Joseph B. O'Sickey

I grow tired of thinking about what I can't have, like the kid outside the candy store window. In an attempt to get the Mel Stabin workshop out of mind, I am choosing to pay tribute to someone I really truly did "study under" — Joseph O'Sickey.

Joseph O'Sickey was an art professor at Kent State University in the 1970's and 80's. He was incredibly popular and influenced a great many students during my time there, including me. His painting style is a cross between Monet and VanGough. His canvases were quite large, and he painted with his whole body. So did we. We would mix a color and find its location everywhere on the canvas, leaving bits of color shapes everywhere they appeared in the scene. On and on, we would paint, until an image grew.

Ed Stitt's self portrait and my painting of Marci both reflect his style, although mine also has a George Danhires influence. Ed's has more raw O'Sickey energy and talent.

I just googled "joseph osickey" and found two paintings: "Figure at Window" sold at auction in 2001 for $2300. "Autumn Garden with Table and Wicker Chairs" sold at auction for $10,350. Click the links to see the paintings.

I wonder what he thinks about these sales? I know from the auction house that he was born in 1918, two years before my mother-in-law, who is now finishing her years in an apartment attached to our house. He is 87. I hope he is not fighting for his life or mind, and has many good years ahead. I hope he has the same spirit and determiniation. But, who knows?

The photo is from a 1981 Daily Kent Stater clipping I had pasted in a hand-made sketch book. On the opposite page is a hand written quote, which I still find tremendously instructive today:

"For a young person wishing to develop and to progress in art, I would suggest the following: 1.) Learn the profession as completely as you can, while you're in school. 2.) Becoming an artist takes many years of hard work beyond school. Become a student of art first. Remain a student. 3.) Art takes energy, stamina and good heath. Equip yourself mentally and physically. 4.) Aspire for quality. Don't think you already know what Art is. Travel, see, study the best in all the arts. 5.) Bring your work to a professional level of competency while you are in school ... one can no longer be a naive painter, only an ignorant one. 6.) Read insatiably in the arts. 7.) Motivate yourself— it's your life. 8.) Learn to work courageously. 9.) Work."

Indeed, I was privileged to study with this gentleman while he was at his best as a painter and college professor.

Playland Park

consider the lilies
he spoke to my heart





consider the critters too





don't let the decay of this world




weigh you down





let the grass of the field
speak to you





follow the rabbit trails
of your heart







and see
with a new point of view





I delight in the smallest details of life




from abandonment,





life, I renew





rest in playland park
for a spell





see the weeds
that I've made


... just for
you

Sargent's en plein air watercolor method

Mary Newbold Patterson Hale was a cousin of John Singer Sargent, and related her observations in The World Today, November 1927:

To see one of Sargent's water colours in the making always reminded me of the first chapter of Genesis, when the evening and the morning were the first day, order developed from chaos, and one thing after another was created of its kind. Having chosen his subject and settled himself with the sunshade, hat and paraphernalia all to his liking, he would make moan over the difficulty of the subject and say, "I can't do it," or "It's unpaintable," and finally, "Well, let's have a whack at it."

Perfect absorption would follow, and after what looked like a shorthand formula in pencil was on the block, the most risky and adventurous technique would come into play, great washes of colour would go on the paper with huge brushes or sponges, and muttering of "Demons! Demons!" or "The devils own!" would be heard at intervals.

All the time the picture was growing surely, swiftly; he worked through to the end, only stopping when it was a subject where light and tide changed before he could get it all in, and two "goes" were necessary.

I found this story at Natasha's definitive John Singer Sargent virtual gallery. A must see.

Restraint is the word

"There is no great work begun without passion and not great work completed without restraint." —Chris Blake

Started this portrait of L. with "an accurate drawing" that helped capture her likeness before I laid down paint. I was able to paint more boldly, and I like the results. Next week: paint the feathers in a vignette, which calls for massive restraint.

What I didn't see in the drawing: left eye needs to be lower and closer. Mouth higher. I discovered this by overlaying the painting over a photo. Used restraint and simply drew new eye and mouth outlines. Her ear is actually under her hair. Drew new earring outline.

Next Friday: look twice, paint once and walk away often

Brutal-good critique

I set myself up for a beating. Mine was the first watercolor to be critiqued last night, and I prefaced Larry Churski's commentary with a confession. "This was started at a 3 hour sitting and finished from a photograph. That was a mistake because I lost her, but I think I got her back."

I was flattered when he began by confessing that he and Marc Moon have both relied on electric erasers. Yes, even Marc Moon needs to erase now and then.

Larry wasn't able to discuss the details of every painting, so he shared what impressed him first:
1. There's something wrong with the arm. Now that I look at it, it's undeniable. My changing her jacket did not resolve it, but made it worse. Solution, get an accurate drawing down first, then painting should be a breeze. I argue "But I tend to stay within the lines and color." He says "Well, don't stay within the lines." Frankly, I don't get it yet: if it's accurate, why would I paint outside the lines?
2. Her hair against the background, and the hay against the jacket, need more lost and softened edges. Larry feels the looser you paint, the more soft edges you should have. I'm not sure. I tend to soften edges to blend, and I tend to blend when I tighten up. But I do like her hair before I did all the curly cue brushwork with it.
3. Her right hand is too small.
4. He couldn't tell that there is leather on the inside left leg. It does look like a screwy shadow.

My own critique, now that I have them side by side is this: less is more. I had more of her spirit and expression in the first, and lost it trying to make her features accurate. When I shaded the right side of her face, it made it look even wider. It looks better without shading, which is really how it was. Her unfinished eyes say more, even though the right eye is too low.



Where to go from here:
1. Spend at least an hour drawing on Friday, before I load up a brush. I am simply not good enough to nail foreshortening and other problems with a pose to accurately lay down paint.
2. Make a point to lose more edges. Not all over, but more than I have been in the past. I did see in both Dino and Joy's paintings that some lost edges in the hair made it read more like hair.
3. Remember, even Marc Moon needed an electric eraser every now and then.

The door is closing

I'm still waiting for a tax return to come in, and a slot in "the ideal workshop" I've been wanting to attend, which filled up while I was waiting for the needed cash. Hope against hope. We don't have $400 for the mortgage this week, let alone a workshop. So I am working through the bargaining phase of grief over my percieved loss into acceptance: not this year.

Why is it "the ideal workshop"? It's called "The Figure in watercolor: simple, fast and focused." The instructor is Mel Stabin, and his painting style is loose and direct. Five days of demonstration and instruction, right in my back yard. No motel fee & travel expenses... and it's all about the figure... in watercolor! ...painting people in landscapes and painting the clothed model.

I do get to attend a dinner and demo on Sunday. And Mr. Stabin will be the judge of a watercolor show that I am entering today. One of my emotional "bargaining" consolations was going to be the ability to submit something wonderful; some piece that just came together in an exceptional way. Not this year! All my fresh starts ended in destruction. (God, do I need that workshop!)

In fact, I have actually misplaced one of my best loose and direct pieces, the only fresh start I haven't destroyed. Thankfully, I scanned it, but I feel like I've sabotaged myself! This has brought me to the end of my bargaining rope. I am completely undone.

I awoke at 4:00 this morning racking my brain. Then went down to my trysting spot on the couch to converse with Yahweh about it. "How could I have lost this painting; the one Judy said I should frame? Why did I find lyrics about being broken and spilled out (referring to the woman with the alabaster jar, no less) in the spot I thought I had last laid the painting? What are You trying to say?"

In the dark stillness, a song came to my heart, and rest.

Jesus, all for Jesus, all I am and have and ever hope to be.
All of my ambitions, hopes and plans I surrender these into Your hands.
For it's only in Your will that I am free.

Let it be.

Few bad painting habits are harder for me to overcome than overworking a face on a watercolor.

Behold, the photo on the left contains my painting of A, moments before her expression was meticulously undone on Monday afternoon as I "finished" the painting.

Had I only left her eyes alone, she would not now look like a drug addict! But, I put up her photo on my computer and succumbed to stupidity.

The eyes are the gateway of the soul. I find them irresistible to paint. But I must chant a new mantra when I have already captured an expression: "Let it be." So what if it's not exactly right!

Not sure that what I did can be undone. The Arches paper can only take so many attempts at paint removal and re-painting, no matter how incremental.

"... whisper words of wisdom: let it be." —John Lennon

Winter flowers

These are days of the unexpected. Our dryer breaks. We expect to go to Home Depot and incur debt, but— unexpectedly, Patrick finds a new-but-dented Kenmore extra-capacity gas dryer on e-bay with 4hrs. left. He got it for $20 and gathered it from Elyria on Saturday. It goes with my Kenmore extra-capacity washer, gathered from a church in Macedonia last summer. Patrick is my hunter-gathering man!

I never expected to shoot photos with Ethan, or to look up the coal hopper and find flowers. Did both on Sunday.

Aho. You are good.

The Call

"We may retire from our jobs, but never from our calling. We may at times be unemployed, but no one ever becomes uncalled." — Os Guinness, The Call

I'm getting serious about this, enough to work at marketing. I finally made a business card, stationary and price list ... all in the last 3 days. I also created new web pages with paintings, at the/artwall

Now, I can hand out a card with the web address to interested people, who can then look at the paintings and prices and e-mail me. Getting set up with pay-pal will be next.

Art is work and more work. Why not get enough from all this work to put food on the table? The call does allow for living, does it not? Marketing is the first step.

And what is the final step? Last spring I took classes from a gentleman that has survived lung cancer and teaches advanced watercolor every Tuesday morning to a dozen people. There will always be something for him to offer: it is pure joy to watch his brush dance across the paper and pull out the most exciting composition from a photo that failed to inspire me. He will never outgrow his sense of wonder.

He will never become uncalled.

Good things come in small packages

A Strathmore 4x6" sketchbook, only 24 pages slim, and a Pigma Micron pen generally reside in my purse. They satisfied my need to redeem the time today, when I became stuck at the eye doctor's for over an hour, waiting for my husband's eyes to dialate.

This handsome tree, conveniently located right outside the windshield, and the springlike day were just as essential!

Neither would fit in my purse. Only the drawing.

Quote from an old sketchbook

"I used to be concerned about making art— about my paintings turning out 'right.'

Now I feel that the life you live is the art. Making a painting is just a part of that life."

— Judy Gehrlein

I feel like I'm in a cage...

I decide to paint today and finish the Ingres redux. But it's Saturday and a zoo all day.

Morning: Patrick is playing the one CD I simply hate. There is no way I can paint, so I vacuum and do dishes loudly. Then e-mail and phone calls & lunch, after pulling Patrick out of a sulk over our music dispute, which occurred while I was at the computer, wondering aloud when the CD would be over.

Afternoon: I'm finally ready to paint, and my mother-in-law trots in with a catalog. (She lives in the suite we built for her, just off the living room. She is the main character in my play, some days.) She is dying to buy another wig. We discuss and re-discuss why this new wig will be no different from the one she dislikes, so she brings over the old one and ... Patrick wears it.

Then we hear the Porsche is running (a first since October) and we all run downstairs to the garage to congratulate our 19-year-old, Ethan. Patrick with the wig, Babka with no bra... Ethan's mechanic friend nearly runs for cover. The carbon monoxide alarm goes off...

Then it's dinnertime, and then I trim Babka's hair, because ... I want her to stop obsessing about hair and go home!

I must have got an hour or two in there somewhere, because the drapery and tattoo are painted in (I don't remember how!)

YET-TO-DO... on the painting 1. remove the remaining bit of robe, which is not covered by the mat I selected. 2. liven up the shadow side of the bench, which got miserably overworked because I have no clue what I want to see.

Tomorrow is another day at the fun-house.

Another Friday's work

TECH NOTES:

I like the shadow luminosity I am getting from the cadmium red and antwerp blue.

It was also a good decision to back off on the deeper values for the black clothing and make the background a more "muddy" spring green.

I can take one or two more sittings to finish:

- brim softer and a bit wider
- eyes, nose, mouth, hair more definition
- define shadow on left cheek and neck
- fix the structure of right hand & define structure of left
- paint blouse and leggings
- background (a field with spring woods behind?)
- define hay & horsehair crop

Why make a list to myself only when the painting is a commission? I have decided this year to make worklists for all paintings. Treat them all like comissions. Do my best. (Yes, I got the idea from Judy, who said "I make to-do lists of all my paintings." Imitation is the highest form of flattery.)

Munich

Steven Spielberg's Munich has me reconsidering: all that is art need not be beautiful. Last night I saw a drama that unveiled a chapter of the early conflict between Palestinian and Hebrew in all its darkness and complexity. The time is 1972-4. The Israelites had survived an all out Arab attack in 1967, after fighting the Arabs in 1949 to keep the land granted to them in 1948. Leaders were old enough to have survived the holocaust. Now their sons must fight to keep the nation from being annihilated. Strike back the terrorists. Strike hard.

It was good to see the struggle within the five characters assigned to exact vengeance for the Munich dead. Was is right to slay a gentle poet at point-blank range, and wrong to kill a harlot in the same way? But these were more than poet and harlot. Yet, how do we know? Doubts abound, and the toymaker yearns for righteousness, without which his soul cannot survive. The ferris wheel stops and he is gone.

A cheese is on the way to Abner, the Israeli leader, when the movie ends. It is a gift from the French informant, who says "Remember, I will never hurt you." But the toymaker foreshadowed what could be planted in such a gift. Even Abner will not escape. What worth is he to this Frenchman after the blood money stops?

The pattern of vengence will never end, Abner says to his superior. It is the bottom line of the movie, and then the credits roll under the New York skyline, complete with the newly constructed twin towers of the World Trade Center. We are taken, in an instant, from the days of fighting Black September to the days of fighting Al Quaeda.

Selah.

L'Envoi :: a poem by Rudyard Kipling

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it— lie down for an eon or two,
'Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.

And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from– Magdalene, Peter and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are.

(Thanks Judy. I shall know it by heart some day, as you do.)

Revealing light at Summit Art Space

I hold a treasure in a jar of clay.
Someone has seen its expression.

Could the light in this winter scene be an archetype that speaks to the human spirit?

The artists who hung this painting at the current show in downtown Akron have juxtaposed its light with darkness.

II Corinthians 4:6 & 7

Inspired to reveal

I paint models every Friday with members of the Akron Society of Artists, for the joy of portraiture and to build my watercolor skills for taking commissions. ("Comission" is a nice artsy way of saying "Painting your portrait for good money.")

Last Friday, I painted A. and am fairly happy to have captured her likeness and sweet spirit. This time, I have backed off the shadows and her features seem a bit lost. The current challenge is to deepen the shadow values without getting it to look like dirt or bruises. A shadow on skin should still be luminous. This eludes me.

I will continue to work on it this Friday, but only for the first 20 min. sitting. Then I will move on to paint from another angle.

About this blog:

I am obeying an inner prompting to spread salt and light a little farther. I am choosing to open the journal of my journey in this web log. No longer will I record my progress in a sketchbook.

The name "Alabaster Path" reflects an honored act of beauty poured out with abandon:

"A woman came to Jesus with an alabaster flask of very costly annointing oil, and she poured it on his head as he was dining. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying 'Why this waste? This oil might have been sold for a year's wages and given to the poor!' ... He said to them 'Why burden this woman with false guilt? She has done a good work. The poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me. She has lavishly poured this oil in preparation for my burial ... wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.'" Matthew 26:7-13 condensed and combined with John 12:1-8 and embellished just a tad from the King James Version.

Suffering is a part of life, but it mustn't eclipse beauty... ever.