Back home and in the studio

May 13, 2008May 13, 2008 | foxstudio

Got back from my trip last Thursday evening with no more than what is the usual nonsense when one flies these days. Plane was late getting to Denver, so we were late leaving Denver, which meant I missed my 4:12 connection in San Francisco. On the bright side, the airline automatically rebooked me on the next flight home at 6:30, which was good since the last flight out didn’t leave until, ouch, 11:30pm.

ANIMAL NEWS

We have a canine guest right now, a 3.5 year old male German Shepherd rescued from a seriously rotten situation. I’m doing the emergency foster while a ride is lined up to get him to his long-term foster. He’s spent the last four months with people who didn’t “like” him, so he was kept inside and forced to do his business in a room. He’s got what looks like flea allergy dermatitis. Very thin fur on his back end and tail. Also very scared at first, but totally unaggressive.

We have him on a long cable tie-down on the patio so he can have peace and quiet, but start to get used to a normal environment not filled with screaming and craziness. He’s unneutered, but very submissive. Ignores the cats. Associates collars and having his neck reached for with something negative, but isn’t head shy. Niki is modeling calm, balanced behavior and setting boundaries for their interactions, so he’s my partner in helping get the poor guy back on an even keel. He’ll be a fantastic family companion once he’s had time in a stable environment and gets his confidence back.

I guess the moral is, if you really don’t want an animal, don’t just ignore it and stop caring for it, do what it takes to get them to a place where they have a chance to get a new home where they will get the love they deserve. Sheeh, is that so hard?

ART TALK

I had a great time sketching and photographing at the Denver Zoo, along with getting to see the Robert Bateman show at The Wildlife Experience. There were so many of his iconic images- the snow leopard sitting on a cliff as snow swirls around, the orca amongst the kelp, the storks at dusk with the shimmering band of gold water, plus some of his early abstracts. He is the living master in wildlife art when it comes to design/composition and the sheer beauty of his painting. Very, very inspirational. If you are in the Denver area and you want to see the best in animal art, see his show.

There was also a small room with paintings of African subjects and I was tickled to quickly realize that I had at least met, if not studied, with all of the artists: John Seerey-Lester, John Banovich, Simon Combes and Daniel Smith. I think I feel a lion painting coming on!

In the meantime, here are some of my sketches from the Denver Zoo. Most of them took less than three minutes, if that, so no time to doodle around. First I try to capture the gesture of their pose or movement, then add things like eyes and fur texture. Last is value, Sometimes I end up adding the modeling and “color” while I’m having lunch. The lions were very fit for zoo cats, but I’ll still “tighten” them up by referring to lions I photographed in Kenya.

The horses are my beloved takhi, of which three were out when I was there. I had seen domestic yaks, but these were the first wild yaks. They manage ok in The Mile High City, but in their native (shrinking) habitat, they thrive at 15,000 feet plus.

Here and then gone again

April 30, 2008 | foxstudio

Back for two days and leaving for Montana tomorrow for the OPA national show opening weekend. I’ll try to blog while I’m there since there are a variety of interesting sessions planned.

I really enjoyed the show in Walnut Creek overall. Sales weren’t good, though. Wallets are locked down. I watched people pick out a $3 card and then put it back. This in a town where it seemed like every other car on the street was a Porsche or a Lexus. And it was hot. Even the locals were whining a little. The temperatures hit 80F+ on Saturday and Sunday. I did have some potential buyers come by, so I think that the show will be well worth doing for the next couple of years, at least. I saved money by staying at the Residence Inn in Pleasant Hill and buying my food at the local Whole Foods store. It was nice to go back to the room and kick back without having to figure out where to go for dinner on a weekend night.

My neighbor artists were great. Both use glass as their media of choice. Kevin (www.kevinmark.com) makes fabulous one-off pieces of jewelry and Chris (www.studiozayante.com) makes vases, cups and cool glass pumpkins in a variety of colors. Never seen a cobalt blue pumpkin before, but I liked it.

The main action was on Main Street. I was one street over on Locust on a corner space with a nice shade tree. As is usually the case, there was an ebb and flow of people, so I did some sketching. Haven’t done this kind of thing in a long time, so it was good practice. Here are the four unedited pages that I did. Maybe it will encourage you to try it. None of them took more than a few minutes at most.

Eggs and Elk

March 20, 2008 | foxstudio

Ok, here it is, as promised. Sure to bring a million dollars at auction 1oo years after I’m dead and gone (which means it will probably go for about five bucks). Took about 30 minutes.

I thought that I might start to post works in progress which, one, always gives me something to blog on, and two, may provide one answer to “How do you artists do this stuff?” So, here we have a start of a cow elk that I photographed in Yellowstone in June of 2005, along with the reference photo. I was “game driving” between Mammoth and Norris and up on a hillside a group of elk were grazing. As you can see, they were in one of the burned areas. Lots of downed tree trunks and fresh new pines coming up.

The first questions I ask myself when I have an idea for a painting or am inspired by reference I shot are:

1. What makes me want to paint this? In this case, it’s a combination of the light, her graceful pose and I haven’t done an elk painting for awhile. A painting needs one strong idea and everything else is subordinated to it (Thanks, Scott Christensen). Every artist finds their own way to do that.

2. What is the best size and proportion of canvas to communicate the idea of this painting? (Thank you, John Banovich) As you can see, since my idea is the cow elk with the great light, most of the background was extraneous, so I chose a vertical format. This is a simple subject and, for me, didn’t really call for a big canvas, 16″x12″ seemed about right. But someone else might have decided that female animals don’t get the prominence in the art world they deserve and done her six feet high. Both are equally valid choices. I’ve had viewers of my paintings comment that they like seeing something besides bloated trophy males and enjoy my more off-beat subjects, which is encouraging. But ultimately I paint what I want, the way I want and then try to find a market.

3. As I lay in the drawing with a brush, I’m already thinking about the value (light/dark) pattern. I want the area of highest contrast where I intend the viewer’s eye to land. So, from the beginning I’m altering my reference to suit the idea of the painting. This brings us to the use of photographs in painting; the good, the bad and the sometimes seriously ugly. I have strong opinions about it (surprise. not.), but that’s a topic all by itself. Suffice to say for now that if you don’t have a strong idea of what your painting is about, then you may end up as one of those legion of artists who end up copying their photos, rather mindlessly sometimes. The key is “mindless”. Photorealists have made a quite conscious choice to work a certain way. Do what you want how you want, but do it by choice, not default.

So, here we are after two sittings. During the first, I solved the design: where the animal would be, how big and roughly how the surrounding habitat would go. In the second, which took about an hour. I refined the drawing, laid in my darkest tones and figured out roughly where the small pine trees would be, watching out for bad tangents (which is when two objects on different planes touch, which destroys the illusion of three dimensions) and deciding where the areas of highest contrast would be. California landscape painter Kevin Macpherson comments in one of his books (buy both if you want to self-study oil painting) that a painting is a series of corrections, which is so, so, SO true. When everything is corrected, you’re done. So simple, really.

Final notes (for now): I work mostly with round brushes. I like the calligraphic marks I can make with them, having been a calligrapher and sign painter at one time. I go 3-5 shades darker in value all over and then come back in with successively lighter values. I also try to work “lean to fat”, artist talk for going from thin paint to thick paint. Look at some traditional oils next time you’re at a fine art museum and you can see it. It’s one reason only seeing reproduction is of such limited use. Everything is flattened out. Original paintings have a literally third dimension of paint thickness. Fellow artist Julie Chapman’s work is a perfect contemporary example. You can’t really appreciate her lush, juicy brushwork unless you’re looking at the real thing.

Rats!

March 13, 2008March 13, 2008 | foxstudio

Had one of our first episodes in 2008 of what we call “Animal Planet” last night. Heard a noise in the kitchen, cat in living room suddenly watchful, David went to kitchen and called me. I went in to see…a medium-sized brownish, black rat perched on top of one of our dining table chairs with another cat or two prowling beneath. Rat’s back was damp, but seemed otherwise undamaged.

I’ll lengthen the suspense by noting that while I’m not sure of the species, it was probably a young black rat. Largish ears, cute face with big, sparkling black intelligent eyes.

I’m always tempted to run for the camera, but it’s more important to get a wild animal back outside where it belongs and I didn’t want this guy (or girl) jumping down and getting under something like the refrigerator, which would have caused me to miss the end of the American Idol results show (boo hoo). When it’s mice or lizards or birds, I grab rubber gloves, catch and release. (The hummingbird required a pond net. However, that’s another story.) But I didn’t want to risk a rat bite, so I used a large wide-mouth jar that happened to be sitting on the counter and, after a couple of tries, got the rat to dash into it. We enjoyed a nice long look at our unexpected visitor and then I released him/her next to a pile of alder logs and branches a short distance from the house.

Peregrin, our only male cat, was probably the one who brought the rat in, but seemed only momentarily put out when it vanished.

And yes, I have no fear or hatred of rats. They are smart, canny survivors, but belong outside eating bugs and slugs, not inside providing hunting sport for the cats.

ART TALK

So here’s my version of a very basic drawing exercise that any other artists reading this are probably familiar with. It’s deceptively simple. Draw an egg lit with light from one source. Doing this will, ahem, illuminate something that was worked out by artists in the Renaissance-how light falls on objects. If you look at portraits from that time, the formula is easy to see and has five parts: Light, core shadow, shadow, reflected light and cast shadow. There is also often one bright spot in the light area called the highlight. Anyone can easily set up an egg, shine a desk light on it, take a pencil and paper and have a go. Even people on the road in RV’s. Right, Rene?

It’s Just Not Fair

January 20, 2008August 10, 2008 | foxstudio

So, inches of snow in Atlanta, Georgia and it’s supposed to be around -13F in Green Bay tomorrow for the Packer/Giants game. In most of the country, it’s time for gardeners to kick back with a cup of tea or cocoa, peruse seed and plant catalogs and dream about the gardening season to come. Me? I spent the afternoon weeding. Weeding! In January! It’s like winter has never come, even though it’s been alternately cold and rainy. The grass and weeds invading my flower beds just don’t get that they are supposed to give it a rest already. Sheesh. Where’s the off button?

ART TALK
Many people are interested in how artists do their work. For me, it usually starts with drawings. It’s how I like to familiarize myself with a species that I haven’t painted before and, anyway, I just like to draw. Currently on the home page of my website is my first painting of a badger. Before I started it, I did a number of drawings to learn what a badger looks like. Here are two of them-

Daisy drawings

Her name was Daisy and she belonged to the Triple D Game Ranch in Montana. I “met” her at a animal drawing workshop taught by dynamite wildlife artist Julie Chapman. She was about 20 years old, with loads of badger attitude. She died a couple of years ago, although I didn’t know that when I did the painting or these drawings.

Happy New Year!

January 7, 2008January 7, 2008 | foxstudio

Back in the saddle again for 2008. Lots to look forward to.

All the kittens I fostered have found new homes. I thought that I would start to introduce that permanent animal members of the household. First up- Niki, our four year old tricolor rough collie, self-appointed guardian of all creatures large and small. Here’s picture of him with Tucker and Katie. Niki had laid down by the crate and the two kittens came over and got as close as they could. All of them quickly became fearless of my 75 lb. dog.

We finally had our first ducky visitors to our pond, three hooded mergansers. One male, two females. I thought, uh oh, there go the goldfish, since mergansers are diving ducks and, sure enough, while we watched, they caught and ate two big ones. But we have since seen at least eight or nine in their usual hangout, so we didn’t do too badly. Michiko spotted them and instantly became a fan. More about her in the next week or so.

In art news, the latest issue of the newsletter of the Society of Animal Artists features drawings that I have done of Mongolian wildlife. Here’s three of them, an argali ram, an ibex billy and a takhi mare and foal (Przewalski’s Horse). They were done on 2 ply bristol with a Wolff’s carbon pencil.