Fortunately I have not been as careless in my painting as I have been in my postings lately. I'm still avoiding a focus on one type of subject or style, though. Since returning from China, I've taken a summer course on Cityscapes with Doug Martenson at PafA - I keep coming back to his courses, because he is such an excellent instructor and inspiring painter.
Our Cityscape paintings were all made looking out from the Harrison Building, at Broad and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia. Gotta say that I didn't really enjoy the process of my first painting, although it turned out pretty well as a grouping of skyscrapers. I wanted to emphasize the vertical lines of the view, so used a 24 x12" canvas. That was a good choice, but I call the painting "View With a Thousand Windows." It taught me the value of simplifying the subject for a painting:
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| Cherry Street, to the West: 24 x12" oil on canvas |
With that experience in mind, I painted the buildings right across the street in a much looser style. I didn't think I liked this painting at first, but the longer it hangs on my wall the more attached to it I become. Somehow it is a very pleasing arrangement of shapes and colors. Interestingly, it turned out to be almost a classic illustration of the landscape format, "dark foreground, lighter, bluish middle layer, and still lighter, bluer distant space (the sky, in this case):"
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| Across the Street: 12 x16" oil on board |
After that, we just had a portion of one period left, so I did a quick skyline painting, and even this one will even look OK, if I cut the dimensions from the current 9 x12" to, say, 5.5 x12" as shown in the full and cropped versions here:
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| Left: Skyline: 9 x12" oil on canvasboard. Above: 5.5 x12" | |
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Well, after all that, I went out on my own after the class was over to apply Doug's principles to a set up my easel and paint at Elfreth's Alley, the oldest continuously occupied street in the USA. That provided an opportunity to use the perspective information that Doug was giving us in class, in spades. It was also fun to interact with the guides who were there to tell Philadelphia Stories to the tourists dropping by.
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| Elfreth's Alley: 16 x12" oil on board |
It might be interesting to compare a landscape that I painted two years ago, in Rittenhouse Square. I think there has been some progress over this time. By the way, I just recently added that little dog in the lower left - it does a lot to add interest. It also fills a blank space, and provides a reason for the posture of the person there who is clearly holding a leash, now. Before, in the absence of that dog, the figure seemed to be dealing with severe stomach cramps.
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| Rittenhouse Square: 9 x12" oil on canvasboard |
Finally, what's going on Otherwise: I have a painting in the current Plastic Club exhibition of Self Portraits, which runs until Sept 25. They actually wanted a TITLE for the Self Portraits. ??? So I left mine "Untitled."
Hao Li, the artist that I painted with in China, has a major exhibition in Beijing opening later this month - good for her! And, I may be returning to China myself for October and November to spend time with my family. That would certainly be quite interesting, although it would postpone my intended study with Frederic Kaplan at PafA.
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| 14 x11" oil on canvas |
# posted by Leroy Forney @ 10:46 PM
