On Painting a Likeness...

Each particular combination of lines, planes and masses - in art as well as in nature - has for us a particular meaning.  Let us say, for example, that a tree, a real tree in a field, leans to the left. A slight swelling of the ground at its base indicates the position of an important root.  If the swelling is to the left, the weight of the tree is pushing the root into the ground.  If the swelling is to the right, the tree is pulling against the root, pulling it out of the ground.

In this painting "Apple Blossoms" even though the tree in the foreground is powerful and painted with deeper and darker values, the eye is led in the direction of the furthermost tree which fulfils the above description and it satisfies the eye as something that behaves according to the laws of Nature. Our muscular senses are elaborately aware of these thrusts and tensions. It is the sympathetic muscular sensation in our own bodies of these thrusts and tensions, and our translation of them in terms of our own emotions, which we interpret as the character of the image that is standing before us.  Thus, by using combinations of lines and shapes and masses, and the motor and emotional meanings they have for us, the artist can describe and make us feel the character of the resemblance he has seen.  How exactly this happens, however, I defy any artist to explain. This instruction applies to portraiture as well.

In order to achieve the gnarly effect of the tree trunk (foreground) I used a #12 boar bristle flat and loaded it with Payne's gray, Indian yellow, alyzarin crimson and ultramarine blue (unmixed) and moved the brush down the trunk following the direction that the bark was taking.  It was a happening -- almost like taking a dictation.  That's all I can say about the process, but it is the real joy of painting with big brushes and, of course, the immediate gratification.

Why did I choose oils over other existing media?

My answer is quite simple:  The oil painter can change and correct at will.  Her paint remains comfortably wet.  She can obtain the most subtle gradations with ease.  She only needs to smear.  Her picture can be endlessly repainted.  To match tones is easy.  Her colors are the same whether wet or dry.  She has no reason to be neat.  She can begin by painting as crudely as she pleases, in great rough areas of light and dark, and then refine and adjust them later.

An outline fixed at the beginning would be only a hindrance.  She can put it in as a detail at the end, or even, if she wishes, leave it out altogether.  She can permit herself the most outrageous freedoms and the most monumental messes.  Just as the art of the tempera painting is concerned with lines and the color the lines contain, the oil painter's technique has first of all to do with light-and-dark in tone and back-and-forth in space.  Ah, sweet freedom!

"Pueblo Winter"        (16" X 20")      Oil on Canvas

What does an Impressionist attempt to create?

 The Impressionist painter is not merely painting pictures of colored objects.  His task is much more complicated -- to see what colored objects look like under colored light.  His palette is much richer than that of the pre-Impressionistic painters, sporting mauves, violets, blues, bright greens oranges and intense yellows.  He can allow himself the liberty of forgetting that his pigments are only substances.  He can permit himself to confuse the paint on the palette with the light that he is attempting to represent.

In my painting of "Pelican Sunset" all of those colors are present, but are constantly moving and changing.  All the mauves, blues, greens in the water are seen while they reflect the changes in the mood of the sky and are speckled with moving reflections of the birds as they bob around and feed on the castings from the fishing boats.The glow of the late afternoon sun is evident as it blushes the wet feathers of these amazing creatures.  It was necessary to keep this painting as loose and wet as possible so that the changes could be made at a moment's notice.  I have to admit that I painted half of it with my fingers.  Sometimes this is necessary, but oh, so much fun!

"Pelican Sunset"     (24" X 30")     Oil on Canvas