Alien Garden · watercolor crayons on paper · 9″x12″
Most of my paintings over the past 6 or 7 months are starting to look sort of alien to me. I don’t know where these images are coming from. I sit down to draw or paint with the intention of really developing my own vocabulary of shapes, forms, and compositions. When I approach my easel, I’m really just considering the basic elements of a good painting. Invariably, a circle — usually an orange one — works its way into the composition. Many times there are lots of circles — one of my recent works is nothing but orange circles and spheres.
When I look at all the works from the past 7 months together, a theme emerges, but it is not one that I ever intended; there’s a painting that looks vaguely like the bridge of a spaceship, one that resembles the edge of a planet with moons perhaps. One that started out as nothing more than an exploration of a few lines and a couple of circles ended up looking like a being falling through space, so I named him “My Alien Friend.” Though perhaps he is a she, or neither a he nor a she, or both; I don’t know.
Now he (or she — or it) has a garden, a bouquet, some jewelry — and none of these are intentional.
Alien Jewelry · watercolor pencils on paper · 9"x12"
Alien Bouquet · watercolor crayons on paper · 12"x9"
Alien Yardscape · mixed media on paper · 9"x12"
Alien Kitchen · mixed media on paper · 9"x12"
Where did these images come from? Is it because I’m a child of the 50’s & 60’s? That Sputnik was launched during my lifetime, that man landed on the moon, and that in those days we expected — and if all had gone according to plan — we would be flying around in jetpacks right now?
Growing up I watched The Jetsons, Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian, Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits and Star Trek on TV. Some of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater were The Blob and The Time Machine, followed later by some of the most visually astounding movies ever made to that point: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the whole Star Wars series. My favorite books as a teenager were science fiction novels and short stories from the likes of Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula Le Guin.
Even my parents’ house was infused with imagery from space: the starburst clock over the mantle, boomerang ashtrays, two-tier fiberglass lampshades, perforated metal lamps that emitted dozens of little star-like light beams, and the fabulous atomic barkcloth curtains.
I guess even in the subconscious — the place from where, as a non-objective artist, I draw my imagery — the impressions made from a lifetime of images and ideas leak out and cannot be escaped.
See if you agree that the sketches and paintings below — much of my work from the past 7 months — contain imagery reminiscent of aliens and outer space.
The David Hockney version of my studio/office in a cleaned up, but still half-painted, state.
I love seeing other artists’ spaces, and got just such an opportunity when Farrell Brickhouse posted pics of his friends’ palettes on Facebook a while back. They have now been reposted on Sharon L. Butler’s blog, Two Coats of Paint, so you can see them, too.
I’d love to have so much space. Last weekend at the encaustic workshop at Majestic Ranch, I got to work in a large, airy well-lit studio, on a large table with plenty of space for all my tools, palette, painting panels, and miscellaneous extras. It really helped my workflow.
Back at home, as you can see from these two pics, things are a bit more crowded. And this is just my space for drawing and working in encaustic. I also have an easel or two for painting in oil and acrylic, a couple of taborets, storage space under my table, and loads of art supplies, tools, canvases and paintings, etc. shoved into the closet and various other locations in the house and garage.
When we bought our current house, I thought I could try working in the back half of the garage, but for various reasons — absence of heat in winter, cool in summer, air and light all year round, and only one electrical outlet; plus presence of mosquitoes and other bugs, a much too-low ceiling beam, and the occasional flash flood pouring across the hard cement floor — I gave up on that and moved my studio, bit by bit over time, into my office, where I also do my digital freelance work.
So I get half-a-room for art, which still isn’t too bad.
What is your studio like? What challenges do you have to overcome to work in your space? Or, have you been able to build, buy or rent the perfect studio for you?
I’d love to see pictures, so please post a link! Or if you’d like me to post yours here, send me your pics and I’ll post as many as I get sent.
Confetti
Encaustic on Panel
10″x10″
This one is very highly textured, and looks really amazing in person.
As promised, here are 6 of my new encaustic paintings — 5 of these were begun at last weekend’s encaustic workshop at Majestic Ranch. I completed them and created one new painting (so far) after returning home.
I Want to Move It, Move It
Encaustic and Mixed Media on Panel
10″x10″
Blue Marble
Encaustic on Panel
10″x10″
Beezebra
Encaustic with Collage and Image Transfer on Panel
10″x10″
Lime
Encaustic on Panel
10″x10″
This one is rather minimal, but I love it! It could be part of a diptych with the preceding or succeeding piece.
Green Sky
Encaustic and Collage on Panel
10″x10″
I’ve got 3 more in progress and will post them as soon as they are completed.
I spent this past weekend with ten other members of the Austin group of Texas Wax in an encaustic painting workshop at Majestic Ranch in Boerne, TX. Boerne is a lovely little Hill Country town located not too far from San Antonio. Majestic Ranch is an Arts Foundation atop a hill with classrooms for painting, printmaking, ceramics, photography, sculpture and more. It also includes a pavillion and gazebo…and many breathtakingly beautiful views of the Hill Country. When R&F comes to Texas, this is where they hold their workshops.
Early Saturday morning, I met up with the other Texas Wax artists in the hilltop classroom for the two day, all-day workshop. It was wonderful — kind of like being back in advanced studio classes at art school — each of us working on our own creative projects, and meanwhile chatting with other members of our art tribe. Only this was over in just 2 days instead of a whole semester, so there wasn’t much chance to watch each other’s creative development, nor to get to know each other much better. We did hang out for awhile after the Saturday workshop, over dinner and a beer at a brewpub in Boerne.
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I was in a class several years ago in which another student complained about painting abstractly, because she didn’t know where to stop. She said when she worked representationally, at least she knew when she was done — for her, it was when the painting looked like the thing she was representing. Of course, it’s not as simple as that for many representational painters, but often it seems when one is just starting to draw and paint, success is measured by how close one’s piece gets to looking like the object or scene one is depicting.
It’s so different when you give up representation. The answer to the question, “how do you know when you’re done?” becomes more elusive.
Is it when you achieved what you set out to achieve or perhaps when you discovered something you didn’t know you were looking for?
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