The Sheen Center Artist Residency

This summer, from July 15 thru Sept. 30, I will be one of the artists in residence at the Sheen Center in New York City. The work from my residency will be for a show in January (opening Jan. 18) called Growing Home. The show will be a series of plein air paintings and sculptural reflections on the paintings, all of which pose the question of what God's creation has to say about the city of man.
As of now, I've been in the residency for a week. It's really neat to live here - the Sheen Center is in Soho. My days consist of plein air painting (and peddling) in the morning and sculpture (cast mediums) in the afternoon at a shared workspace called the Con Artist Collective. At first, it was all overwhelming - being here, getting to make my own art all day long, having all of Manhattan and its social and cultural opportunities at my fingertips, having only 2-1/2 months to put together a solo show, and more. A couple of highlights from last week were selling a painting of St. Mark's place to a woman whose father grew up on that street and getting hired (while painting and peddling) to paint a menu board at Burger and Lobster in Times Square.
By now, I'm a bit more settled in and in the grove. The model for my first cast sculpture is nearly ready for mold making, I've got some plein air paintings done as well as having made some sales.
Since the theme of my show involves plants, I planted a little sunflower in a pot the day I started. This is Sunflower, my mascot.

And, here are a few of the paintings from my first week. Check out my instagram feed for more.

 St. Mark's Place, 9"x12" Watercolor

 Rooftop Garden Near Cooper Sq., 9"x12" Watercolo

The Bean Coffee Shop with Sidewalk Tree on 2nd Ave, 9"x12" Watercolor

Having had a week to work on this project, I have come crashing into two barriers. The first is that the them of nature in the city is a theme that has been done. At the same time, it is a rich topic and one that touches many people. It is also very broad. So, I think the question for me involves digging into what is particular to the artistic vision granted to me. For instance, I was pondering this as I was looking for a spot to paint this morning. What stuck me was the shape formed by the orange-tinted rain clouds against distant buildings. That is a very particular observation. And, it's beautiful and worth observing. I may be the only person who stops at the moment to see it, and that is a sight worth communicating. Here is the painting from this morning. Incidentally, it was raining hard. I did the whole thing under an umbrella.

Looking up 3rd Ave by Cooper Sq., 9"x12" Watercolor

 The second barrier I've run into is that the sculpture I am working on right now - a sculpture inspired by my paintings - is impossible for me to finish at a decent level of quality within the time alotted. Mold making and casting is an entirely different process than watercolor painting. For one thing, it's quite expensive. But, once the mold is made, I can cast multiple sculpture. This means that the model needs to be something really worth the money and time necessary to made a mold. My goal is to complete at least 5 sculptures during the residency. This means I need to finish a sculpture every two weeks. My current model is not currently up to par. Eek. I chose to make a composition involving a stylized human figure. The problem with the figure - even a stylized, simplified figure - is that inaccurate proportions and anatomy can be very distracting. The distortion can become the focus of the piece rather than the whatever the focus is intended to be. As far as I can see, there are two solutions to this problem: either simplify the figure to the level at which it is possible to be accurate at whatever my current skill level is or abstract the figure to a degree that it is obvious to the viewer that no naturalism is intended. Simplifying the figure can make it boring, however, and abstracting it can render it absurd. So, I'm stuck. 

Well, I plan on blogging every week or two, so hopefully I'll have some pictures of said sculpture that illustrate how I solved this problem. Until then, it's a surprise.

Last Projects of My First Year

Here are the last two projects of my first year at the Florence Academy. I entered the drawing and painting program at the Florence Academy because I wanted to delve into the western tradition of representational drawing. I'd say, definitely, mission accomplished. It's been a great year, and God willing, I'll be back in the fall to continue the 3 year program.

Desi, Charcoal on Paper, 18"x26"

 Death Mask of Giacomo Leopardi, Charcoal on Paper, 12"x16"

The death mask pictured above is the 2nd of my cast drawings. Giacomo Leopardi was an Italian poet who died in the mid 1800's. A cast drawing is exactly what it sounds like - a drawing of a cast. Here is my set-up.

The plaster cast of the death mask is on the left and my drawing on the right. I draw the cast at exactly the same size as I see it. 

Drawing a plaster cast allows me to learn to draw from life (as opposed to copying other drawing) without the added complication of color. This lets me explore values (black, white, and everything in between) as they communicate 3-dimensional form to the eye. Light effect, hard and soft edges, contours, changing planes, different kinds of shadows - these are all things contribute to the appearance of the mask and require different techniques and perspectives to render. 

What I particularly learned from this cast drawing project was how much information can be communicated by large, simple shapes. However, the subtle details of these shapes must be rendered with precision. Very small changes in shapes and values can make a big different in visual impression - especially when dealing with the human face.

The figure drawing of Desi was a five week pose. This pose with the light hitting the figure from the side allowed me to investigate the play of light along the anatomy of the back. Stephen, my anatomy instructor, says that one of the reasons we study the human figure as artists is that the shapes made by the anatomy of the human body as it interacts with light and shadow are so beautiful. Here is one of the anatomical drawings I made during the year that illustrates the idea of shapes created by anatomy.

Back to Plein Air Watercolor Sketching

After taking a break from plein air painting this winter, the watercolors and easel are back out! Here are my first two watercolor sketches for the spring - urban park scenes. They both depict how man-made things and growing things (as in, plants) combine to create beauty in the city. I like to think of the city as a big garden instead of a wasteland. In places, it is.  

Lincoln Park, Jersey City, NJ, 5"x7" Watercolor & Colored Pencil

Madison Square Park, Manhattan, 5"x7" Watercolor & Colored Pencil

Santiago

Every trimester, students at the Florence Academy complete two long pose figure drawings. This means that a model comes in every day for three hours and holds the same pose over a period of five weeks for each drawing. These figure drawings are essentially "game time" for students. The copying exercises, the 2-hour pencil figure drawings, the anatomy classes all prepare us for the model room long pose. 

This is my second long pose for the trimester. My first pose for the trimester, Susannah, a pose seen from the back, involved depicting the form through the shape of a large shadow and the way that shadow interacted with a thin sliver of light seen on the edge. This pose was seen in full light. This means that the form is communicated more through the shape of the contour and how the contour relates to small variations in value along the planes of the body as they face in different directions. 

Belvedere Torso

The third and final Bargue Drawing for students at the Florence Academy is one of two different views of the Belvedere Torso. A well known fragment of an unidentified sculpture from antiquity, the Belvedere torso copying exercise is infamous in its own right at the Florence Academy. Completing the torso requires mastery of a variety of conceptual and technical tools used in drawing. Observe, for instance, the variety of shadows involved in the torso: cast shadow, form turning away from the light, planes in a variety of relationships to the light source, reflections within larger shadow shapes, and combinations of all of the above. Each type of shadow requires a different kind of description and different types of charcoal handling. So, here's to this rite of passage! Now I get to move on to cast drawings... coming up soon.

18"x26" Charcoal on Roma Paper, Copy from Original Cast Drawing by Charles Bargue

Susannah

Here is the latest 5-week pose from figure drawing class at the Florence Academy of Art. 

When we begin a pose, there is a pecking order for choosing easel positions. Since I am one of the newer students, I got stuck with a back view. It turned out to be a good thing, though. The way the light falls on the model, I ended up with a composition that focuses on the strip of light sandwhiched between the shadow of the back and the shadow of the background. It made for a seemingly simple design but with a lot of complexity in the light shape. I enjoyed it very much.

Black and White

Charcoal is my life. There is black dust everywhere. "Drawing and painting" program evokes thoughts of color. But, my life is all in black and white. I'm not complaining, though. The more limited the means of expression, the more opportunity for the mind to focus on different aspects of expression.
Here is a picture of my most recent Bargue drawing. Charcoal on paper.