Barcelona - Image of the periphery

The grey post-war years before the formation of the metropolis

 

"An outlying neighborhood in the post-war years." 
From Joan Busquets' and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design's tome BARCELONA, the urban evolution of a compact city. VII.1 Autocracy, reconstruction and shantytowns.

I am drawn, passionately, to shantytowns, their charming colors, their patchwork construction and especially to the people who build their lives and communities from practically nothing.  I was inextricably driven to paint it.

The beginning... 12" x 16", No.2 lead pencil on Arches

Sodabox at High Noon

18" x 24" watercolor on Arches

This one's for William Carlos Williams 


so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel barrow 

glazed with rainwater 

beside the white 

chickens.

Don't marry a technique

... because when you overdo it, which one day you surely will, you will never be satisfied with the content. That was the lesson of early July. It is a bummer to put aside many long hours of work for maybe ... well, maybe never again. And when you are not satisfied, and look at the lesson lying there on your drawing table waiting for you to acknowledge it, its best to go all the way back to the beginning, Open your soul as a vessel, which rebuilds confidence while narrowing the field to a field you feel most comfortable wandering through. A home in which your heart beats and breaths are in sync. 

Indian Blanket Rock Garden

Here is a first, as far as I know, a painting I up and quit, don't like and then posted. Online. There was much promise, hours and full days spent running back and forth up the hill, down the hill, looking at the real thing and running back to lay it in. And when one glistening afternoon as a shaft of bright sunlight landed square on the full work, instead of the Indian Blanket clusters (Gloriosa Rudica), it had become a portrait of ah, rocks.. I'm only showing you an early phase because the later phase was not photographed, I had about 3 - 4 days left simulating dirt, which was coming out nicely, a mottling of Van Dyke and Antelope browns, but it was too late for the Indian Blankets.  I put the whole thing into the back of the closet, you know those kind of places for "someday" - Someday it might not be there and I will have forgotten about it kind of places?

Right away, I moved on to more familiar territory. Much father down the mountain is a valley we call the Flatlands. Every spring, thousands of sheep and their lambs are pastured on the other side of the fencing shown. Other times the occasional herd of cattle lease the land. Most of them time it is fallow and it is old enough to have grown mature Sage and unattended wild oats, cheat grass and weeds, all of it indigenous to the Transmontane region: desert thousands of feet above sea level mixed with mountain forests, heavily sprinkled with old growth Oak carpeting the canyons, the foothills and the flanks until, high up, where the top meets sky, it is all Alpine.  You'd need a helicopter to get up there.

Crow Alley

People whip past these scenes as if they are not there. Its like the upscale train Woody Allen stared into from the window of a dull grey commuter car filled with empty cheap seats, his train to nowhere.  He saw people in the next train whooping it up, toasting flutes of champagne, much laughter and celebration, jeweled women in evening gowns. As the train sped past him, he saw lovers, people dancing to a hot band from the Roaring Twenties. In this territory, I get to be him and them, simultaneously. The watcher and the celebrator.

Crows and Ravens circle slowly above the mountain tops, waiting on a thermal, floating noiselessly through the air and playing chase with each other.  In this unnoticed and seemingly invisible location, they have a entire runway for smooth landings complete with happy hour perches. To stand beneath lifts of feather is to be a silent air flight controller, unnecessary of course, and awed with every perfect arrival and departure. I don't think those passengers in fast cars would be interested. We have a long way to go to help them to see and sense the forces of Nature and none of it is simple when so few care at all about the world in which we live together.

Fortunately, every day is another lesson.
A great day is a day with lots of lessons.

Farm in Fog to False Spring - the transition

False Spring
watercolor inks on Arches
24" x 18"
2010

False Spring aka Farm in Fog came to be after seeing it in person on a chilly February afternoon, in light rain and grey mist. I pulled out the digital and began the first phase of my system: Photos, thoughts, more thoughts, stare at photos, bring back the memory and feel again how it felt emotionally and physically finally masking off the Arches paper and get down with my friendly plain old Number 2 pencils.

As the drawing developed I became enchanted with the chimney, you'll note it is a corner arrangement likely opening into a kitchen fireplace for warmth and cooking, with another, maybe smaller fireplace in the sleeping quarters. There was no propane tank to be seen anywhere in the real life version. I so like the idea of one corner chimney for two separate, but similar needs.


The stages of development shown here are in order, there are many more photos, but these are the most "postable" of the total group that define each of the phases involved. I like the second stage very much, before it is placed in a specific geography, it could be Nantucket, that could be an ocean beyond the shed, it could be a "lonely somewhere" Edward Hopper might have thought to sketch. Its always like that after the drawing part, before more saturated color and background details are applied giving it life and a place uniquely its own.




My favorite time is when the unexpected occurs which is typical of watercolor no matter how often you work with it. You get to know a bit about how to control it if it is your main medium, but its always got something new to show you. There are a lot of artists who like to know their medium's limits, which is good, it allows them to preview mentally their statement. Personally, I prefer the way watercolor insists you solve the situation at hand, relentlessly, you must surrender to it and rule it simultaneously, knowing ultimately it will have its way and you will be okay with that.

There is something else about choice of medium that should be mentioned. Whatever "medium", and we will use that term meaning vehicle for expression, you or I use, does not really matter. Its just another way to say the same things said frequently in a more descriptive language - as in music or literature, poetry, philosophy, film, theater, three dimensional art and so forth. It might be that whatever is closest to you at the moment you get serious about what you have to do to survive within the journey of our common humanity is the medium of your surrender and most frequent use, since through it you have learned to speak a nonverbal language that communicates on a higher plane than common words strung together for conversational coherence.

Now its starting to look something like the original intent, but there is more to be done. Its good to put it aside a few days and do something else unrelated, so that when you return you are seeing it new all over again and forced to revisit your mind's eye. What can you do to satisfy all the criteria remaining true to the original vision while adding your own take to the mix? The days and hours spent focusing on other things, issues, people, chores, studying Nature, wildlife, walking, collecting rocks and feathers, reading, have their impact too. Sometimes you don't see it until revisiting the completed work, months, sometimes years, far into the future. Suddenly, you will remember other things that were happening at the same time you were painting. Its unavoidably another part of the image, the you part, the artist and the events, near and far, that took place while you worked.

You'll know instinctively when your task is finished and the criteria met. I usually place it on the mantle and live with it for a while. This is usually when a different title occurs because a transformation has taken place. The ending of the transformation is almost as good as the middle which is as good as the beginning.

Finally, off comes the masking tape and it's slowly X-acto-ed from the Arches watercolor block, signed and dated. Simultaneously another one has already begun. It is most productive to have several going on at once, then you can paint while the others are drying.