Fun from the Fifties

Men in Hats had a fun day last Tuesday when we went to my trainer's house. He has a great "fifties" collection . The '56 Bel Air Chev, a '56 Ford truck and an old motor cycle were all set up for us ---even  with a couple of mannequins.  (Great models- they never moved!)  The car hop was on roller skates and had a tray with some delicious looking milkshakes - too bad they were wax!  This is an acrylic on canvas painting. It was a challenge getting the chrome shiny enough. Also, I wanted to indicate the Chevrolet "V" and the chrome name on the side - without painting it so exactly that it looked like an advertisement for a magazine, rather than a painting. The "Drive-In", of course, is invented. I've never really done a car "portrait" before- but it turned out to be fun as well as a challenge. The tail fin of this car is going into another painting - but more of that later.

Salmon Festival on horizon

     Rapidly approaching is July 1st, Canada Day and the Steveston Salmon Festival. I will be in it this year, sharing a booth with Margreth Fry. Quite a few other Richmond artists will be there so we hope that people do come inside to see the Art show. I don't think I'm taking this one of "Baskets" for sale but I thought it looked summery.
     Following on from the last blog - I forgot to give the actual name of the the political cartoonist who took his pseudonym from the Russian word- karandash- for pencil. Emmanuel Poire' was born in Moscow and became a Paris illustrator. The Swiss pencil company Caran d'Ache is named after him and the logo is a stylized version of his signature.
     Now that we are into better painting weather, Men in Hats are back outdoors painting. There is a different challenge in painting on the spot - apart from the weather which can be challenge enough.It can be difficult to focus on what seems to capture the mood of the location. Then the light changes, boats, cars and people move. Yet, for all the difficulties , there are a lot of benefits - learning to find the focus, trying to capture the mood, compensate for light changes- and get something fresh. There is certainly an intensity felt in the paintings that is just not there in a photograph. We often take a reference photo in case we want the small outdoor painting to also become a larger studio piece. It is only by looking at the painting that I get a real feel for what interested me. Too often the photo is "ho-hum". So then the new challenge starts - how to translate the "hey this was a neat place!" feeling into a larger piece done over a longer period of time. Nobody said it was easy - that's why it is called artWORK.

Being part of a "scenius"

     In "Show Your Work", Austin Kleon says that one of the most destructive myths about creativity is that only the lone genius is going to be able to achieve good  creative work. He then states, "There's  a healthier way of thinking about creativity that the musician Brian Eno refers to as "scenius". Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals- artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers- who make up an "ecology of talent". If you look back closely at history, many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of "a whole scene of pople who were supporting each other, looking at each other's work, copying from each other, stealing ideas and contributing ideas." Scenius doesn't take away from the achievements of those great individuals; it just acknowledges that good work isn't created in a vacuum, and that creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration, the result of a mind connected to other minds."
     With "Men in Hats", we have a scenius. During the summer, we are painting outdoors and then, in the winter, meet in a studio to  do more painting. Definitely, there is a scenius effect as we encourage each other. The above painting was done this past Wednesday at Hycroft where we have an exhibition. As part of our contract, we were invited to paint on the lawn so that members attending the BBQ could stroll around for a look during the social hour. We set up around 2 pm and left when the actual BBQ started at 6. The painting was my effort. You see the full scene in the photo below it with another of the group, David McHolm, painting and also showing other work. You will note that I eliminated the building across the street as I felt it didn't contribute anything to the painting. The challenge was getting the hydrangeas to look like hydrangeas and not random blobs! I feel that being part of this group has helped me on my "absorbing errand". In fact, in "An Absorbing Errand" by Janna Malamud Smith, that I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, she states "We need to work alone; we need to have privacy- sometimes a lot of it-.... but we also need to be stirred up, stimulated and challenged by others, especially others who share our interests and with whom we feel some modicum of mutual respect."
     UWC club members who viewed us painting commented that it was interesting to see everyone doing something different. This is part of the fun of the group - we each take a different view and a different approach when we are out painting. Sometimes what we do succeeds - and sometimes we kick ourselves for not choosing a different spot or different angle - and sometimes we are in total awe at what another painter produced - but it all adds up to keeping the creative juices flowing as we take our own paths - but with the support of others.

Painting in the Park

When I was a young teenager, I had summer painting lessons in Stanley Park with Peter Aspell. I went downtown on the interurban tram. Since it kept very regular time, it was possible for my friend to get on the same tram at 57th, further along the line. We could have paid (I think a nickel) to transfer to a bus that would have taken us to the entrance to the park, but we usually walked so we could spend that "saved" money on "love comics". We did some oil painting on paper that we treated with gelatine and painted "plein  air" with Peter, who was a well-known painter.  Part of my early art experiences.  All this was before the more organized "Painting in the Park" classes organized by community centres. 
Yesterday, the Men in Hats met at Minoru Chapel for our Tuesday painting session. Several worked in oils or acrylics but I decided to keep it simple and just practice my drawing with a pen and ink drawing. I then added watercolour pencils to it and dampened the paper with pens that hold water in the cartridges. So, it was just a practice session with no outstanding results but a nice time out with friends that resulted in this piece. I need it for a reference for a project I am working on so it will prove useful. So, a different medium and a non-instructional session - but there I am  more than a few years along - still "painting in the park".

July and "summer doldrums"

     Here is the painting from the Finn Slough show - just because I hadn't posted it before. I have been out with "Men in Hats" but mostly just working in pen and ink and watercolour pencils. Last week, we were out in Burnaby and I went to have a look at the Burnaby Village Museum and the old carousel. The carousel is 103 years old and is now under cover, inside. When it was first there, it was outside ... a bit better for photography, perhaps. I did take a few photos and I may work them into something during the winter but there was no way to set up and paint on site.... so nothing new to show. The carousel used to be out at the PNE  so it is the one I rode on back in my youth. Interestingly, they have given in a new hardwood floor. The wood came from the old B.C. Women's prison gymnasium. An odd combination. Does the wood hold memories? I also wonder what tales the horses of the merry-go-round could tell.
    We went to look at one of the old buildings which was a log cabin where a family of three had lived. There was a loft where maybe the child slept - although the heat would have been from the stove in the downstairs. A galvanized tub hung on the wall for the Saturday night bath. We were talking about that at lunch-time and decided that it was traditional here for the mother to go first but, apparently in other cultures, she may be the last!  When I was in art school, one exam painting was of a model in a bathtub. We were raised up above the model area so we could all look down. It was like something from an Impressionist painting- green-tinted tub, bouquet of lilacs, Persian-style carpet. There was actual water in the tub....not sure what that did to the model's skin after a few hours! The young fellows in the class were quick to volunteer to top up the water with hotter water every now and then. It would be fun to have an old tub now for Life Drawing on occasion - but I think we'd just let the model sit in it dry. Then again, our storage is very limited so we have very few props- and no way to be raised up on risers. Ah, life was fun then.

    

Plein Air

It is outdoor painting time again and the group , Men in Hats, is painting plein air every Tuesday, weather permitting. The group seems to be expanding and does include women although it just started with guys. The hats are a necessity in the sunlight. This is my first painting of the season and is the Bunkhouse at Britannia Shipyards, a heritage site.  I had a sketch of boats in my sketchbook but then I turned around and loved the shadows on the white building - so here is the result. Why plein air? There is nothing quite like the challenge of being there, having to zero in on a subject, work to get the lighting right and pretty well complete it on the spot.  Outdoor painting goes back to the impressionists who were freed from the studio because paints were available in portable tubes for the first time. This was also possibly a reaction against the industrial revolution which had changed living conditions so much. The artists wanted to get out into the outdoors and capture outdoor lighting. For quite some time now, plein air has been a bit on the back burner although there have always been some artists and groups of artists who have been active - literally  "in the field".  Now there is quite a revival with many major outdoor painting events and conferences. The theorists say it is a reaction against the technological revolution.  Whether it is or not, there is nothing quite so spirit-lifting as getting out there to paint. Here is to a summer of good weather on Tuesdays!

One of the Men in Hats

The weather is wet and windy today - quite miserable out- the kind of weather of which my grandmother used to say "It's not fit for man nor beast- send Father". Nevertheless, I delivered the re-done "Abandoned Farmhouse" and it was happily received. The owner says she didn't think it could be improved but now she sees it has been. So that is a happy ending. .....and it may be wet out there but it is easy to get around. Last week, with the snow, we weren't sure if Life Drawing would take place so the model ended up being cancelled. Some of us went anyway. Happily, although a lot of Richmond had an electricity blackout, the lights were on in the Art Centre. We improvised by taking turns posing for 10 minutes each and had a successful drawing evening anyway. This is Marv, posing with a hat on, as befits one of "The Men in Hats." the 10-minute sketch was done in water-soluble graphite pencil.