| Author | Message | ||
  Robert |
I know someone who does still lifes this way. Some of the objects are cut off when she gets to the edge giving a cropped effect. Seems as if the composition continues out into the real world. | ||
Carolyn |
I paint sometimes without any plan, sketch, ect. I do sit and look at the scene momentarily and then I go for it. It works out into a really nice piece %50 of the time. most of the time it's passable. Sometimes the back of the paper is still good for something. Carolyn | ||
GaryDoc |
Terry, When I posted to Robert 1 or 2 days ago, I was really wishing that the "anonymous" didn't even exist! Your offer to turn it off is a GREAT idea. If I have a bone to pick, I'll do it as me. The great thing about the net is that we're all pretty much anonymous anyway, but a repeatable screen name gives us something to hang a comment on (so to speak). (Was that last bit even intelligable?) My vote is to turn it off! GaryDoc | ||
terry |
I have gathered from several posts that "anonymous" is problematic. As board admin I can turn that option off. What does the group think? Also, I notice that nobody uses the e-mail link (name in blue). Is that a safety feature? | ||
Robert |
Man -- what a view there is in Boone. You are quite fortunate. Hope you are painting that view. And thanks for sharing the poetry. Back in the early '70s I studied modern poerty and love to talk about it, though art has long since become my field. I hope the Eliot talk wasn't too much. It was self-indulgent on my part, but I am glad you reminded me of one of the great beacons of modern literature. Thanks | ||
Robert |
Great post, Terry--- Eliot, in his poem, writes a parody, in the opening lines, of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Chaucher writes essentially that April is the sweetest month, and Eliot distorts it to April is the cruelest month. In Eliot's poem a modern world resists spring and all the implications of ressurection it entails. Voices from the great works of art, music , poetry impinge upon the poem to remind the reader of what has been lost -- in the "wasteland' of the modern world there is only boredom and sterility, even the spiritual meanings of spring are gone--Eliot built the poem upon the legend of the grail knight seeking the chalice--to unite the male (the lance) and the female (the chalice) so that fertiltiy and springtime might return to the modern world, so that the stricken Fisher king might once agin rule a land of plenty. In the end there is only a hint of optimism, in Buddha's words--give, sympatize and control (dhatta, dhamyatta, dhamyatvam). The poem, through it's allusions, is a compendium of the great moments in culture, east and west, culture that is largely lost in world that values cheap commercialism and worship of Mammon. An interesting read is the compendium of footnotes Eliot wrote at the beheast of Ezra Pound explaining the poem. | ||
terry |
Pardon me...it's been a long time since I read the poem.....and it's not that I even pretend to understand Eliot...just the sense of the first couple of lines...I am not sure how it fits. Although I took from it a sense that April demands a resurrection...even though it is the last thing you would expect. Like Plath's "Cut" the first couple of lines are all I take.... What a thrill --- My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of a hinge Of skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush. Little pilgrim, The Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rolls It doesn't matter to me so much that she fought depression or ended her life in an oven...what makes sense to me is the way the words come together and prompt something in me. I don't even care what the rest of the poem says....to me, her point is already made. Words conjure up images for the visual artist to paint and the wordsmith to enjoy and float along on for a time. Like Ecclesiastes 1:7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. I don't have to understand all of the book to like the image. Anyway.....here's a picture of my backyard in March/April. Once I find my book....I'll will finish reading Eliot.  | ||
Eugene |
These discussions are getting much too profound for my little brain! The poem I have tacked above my easel is by Ogden Nash. Candy is dandy, But liquor is quicker. | ||
Robert |
Terry-- I am surprised you picked so a massively depressing poem as the Wasteland to inspire you. I find that really interesting--a dead world people by living corpses with no connection to the traditions that created their cultures: "I had not thought death had undone so many" the narrator says as he crosses london bridge is an allusion to dante's comment to Virgil as he sees the newly dead souls going down to Charon's ferry to cross over to Hell. The hanged man is the sacrifical god--the Adonis, Osiris, Jesus--figure who is "buried in the garden." But this spring (april--the cruelkest month) he will not be ressurrescted. The fisher king (the hero of the poem) sits fishing while his lands lay in ruin at his back. But finally the thubder peals Da! Da! and Budddha speaks--Guve, Sympathize, Self-Control. Heirohymos Mad Again! I am curious what in the poem has inspired you, commentray as it is on the death of the modern soul and the disintegration of culture? | ||
Robert |
Datta. Damyata. Dhatvam. Shanti. Shanti. Shatni. | ||
terry |
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Have been following your thread for some time now and hope that we can continue to educate one another on the topic of art and life. The begining of Eliot's poem above is my palette. As with all poems/art/palettes, some colors stand out more than the others. I like them all and each season gives use some more to use. At lunch today, I walked and took pictures of trees beginnng to leave against the white puff ball blue sky. Keep growing and exploring. I'll keep reading. | ||
Thom |
I was just reading a book by Lucy Willis in which she says (slightly paraphrased) "though I keep rules of design I learned in the back of my mind, when it comes down to it, I like to work from intuition." | ||
Jane Freeman |
Just wanted to say Hi to you Suzy...have not seen you for some time over at the Cafe...glad to see all is going well...loved viewing your bench!!! That is really cool! | ||
Suzy |
I keep a sketch book with me all the time. I actually have one is each car, in each purse, etc. They are full of value drawings of everything. Several of them I have painted so many times in different variations,especially at demos and workshops that I longer need to refer to them. However, when teaching a workshop, I DO refer to them constantly, just to make the point that they are needed and should be used if you don't know where you are going. | ||
Jane Freeman |
I believe all of this must be based on what one paints. In landscapes, florals and figurative, one can often do some preliminary sketches and then "go for it" if the values appear to be right. But I think with complicated still life work, there is no other way than to do some good drawing to provide a map, otherwise you will lose the composition. It is just how I work but I am into realism and so therefore I need a good map to follow which then leads to a higher success rate for me. I know some very skilled landscape painters as well who do some preliminary drawing as well. | ||
Eugene |
I think pre-planning is very important for the novice. "Intuition" comes only after years of painting. | ||
marie |
I need to have a very clear design/value plan before my brush hits the paper. Sometimes I am able to come up with a plan out of my head, and other times I need to work it out on a piece of paper. What is important for me is to make sure that the organization of values is absolutely clear in my mind. I have ruined so many paintings by saying, "Oh, I'll just figure out how to handle the values as I go along. I'm sure something will come to me." I am coming to watercolor after several years of figure drawing. I started with drawing, then started adding gray washes to drawings, and then color washes. Now I am transitioning from drawing to painting, and I am struggling with how to plan values. I am going through much the same process with value/ design that I went through with draftsmanship. When I started drawing, I would need to make lots of construction lines and anatomical marks. I don't make as many construction marks now, not because they are any less important but because I can visualize these marks in my head. I absolutely agree with you that the best art is the result of intuitive "vision." And the intuitive vision comes from lots of practice. | ||
Robert |
Most of us, I assume, who have studied watercolor are familiar with basic design theory and also know about value sketches. Is it overly risky to abandon these (rational) ways of planning and just jump right in to a composition without analyzing it? I ask this becasue my least successful paintings have happened when I didn't do prelimary sketches and plan the composition based on value and design pricnciples. That said, paradoxically, each of my *most successful paintings* have also come about as spontaneous compositions without the prliminary sketches and design planning. I just intuitvely "saw" a great composition what worked and I leapt into it with both feet. To my mind the paintings that I've done by following the standard procedure of making a value sketch and following conscious principles of design look as if I did just that. The more brilliant paintings just work but blatant value and design patterns aren't as obvious. I firmly believe that the best art is the result of intuitive "vision." Perhaps this intuitive ability can be cultivated by the practice of design and value studies. I noticed that one famous artist who began the week in a workshop teaching about value sketches and urging us to use them, later in the week just lept into the paintings without mentioning preliminary studies. Perhaps he was able to do it from having done lots of studies and he could do the work in his mind without having to actually paint out the sketches, or perhaps he just intuitively saw great compositions. I am beginning to think that trusting my intuition is a surer way to painting excellent paintings than merely following a procedure. I know also that the counsel others to do so is unwise becasue these preliminaries are instructive and useful. I'd like to know other's thoughts on this as it applies to them and their experience. |
