New big painting

I am starting a new big painting. I have been painting almost daily. There has been a shift in my dedication to my studio practice. I feel that I have never taken it this seriously. I feel extremely dedicated and motivated, as though it weren’t any longer a question about whether I want to work or not, or whether I’m in the “mood” as before. It just is. I do it.

And I love it. I feel so fulfilled. This, and exercise, is really my life right now. Work is there too. I work three half days a week and it is manageable. I make enough money to support myself.

Last night I met with the gallery director of the gallery I’ve been in conversation with for some months. We agreed he’d come and do a studio visit in September. I am extremely excited. I feel like I am going to put my head down even more, not go to the beach, not f around with doing nothing, and just work. Social life has been really good lately. Summer is nice because I see all the people I care abut that don’t live where I live. I am stimulated by the people I see. We talk about things and have conversations. That is sorely, sorely lacking in my life when things quiet down and it’s during the year. I survive from island to island of little glaciers of time spent with people once a month or so, in which I fill my cup and have nice, stimulating, easy, enlightening conversations. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to tolerate more so much all the time? I’m not sure if that’s true.

I am honoring what I’m curious about. Attending little lectures online, in person. Last night I saw the gallery director at a lecture organized by the gallery with an art historian who is one of the world’s leading academics on Leonardo da Vinci. It was very, very interesting and I loved being there – there was a fabulous turnout, it was in a library, in a beautiful old restored cloister. There were beautiful, conserved, incredibly restored pieces of fresco on the white walls behind the projector. It was just an exquisite evening, all of the technology new, discreet, juxtaposed in this old beautiful room with white walls and beautifully colored fresco fragments, beautiful, neutral lights, everyone was dressed in white and their summer linen clothes. I felt incredibly grateful to live where I do, and for Thomas.

On to painting. I will post images of new works and interweave with my reflections of the moment.

There are things I care about. Things I care deeply about, concepts, ideas. Then there are “beautiful paintings”. I am not sure if they overlap. or mostly, I don’t always care about the beautiful paintings, but the paintings I care about are usually beautiful, to me, even if I feel like maybe no one else can see that they are beautiful. I feel and see that they are beautiful, I see their beauty. But I am afraid that other people won’t see their beauty. I remember certain things I care deeply about, sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks. I know. Like merely when I see the picture of the dead goat in the desert.

I want to keep bringing in those pale blues and pinks and purples and yellows. That is important. The theme, the concept is important, meaningful, worthwhile. And I can express that with beautiful, pale, vibrant and beautifully mixed colors.

I Believe in the power of believing in certain things even when everyone else says no.

Sometimes you have to insist, push onwards, inwards, take advice, but also listen to your inkling. To not be afraid of doing things differently.

There isn’t a one single way, both are good, it’s up to me what I like better. I am feeling like maturity is being able to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, with peace, and without the need to decide one or the other.

I feel as though I am Finding my identity in a big way.

Some of those decisions are indicative of my identity, those decisions that happen against all other odds, against the opinions of others. Even if others can’t understand it, or a small, select few can. Do I really want to make art that is hyper accessible? Accessible to all?

I Have been painting faceless figures for so long, now I am painting faces, portraits again. I feel like I am good as it, and it feels like coming home a little bit.

Intuition. It’s always been there and still is, even as I refine my technique and thought process. Perhaps especially as I refine my technique and thought process, the two start working better synergistically.

I am loving the process of Letting myself be led to the meaning of a painting, letting it unfold as I go, being shown by the painting the meaning and the way.

“È come un pianto, mi garba per quello”. I love this that Thomas said. The way the turpentine makes the paint look like it is dripping and watery, he said it looks like tears, like a cry, like that is connected to the meaning of the painting. Like the painting is crying for the dead bull.

It’s the paintings that haunt me the most that come out exactly like I want them to. The ones that have stuck with me for ages that I’ve known I have to paint for months, years even, they are often extremely powerful, deep for me and this comes through in the painting itself. Like the toreadora with the dead bull and the red jacket.

No, but the paintings that haunt me come out well

There was animal pee on my canvas, my big ones that I left outside overnight. I like that. It feels symbolic. Like it was a blessing from the black cat that comes to visit me.

I am building my own canvases. The big ones. And spending time to stretch them perfectly and re stretch them, prime them with glue, mix the glue. with the water. I am loving how in touch I feel with my works from the beginning in this way.

It’s important to let the subconscious reveal whatever is bouncing around – Martin Finnin said this, our artist friend. That’s the way I’m painting right now. Letting the subconscious show itself, guide me.

I am being more in touch with my work, with it, together. We’re in this together from the very beginning, from the conception. Together in my studio. Like friends or animals. Helping it, loving it, guiding it. Like I have it in my side from the beginning. More present with it. More physically in contact with it, owning it more entirely and fully.

I like that bright colors can be macabre, surreal, melancholy 

Some paintings: Soldato morto- Velazquez

Torero morto- Manet

Lecture w professor pietrasanta biblioteca

All of the goats have been eaten by the wolves. They’ve come back, taking every last one. To think that they lived, survived for weeks, months, in futility, in vain. Afraid they were going to die, watching their friends and family die, then dying themselves. Being afraid of dying and then actuallly dying. The torpor of the wolves in their feeding frenzy. The terror and fear of the goats and sheep. The death mixed with terror. Not leaving a single one. All dead, a memory, a story for my blog.

Researching transparent vs non transparent pigments

T for transparent

O for opaque

Trying to figure out when and why to use transparent paints, and when to use more opaque paints. Glazing? Impasto? How to layer colors to create new colors. How colors react one on top of another, how and when light reflects through colors and bounces back to the iris – or when it is absorbed, and what effect this creates – the optics/aesthetic/visual impact of a painting. Color “vibrations” – is this just how colors react when they are close to one another, side by side, or is this the vibrational effect of layers of paint and how they react one on top of one another?

Research transparent vs non transparent colors/color vibrations

A List of Transparent and Opaque Oil Pigments

New colors: phthalo blue (T)

Perm magenta (T)

Prussian blue (T)

Purple lake (T)

Burnt umber (T)

Prussian green (T)

Permanent Alizarin Crimson (T)

Permanent Rose (t)

Rose Madder Deep t

Cad lemon o

Cad red o

Sap green t

Cad yellow o

Cobalt st

Venetian red o

Ult. Blue t

Viridian t

Vermilion hue o

Ivory black so

Lemon yellow hue o

Lamp black o

Manganese blue hue t

Mars black o

Yellow ochre st (raw Sienna alternative – t?)

Naples yellow o

Buy: for lights in procession: cobalt

Perm rose – rose dore mad

Schev rose deep

Viridian(?) green deep

Vine black (?)

Scarlet lake extra

Perm carmine?

Use in blacks: burnt Sienna

Naples yellow (o)

Gold ochre transparent

Cobalt violet

Vermilion extra OH

Alizarin

Van dyck brown

Transparent red oxide lake

Transparent oxide yellow lake

Flesh ochre

Naples yellow deep extra

Flesh tint

Golden barok red

Ultramarine blue deep

Aliz

Yellow light

Cad yellow lemon

Naples yellow deep extra

Copied from various sources: A transparent pigment applied onto a white ground will appear brilliant, because some of the white surface beneath reflects the light back. If the same pigment were applied onto a dark or black background, most of the light would be absorbed, causing the color to appear dull. For this reason, translucent pigments are ideal for glazing techniques, as the color beneath is still visible.

Pigments that are more translucent in nature are: permanent rose, permanent crimson, alizarin crimson, dioxazine blue, ultramarine, pthalo blue, Prussian blue, viridian green, terre verte, sap green, burnt sienna, raw sienna and raw umber. These colors, being transparent in nature will need careful selection of an opaque color to provide body and covering power if this is needed.

Mixing Transparent Hues with White

Beware that mixing a translucent color with titanium white (which has high RI) will not bring a paler version of the hue. Apply a thin glaze of ultramarine on a white surface, and a brilliant blue will result. Similarly, apply a thin glaze of permanent rose on a white surface and a brilliant pink will be the outcome. Mix ultramarine with white, and an opaque, rather grayish, flat blue will come back. Mix permanent rose with white, and a candy-floss pink will be the consequence. Translucent pigments are ideal for glazing techniques, but careful mixing is required if an opaque paint layer is needed.

A selection of translucent, semi-translucent and opaque paints will come in useful for the artist. Translucent colors are ideal for glazing techniques and for deepening a color beneath. Opaque colors will come in useful for alla prima, impasto or simply to cover up unwanted marks. Opaque colors will also provide a flat, even paint layer if this is desired.

If you want to paint with a limited palette, then a great place to start is all three primary colors (red, yellow and blue), white, raw umber (or burnt sienna) and black.

Black is optional as you can actually mix a nice black tone by combining equal parts of the primary colors together, or by mixing french ultramarine blue with raw umber. Many great artists, particularly the Impressionists, exclude black from their palette due to the thought it was not a natural color of the environment.

Anders Zorn is thought to have limited his palette to only four colors for many of his paintings: white, yellow ochre, cadmium red medium and ivory black. Ivory black is a cool color and was used by Anders Zorn as a very dark blue.

notes from Ryan: Titanium white, yellow ochre deep, (transparent) red ochre, and I’ll switch between ivory black and vine black (st)depending on what I need 🙂

I really like burnt sienna in place of red ochre too, or Venetian red :~)

Red ochre is beautiful I think, it makes such a natural soft pink

A little hard to make warmer orange tones though, which burnt sienna and Venetian red are really good at

Ivory tends towards a cooler grey, while vine towards a warmer !

Also I think mars black also tends towards a very cool grey, like u can make sort of a blue with it

Palette organization experiment

An artist I know and follow on IG organizes her palette this way, I saw in a photo- so I’m experimenting with my palette organized in ascending value scales I mixed for each color.

Also: should I buy cobalt blue even though it’s rly expensive? I’ve always been using ultramarine since school. Cobalt might be a good idea? Have more breadth of blue? Why cobalt? More precious? More beautiful blue? More vibrational?

So far: grey scale is useful to have. Green too- so I see it on my palette, since I tend to ignore cooler colors.

Also: it’s useful to, if introducing a new color to my palette- do one of these value scales to see how it behaves with different amounts of white mixed in. For example, I didn’t know that the Venetian red on my palette makes the most beautiful pale pink color when mixed with a lot of white. Will probably continue doing for all colors if introduced new to palette.

Also: for the future, could be useful to take the primary colors on my palette (variations of yellow and red, along w blue), and mix out the secondary colors (green, orange, purple) so that I see them on my palette and can use them for mixing new colors instead of having to guess the quantities that go into new colors. I’m thinking a lot about color these days. As in, how to plan out a painting w colors more consciously- rather than trying to nail an individual color and apply it, as though they all existed individually? I need to create a universe of color on the canvas, that all relate to eachother. How to be more intentional w color and choose colors that work beautifully and look beautiful, vibrational, side by side? How to get color vibration???