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Florence Academy of Art Alumni Exhibition, Florence, Italy
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Paint Layers and Landscapes
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Kristin and I are preparing for our move to Florence and are currently living from suitcases in a spare room at a home of some kind friends in Gothenburg, Sweden. I have heard indirectly that my responsibilites at Florence Academy in Florence will include teaching drawing at the sculpture studio there (for those of you who aren't familiar with the sculpture that is coming out of FAA, it's amazing. You can see some examples here). Students in the sculpture program learn to draw in two dimensions just as painters do. Though the principals of drawing are basically identical in sculpture and painting (sculpting is often called 'drawing in space'), it's going to require a shift in emphasis in my thinking to speak about drawing in two dimensions in a way that relates more to form (the structure of things, as sculptors are experts at) and less to the way light falls accross form (as painters tend to think). If I have a strength when it comes to making drawings, it's certainly the understanding of light, which, as I understand it, is all but meaningless when it comes to the thinking required for sculpting. I hope I am able to give to them as much as I am sure to learn from teaching them.
Below you'll find some landscapes and a couple of still-life's from Colorado, as well as a figure painting completed in Sweden in June. All of the Colorado paintings below, plus much more of my work, can be purchased at Doug's Hang Up - a gallery in downtown Greeley, Colorado.
The Clockmaker - 70 x 100 cm. Oil on linen, 2011
The model is an interesting man who spent the first half of his life in Hungary. He has lived in Sweden for the past 30 or so years. He is a gold and silver smith by trade, and was a competitive distance runner in his younger years, and is still remarkably athletic.
Detail. For anyone interested in technique, I started painting this quite thickly and with bright pinks, oranges, yellows, and greens. Once this dried, the painting was sanded and scraped down, and then glazed with thinned-down browns and greys to tone down the brightness and give unity to the color-scheme. I then repainted, and repeated the sanding, glazing and repainting process. This working method creates a physical depth to the paint surface. It's almost like several paintings exist at the same time, one on top of the other, each shining through in some way and adding something unique to the finished piece.
This building up, tearing down, and rebuilding method creates a rich and beautiful paint surface while providing room for the hap-hazard occurance of subtle variations in color that are really not possible to create with a brush only. What results is a more realistic flesh-like look from a distance, while retaining a very painted look from up close. This same working method was used in many of the landscape paintings below as well.
After the Storm - Oil on linen, 2011
The eastern sky often looks like this on summer afternoons in eastern Colorado. This painting was made from a quick sketch (and plenty of memory) I did after a thunderstorm when the western light returned through the breaking clouds.
Fallen Cottonwood Tree - 61 x 46 cm. Oil on Linen, 2011
A bleached tree skeleton slowly turning back into the very dirt from which it came.
Atmosphere - 25 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
We had many days of over 100 degrees (40 celsius) in Colorado this summer. I tried to make the air in this little painting feel hot.
Catch Pond - Oil on panel, 2011
This painting was made a stone's cast from the back door of my childhood home. I know because I used to cast stones from my back door to about here as a kid. Many of the effects of light and atmosphere in this painting are the result of what remains after scraping off wet paint with a palette knife.
Cow Back Rub - 71 x 56 cm. Oil on linen, 2011
The red cloth hanging from the branch is a device used by farmers to keep flies off of their cows. The bag contains medicine that is applied to the cow's back when they come in contact with it by walking under it. These broken and dying narrow leaf cottonwoods are a common sight along the front range. This one doesn't have many years left in life, but the cows will continue to use the skeleton to keep the flies off.
Death of a Wildflower - 40 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
Peacock Egg - 32 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
A very plain brown egg from which emerges one of the world's most extravagantly ornate creatures.
Full Moon - 40 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
I doubt I'll ever tire of watching - or painting - full moon rises over water. This was painted right out the back door of my childhood home. I've seen this scene almost every summer since I can remember.
Path by the cottonwoods - 50 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
This row of magnificent broad-leaf cottonwoods is steadily dying from the damage caused by a drought a few years ago.
Thistles and Power Lines - 30 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
The Canal - 40 x 30 cm. Oil on panel, 2011
Things as mundane as the Latham irrigation ditch and the turkey farms sometimes spread themsleves out like something from old rural Europe here south of Kersey.
Watering Hole - 60 x 60 cm. Oil on linen, 2011
Cows on their daily trek.
Big News: Move to Florence, Italy
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Three and a half years have passed incredibly quickly. On June 10th, I officially graduated from The Florence Academy of Art. Most of my family, as well as my wife Kristin and her parents were at my side at the graduation ceremony in Florence. There's no sense in getting sentimental quite yet though, since I'll be continuing on at the school for another 9 months. The biggest news is that it will be in Florence this time, instead of in Gothenburg. A few weeks ago I received word that I, along with three other students, had won a brand new scholarship that the academy arranged to commemorate it's 25th anniversary. The scholarship is called the Fourth Year Prize, and is so packed full of benifits, I can scarce believe it. For starters, each of the winners gets a working space in the studio of the founder of FAA, Daniel Graves, and will have the opportunity to get a real apprenticeship experience. Nuggets of wisdom hard won from a lifetime of painting are bound to run off and seep into the cracks in all manner of unexpected ways. The application consisted of a proposal for a complicated and personal painting - a dream project, if you will. The bulk of this year will be spent by each student creating their proposal painting. They will then be shown in a special exhibition at the end of the school year, to which many prominent gallerists from Europe and the US will be invited. Two full days per week will be spent training by painting the live model, and one day per week each of us will teach drawing or drawing and painting at the school. There will also be an introduction to etching course, which I am really looking forward to. Each of the winners will paint and donate a self-portrait to be on permanent display at the FAA gallery. What an honor it is to be among the winners! I'm not yet willing to say so much about the painting I will make, except that it will be quite large, and it will be a symbolic interplay between a figure and the landscape in which he stands. I'll chronicle this project as it develops and keep everyone updated. This is sure to be an enormously enriching year.
There was a surprise waiting for me at the awards ceremony in Florence. My painting Feeding Goldfish won the prize for best portrait painting at FAA in Gothenburg, and best overall painting for both schools for the school year. This painting will be exhibited at the Fayetteville Underground in Fayetteville, Arkansas July 7th - 31st.
So. My wife Kristin and I are preparing for a move to Florence at the end of September. Kristin will be doing some independent studies as well as some distance courses in order to be able to spend time in Florence and keep up to speed with her education at Högskolan För Fotografi (HFF) in Gothenburg. We are excited.
Right now however, we're in Colorado (which is also exciting). I'll post some landscape paintings inspired by the air I grew up breathing before the summer is out. Enjoy these spring landscapes with trees in the foreground. The first three were painted at the abandoned orchard I like to paint in Gothenburg, and which (I found out recently) will be demolished to make way for 100 new family homes. It's good for the families, but heart wrenching for me.
Golden Apple Trees
Oil on panel
21 x 21 cm
2011
New leaves glisten gold in the morning sun. This was painted just before the orchard exploded with white and pink flowers.
Apple Tree
Oil on linen
40 x 55 cm
2011
This tree is partly dead, but still gathering strength to blast forth in spring frenzy.
Spring Green
Oil on Panel
29 x 20 cm
2011
Äng med Vitsippor
Oil on Panel
18.5 x 24 cm
2011
When the wood anemones bloom in the meadows in Sweden I get physically ill (almost nauseated, but with great pleasure) with the experience of beauty. I really ought not to paint them, but simply drink in their splendor.
Beach Tree
Oil on linen
54 x 45 cm
2011
This magnificent tree with eerily human-like skin was alive and well before my great-great grandparents were born. And I don't even know who they were. These roots keep taking the fertile soil and water beneath and pushing it up into the sky, making more and more tree. If only it could speak. And it does.
Fallen Beeches
Oil on panel
30 x 40 cm
2011
A breathtaking forest in Jonsered, north of Gothenburg. This is early spring, but many of the sun bleached fall leaves were still on some of the smaller trees. The young ones are ready to reach up and take the place of the fallen ones who came before and gave them being.
Plein Air Artists Colorado exhibition!
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If you are in the Denver area, come by and see the PAAC exhibition in Cherry Creek. All of the paintings in the exhibition were completed from life, on location. My paintings Götafors, Golden Grass, and Abanoned Orchard were juried into this show (see the previous blog entry for photos of the paintings). I'll be doing a demonstration during the morning hours on July 4th at the gallery.
Portraits, Landscapes, and Interiors
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Upcoming exhibition in Waterloo, Belgium with friend and painter Rickard Ljungkvist.
Capturing a mood or a personality in a face is perhaps the most difficult task in painting. Breathing life into a what is otherwise simply a likeness of a person is so difficult, for me at least, that it makes the technical aspects of drawing and painting seem routine (and for me, it is still very far from routine!). One of the chief goals i have as a painter is to create faces that seem so animated that the viewer is willing to suspend their disbelief and assume the posture of one gazing at a real person - the transcendental subject, the soul, the light behind the eyes. Rembrandt was a master at this. My guess is that this will take a lifetime. Below are three early attempts of mine.
Portrait of Clara - Charcoal and white chalk on toned paper, 2010
49 x 45 cm
Woman Looking Out - Oil on linen, 2011
70 x 64 cm
Feeding Goldfish - Oil on linen, 2011
89 x 70 cm
The three landscapes below have been accepted to an exhibition in Denver, Colorado. The exhibition showcases paintings done outside on location (the French phrase "en plein air" has triumphed in the painting world to denote this particular kind of painting). The first is of the old mill works just outside the school where I study and teach (the yellowish building furthest to the right). The river flows through these buildings and used to provide power for several kinds of industry. It now stands as a breathtaking reminder of a bygone era. The second is of a row of apple trees in the late winter in an abandoned orchard I like to paint. The low sun of the nordic winter gives those long, streaking shadows all day - a day which, unlike the winter itself, does not last very long. If one were to turn 90 degrees counter-clockwise from the view in the painting of the apple trees, you would see about the same view as you see in the third landscape below. I loved the yellows of that grass against the almost burning white sky. Looking into the low sun through the fog for some reason removes this place from its context and makes it seem even more remote, timeless, and forgotten than it already is.
Götafors - Oil on linen, 2011
58 x 46 cm
Abandoned Orchard - Oil on panel, 2011
30 x 40 cm
Golden Grass - Oil on panel, 2011
20 x 29.5 cm
I've recently become interested in painting interiors. The challenge of painting ambient light, or even multiple light sources, is very tricky to say the least. A primary goal in any interior I paint is to give the sense that there is air in the room, which requires very subtle handling of first values, second slight color shifts (or temperature shifts) and third, edges. Technical aspects aside, domestic interiors provide the opportunity to peer quietly into what could be someone else's everyday as if from the outside, as a fly on the wall. It's a creative look into the places that people inhabit, the stage where much of one's private life is lived out. In the case of the two paintings below, it's my wife's and mine that provide the experience. it's my experience that representational paintings, even if they look very much like a place, thing, or person, still tend to find their home in the world of the imagination. In this case they aren't simply snapshots into our living space, but symbols for a felt experience - in this case, a painter in his home. They become quiet surrogates for the experience of a real home and family life, and give the viewer the opportunity to practice empathy for the lives of others.
40 x 30 cm
For the painting below, Kristin and I listened to a recording of a Niel Postman lecture while she posed and I painted. I think she could get used to this kind of work.
Light from Without - Oil on linen, 2011
40 x 60 cm
