Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i Artists Magazine

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”—VINCENT VAN GOGH When 18th-century British explorer Captain James Cook set out in 1768 to chart parts of the Pacific Ocean, the crew of the HMS Endeavor included not only sailors but scientists and artists who made records of the plants and animals they encountered. Upon his return, the naturalist Joseph Banks commissioned artist George Stubbs (English, 1724–1806)—best known for his paintings of horses—to create two paintings using the sketches and animal skins obtained during the voyage. Stubbs’ paintings of a kangaroo (above) and a dingo would become the first depictions of Australian animals in Western art. Though his destinations are not to uncharted territories, watercolor artist David McEown (page 52) certainly takes his travels off the beaten path. During trips…

t his year, we’ve all been dealing with unforeseen circumstances due to a particularly problematic virus. For some artists, life with social distancing has been a gift, allowing more time for exploration and creation. For others, however, anxiety and sadness have stifled inspiration. Time has become more precious as demands have arisen—demands that didn’t even exist prior to the pandemic. Artistic enrichment and expression is a vital part of our lives, yet for many of us, getting in front of the easel has become a daunting process. During this space-between time, as we wait and hope for post-pandemic days, how can we remain productive and creative so that when we finally do reach a new normal, we return to the studio reinvigorated? Reading through The Art Spirit (1923) by Robert…

During the summer of 2021, Lyn Asselta (lynasselta.com), Dawn Emerson (dawnemerson.com) and Aline Ordman (alineordman.com)—all Master Pastelists of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS)—will be instructors for the IAPS Pastel Immersion Retreat at the Madeline Island School of the Arts, located on an island off the Wisconsin shore of Lake Superior. Go to bit.ly/3g1TWTg for details.…

I’m always telling the students in my art classes, “Your images with personal meaning are your symbols.” Discovering that personal meaning, and ultimately your own symbols, is a journey to the heart. The work requires some soul-searching, but it’s a journey that’s well worth the time. Symbolism, in its simplest form, is the use of an object or image to represent something else. This allows an artist to express an idea differently or with significance beyond its literal meaning. Flowers, for instance, have been used symbolically for centuries by both visual and literary artists to represent life. In my floral paintings, I often include the bud or bulb, the full bloom, the dead flower and the seed pods to represent the cycle of life, death and rebirth. In this way,…

My wife and I have been traveling across the United States since last May, living on the road in a 2003 Dodge Roadtrek. This new “studio-on-wheels” setup has completely changed my art practice. I went from working in the comfort of a home studio with a controlled environment to a situation that’s constantly changing with ever-shifting lighting conditions. Whereas I used to have unlimited time to select and develop a subject, now I need to be aware immediately of what stands out to me and what I want to repsond to. As a result, I’ve developed—out of necessity—a drawing process that can facilitate my ability to make an immediate connection with my subject, to quickly grasp a first impression and get it down on paper. For this approach, which I…

The assessment of an artwork’s quality is often a matter of opinion, but one quick way often used to gauge the worth of a painting is to ask whether the artist is famous. This method infers that the more famous the painter, the better the painting. That artists should strive for fame is a key lesson imparted by the Florentine biographer of Renaissance artists, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574). In his book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (also known as Lives of the Artists) the author, who was also a painter, complimented his illustrious subjects by cataloging the works they produced that ensured their well-earned fame. He also notes disapprovingly of their missteps, warning aspiring artists about hazards that can get one knocked off the pedestal. After all,…

Many landscape artists are well acquainted with the mix of joy and challenge that can characterize an outdoor painting session, but painting on-site in Antarctica and the Arctic regions is taking plein air to a whole new level. Canadian watercolorist David McEown knows firsthand how extreme—and exhilarating—the experience can be. Throughout his 30-year career, the artist has circumnavigated the Arctic Ocean, stopping to explore and paint in parts of Northern Canada, Alaska, the Russian Arctic, Norway and Greenland. He has traveled aboard expedition ships, sailboats and nuclear icebreakers, and even journeyed by ski as part of an excursion to reach the geographic North Pole. McEown’s first trip to the Antarctic was in 2005, and he has returned every year since. At present he has very nearly circumnavigated that entire continent.…

1 Working on Arches 140-lb. cold-pressed paper (off the roll), clipped to a board, McEown started with an underpainting, applied as a wet-into-wet wash. 2 Next, he began defining the foreground whales and setting up where to leave the whites. The artist doesn’t use masking fluid but prefers to paint negative shapes around the lights. 3 He then applied the sky wash and defined the backlit mountains and ice. McEown’s studio painting Emergence (watercolor on paper, 26x47) captures the thrill of frolicking orca whales amidst a sunset in the Antarctic Peninsula. More Online! See more photos and paintings of the artist’s penguin encounters at artistsnetwork.com/go/mceown-penguins.…

“There’s always a space between my hand and the surface of the painting where creativity hovers expectantly before taking shape. Mystery lives in that split second between a thought and a mark, between imagination and reality.”…

“Looking at Henri Matisse’s 1919 painting, Tea, in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I imagine a late summer afternoon in my grandmother’s backyard. My grandmother, the figure with the masklike face, turns to greet me with the scrutinizing inquiry, ‘Where have you been?’ I’m 8 years old and have been riding my bike on the streets of a small Southern town. I’ve come ‘down home’ to spend my summer vacation with Mama Hight. The church lady in the hat has stopped by to exchange town gossip and to identify the new house guest. The beloved dog, Penny, 14 years old and deaf, is just seeing me. She’ll stop scratching and get up, wagging her tail, to greet me with endless kisses and nuzzles of doggy…

Santos has been dreaming about taking an extended journey across the United States since he emigrated to Florida from Cuba in 1995, but first he wanted to establish his career as an arist. “It was only recently that I could envision how both passions could work in harmony,” he says. Experiencing the character of small towns and the ever-changing scenery in his “studio-on-wheels” has been a source of constant inspiration. “It has made me more aware and has pushed me to perceive and apply paint differently,” he says. After months on the road, Santos says that he and his wife have no end plans for their travels. “We’re enjoying every moment fully,” he says, “and have been meeting so many interesting individuals.”…

Pick Your Placement There are no rules on where to put your signature, but considering the placement helps you determine how large it should be and what colors to use. ● Western artists tend to sign in the bottom right corner. If that placement detracts from the painting, the bottom left corner is the usual alternative. ● If your painting is on a stretcher, you can sign on the wood in pencil or permanent marker. ● You can also write your name on the back of a canvas or panel—but if your surface is paper, make sure a signature on the back of that surface won’t show through. ● Some artists affix adhesive labels with their signature and artwork details to the back of a finished work—but bear in mind…

Surface: 140-lb. cold-pressed rag paper (usually Arches bright white) or Saunders Waterford 200-lb. cold-pressed paper Paint: watercolors (as seen in photo arranged left to right): ultramarine blue, Winsor violet, quinacridone violet, permanent rose, cadmium orange (red shade) and aureolin yellow, cadmium lemon yellow, turquoise blue and Winsor blue (green shade) Brushes: Chinese calligraphy brush, Kolinsky sable rounds (Nos. 8–12), 1-inch sable flat and a 3-inch house-painting brush for big washes Miscellaneous: synthetic oxgall medium and a dash of glycerin or rubbing alcohol…

with the shortening days of autumn and the year drawing to a close, many people find themselves in a contemplative mood. This is an excellent time to review the events of the last 12 months and share your impressions with your artistic allies and advocates. Your followers enjoy hearing about the events and experiences in your life—and this may be especially true in 2020 when so many plans and expectations have been upended. Face-to-face shows and workshops may have been either canceled or moved online, and travel plans may have been modified—but, chances are, the changes have also brought opportunities or opened you to new ways of doing things. Sharing updates lets everyone know that their interest in your work matters and gives them a chance to catch up on…

Artists never stop learning. Each new painting or drawing can bring another revelation, but when you want to learn more about a specific technique, medium or style, you can’t do better than to take a workshop. Start planning now. On the following pages, you’re sure to find one or many workshops just right for you. Workshops ARIZONA Sedona Arts Center www.SedonaArtsCenter.org,15 Art Barn Road, Sedona AZ, 86336 12/4-12/6/2020. Online Workshop: Painting the Urban Landscape with Pastels with Nancie King Mertz.Urban landscape is a rich motif to explore composition in value and color. Pastels give us the direct immediacy of a drawing and the rich pigment of oil paint. Nancie will share her methods for simplifying cityscapes to get past the complexities of this sometimes intimidating motif. 3/24-3/26/2021. Painterly Portraits in…

I created my 5x8¼ in situ study (A) of the second-century Roman theater at Xanthos, Lycia, Turkey, in a sketchbook with relatively smooth paper. By using the side of a soft pencil lead, I could block out the picture quickly, focusing on overall shapes and tones rather than details. The two pillar tombs on the right may be as old as fourth century B.C. Traveling in a group, not to mention the hot sun, made creating a more finished work impossible. Back in the studio, however, I created a 10½x14 painting in graphite and watercolor (B). The rows of seats are made of large blocks of finely cut stones. The aisle steps, also stone, are half the height of the seats.…

1 As I began working, I knew I wanted a minimum of three finished paintings, each with a dark, medium or light value dominance. Once I realized the imagery I wanted to work with, I started playing with possible compositions. I tried different shape relationships and rendered copious value studies. This lineup of about 20 different value studies is typical when I start a new series of work. Each simple 3x4 sketch was drawn on tracing paper with gray Prismacolor felt markers. Then I condensed them to a few final plans of simplified shapes with no details. This allowed for decision-making along the way, letting the painting have a say in how it developed. 2 I worked first on a painting with a dark-value dominance. My final value plan can…

1 THUMBNAILS After looking at the landscape for a few minutes, I realized what I loved about it and made four thumbnail sketches with charcoal in my sketchbook. First, I asked myself a couple of questions: What are the different masses or tonal areas that I’m enjoying? What are the values that represent each tonal area? One tonal area was the sky, which contained several values for the clouds and one value for the sky itself. Another tonal area in my scene was the group of trees up the hill, which contained different values: the foliage in light and the one tree in shadow. Below the masses of trees, there’s another area of subtle values making up the different shifts on the ground. 2 LINE DRAWING Next, I started to…

It was still dark in New York City when artist Jane Rosenberg (janerosenbergart.com) arose on a chilly, overcast morning in early November 2018. Her destination was the Brooklyn federal courthouse, where she got in the line forming on the sidewalk along with scores of others who wanted to witness the drug-trafficking trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera—the Mexican drug lord better known as El Chapo. The courthouse didn’t let people in until 10 a.m., so Rosenberg, a courtroom artist assigned to draw pictures of the trial for the evening newscast, put on a poncho and wrapped herself (and her art supplies, which she wanted to keep dry) in blankets and waited. It was 2:30 in the morning. She was determined to get a good seat close to the front of the…

After nearly circumnavigating Antarctica, so many places have become special, but my favorite painting spot is Petermann Island, just south of the Lemaire Channel on the Antarctic Peninsula. The views of the continent rising out of the ocean provide endless compositional inspiration, and the reflections are often amplified by masses of icebergs moving or grounded by the tides. In addition to that, the island is an important nesting site for birds, including various populations of penguin species that have been studied by scientists for decades. In a single session, I’ve observed gentoo, chinstrap and adelie penguins while blue-eyed shags fly nervously overhead in reaction to a leopard seal sprawled out on shore nearby. Whale blows and the thunder of faraway avalanches complement the Antarctic soundtrack that I try to transcribe…

“Take a Painting” is an interactive painting installation that Stearly launched in 2013 as part of her MFA thesis work. Every day after class, Stearly would sit in a coffee shop down the street from her studio and make intricate doodles with Sharpie markers. Eventually, she generated a stack of dozens and dozens of drawings. She cut them into 3x4-inch pieces and thumbtacked them to bulletin boards—first in the art department and then all across campus—to see if people would take them. They did! Stearly would see her artworks used as bookmarks or stashed inside wallets. She realized that even if the general population can at times struggle to understand art and may feel intimidated by the idea of collecting art, they still respond to it and enjoy it. One…

CREATIVE CONNECTION In the visually rich memoir Parallel Perspectives: The Brush/Lens Collaboration (City Point Press), watercolorist Ward Hooper and photographer Holly Gordon relate how a comparison of their work by arts writer Elise Pearlman brought their paths together, resulting in a deep friendship. More and more they became aware of their similar aesthetic, their corresponding choices of subject matter and, perhaps most surprisingly, their comparable techniques of building their works layer by layer in their respective disciplines of painting and photo-liminalism. Their artwork displays what the painter and the photographer can learn and gain from each other. Their conversational writing conveys the life-affirming power of a creative life and friendship. Man of Letters Vincent van Gogh was quite the letter writer! In 2009, Thames & Hudson published a complete…