Let the background tell a story

The first painting shown at the September ASA critique was this portrait of Terry Richard, painted way back in March during a Judy Carducci workshop. Judy was pretty jazzed about it, so I figured it would gather some admiration, and needed brownie points towards the coveted "Signature" status (as described in the post before.)

I suppose there was some admiration about the likeness from the group, but it didn't stop there. Linda Anne Misja, the moderator, liked the bold brush stoke on the shirt. That was a Carducci pleasure as well. But the shadow under the hand was bothersome to her. Ah... I remember Judy saying the same.

The horn also was bothersome and the hand too big. "No, no" two members didn't agree. I experience relief.

Then Jack jumps in with the uneven background; too light around the hat. It makes the eye to to the greatest contrast at the back of the hat. Hm-m... Jack had a point there.

Terry is also hanging in my dining room, until I decide what, if anything, to do about the background. At first I thought knocking down the gradation would be an easy fix. But as I let things lie, I've decided I don't want it to be a plain, boring background.

I am meeting bi-weekly with Shannon Casey, who has just begun her journey as a full-time artist. She described several portraits she is doing. Each has a story in the background, to describe the portrait that the eye can't see. Her delight in telling stories is catching. I like that challenge.

Terry invited a few of us painters to see his apartment, just a brief walk from CVAC, where the workshop was held. It's an old guy's apartment, full of old paintings and collectibles. I have to remember what collectibles perhaps. Was he a cop once? Were their trains? Wasn't there an old traffic light up there?

Or, it could be a story about an ivory tower. There is room for a window. Should it just have clouds, or look down on the world of friends berry picking in the sun?

Should it be about New Orleans, now bedraggled and unable to regain it's former glamor? Yes. He could be sitting on a porch in one of those struggling wards ... both losing the war with nature and entropy, the man palsied and age-spotted, yet still hanging on to a bent but luminous trumpet.

From a coffin to a hole

ASA critiques can be frustrating. There is this desire in me now, after 3 years, to take only my best work to critiques. The reason is I overheard that one is recommended to "Signature" status based on critiques. Because there are so few "Associate" and vastly many more "Signature" members, I would like to get out of the bottom of the barrel some day. So, instead of taking the two things that needed the most work, as usual, I took the two things I thought needed the least.

This painting of the ledges was first critiqued by Melissa. She pointed out that the drop off in front of me with the cliff on the other side looked more like the rock was sitting on the path with "It looks like a coffin." And so it did, and sat brooding on my desk from June until September.

The key I needed was to reference the photo on a laptop and not the black and white prints I was using, where the ledges were solid black.

On 9/20 I spent a half day trying to set up my faithful old clamshell to no avail, until Patrick lent me his iBook. Now I can access my photos from the network.

I celebrated by working on the coffin, to make the convex rock face concave. "That's it!" Melissa said the day before critique. Time to throw this puppy into a frame!

"There's a hole in your painting..." said my friend Lin Misja, who was moderating and looking rather tiredly at about the 50th painting that night. "It IS a hole!" exclaimed Ann Kah, Sue Birgeles and I. Poor Lin then got a short lecture from the first two about the nature of the terrain at Virginia Kendall Park.

"You never put a hole in the middle of your painting" said Jack Liberman to me privately. He was sitting next to me. "Really?" I must have replied.

End of critique.

Later Lin and Jack ask "What IS your subject?" in an effort to be more helpful. This is always a good question, as en plein air paintings can get overwhelmed with too much detail and multiple subjects. "Is it supposed to be the light on the tree?" Jack asks. "Well yes, I really wanted that to stand out... but it became more about the hole I guess, because it was so ... dark." I weakly admitted I didn't really like the painting. Lin suggested pulling out more highlights on the far rock face.

The painting now hangs limp and injured across from my place at the dining room table, needing a better frame and a bit more TLC someday. I've decided that the issue is the perspective. I painted from a chair, and not as a hiker approaching the deep. If it is to be about the hole, then I should paint that feeling you get walking up to the precipice, make it ... EDGY!