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I wanted to let everyone know I am conducting a 1-day plein air workshop this Saturday, June 20th. We will be meeting at the Chesterton Art Center in Chesterton, IN at 8 am and traveling to a nearby location from there and end the day around 4 pm. I will do a quick demo in the morning and discuss several aspects of painting outdoors. Then the students will be sent off to paint and I will teach in a more one on one fashion, addressing each student's individual needs and concerns.
Cost for the workshop is $50. For a supplies list and more information, please contact me at 219.241.1392 or through email at mark@vandervinnestudio.com. This is always a fun time and I hope you can come join us.
Talking with a friend the other day I mentioned painting en plein air. I pronounced it "en pline air" out of habit, and he questioned my pronunciation. He thought it was pronounced "en plane air". So I thought I would seek the truth out. Little did I know we were both wrong, and I am still trying to kick the habit of pronouncing it incorrectly. To hear it pronounced properly (in a wonderful French accent) visit this link.http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?fwenpl01.wav=en plein air'Which got me wondering why we use French words for so much art related stuff? En plein air, atelier, grisaille, giclée, trompe l'oeil, avant garde, art neaveau and art deco to name a few. Let's face it, most of these words describe ordinary things. It's not like "amore" or "raison d'ete" which have a deeper meaning to them than their English counter parts.
En plein air, literally translates to in open air. So "painting en plein air" is "painting in open air". I don't know about you, but I know I don't talk that way. Now, imagine simply telling a person you were outside when you painted it, instead of "en plein air". Would someone think less of the piece? Would it really sell for less than the value the artist or buyer has placed on it? Recently I heard someone calling it wilderness painting, which is nice, but doesn't capture the idea if you're painting in a city, suburb, small town or even on a farm. I've heard some artists use the term alla prima painting. While most plein ain air work is done alla prima (or all at once) it doesn't describe the act of painting on site. Also it's an Italian term, with premier coup being the French equivalent. So I guess we artists are not just prone to taking words from France, but Italy, too. Being of Dutch origins (though wholly American), I wonder if I can start using Dutch words to describe art related things. After all, we owe a lot to the Dutch painters, too. Op plaats means on site.
One of my personal favorite artspeak words is giclée. According to Wikipedia, the word giclée is derived from the French language word "le gicleur" meaning "nozzle", or more specifically "gicler" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray." Imagine telling a client that the giclée print you just sold them was printed on an ink-jet printer? After all, that is what a giclée is: a recently invented name for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing. In the graphic design world, we simply call it digital printing. Off-set printing is probably the best form of printing but can be very expensive, especially for small runs, probably why artists don't use it often. Iris prints are a form of giclée, just printed specifically on an Iris printer. It still sounds nice, but doesn't hide the fact of what it is. So why the term giclée? To make it sound better than what it is?
And how about "atelier"? Another one of my favorites. it means an artist studio or workroom. Recently, though we seem to have changed the meaning. It is often used as a shortened version of The Atelier Method which "is a form of private instruction in which an artist, usually a professional painter, works closely with a small number of students to progressively train them." (Wikipedia, again.) So basically, the word means art studio, but the new meaning is an art school founded and taught by one artist often out of his studio. Hmm? Does it make the artist sound more legit as an artist? More professional?
So why do we use these foreign words instead of our English language counterparts? Is it strictly a marketing tool to make something sound better than what it is? Like Jeep's "Trail Rated" — it doesn't mean anything, but is speaking to the target audience as a marketing communication tool. Or are we trying to mask what it really is?
My philosophy is simple. It's the KISS philosophy. I prefer to keep it real and simplify it as best as I can. So while I use some of these terms, I also find that I do what I can to explain what they really are. After all, if we are ashamed of what they really mean, we, as artists, shouldn't be using the terms. And, if we are trying to purposefully mislead people, then ethically we should be ashamed of ourselves.
The really funny thing is that after doing even more research I have discovered even the word "art" is of French origin. So they invented art? Well, the Lascaux Caves are in southwestern France. And France has more Upper Palaeolithic period (40,000 to 10,000 BC) paintings than any other European country. So maybe they did invent art and that's why we use their language more than others to describe it.
While writing the post for drawing eyes, it got me thinking about one of the initial inspirations.
I was visiting another blog (unfortunately I don't remember which one), where the artist mentioned that his teacher assigned the class to draw 500 eyes over a weekend. After sketching eyes intermittently for myself over a few weeks, I doubt that he could have done that and had any time for eating, sleeping, working or any other assignments. But it was fun to do, nonetheless. Even 100 eyes in a weekend would be difficult, I think. More probable, though. Especially if you count each eye instead of the pair. so instead of 100 pairs of eyes, it's 50 pairs of eyes.
Either way, I think the point of the exercise is to draw something so much that it becomes second nature to you. I think of two musicians and body memory. One musician is a rocker that has been drinking and doing drugs, and yet can get on stage and still play the song without missing a note. (Believe me, I've been to these shows.) The musician has practiced the song so much, he doesn't have to be cognizant of what he is doing, his hands will automatically go to the next chord or note. The other is a story about the musician Sting. I remember watching a behind the scenes where he was talking to another musician about a part that he wanted to him to play. Sting began playing the bass line so the other musician could play over top of it, but forgot where he was in the song. They had a good laugh, and Sting mentioned he can't play the part without singing along with it. His body had become so accustomed to playing it along with his vocals, that to separate the two was difficult for him. that's the idea of body memory. That you do something so much that you don't have to mentally think about it anymore, it just comes out.
So I wonder, is it even feasible for an artist to reach for that goal, or is the body memory something for musicians, because they play the same song over and over, while we draw different pictures each time? Is body memory more likely for an artist like a comic book artist that draws superheroes easily in any pose because he has done that for so many frames over so many books — while a portrait artist or landscape artist uses different models, lighting, colors, scenery, etc. and never really gets to that level of body memory? I'm unsure and am curious of your opinions on this subject.
One would think being a landscape artist, I wouldn't care much about the human form. Truth is, I enjoy drawing and painting the human form a lot. The main reason I draw people is to keep my drawing skills honed. While drawing trees and the landscape I still must be accurate, but if I move a branch up a few inches, who will notice? Now if I move a nose up a few inches, well everyone will say I can't draw.
I began this exercise of drawing eyes when one day I was drawing a person and realized I was struggling with the eyes. The only way I know to get better at something is to consistently do it. You know the adage, "Practice makes improvements." So I set out to draw and study eyes. Above is a montage of some of those sketches. (While all these are the eyes of women, I did male eyes too, and differing ages. I will post them at some point, I'm sure.)
Sometimes I would just draw the eyes, other times I would anchor them to the nose and cheek structures. Other times, I found myself intending to just draw the eyes, but not being able to stop and winding up drawing the whole face. One of the things I was trying to find out as I was drawing was just how much shading was needed, especially around the nose area. Sometimes there is a distinct line for a nose, but other times I found I didn't need that at all. The rule of thumb is that when drawing eyes and the nose line (especially on a woman) if the angle of the face is over 2/3rds a line for the nose should be drawn, if it is less than that it isn't necessarily needed. Of course, it is strictly up to the artist to determine how much detail he/she wishes to put into the sketch or drawing. It is worth experimenting with, though. I often think it's what we leave out that's just as important as what we put in the work. Like rests in music.
As we live with a piece over time, we get to see the good and bad within it. Commonly, I don't go back into a piece of art, especially one that has been around my studio for a couple years. I did so recently with a large 24" x 36" painting. I always liked the piece, but couldn't initially quite put my hand on what bothered me about it. So I showed it once or twice at most, but mostly it hung on the wall in my home. My wife said she liked it, but every time I looked it over, it just wasn't what I wanted out of it. Time and thought clarified the problems. I realized overall it didn't look unified, so I went back into it. Here's my reasoning and what I did to create a stronger painting.
• The sky (A) needed to be more unified with the painting. As it was, the clouds cut the painting too drastically and didn't repeat shapes used throughout the piece. Also, the blue of the sky was too uniform in color (ultramarine blue+white) and needed more variation.
• The focal area (B) needed to be more dramatically accentuated. I did this by using more intense colors in the focal area and adding some more detail.• After painting B, I quickly realized I needed to create some more unity and balance in the trees to the right of the focal area (C). To do so, I added some more detail into those trees and created more interesting shapes within the shadow and light areas, as well as where the trees meet the sky.• Finally, the trees on the left (D) needed to be addressed. They were far too uniform in shape and color. The other thing I noticed was that the background led straight to the sky, creating an unrealistic visible distance. I decided I wanted the background to be led around the group of trees to the left, not continually go farther and farther in the distance. I reworked these concerns at the same time.Here is the final painting and the two side by side. Unfortunately you can see I'm getting a little light spilling into the top of the reworked painting. You can click on them for a larger viewing size.
Slowing Summer 24" x 36"
Sometimes I wish I could get to that stage a lot faster, but art doesn't always allow that to happen. Sometimes living with a piece is of great importance. On Scott Christensen's website he has a quote from Ernest Hemingway. I think it does a decent job of summing up what it actually takes to create a piece of art work that we, as artists, can be proud of and let out of the studio.Excerpt from "Ernest Hemingway On Writing."
"Would like to finish this [A Farewell to Arms] down here if possible, put it away for a couple or three months and then re-write it. The re-writing doesn't take more than six weeks or two months once it is done. But it is pretty important for me to let it "cool off" well before re-writing.
~to Maxwell Perkins, 1928 Selected Letters~
Often artists will return to a theme in their work, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Being a landscape painter, I find myself attracted to roads or paths and to streams. The symbolism to me, represents the journey of life. Also, I find myself consistently repeating the theme of being separate or apart, both as an individual and as a journey taking step, removing oneself from the familiar. Sometimes I view and portray this in a positive light, but other times I understand the struggle inherent in being different from the norm or separate from the crowd. I often portray this in my work with the use of single and groupings of trees. The single tree is almost always representative of the individual, but a group can be either peer or familial groupings. And at times, like in the painting, The Leaving, I incorporate both ideas of the stream as life journey and the separation aspect into the same painting.
16" x20" – Spring Dune
I had taken the photo of this scene a few years ago. While digging through my photo box I found it and painted a little study of it (see below). I liked the study so much I tried my hand at making it into a larger painting. Fortunately, I am not too disappointed in either of them. Though I will say, the main focal area is still trees. For some reason I can't seem to pull myself away from them.
6" x 8" Small Work
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