Challenge #15: My Sanctuary

We all need a place to go when the world seems to be too much where we can get away for a while and reconnect with ourselves. We need a cave, an island getaway, or a mountaintop retreat where we can go, be by ourselves, and gain some perspective. Sometimes these are literal caves, islands, and mountains, but very often they are closer than that – the studio, the gym, the garage, or the library – ordinary places where we can get away and be with ourselves.

What is your sanctuary? Where do you go when the world becomes too much or when you just need to be by yourself? Where is that place of solace and comfort or that place where you can reconnect with yourself? What gets in your way of being there? How does it feel when you are kept from your sanctuary? If you do not have an actual sanctuary, where would it be? Where would you like to go?

I've been away for a while with the ending of the school year and traveling to North Carolina, so I'll be posting  Challenge #16 later this week.

Challenge #14: Wants and Needs

We all have our wants and our needs. To many, they seem to be the same thing, but what we want is not always what we need. We often want things that are not good for us and that are sometimes outright harmful. Those wants can be influenced by so many factors. Friends, family, and the media all can put direct and indirect pressure on us to buy the latest gizmos, gadgets and stuff, to make unhealthy eating choices, and to zone out in front of TVs and computer screens.

Reflect on what you want and what you need. See where you want and need the same thing. See where you want much more than you need. See where you deprive yourself of things that you desperately need.

What do you want? Why do you want those things? What do you need? Why do you need those things? Do you want more than you need? Why or why not? What are things that you need, but do not give yourself? What if you only wanted what you needed? How would your life be different?

Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour, June 11-12

Nest 2, 4"x6", Watercolor and watercolor pencil

The Western Loudoun Artist Studio Tour is almost here. It will be this Saturday and Sunday, June 11 and 12, from 10-5 both days. This self guided tour opens the studios of about 50 artists around Leesburg, VA. There is a great variety of artwork being offered by the artists. I am stop 23 in Purcellville. It's my first year on the tour, and I am looking forward to the weekend.

I'm pretty much done with all the major work. The studio is ready and I have a lot of artwork to offer for sale. But I still have a lot of little things to do, but it will all get done.

The two works pictured here are two more that I have just completed for the tour. The work pictured above will be mounted on a wooden cradle and will be ready to hang on the wall. The ink image below is from a series of drawings that I have been exploring using only line. The idea is to have this series of ink drawings as loose, unmounted pieces. I'll package them with a foam core backer inside a plastic bag.

Stretch 2, 4"x6", Ink on paper

This is the outside of my studio (my garage) as it looked last winter. I've spent the last couple of months converting it from a garage that housed my woodshop and all the lawn and garden equipment into a large, working studio. I've decided to make this my permanent studio because it such a large space. Besides my wife will be happy to have a room that is just simply the guest bedroom.

I'll share more images of the finished studio in a later post.

Challenge #13: Solitude

As humans we tend to be social creatures, but there are times when we need to be by ourselves – to be alone, but not lonely. For some solitude equates to isolation and despair and to others it equates to reflection and time to be with our thoughts.

Reflect on how you are when you are alone. Try to determine if you are comfortable or uncomfortable with being on your own.

What does solitude mean to you? Is it isolation or is it reflection? How do you react when you are by yourself? Do you distract yourself with email, housework, text messaging, or TV? Do you surround yourself with noise? Do you sit and reflect on all that has been going on mulling it over in your head? Do you surround yourself with quiet?

In what ways do you embrace solitude or push it away?

Old Artwork

While cleaning out my crawl space looking for older artwork to include on the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour, I discovered these six pieces. All are from 2001 and 2002, and all are oil on canvas. The first three were completed during a graduate painting class that I was taking at the time, and I had just gotten into the visual journal. The painting above was from an idea that showed up in one of my first journals. The visual journal profoundly influenced my painting. Before coming to the journal, my paintings had very dark and muted color, and they were nearly always figurative.

The journal brought color into my art, and allowed me to explore more abstract and non-objective work. The painting above was a direct result of the swirling, spiraling images that I was exploring in my journal. Since I never signed the work, I'm not certain which side is the top. I wonder what it would look like flipped.

Near the end of the class, I wanted to bring the color that I had been exploring into more representational imagery. I referenced a photograph of some old machinery near an oil well at my parents house in the above painting. I never really finished this painting, and I was never really happy with it.

The two paintings above were done independently, and I brought together some of the figurative work that I had been doing at the time and the color that I had been exploring in my class.

This final painting was from another graduate painting class the following year. I began the class working abstractly and non-representationally, but soon turned to portraits, something that I have explored since I was a teenager. I applied what I had learned with color, and focused on expressive brushwork and odd croppings. This self-portrait is, by far, my favorite painting from the time.

I am fascinated to see how much my art has changed over the last ten years. I work with a variety of water based media now, and my imagery has evolved and changed. The one thing that has stayed constant has been the exploration of self. No matter the material or the imagery, I have always looked within and tried to express the soft vulnerable truths hidden there.

The studio tour is in about a week, the weekend of June 11 and 12, from 10 AM to 5 PM each day. If you are in the Purcellville, VA area that weekend, stop by my studio to see these pieces, and much, much more.

Inner Conflict

Inner Conflict, Graphite on Paper, 6"x9"

My latest finished piece. I didn't do much more with this one after I included it in the Spontaneity vs. Structure post. But I put the finishing touches on it and scanned it for better quality. I titled this after the conflict that I have between spontaneity and structure, as well as between organic and geometric. Perhaps this will be a new series.

Challenge #12: Embracing Imperfections

Many of us exert a lot of energy in our quest for perfection, but accidents, change, and imperfection are a part of our lives. These things that are beyond our control can bother and stress us. They can gnaw at us and nag at us. Learning to accept and embrace these imperfections can be quite a challenge.

How do you embrace imperfection in your life? If it’s difficult for you, what is behind the difficulty? If it’s easy for you, why is it so? In what small ways have you or can you accept the accidental, the imperfect, and the impermanent?

Compartmentalized

Compartmentalized 8.5"x12" Watercolor pencil and colored pencil on paper.

I just finished this piece. With it, I wanted to explore a single shape and single color. I first built layers using only an indigo blue watercolor pencil to establish the basic composition. Using light values as the foundation layers, I built successive layers of darker values. I then used indigo blue colored pencil to straighten and strengthen lines, darken shadows, and develop the image further looking for the push and pull that I so enjoy in my work. To deepen the shadows even further I used black colored pencil, and to establish highlights I used white colored pencil. I am fascinated and captivated by the sense of space.

As I worked on this piece along with others recently, I began to realize how these drawings are very much a form of meditation and focus for me. I get so into the process - the physicality of mark making - that my mind can focus sharply, but not on the particulars of the drawing. Mentally, I seem to step back from the drawing, and I draw and shade as if on auto pilot as thoughts fly through my mind. The clarity that the drawing induces allows me to sort through the myriad of ideas, to make connections, and to create a better understanding of myself, my art, and my life. It's a form of clear and deliberate self-talk - not the rambling, confused self-talk that normally goes through my mind. It's a relaxed, yet intense state of mind, and the world seems to melt away. My mood lightens, and time slips away unnoticed.

The image is a result of the process, and it is not predetermined or planned in any way other than those first choices of color and shape. I let the work develop spontaneously as my mind flickers through the thoughts and emotions of the day. And even when I am in the more controlled stages, when I lay in the careful shading or precisely draw the edge of a form, I try to be somewhat removed from the drawing, while remaining connected to the process. My mind constructs and connects. It deconstructs and disconnects. It reconstructs and reconnects. All in the quest for clearer understanding.

Challenge #11: Change

Everything changes. It’s a natural law that objects, people, situations are impermanent and are always in a state of flux and change. At times, change is lightning quick and takes place in a flash. Other times, change is continental drift slow and seems to not be happening at all.

How do you react to change in your life? How have you changed over the course of your life? Do you anticipate change and actively participate in the changing world and your changing self? Or do you deny change and passively ride along as things change around you? How open or closed are you to change?

Reflect on the role of change in your life and how you react to it.

Spontaneity vs. Structure

After writing the Conflict and Dualism post and working on some more work, it dawned on me that even some of my working methods contain this duality between spontaneity and structure. Although they use slightly different materials, the artwork in this post and in the conflict post all use the same process.

The process is quite simple.

I often work with water soluble pencil - both watercolor and graphite. I relish the control of drawing and shading with them at first, but I also enjoy the painterly quality when water is brushed over the pencil. I frequently use multiple layers of water soluble pencil to begin pieces allowing each layer to dry before adding a new one. I work quickly and spontaneously with the water soluble material, but at a certain point, I feel the need for more control, sharper edges, and more defined values. I then switch to regular graphite or colored pencils that allow me the precision I desire. I darken areas making them recess into the space. I straighten edges and redefine areas, shapes, and lines that have been lost. It is a slower and more tedious process, but I love the outcome.

I used water soluble graphite pencil in the piece above to lay in the foundation of the piece. Notice that many of the edges are uneven, that there isn't much contrast, and that the swirly lines are barely there.  I started the piece below at the very same time as the piece above using a similar technique. I built layers of straight lines, rectangles, and organic lines with the water soluble graphite pencil. Once I felt that I reached the limits of what the water soluble graphite would allow, I reworked the piece with a variety of regular graphite pencils to define the spaces, lines, and values. It is nearly complete in the photo below.

This method of working allows me to find a balance between the spontaneous and the structured, but I often get very caught up in the fine detail in the final phases of a piece and can spend hours working on a very small area. I have to force myself to move on and to be less of a perfectionist. Time and time again, I have been very pleased with the results.

Below is a photo as I worked on the main focal point.