing for an image I intend to paint, studying photos, systematically drawing and then transferring an image...but here I just laid down the paint with no awareness of control...It was a lot of fun actually and although it is the preferred technique for many painters, I have never felt comfortable doing it.. Feels too risky I guess, what if I fail?
I actually am quite fond of this little (8"x10") study, and think I am going to tackle the 36"x48" canvas in my studio for something along the same lines..

Refining an image

I knew something had been bugging me about the image below, and in my "desperation" to paint, I decided to risk ruining it and trust my instinct.. I knew it wasn't quite right before, but was tired of working on it and also couldn't see what it needed..What happened is that I ended up making more of a value variation from top to bottom and softening the harsh dark shadows in the water... Maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference to the viewer, but to me, I just couldn't rest until it felt "right" to me.. So I will let it rest now..The good thing is that it got me back painting again...

Before


After.. new and improved

Pin ball machine mind

Well, it seems that yet again I have fallen out of the groove of painting... and it is always so hard to get back in.. I have SO many ideas of images I am attracted to, but no one stands out...So I pop around from one to another. It seems to drain the energy right out of me.. I finally gave up last week and went to the movies.. Then a weekend of avoidance... today I am still avoiding the studio.. I get in the all too famiiar trap of wanting to do something "good" and that leaves me little room to make mistakes and experiment.. So I end up paralyzed and dissatisfied...I know I will eventually let go...
On another note, if you want to see what knocked me off track, here is a link.. I'm the one with a dark shirt and light blue board shorts...(not with long braids) .. marywagstaff.com/surfvideo
So I'm going up to the studio and see if I can get something going..oops, it's noon, maybe after lunch...

Wow, it's not THAT blue!

It seems that all I ever do these days are what I prefer to call "experiments" Maybe that lets me off the hook when they don't turn out exactly as I envision them.. Maybe all painting is experimental.. that is maybe until one has some sense of control about what one is doing and the results are consistent with the vision.. just pondering..
8x10 oil (???)
I really dislike naming paintings/studies..
On another note, I now have plans do a website, at the encouragement of Jesse.. I plan to put past work on it, and just link it to this blog.. The blog will be a "as I do them and how I feel about them" site while the web will have all my work in one place .. easy to view (you don't have to go through the archives) ..

Be patient, things change!

A very busy mind accompanied me when I returned to the studio for an "uninterrupted" day of work this week.. I had so many ideas and images running through my head, it was impossible to settle on any one. Either they weren't interesting enough or required too much research. No one idea stood out.. Even when I randomly selected one, I would immediately reject it.. I felt frantic! Ah, the challenges of being a perfectionist...Enough with this restless crazy mind!

After a frantic, unsatisying day of spinning my wheels, I saw that I would just have to wait until it calmed down a bit, which required letting go of any ideas of what I should be doing..

By the next day, it had calmed down and it became obvious what to do.... duh.

Some surfers paddle around all over the place, frantically chasing waves, hoping they will be in the right spot at the right time.. often chasing something that isn't even there.. .. Others sit patiently and wait in one spot, knowing a wave will come to them.. Both are fine, and I do both.. but from experience, I am learning that the calm, patient, focused approach pays off in the end. For me anyway..Yet another life lesson from surfing..

"Patience" 8x10 oil

Old/new-ish

In a burst of energy, I took photos of older pieces , all not related to water.. And of course the fun of playing with the edit feature of Picasa produced some interesting results.. Here's just one..this is large, 3'x6'... the Buddha face is charcoal and gouache on paper, the water, oil on canvas. Oh well just for fun.
Odd, yesterday's post isn't here.. must have done something weird..or nothing at all...later...

Indigo + titanium white

Well, after the normal life interruptions, I think I may have finished another painting... What I am not showing is the unsuccessful one I attempted in between where I used more than one color... ...So, this time, thinking simplification may mean "success," I tried Indigo ( a Sennelier brand color that I am in love with) and white.. a false step up from black and white..
Writing this, I realize that as much as I love color, I am also very attracted to the modeling of light and dark on "smooth" water and all the variations in between. So this is just another attempt at understanding how that looks.. It still evades me..

If you write down a sentence and you don't like it, but that's what you wanted to say, you say it again in another way. Once you start doing it and you find how difficult it is, you get interested. You have it, then you loose it again, and then you get it again. You have to change to stay the same.
-Williem de Kooning

Limited palette

Finished 36"x36" (largest painting I have ever done)


In the studio

 

Impossible color matching

Finally completing "Glassy Paddle Out", the next challenge was to photograph it for the blog.. Yikes! Considering I spent so much time working with oils to come close to the color I see in my mind, I was now faced with yet another, unexpected (and unwanted) challenge..how lighting conditions affect the color in the digital photo.. This is as close as I could come, but thought I'd include a side by side view of the computer screen and the original. The blue on-screen version is ok, but not what I wanted. If nothing else, it shows the size of the painting...and one can only guess at which color is the closest..
The past three paintings I have done in color have been such a learning process.. mainly learning how much I don't know.. B & W is comfortable, simple and I am still looking at form and light.. Color just adds an extra element.. The question is, is it necessary for what I am trying to say? Maybe I will stick to black and white for a few more years... or not..


 

more charcoal

Until I get it together to take more photos, thought I would post more from the foam series...Here are another 3 pieces..



 

Shades of grey

Finished and hanging on the wall.. This piece is 30"x24".
All I can think of now is going even bigger! That's a lot of canvas to cover!

Re: the state of "glassy paddle out" .. I am ready to abandon it..but maybe not just yet... The two challenges I face are 1) color!!! or lack of..and 2) the incredible amount of detail in the water...if I take out too much, it loses something.. I can eliminate some, but there seems to be a delicate balance I have yet to understand..

This past week the waves have been good, the water glassy, the sky foggy,
so the light has been amazing. I wish I had a photographic memory.. the color in the water is so hard to put a finger on.. grey? yellow grey? blue grey? blue? green shadows? grey shadows? brown? And to try to capture just a bit of the feeling of being in that amazing environment.. Guess that is why I keep trying.

Step into Liquid

Thought this painting was finished until I took some photos of it..Saw some spots that need some work, so back to the easel! As for the foot, I was fooling around with the camera, trying to give it a sense of scale.. will post the finished piece later.


I am having a heck of a time trying to mix the colors I want to finish painting "glassy paddle out" Today I got discouraged and wiped off all the paint I laid over the b&w image..a few day's worth.. Luckily, the image is still there. Maybe when I return from our backpack trip, a week without ocean or paint, just mountains, my eyes will be able to see things differently..

Pastel from the Past

This is for those of you who don't know my past work . Yes, it is pastel.. I actually think it was the very last still life I did before I packed all my pastels away in 2002.. I just sold it and Jesse took a digital photo for my records.. Much easier than the laborious professional film set up I have done in the past..
I have been entertaining the idea of documenting all the old work on a web site.. just for a record more than anything else..
Other news.. I was in the process of ruining "glassy paddle out" by painting layers of color on top of the black and white, until I decided to put it aside before it is completely gone.. ...I may return to it later, sometimes mistakes take unexpected turns.. In the meantime, I started on a larger water b&w.. So much fun...

Take a deep breath

"Glassy paddle out" OK, another experiment... this is the "first" stage. The so-called underpainting..I rather like it in black and white, so I really need to let go of any attachment to the painting and go ahead into the unknown. I plan to apply thin glazes of color (yyyaaaahhhh!!) and see if i can make it come alive.. Because of the water being so glassy/edgy there is less blending, less of the soft edges that I am also attracted to and create a completely different feeling for me...yet another challenge.. I am sitting with the notion that I might completely "ruin" it which is the reason for me posting it before I finish it..
There are many layers of painting on this panel, the same wave in many different forms.. kept trying to "get it right" but never completely did.. color issues again... This reminded me of the great little lefts at Bolinas when the groin sandbar was working (sigh!) ...Anyway, a friend saw it and loved it, so it will now be at her house...
Out of focus photo of the wave above. There is something I am really attracted to about this image..what a contrast to the crisp b&w.. Probably the two sides of my brain jockeying for control... 

More Foam...

Thought I would post a few more of the foam drawings since I haven't posted in a while...I did a series of 14 of these, so will gradually put them up for view.. a few at a time.. 

All together now!

All those experiments add up, a big painting! In the order I painted the pieces, starting top left, clockwise, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th..

B&W

In the continuing quest to learn how to use oils, I decided to remove all color and just use black and white.. I am much more at ease, probably because mixing the colors I see is so difficult (but is it necessary?) and also because of my experience with drawing B&W..I actually like this quite a bit, for me it is the most successful at portraying the "glassiness" of water that I am SO in love with...I am wondering what might happen if I lay a color glaze over the black and white and use it (the b & w) as an underpainting. The truth is, I really like this the way it is, so I will have to continue with the experiment..

Flow

Move your cursor over the photo and see what happens!



From the looks of the date on the last entry, the flow has been in a LONG ebb..Just lots of other stuff going on.. But I did manage to see the EBB & FLOW show.. I was in good company, but the Sausalito Bay Model as a gallery space isn't the best.. Lots of space, but too big or something...
Now I have two new framed pieces of art on my walls.. my own...