My Visual Vocabulary

N—N.C. Wyeth

2011-10-06T11:33:00.007-04:00

Ok, I haven’t written anything for this blog in a while and I know that there are other “n” topics out there. But I was having a conversation about illustrators vs. fine artists today and NC Wyeth came to mind—the penultimate illustrator who’s work hangs as example of classic American art. “[NC Wyeth]: one of America's foremost illustrators and painters.” (http://www.ncwyeth.org/)

Newell Convers Wyeth was born on October 22, 1882, in Needham, Massachusetts. Growing up on a farm, he developed a deep love of nature. His mother, the daughter of Swiss immigrants, encouraged his early artistic inclinations in the face of opposition from his father, a descendant of the first Wyeth to arrive in the New World in the mid-17th century. His father encouraged a more practical use of his talents, and young Convers attended Mechanic Arts High School in Boston through May 1899, concentrating on drafting. With his mother's support he transferred to Massachusetts Normal Art School and there instructor Richard Andrew urged him toward illustration.(www.ncwyeth.0rg)

In 1902, NC moved to Wilmington, Delaware and studied under Howard Pyle. Pyle is a legendary illustrator and was an influential teacher to an eager NC.

The master emphasized the use of dramatic effects in painting and the importance of sound, personal knowledge of one's subject, teachings Wyeth quickly assimilated and employed throughout his career. The astute young man recognized the value of Pyle's instruction, writing to his mother just after his arrival, "the composition lecture...opened my eyes more than any talk I ever heard." (BJW, p. 21) In less than five months, Wyeth successfully submitted a cover illustration to the Saturday Evening Post. (www.ncwyeth.org)

I have been fortunate enough to see his work in two museums, The Brandywine River Museum and the Delaware Art Museum. The light and drama Pyle helped him discover bowl you over when you encounter his work. Growing up, I knew his work as my ignition of imagination in Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, and The Last of the Mohicans. His bold characters, vibrant settings, and amazing story telling ability created the metaphor that many boys associate with swashbuckling pirates and seafarers of the tall ships. My mental model of his work usually includes dramatic settings and billowing clouds; wild lighting and fanciful coloring; and strong figures interacting in scenes which allow your imagination to put them in action.

In Last of the Mohicans, he employs a point of view that allows canoes to become fast-moving vehicles against the glass-like water and substantial rocks and mountains. He defines several fields of view and places his characters in positions of significance interacting with each other and their surroundings. When I watched the chase scene in the modern movie interpretation, I couldn’t help but compare it to those paintings.

The first time I met my father-in-law, he took me to the Brandywine River Museum. My mother-in-law studied at the Barnes Foundation and he knew this would be a great outing for us to get to know each other. It stood for the full time of our lives together as one of my favorite experiences. He was not an artist, but he knew great art. When I saw Wyeth’s work along with Pyle’s, I was amazed at the scale and depth. His characters almost walk off the wall in all of their terrifying and wonderful glory.

Maybe I will do more of this blog. It was fun to browse the images and consider his work again.

M: Piet Mondrian

2009-12-02T19:32:00.011-05:00

Since my college days, I have been intrigued by the artwork of Piet Mondrian. Although his signature style took many years to develop, we were able to view in compressed time the development of his idea. But I continue to struggle with understanding the thought process that moved him in that direction.

The impressionistic and realistic work that marked his early career morphed into the most simplistic abstraction of line and color. When I explored his paintings, I was interested to see the various self portraits he completed over time. His 1900 self-portrait is very impressionistic, flat, and direct. It is a far cry from his 1942 pencil representation.

“In 1911, Mondrian attended the exhibition of Georges Braque. The work of the French Cubist impressed the Dutch painter greatly, as it paralleled much of what he had been experimenting with on his own, and Mondrian resolved to visit Paris, fascinated by the artistic innovations being introduced there.” (http://www.abcgallery.com/M/mondrian/mondrianbio.html) Where Mondrian deviated from Cubists like Picasso and Braque was in his application of the style to landscapes rather than people or still life images.

When you look at his tree paintings of 1912, you can almost watch the transition in real time. The Grey Tree is still recognizable as a tree, although stylized. Trees in Blossom has been simplified, but still symmetrical and tree-like. Composition Trees II has almost lost all of its nature as a rendering of a recognizable tree.

The painting Composition with Yellow Lines seems to be the penultimate simplification.

“Through all this, Mondrian advanced with his theory. As during all his periods of experimentation -- and probably as a consequence of frequent travel -- his output dropped, but each piece was executed with a lot of thought and deliberation. New York, New York (1941-42) features a larger number of colored lines, as the artist sought to break up the established structure of his work. By New York City I (1942), black lines are completely gone. In Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942-43), the colored lines are broken up with patches, completely defying the definition of anything that could be called drawing.” (Olga website)

L: le dejeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch in the Grass) by Manet

2009-11-19T10:55:00.003-05:00

It has been a little while since I posted the last time. Besides being very busy with life, I have focused a good deal of attention on my other blog http://www.365two50.blogspot.com/ and creating illustrations and paintings.

Yesterday, I was working on reupholstering a chair and I had the television on for company. I wandered on to Ovation TV and a program about this painting “Every Picture Tells a Story: Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe.” Art critic Waldemar Januszczak told the story behind this very important painting—a great deal of which I didn’t know.

He described this painting as being one of a few works of art that singly changed the direction of art. Excuse me if I don’t remember the wording exactly and I can’t find the video clip so we will have to rely on my paint-fume affected memory. Anyway, Januszczak indicated that this work caused the stir that directly motivated the Impressionist movement and subsequently modern art, so that is how he supported his contention. Ok.

The painting is one that I have always been curious about since I took a good deal of “art in the dark” in college. But the story he tells is so much more interesting.

The typical art class description follows the lines that I found on Wikipeadia

“In 1863, Manet shocked the French public by exhibiting his Déjeuner sur l'Herbe ("Luncheon on the Grass"). It is not a realist painting in the social or political sense of Daumier, but it is a statement in favor of the artist's individual freedom. The shock value of a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men, which was an affront to the propriety of the time, was accentuated by the familiarity of the figures. Manet's wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, and his favorite model, Victorine Meurent, both posed for the nude woman, which has Meurent's face, but Leenhoff's plumper body. Her body is starkly lit and she stares directly at the viewer. The two men are Manet's brother Eugene Manet and his future brother in law, Ferdinand Leenhoff. They are dressed like dandies. The men seem to be engaged in conversation, ignoring the woman. In front of them, the woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. In the background a lightly clad woman bathes in a stream. Too large in comparison with the figures in the foreground, she seems to float above them. The roughly painted background lacks depth — giving the viewer the impression that the scene is not taking place outdoors, but in a studio. This impression is reinforced by the use of broad "photographic" light, which casts almost no shadows: in fact, the lighting of the scene is inconsistent and unnatural. The man on the right wears a flat hat with a tassel, of a kind normally worn indoors.
Despite the mundane subject, Manet deliberately chose a large canvas size, normally reserved for grander subjects. The style of the painting breaks with the academic traditions of the time. He did not try to hide the brush strokes: indeed, the painting looks unfinished in some parts of the scene. The nude is a far cry from the smooth, flawless figures of Cabanel or Ingres.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luncheon_on_the_Grass)

The same site included a quote from Emile Zola, a great French author of the time:
“The Luncheon on the Grass is the greatest work of Édouard Manet, one in which he realizes the dream of all painters: to place figures of natural grandeur in a landscape. There are some leaves, some tree trunks, and, in the background, a river in which a chemise-wearing woman bathes; in the foreground, two young men are seated across from a second woman who has just exited the water and who dries her naked skin in the open air. This nude woman has scandalized the public, who see only her in the canvas. My God! What indecency: a woman without the slightest covering between two clothed men! That has never been seen. And this belief is a gross error, for in the Louvre there are more than fifty paintings in which are found mixes of persons clothed and nude. But no one goes to the Louvre to be scandalized. The crowd has kept itself moreover from judging The Luncheon on the Grass like a veritable work of art should be judged; they see in it only some people who are having a picnic, finishing bathing, and they believed that the artist had placed an obscene intent in the disposition of the subject, while the artist had simply sought to obtain vibrant oppositions and a straightforward audience.”

Supportive, but far from what Januszczak describes. I found it interesting to learn the story he relates. There are several references to Masters works in the composition including: Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving The Judgement of Paris (c. 1515) after a drawing by Raphael; The Pastoral Concert, 1508, by Giorgione ;or possibly Titian (in the Louvre); and Giorgione's The Tempest. Januszczak said that these were not so much inspirations as jibes at the old masters, in keeping with the general tone of the work.

He picked apart details from the painting, beginning with the most obvious—the nude. As a background note, Manet’s father was a judge who heard cases of vice. He indicated that the face model, Victorine Meurent, was an artist and a common woman who might have appeared in his father’s court. As with much of the painting, this would be a snipe at his father. I was against the law for men and women to bathe together and people never bathed nude at the time. Again, a shot at the nature of the laws themselves. The description of the men as “dandies” is incorrect. The hat worn by Manet’s brother is the type worn by art students of the time. Januszczak describes this as a joke, accomplished artists presented as students. The woman in the background is seen as gently bathing in the water. He said that French women of the time would go into the water mainly to pee and that fact is not lost in this painting.

Many of the elements of the painting were attacks on society of the time. He also pointed out a frog, which was a nickname for a prostitute, and a bird, which was meant as an attack on organized religion.

I know that I am not doing his description justice, but I enjoyed the story and learning more about the meaning of this confusing composition.

K: Gustav Klimt

2009-09-28T13:39:00.004-04:00

“I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do." Gustav Klimt (http://www.expo-klimt.com/)

I was visiting the home of a friend of my brother. He wanted me to do a portrait of his wife and children for a Christmas present and was showing me some photographs to use as reference. I noticed that he and his wife had some old artwork and he showed me around. In his dining room, he had a Klimt painting. He almost dismissed it as we moved by, but I was stopped in my tracks.

That’s the effect this artist’s work has. It is so unique and powerful and distinctively his.

Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, near Vienna, Austria. His father was a gold engraver but unsuccessful in business so the family lived in poverty (expo-klimt.com). According to Iklimpt.com (which has a great multimedia experience) “from 1900 to 1918 Gustav Klimt dominated the art scene in the capital of the empire of Austro-Hungary.”

He attended the School of Arts and Crafts where his style was hyperrealistic and he learned many diverse skills and techniques. In 1899, he was commissioned to paint a mural for a rich industrialist. He painted “Shubert at the Piano.” Following that he was commissioned to decorate the Great Hall of the University where he presented “Philosophy” in 1900. Congress commissioned a poll where Klimt was accused of creating pornography in the images.

In response to this criticism, he painted “Goldfish” a painting where the main figure, a naked woman, dominates the canvas with her backside to the viewer. Apparently he intended to title this painting “to My Critics.”

At that time in Austria, all artists who wished to make a living belonged to the Cooperative Society of Artists, a very conservative organization. Klimt felt this society was keeping young artists from progressing and pulled away, forming The Secession. A poster of Pallas Athene, the Secession’s protectress, rendered in his now trademark style announced the first exhibition.

According to the website, “Klimt’s work exemplifies the encounter between the old art…and the new art of the XXth century. One of his greatest accomplishments was…the introduction of sexuality in art.”

Klimt was able to change and adjust his style to the times. He was even a successful landscape painter in an effort to fit into the Impressionist style.

I am inspired by his ability to go from a very literal artist to a very expressive one.

J: Jasper Johns

2009-09-15T09:48:00.006-04:00

If you have never seen a sculpture or painting by Jasper Johns in person, you may have a tough time understanding the importance of his work. To view his art in the context of the Photoshop age and to judge it based on a 3” x 5” plate in an art book (or worse yet, a jpg on a webpage) would leave you wanting.

Take a trip to MoMA. That’s something that any artist or lover of art needs to do for its own reward.

When you have the ability to see a room full of Jasper Johns work—and then compare it to the original works of Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol—perhaps you can make some observations and judgments about the impact of his work.

I recently caught a video of the American Masters Series on Jasper Johns where he discussed his process and some of his most famous works. In particular he talked about creating the Balentine Beer Can sculpture and his Brushes in the Coffee Can bronze.

“There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists.” This quote by Johns is amazingly thought provoking. I am challenged by the inspiration for painting and the subject. When I attempt to paint abstractly, I struggle with putting my “ego” aside and allowing the image to come forth from within.

Perhaps further review of Johns work might inspire a direction. In particular, the work False Start comes to mind. I understand that at one time this was sold for $80 million dollars, making it the most expensive work sold by a living artist (at the time of sale). The balance of light and color and the use of text in the painting intrigues me. The strokes are bold, yet controlled.

Another work, Figure 8, also speaks to me. When I played lacrosse in college, my number was 8. I was a goalie at the time and I remember my coach thinking it was funny to put two big round targets in the middle of my shirt. My college coach was, next to my Dad, one of the most influential people in my life. So I keep that memory and joke near and dear to me. The curves of the number are so well crafted and formed by so many different lines and colors. It maintains the purity of the typography, while being as loose and abstract as possible. Your mind completes the work making it a very interactive painting.

An aside: I almost used the word “piece” here. I try to never use that word when describing a work of art. I think it is a trivialization of the effort and expense in personal terms required to make artistic expressions. I guess that goes back to hearing it used so often by marketing or sales people to universally puff up anything they are trying to sell. “This is a fabulous piece” or “This is a significant piece in the collection.” I don’t create or study just a portion (piece) of art. Usually I like to consider—or have considered—the whole work.

Suffice it to say that a virtual trip through the jpgs of Jasper Johns can provide great inspiration, but nothing compared to a walk through of the actual thing.

I: Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark)

2009-09-01T10:33:00.005-04:00

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Indiana):
“Robert Indiana was born in New Castle, Indiana and later relocated to I ndianapolis where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School. He moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, which gradually moved toward what Indiana calls "sculptural poems".

The image that most people would know him for is his LOVE image—the iconic graphic and sculpture with the two first letters stacked on the second two and the “O” slanted at an angle.

The work, The Four Winds (right) caught my eye. It uses an approach that is very common for information graphics by attaching symbols to words (in this case numbers). The winds blow in a mix, but don't loose thier identity. I like how he mirrors the two numbers to give dimension to this very flat image.

As I searched the web for images, I found a very distinctive style that made me think of the later cutout paper works of Matisse. The image at the left was a costume design for Lillian Russell that would make an incredible poster. The colors are so vivid, yet simple.

Indiana’s work addresses social and political issues of his time in a very graphical way. A twist on his LOVE theme was used to develop a tee-shirt for the Obama campaign where he configured the word HOPE in a similar fashion.

H: Winslow Homer

2009-08-12T09:49:00.010-04:00

I have been focusing on my other blog (http://www.365two50.blogspot.com/) in the little time that I have for writing these days. So I have been away from this forum, but I have been thinking about it a great deal lately. I was stuck on this letter for some reason. But I became like Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse Five”—unstuck today.

Winslow Homer decided to pop up in my consciousness this morning. Perhaps because I was surfing H’s, perhaps because I have been considering marine subjects in my painting, or just because I have always liked his work.

When I was an undergrad, I blended my business studies with an art minor. The instructor, Dorothea Barrett O’Toole (I have no idea why I can remember her name), had us select a Master to copy. I had no idea who Homer was, but came across his work and it spoke to me. As my life has progressed, I have seen parallels that make me thankful that she gave that assignment.

I copied his painting “The Lookout—All’s Well” as both a black and white value sketch and a finished painting. At the time I had switched rooms and roommates. My first roommates in college were well-versed in the Grateful Dead and Cannibus and I was not. Not that I have become well-versed. I was a product of a strict Catholic upbringing (which meant that I was well-versed in Oat Soda) and I had spent most of my high school time attempting to get into the Naval and Air Force Academies. These two things combined for what would be a valuable perspective in my military service, but lost its value after my honorable discharge.

But I digress…one of my new roommates went by the name Kong (real nickname, but I’ll leave out his real name). I never really got to know him beyond the surface level, but I imagine he was very insightful. These were little, Spartanesque dorm rooms in the barracks style where three grown men occupied the space that would comfortably fit one. So my painting on an easel took up all of my allotted space. I struggled with the scale of the bell in that painting, which Kong would point out at every opportunity. Whenever I was working on it, he would wait until I stepped back to survey my effort and would offer his critique— “the bell’s too big.”

Each year, we held a show of work and some parents would offer to buy the art. I remember standing with the parents who were in the act of buying the painting, only to hear “the bell’s too big” from a grinning Kong standing in the background. They still bought it.

When I began to copy Homer, my Dad revealed that he was one of his favorite painters. He loved the painting “Breezing Up” so I spent the rest of my copying time working on that painting. My effort was drafted well, but painted so-so. You should never try to copy Winslow Homer with acrylic paint.

According to the website http://www.winslow-homer.com/: “Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 - September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects.

He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art.

Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.”

As a sidebar, I need to qualify my quotations. This site is intended to observe and I don’t spend a great deal of time in the background research, because it is only secondary to the effort. If the sites that I quote get it a little wrong, well, we all remember things differently don’t we. If any readers know the facts differently or more accurately, take a moment to think how relevant it is to my observation before you feel offended. I welcome correction, but don’t get lost in the weeds.

I was very attracted to the fact that Homer was mostly self-taught. His mother, the more influential parent, was by all accounts a very skilled amateur watercolorist. His father spent most of his time chasing the “get rich” idea without great success. At 19, Homer was apprenticed to a Boston lithographer and learned the skills necessary to become a successful illustrator for newspapers and magazines of the time.

“Prolific” scarcely begins to describe his work. There are the numerous engravings and sketches for the magazines, the endless watercolors that defined the Caribbean (still do), and the rich oil paintings that decorate the most prestigious galleries of the world. His images define his skill as a story-teller relating peaceful strolls in meadows, snipers in wartime, lifeguards in tormented seas, and other slice-of life tales.

His design sense helps him create drama and feeling in his compositions. He catches moments in time at critical points in the action to heighten the sense of the story. His rich impasto paintings are studies in light and movement which place you in the middle of the churning sea or the crashing surf with a sense of the power of nature.

I am glad that Winslow has reappeared today in my mind. I will pull out some of his images to try to guide my hand as I work on my latest struggle.

G: Greg's latest work

2009-07-06T10:45:00.002-04:00

The Recusant Artist, Greg Vandevisser, sent me his latest work. I think it is worth noting. This is a significant departure from his past work and is very complex. It has many layers and lots of symbols and gestures. As he said to me in his note "I have a lot going on , but at least I'm painting." This is some big-time painting and he does indeed have a lot going on.

He puts me to shame, but inspires me to get going on something significant.

F: F-it

2009-07-06T10:44:00.000-04:00

F-it, I'm going to G because I want to.

E: Ernie (Perich)

2009-07-06T07:29:00.002-04:00

A couple of months ago, I came across Ernie Perich's blog Adverspew. I usually get lost after reading his lists in his extensive links section. Ernie seems a little cranky, which makes him very real for me. I would like to work with Ernie because I perceive that he likes to discuss using the word "bullshit" and throws writing implements through the drywall. That's all. Visit his blog and you can make your own judgement.

C and D: R. Crumb and The Daily Heller

2009-06-16T10:48:00.008-04:00

For some time now, I have been receiving an email daily blog called the Daily Heller, which is produced by Print Magazine and written by Steven Heller. Today's blog was about Cartoonist R. Crumb.

First about Heller. I was given his book "Education of an Illustrator" which he collaborated with Marshall Arisman, one of my favorite illustrators. According to Wikopaedia " Steven Heller, (born 1950), American art director, journalist, critic, author, and editor who specializes on topics related to graphic design.

Steven Heller is author and co-author of many works on the history of illustration, typography, and many subjects related to graphic design. More than eighty titles and a vast number of magazine articles attest to his productive and thoughtful output. He has written articles for Affiche, Baseline, Creation, Design, Design Issues, Eye, Graphis, How, I.D., Oxymoron, Mother Jones, The New York Times Book Review, Print, Speak, and U&lc magazines.

For thirty-three years Heller was a senior art director of U&lc, which stands for upper and lower case in typography. Currently, he is co-chair with Lita Talarico of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.[1] He has collaborated on books with graphic designer, Louise Fili, who is his wife, as well as with others including the Design Dialogue series."

Ok, so now to R. Crumb. Here's the Daily Heller. Wikepaedia has this to say about Rober Crumb. "Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943), often credited simply as R. Crumb, is an American artist and illustrator recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream. He currently lives in Southern France with his wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb's entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the "Keep on Truckin'" comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters Devil Girl, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural. He also illustrated the album covers for Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company and the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead."

I have to say that Keep on Truckin and Mr. Natural were images that immediately take me back to the 1970s when I was 12-18 years old. I was heavily into this style of comic, due in part to Crumb's Greatful Dead and Janis Joplin cover work along with the images of MAD magazine. I know that more than one of my denim school binders had my rendition of KoT drawn in blue BiC pen--a favorite doodle. Mr. Natural's HUGE boot was a source of much pleasure.

Kudos to Steven Heller for filling in two letters on round two! Go through his blog to the interview with Crumb...a frank and fun conversation.

B: Boone Oakley Agency

2009-06-15T10:55:00.002-04:00

www.booneoakley.com is an agency that someone on Linkedin pointed out a couple of weeks ago. This is a really cool concept for a website. They use YouTube exclusively to present their online portfolio. The hand-drawn graphics are simple but very effective, the music is catchy, and the shark thing is really cool. Visit the site. It is really out of the box thinking.

Lap Two A: Abstract Art

2009-06-02T08:07:00.005-04:00

I decided to continue the sequential alphabet organization to the blog, so it’s back to A for lap two. I spent a couple of hours last week with my friend and recusant artist Greg Vandevisser (http://www.vandevisser.com/) in his studio. This field trip was much-needed. Greg is focusing on a change in his work, which is primarily abstract. He has some amazing canvases and assemblages.

According to the website http://paintings.name/ , “Although native cultures have always produced arts containing abstract elements, today's perception of abstract art dates back to 1910, when Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented cubism, which within half a decade, led to the pure abstract art created by Piet Mondrian and Russian styles such as constructivism and suprematism.” Just imagining the mind-set it took to “invent” cubism in that time and place is boggling to the mind. While visiting several exhibits of significant works of this genre, you can’t help but be amazed at the pure risk these artists were taking.

I think it was less significant a break for Mondrian and Kandinsky than for Picasso and Braque. Their work is an extension and development of the initial work. But the first efforts really took a leap of faith to achieve. Then there’s the whole Dada thing and Surrealism. We’ll save that for another time.

Daughter Alexis and I differed on our feelings about “Les Demoisselles d'Avignon” when we had the opportunity to stand together in front of this mammoth work (both size and impact). I still think that it looks like Picasso was going somewhere with the painting and messed up one of the faces. But that’s just me. I am a big fan of Guernica (who isn’t?) and like his bulls. The Partridge Family bus ruined Mondrian for me. Just kidding. His work is another one that makes a much greater impact in person than in pictures.

If we realize that every representation of visual art is an abstraction by its nature of not actually being the thing represented, then this category is really all art. That aside, abstract art and modernism has created a dilemma for the post modern era—what is our current identity?

I have included my own latest abstraction “Ignition.”

Z: Zee COOLEST THING

2009-05-29T10:59:00.001-04:00

I just saw this video that my daughter Alexis made. She taped a Webbie camera to her friend's lacrosse helmet. I love this video. Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zTPaFvAmuI

Y: Yoshinari Takahashi

2009-05-29T10:49:00.003-04:00

Earlier today, I uploaded a poster to my portfolio on Designrelated.com and decided to browse the inspiration pages for some new ideas. I came across this page which had a video where the artist, Yoshinari Takahashi, creates a stream of pen and ink designs that travel throughout a small book. Look at it if you like flourishes—it's a cool take on a flip book.

So I Googled Yoshinari and found his website, http://yoshinaritakahashi.com/. The designs were detailed and fabulous. Back in the day, I used to use pen and ink fairly often for illustration and design. The Rapidiograph pen was a staple in the days before computer design for all graphic designers. So it was a natural as a drawing tool. I also drew with a quill pen and sometimes with a reed pen with ink washes. I might explore that medium again soon. It’s a bit messy and unforgiving. Yoshinari has mastered it in his artwork. I included some pieces, but I recommend going to his website for a closer look.

X: Xperience and Xpertise

2009-05-27T13:36:00.006-04:00

Hey, I’m a graphic designer. Sometimes we take liberties. This is like NEW and IMPROVED expertise and experience. (Insert starburst and flashing pink words)

My friend Dwayne suggested that I blog about the X-Men comic for this letter. So, I’m here to introduce the NEWEST and MOST IMPROVEST X-Man, Milton Glaser. Ok, this is borderline stalking, but I came across some new MG info and I wanted to put it in. It’s my blog…

I was browsing through LinkedIn and the Communications Arts discussion group. One of the discussions was a post by Barney Davey, Founder of Boldstar Communications. He related that a new documentary on MG was premiering May 22. He directed readers to his blog, which I will do here as well. http://www.artprintissues.com/2009/05/milton-glaser-documentary-premiers-may-22-register-to-win-a-poster-or-book-.html

Once there, I found a link to another page where he relates MG’s 10 Things I have Learned—The Secret of Art. If the Dali Lama posted a link to the secret of life--you’d go wouldn’t you? Gunga ga lunga. Read this if you have any interest in truthful, insightful, meaningful understanding that may influence your life (http://www.artprintissues.com/2008/02/milton-glaser-.html)

This past weekend, I indulged myself and purchased MG’s book Drawing is Thinking, which is an amazing and dynamic book. Aside from 20 pages of introduction and an interview, the remaining 200+ pages are drawings by Glaser. You are supposed to view them sequentially to get into the thinking of MG’s mind. I have been studying them since.

There is no substitute for real Xperience and Xpertise.

W: Andy Warhol

2009-05-26T10:58:00.004-04:00

Those damned soup cans. I think that you have to have lived under a rock to have not seen or had some contact with Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup can paintings. Then you either love them or hate them. At various times in my life, I have had both reactions. When I finally got to see them at MoMA, for the first time I had a true reaction. Again, this was one of those times when seeing the work in person was so much more significant than in books or online. There is a hand work in them that shows through when you get an opportunity to see them in person and stop to study them that I lost in smaller translations.

“Earlier artists, like Monet, had painted the same motif in series in order to display minute discriminations of perception, the shift of light and color form hour to hour on a haystack, and how these could be recorded by the subtlety of eye and hand. Warhol's thirty-two soup cans are about nothing of the kind. They are about sameness (though with different labels): same brand, same size, same paint surface, same fame as product. They mimic the condition of mass advertising, out of which his sensibility had grown. They are much more deadpan than the object which may have partly inspired them, Jasper Johns's pair of bronze Ballantine ale cans.”
- From "American Visions", by Robert Hughes

Most of Warhol’s work was accomplished in the six years following the show of his 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962. The American iconic Pop Artist attacked the products and celebrities of the time in his repetitious silk screened paintings. He takes a role as spectator in his work and creates work that is both copied and original.

Recently, I’ve seen clips and documentaries on the Ovation channel about his “Factory” days. I’m not sure that I like the work he created—does that really matter—but I think it is important to understand how original it was in the time and place of the 1960s. Today it’s easy to replicate his basic approach in a computer. But the original work is definitely a hand-done process and that’s where I think it derives its originality and impact.

The poster-color silkscreen over sketches of the celebrities defines the era. I don’t think that you would get very far discussing Marilyn Monroe and not consider the Warhol painting. I put the Ingrid as a Nun painting here because my daughter Alexis loves Ingrid Bergman.

I like Jasper John’s Ballantine ale cans better than the soup cans. But I like beer better than soup. Go figure. With Warhol, I keep trying to pull away, but his images keep popping up over and over again. Not all influences are pretty or good.

V:Vincent Van Gogh

2009-05-22T09:37:00.004-04:00

V is a no-brainer for me as well. I continue to be amazed at the fact that Vincent only acquired fame after his tumultuous, roller-coaster of a life ended. In my research today, I learned that his brother Theo, who had supported and encouraged Vincent throughout his artistic life, died six months after Van Gogh committed suicide. It was Theo’s widow who set about the task of gaining recognition for Vincent. According to the Van Gogh Gallery website, “Theo, who had collected the majority of Vincent's work from Paris, died only six months later. His widow took the collection to Holland and dedicated herself to getting the now deceased Vincent the recognition he deserved. She published his work and Vincent became famous nearly instantly. His reputation has been growing since.” (http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html)

When we traveled to New York in December, we were unable to see the full Van Gogh exhibit at MoMA. However, we did see a few of his works in the permanent collection. I think the thing that captures my attention most is how unique his style is and how it really breaks away from any painter of the time. “Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.” (http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html)

In Lust for Life, Kirk Douglas gives a haunting portrait of the artist and his life. The movie uses the paintings to set the scenes and they found amazing look-alikes to mirror the artwork in the movie. I highly recommend watching this movie if you are an art fan.

I have included several drawings here as well as Café at Night. I think this painting is particularly interesting because it is beautiful and so difficult to execute. His style is immediately recognizable in both forms.

For me, his work is so passionate and expressive and his story is tragic.

U: Understanding my art

2009-05-19T08:39:00.003-04:00

I started a new blog today, http://www.365two50.blogspot.com/. In order to create meaningful art, I think it is important to understand who you are and why you create. This new blog will explore the next year with a daily entry of some piece of art that I create. I know this is a cop out for the letter U, but I'm ok with that.

T:Typography

2009-05-18T12:52:00.009-04:00

I have the dubious distinction of being among the group of designers who crossed (and arguably survived) a historical marker in graphic design technology. I am part of that crusty group of graphic artists who spent significant time working with Xacto knives, ruby (amber) lith, waxers, and other archaic tools of the trade--then, along with the rest of the world, transferred those skills into the computer age. Imagine yourself standing there one day carving pictographs into an obelisk and your young apprentice suggests that you might want to try papyrus.

One of the most significant improvements realized by this shift was the ability to work with type as a graphic element more freely and immediately. As the kids say today, “back in the day” you would render your type on tracing paper and use a Lucy machine, or (if you were lucky) a Xerox machine to scale the type to fit your design. Then you would specify the dimensions to a typesetter—a person who produced “slicks” of the type. You would then cut and paste with wax the image into your design. A painstaking and time-consuming effort that was difficult to control. With the computer, you can type the words, pick the font, scale it, distort it, and make it fit your design while sipping your coffee at your desk. Amazing!

As inspiring as technology might be, it is also the source of daily frustration. I love type. I love the way a letterform is balanced, delicate, forceful, and related to a message or emotion. I love the way that it can be an illustration or the purveyor of content and that it requires the same skillful treatment to make it effective however it is used. Enter what I like to call the "PC Paradigm" (PCP). The “can-do” not “should do” approach. The PCP is the condition that centers on the concept that placing anything in a computer reduces the skill required to effectively execute that task to a push of a button. It assumes that the people (usually programmers skilled at programming) who create a program must have been skilled in the subject being considered—typography—as a subset of their programming knowledge. Many people I encounter in business believe that everything they find in the computer is right because it is in the computer. Enter the MAC and PC guys. I work closely with programmers and they are very happy to make Papyrus and Comic Sans blink in 100% Magenta because they can, not because they should. "What, that doesn't look good? How about adding a starburst?"

Ok, enough bellyaching. Mr. Gutenberg’s invention started a revolution and brought the printed word to the masses. Yeah printing! In today’s world, where we can get a national newspaper in print delivered to our doorstep, it is hard to imagine the effort it took to print just one page. I know that I am ignoring this medium. That’s intentional. Comparing screen presented type to the printed word is like comparing Pop-Tarts to a French pastry hot from the oven in Paris.

I first worked with lettering when I was in high school. Our school paper had limited resources for typesetting. So I often lettered advertisements by hand. When I was first out of college, I worked in a Cadillac dealership as a service writer. This brought me in contact with a gentleman (I wish I could remember his name) who pinstriped the cars by hand. I was amazed to watch him lay down a perfect line free-hand skillfully following the contour of the car. I watched him letter some awnings once and began learning sign painting techniques. I made some nice side cash and kept my hand in the design world lettering signs and trucks. Some where good and some were HORRIBLE. Thank God that time usually erases those errors.

I am not particularly skilled at lettering by hand. I can do a passable job, but I am far from skilled as a typographer. Unfortunately, I know the difference and really don’t like seeing my finished product most of the time. But I appreciate and enjoy those who are skilled.

I took a lettering class with Ken Barber of House Industries fame. I reinforced my love and appreciation for the letterform and had lots of fun. I also met David Carson at a HOW Conference. His approach to tearing and cutting type was radical at the time and I enjoy looking at his book for inspiration.

S: The S Curve

2009-05-13T08:34:00.002-04:00

I hit the watercolor paper with acrylic once again last night. This time I used a medium to help control the saturation of the paper. It worked much better. When I started the painting, I relied on an old composition convention--the S curve. I thought that I would allow that general shape to begin the painting, then let the coverage develop as I added the paint.

I limited the pallate to blue and green paints and used a medium to create glazes of colors. As I moved across the image, I developed the lights and darks relative to the paint that was already there. After the first round, I used glazes of the colors to push areas and give them some depth. I decided to add some white highlights and scumbled the paint using a dry-brush technique.

I am still looking for a connection with the composition. After I was finished, I kept thinking that I should add some lines or shapes. But I fought the impulse and just left the image where it was. I think it has an earth and water feeling--although I didn't intend to do anything other than a blue painting.

I think this effort is going to pay off as I experience textures and applications. I just need to connect better with the composition.

R: Frederick Remington

2009-05-12T08:36:00.007-04:00

I am not sure whether my parents decorated our childhood room with the intention of introducing us to the art of Fredrick Remington, or just wanted to put cowboy pictures up in a boy’s room. I suspect, knowing my parents, they intended both.

Remington was a prolific artist, who seems to dance the line between illustrator and fine artist in his paintings and drawings. His sculpture is pure drama. He is clearly one of the most highly regarded American artists of his time. In 1895 “Harper's Weekly published Remington’s first published commercial effort, a re-drawing of a quick sketch on wrapping paper that he had mailed back East.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Remington)

“Remington attended the art school at Yale University, the only male in the freshman year. However, he found that football and boxing were more interesting than the formal art training, particularly drawing from casts and still life objects. He preferred action drawing and his first published illustration was a cartoon of a “bandaged football player” for the student newspaper Yale Courant.” His first efforts were cartoonish and not particularly good. It was only after a failed business and his wife left him that he began sketching and painting in earnest. He bartered for essentials with his artwork. This rings home for me as I have many times traded design or illustration work for the little extras that I can’t afford on my salary.

Although his persona was probably greatly inflated by promotions and suggestions made by Harper’s Weekly in an effort to promote his illustrations, I like that he was rough around the edges and it comes through in his work. Yet he is equally sensitive to small gestures and light in his sculpture and later work without losing any of the power and impact. His illustrative story-telling skills became very acute and he also dappled in more impressionistic paintings like Against the Sunset.

My daughter Alexis and I need very little prompting to sit down and dissect a John Ford/John Wayne western. I think that I find the same sense of history and imagination in Remington echoed in these films. The images of Henry Fonda and Wayne leading the column in Fort Apache evoke the same sense as Remington’s long columns of cavalry troops. It also seems that Remington had the same awe and respect for the Native Americans as his paintings of them were heroic and idealized.

Many years ago, I had an opportunity to do some sketches for a movie about cowboys. My sketches went nowhere and, upon reflection, belonged there. But they were definitely inspired by Remington, Ford, and Wayne. When considering “previous lives”—which I think is really just fantasy—I imaged myself a captain in the cavalry on many occasions. It’s an image that makes me laugh, but I could use a smile today. So perhaps I will have that in the back of my brain as I sit in my cubical today.

Outside the comfort zone

2009-05-07T08:08:00.003-04:00

I'm not abandoning my format, just breaking from it momentarily.

As a lacrosse coach, I am constantly preaching to my players to extend beyond their comfort zone. I tell them that this is the only way to grow and become better players. Physician heal thyself. So I am taking my own coaching advice.

Another thing that I tell them is "don't be afraid to make mistakes." Ok, that's easier said than done.

SOoooo. This is an another attempt at an abstraction. Milton Glaser says that "all art is an abstraction." I get what he is saying and I am much more comfortable in the figurative abstraction. I don't think that this is particularly good, but I think it is a good first step. I am still too stuck on literal imagery--the shapes are still too well defined and the composition a bit stilted. But I think it's good to show your mistakes and try to learn from them.

I used acrylic paint on Arches watercolor paper, which was also a mistake. The paint moved too slowly and dried too quickly on the absorbent paper. The end product has an odd plastic feel and a chalky appearance. I've been visiting several abstract artists and assemblage artist pages lately, trying to get a feel for the approach.

As for the experience. I don't have a studio. So I paint in the family room with wife, dog, and cat involved. My wife is a tough and effective critic. She is not an artist (although her Mom was an accomplished painter) but she can't hide whether she likes something or not. She is my general public. The dog sleeps--after all she is 15 years old and fairly blind. She is my out-lier. The cat is very artistic and likes to help me. She pokes her paw under the canvas or walks across the page as I am drawing. She prefers me to use her as my subject.

I think that a part of my limit is that I can't get really active with the paint. I tried to let the painting dictate the strokes and then just looked at the end product. Interestingly, the finished work is upside-down from the way I painted it. I liked how it looked in this orientation better than 180 degrees around.

I am definitely outside of my comfort zone here. And I hope that I get better at it so that I can enjoy it more. But I like the challenge and look forward to making another one.

Q: Quixotic Moments

2009-05-04T09:40:00.007-04:00

According to http://www.merrium-webster.com/, Quixotic describes a characteristic of being “foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action.” http://www.dictionary.com/ provides synonyms of ”fanciful, fantastic, and imaginary.” This term is derived from the character Don Quixote in the book by Miguel De Cervantes.

“Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho's services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle. On his horse, Rocinante, a barn nag well past his prime, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure.” (http://www.sparknotes.com/)

Don Quixote has become an icon of the idealist, the romanticist, and the chivalrous. Along with his trusted side-kick Sancho Panza, he is the subject of many famous paintings and drawings. One of my favorites is by Honore Daumier. When I studied drawing in college, I chose his work and replicated his illustration of the Tilter of Windmills (not the title of his work—my slang for the subject). I love the pen and ink washes and the gestural nature of the drawing. (first image in the blog)

Famed Spanish artists, Dali (above right) and Picasso (left), took their shot at the subject as well. Of course they are fantastic. While trolling the Google pool, I also came across a version of the subject by German artist Alex Gokel (below). Gokel’s work is often compared to Kandinsky’s work and is “a superstar German artist.” Gokel sold his first work when he was 8, and worked for a time in the coal mines of Germany. http://www.parkwest-gockel.com/bio.asp has a nice video that shows him painting at the Parkwest gallery.

We should all indulge our quixotic tendancies every once in a while. We can get caught up in the rigors and competitions of just surviving. As an artist, feeding our imagination can include chasing a wooden dragon every once in a while.

P: Photography

2009-04-30T11:08:00.007-04:00

As a child of the 1960s, photographic images were a major influence on my perception of the world and visual storytelling. Television hit its stride in that decade going from black and white to color (we didn’t get a color set until the next decade) and expanding the nature and volume of programming. The space age and developments in technology were offered up with each issue of Life magazine, while the secrets of Africa and the ancient people of the Amazon were visited monthly in the National Geographic.

My father was an avid hobbyist and was quick to bring out his camera at any occasion. A running joke in our family centered around his 35mm slides of his Air Force tour of duty in the Arctic. Our lives were comprehensively documented on Kodak paper and slides, which provide many hours of treasured and embarrassing memories.

At some point in time, I gained access to an old Kodak camera that belonged to my Grandfather and began trying to take photos with it. We had our share of point and shoot cameras, but that one was different. You could adjust the aperture. In high school, I had access to the school’s SLR camera to take pictures for the yearbook. We had a great journalism teacher who taught so much more than just how to write. We designed and produced our own book with the guidance of representatives from the yearbook company.

My sister-in-law gave us a Canon AE-1 Program camera as a wedding gift. This was an incredible camera that took amazing pictures. Following my father’s example, I poked my nose into the action as often as I could while my daughters grew and we attended many sporting and family events. I had that camera with me while I was stationed in Sicily and recorded some of the incredible sights of that beautiful place.

I often work from photographs in my fine art and use my own images in designs, so a good camera is important to me. I’ve tinkered with several digital cameras, but my most recent gift from my great wife is a Canon EOS Rebel digital SLR. I am in love with this camera (not quite as much as I am in love with my wife).

The element that I find most attractive about digital photography is that I can take as many pictures of whatever I want without incurring production costs. This leads to the biggest problem that my wife has with digital photography—the fact that I rarely print out snapshots. I have to get better at that. It took me a year to compile a Kodak book of our trip to Hawaii last year. This summer I hope to get better organized with the output of images that I have taken, so that we have a physical record. I also hope to learn more about getting the most out of my new toy.

O: Outdoors

2009-04-20T13:02:00.009-04:00

As a cubical dweller, I spend most of my day staring at a computer screen or the dark cranberry burlap that defines my little space. I am fortunate to have a window on the wall that is under my control and not obstructed by anything. The view is of the parking lot and the small road which fronts the office, but I can peer out and see trees, sun, clouds, and other aspects of nature.

I love the outdoors. The area where I live is surrounded by farm land and river banks. A short day-trip gets you into the mountains or to the ocean side. The painting of the cows was inspired by a field in the middle of a very ritzy development near the office and my home. My house is situated at the end of a street and adjacent to a 5 acre plot of land, so I have the illusion of living in the country even though I live within town limits. I built the deck last year to better enjoy the back yard.

My wife recently gave me a gift of a Cannon EOS Rebel camera with two lenses and all the trimmings. My wife is awesome! This is a toy that I have been denying myself for several years and I look forward to seeing what I can do with it. I don’t aspire to be a "photographer," but I enjoy the accidentally good pictures that I create now and then. One of my friends added that I will be able to create fodder for my paintings as well with my new rig.

I’ve included a few pictures that are simmering on the back burner of my mind as sources for paintings. I look forward to putting them into effect. The trees are turning, and flowers are blooming at this time of year. But I am equally inspired by the cold, dormant seasons as well. I can sit for hours on my back porch listening to the mourning doves call. I can make their sound and get them to call back on a good day. It makes the cat crazy when I do it inside.

Splinter is my daughter’s cat. She is living with us right now because my daughter’s roommate can’t be around Splinter. I am amazed at how intensely she lies in the window staring out at the birds and squirrels. Spinter is also inspired by the outdoors.

Springtime also signals the beginning of lacrosse season. We spend a good deal of time in the outdoors following our children and nieces and nephews as they play their games. My nephew Henry, who is a first-grader, is pictured playing lacrosse like a pro!

N: New Work

2009-04-14T09:34:00.006-04:00

I'm new to the world of social networking. I've watched my daughters blog, facebook, twitter, etc. for several years and marveled at their ever-growing network of virtual "friends." Since I spend 85% of my working hours on the computer, I was resistant to jump into the viral pool. But I have enjoyed the exercise of My Visual Vocabulary, I've had some fun interactions on Facebook, and--now--I have made a connection through LinkedIn that has resulted in an opportunity for new work.

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by an friend from my college days out of the blue. We shared time in the painting studio at Mount Saint Mary's. For some reason, I thought she would enjoy seeing my work, so I gave her my list of sites. She came back saying she thought she had some projects that we could work on together. Her site, http://www.500bc.com/ is incredible--VISIT IT.

I've really enjoyed working with her. She is creative, collaborative, and understands her side of the business while appreciating the "artist" side. I rarely get the chance to work with a person like this, and it has really made my other creative work energized.

The illustrations you see here are a progression of part of a marketing plan for Ready Price, a mortgage information tool website. Most of the time in my current job, I have to crank out work at such a high rate that I rarely get the opportunity to revisit or retool an illustration. Although, I don't really like to redo work too many times, this has been a lot of fun. The first version was too perfume bottle-like, but she loved the lightning. The second was from a bottle that would have been a give-away--more flask like. The third is based on client feedback. I like them all!

I attended a HOW Conference a few years ago where one of the speakers (sorry, I can't remember who) was talking about the concept of allowing Good to prevent Great. I am always stopping at good, because there isn't time to let things percolate on the back burner. My rekindled friend has been great for pushing further. Here's to doing great work once in a while.

M: MoMA

2009-04-10T14:32:00.003-04:00

On a family trip to New York City in December, I finally got to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This was like being on inspirational crack. Unfortunately we didn’t get into the Van Gogh exhibit, although there were still some images of his in the permanent collection. We stood in line for a long time in the cold December wind, but I thought it was well worth the effort.

It’s hard to decide what work made the greatest impact on me. There were so many painting, sculptures, and photographs from so many great artists in a wide variety of genres. I saw, for the first time, paintings that I had only seen as small pictures in art books. One in particular, a Roy Lichtenstein painting, became art for me after seeing it in person. Until that time, I had only seen his work in photographs. I didn’t understand why it was regarded as art, after all it was only a blown up comic book. Seeing his painting in person, I began to appreciate the technique and creative inspiration that made it significant.

There was an interesting exhibit of design work, which incorporated print and the design of everyday objects. Some things are functional and beautiful.

I particularly enjoyed going through the galleries where you get the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the most significant pieces of art in world history. The Dali was amazingly small in scale, while the Picasso’s bowl you over with their size. I was comforted by Andrew Wyeth’s Christine’s World as I entered the painting gallery. Marcell Duchamp was amazingly creative and the paintings of Matisse and Gauguin made me want to run away back to Hawaii (the closest I’ve gotten to Tahiti). There were so many images and I was exhausted when I finished.

L: Leaving the figurative world

2009-04-03T14:54:00.002-04:00

Leaving my figurative world a little bit. I felt like I needed to mess around and try something different. An abstraction.

K: Paul Klee

2009-04-02T15:22:00.006-04:00

I passed by an office of a co-worker the other day and noticed a poster hanging on the wall done by Paul Klee. It caught my attention, so I did some web-search for images and was pleasantly surprised with what I found.

Paul Klee was a Swiss artist who enjoyed expressing himself through a wide variety of media. According to Ovationtv.com, “The painter and illustrator Paul Klee was at the forefront of modern art, taking what he needed from Cubism, Surrealism, and other avant-garde movements to create drawings and paintings that, while sometimes childlike, suggest a complex universe of music, dreamscapes, and pure emotion.”

Klee loved both art and music. He was from a musical family and played the violin. He drew a great deal of inspiration from the nature of music and represented the feeling of sound in many of his works. He taught at the famous Bauhaus school, but the Nazis in 1931 declared his work “degenerate” along with the works of his peer Kandinsky, co-founder of an avante-garde group Die Blaue Vier. Ovationtv.com also said “In 1933 he left for Switzerland, where he mounted large exhibitions in 1935-36. At this time, Klee began to experience the symptoms of what we now know was scleroderma. Paul Klee died in 1940, leaving over 9,000 works of art. In 2005 a museum dedicated to his work opened in Bern.”

In several websites they pointed out that his work was very bright and colorful until the time of the Nazi intervention. He had to adjust his style to deal with his affliction as well.

I love how complex his brushwork is even though his designs are simple. It gives his work a layered effect. I also think that you can see how so many of the artists of his time had an influence on his painting, but his style remains his own.

J: Jesus by William DeMarco Mayo

2009-03-30T10:02:00.005-04:00

Growing up in a Catholic home, my parents provided several religious images of Jesus, Mary, and other iconic Saints and Angels as part of our home decoration. On reflection, our visual input of God was through Jesus. We didn’t have any paintings, statues, or other representations of God the Father although we did have representations of God as the Holy Spirit as both dove and flame. I think that my visual reference for God has to be Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. We had lots of art books in our house. Back to Jesus—this is about the letter J after all.

The image of Jesus that comes to mind for many people of my generation is the Head of Christ by Warner Sallman (1892-1968). Our family’s exception was that we had an original interpretation of this painting. My uncle Marc--William DeMarco Mayo—painted his version as a wedding gift to my parents. This image is my image of the Jesus of my youth. As an adult painter, I love how personal this interpretation has become for me. It is so much better than the “canned” Sallman version.

I am a product of 16 years of Catholic education. The first time I attended a “public” school was as a man of 39 seeking his master’s degree. So these icons were formative. What I like most about my Uncle’s version of the painting is that it defines my youthful understanding of Jesus. It is much like a treasured, worn photo in the old family album. It isn’t my Jesus today, but I love the feeling that it gives me of a time when I was innocent and accepting. As a piece of art it captures that feeling because the style is loose and warm.

Jesus is represented in many ways in paintings which help to put a face to the faceless deity. I will leave the sermons to my most articulate friend Dwayne Eutsey (shout out) but the Catholic upbringing of the 1960’s held a very confusing message. It was full of fear and rules (and nuns) that carried over from my parent’s upbringing, but the loving and forgiving Jesus was working hard to make inroads. It is valuable to understand that my mother thought of becoming a nun until she met my father. She would have been one of the nuns that we liked—of course the “we” would be without me for obvious reasons.

The “white” Jesus was prevalent, but we were also introduced to the idea of a Jesus of color. I think the representation of Rembrant’s Jesus at least had a flavor of compassion and kindness with some racial ambiguity. I like that version. Salvador Dali’s Crucifixion was an image that I remember from college and who can ignore the Pieta by Michelangelo.

Let me return to Uncle Marc for a moment. In one of those recent list exercises on Facebook, I said that I hope that one day a distant relative will discover a piece of art that I created and be inspired to create something themselves. Uncle Marc was an inspiration to me. He was cool. He was a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and had great skill as a painter. He made his living as an industrial artist for Aircraft Armament Industries (AAI). He was not an engineer, but, through the logic of understanding form, he created artistic renderings that engineers would make functional. He was a problem solver. But most importantly, he was cool. I love the image of his home studio—and—he was cool.

DeMarco Mayo got the chance to see if his image of Jesus did the God justice in 2004. His painting inspires me.

I: Illustrators

2009-03-27T14:01:00.009-04:00

I woke up at about 5:00 am this morning to the cat picking the lock to our bedroom door. She managed to break in sending my wife jumping out of bed and beginning my day a little early. Fully alert from the attack, I considered the next entry into the blog—illustrators. I think that I will attack this entry chronologically.

Whenever I am asked to speak about graphics, illustration, or communication, I start at the same place—the caveman. You would have to have lived under a rock to not encounter some image of a cave painting. As a form of communication, illustration precedes written word. These images were the mainstay of storytelling and hold incredible value as simplistic representations of concepts as well as events.

Moving on in history, the very graphic illustrations of the Egyptians and the illuminated Bibles created by Monks and then the early printing process showed the importance and impact of marrying text and image.

Two of my early influences as illustrators were Winslow Homer and NC Wyeth. Winslow Homer worked as an illustrator during the Civil War, creating images of Union Soldiers for Harper’s Weekly. NC Wyeth’s illustrations of Treasure Island and other classics provided the images that I grew up relating to the Great Books.

Moving on, the next would appear to be Norman Rockwell. His idealized images told very complete and complicated stories that not only reflected his idea of American life, but actually became the standard for that generation’s ideal slice-of-life. In Abstract and Concrete, he paints a business man observing a Pollack-like painting in a gallery. What skill it shows that he can incorporate effectively another, dissimilar artist’s style into his own. “The illustrator's rendering of Abstract & Concrete must have been indicative of what Rockwell, then 68, was pondering at the time. How will I be remembered. As a technician or artist. As a humorist or a visionary." (Rockwell web page)

I grew up with 33RPM LPs as my generations primary music source. Like many of my peers, I wanted to design and illustrate album covers. The size and scale of that medium was just so perfect for artwork. Today’s CD covers are so small, limiting the impact of the images. I particularly liked the hand lettering and illustration as well as the effects used on photos from the late 1960’s through the 1970’s. I’ll come back to that later.

I’ve included several examples of these covers that demonstrate how detailed and imaginative they were. Peter Max and Andy Warhol created great illustrations in this timeframe. Some of the skill and craftsmanship that was demanded in those days is lost on today’s artists. The computer simplifies the production of images, allowing you to “Control Z” undo. The album artists had to make it perfect by hand. Corrections and revisions were costly and difficult. Ah the good old days of amberlith and typesetting.
As for text, often these covers included hand lettering that was an art in itself.

As I grew older, more sophisticated illustrators crept into my realm of awareness. Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame created incredible still and animated images using airbrush and photo manipulation. I became a big fan of Marshall Arisman and his fanciful style. I also enjoy the work of Gary Baseman and Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studios. I have had a chance to meet Arisman, Baseman, and Sickels at the HOW Design conference to chat first-hand about their process.

This list goes on and on. One of my great pleasures is to go to sites like Zaks.com and other illustrator sites to prowl for hours among the illustrators. I am confounded though by the impression that some critics present that illustration is somehow a lesser art than “fine-art.” When you look at the paintings and drawings of the mentioned artists, you see a level of skill and technique equal to anyone who only works from their own perspective.

In the book “Education of an Illustrator” written by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman, they talk about the illustrator telling a second story and expanding on the written work with the artist’s imagination. One artist viewed my “fine art” attempts and commented that it had an illustrative style. I’m not sure if she intended that as a compliment, but I take it as one. When Andrew Wyeth passed away recently, several people commented in a negative sense that his work will be viewed as illustration and not fine art. Yet, when I entered the Modern Art room at the Museum of Modern Art, “Christine’s World” is prominently the first painting you see. This piece of art is often criticized for its popularity as a poster, yet I find it to be a masterful execution of composition, light, and content. The story is compelling and the tone is perfectly matched. If being an illustrator is bad, I choose to be the worst.

H: Friedensreich Hundertwasser

2009-03-26T13:58:00.007-04:00

As I contemplated this letter and how I would use it, I tossed around a couple of ideas. One thought was hair and hands. Both provide a wide range of inspiration and opportunity for observation and rendering.

After further reflection, I thought I would once again venture out into cyber space and try to find an artist that I was either vaguely familiar with or not at all. Enter Friedensreich Hundertwasser. I know that I have had encounters with his art, but I don't clearly remember studying him.

According to http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/friedensreich-hundertwasser/, "Friedensreich Hundertwasser (December 15 1928 – February 19 2000) was an Austrian painter and architect. By the end of the 20th century, he was arguably the best-known living artist in Austria, though he was always controversial." He was born Friedrich Stowasser. Ok, so this guy changed his name to something way more complicated? Apparently, his mother's entire family was killed in the Holocaust. "His adopted surname is based on the translation of 'Sto' (the Czech word for hundred)into German. The name 'Friedensreich' has a double meaning as 'Peaceland' or 'Peacerich' (in the sense of 'peaceful')."

Much of his work deals with the environment and activism. He creates art wherever he goes in painting, drawing, architecture, and sculpture. He has an incredible website, Hundertwasser, where his environmental posters are particularly inspiring. He is not what I usually follow, but My Visual Vocabulary is not about staying where I am, It should be about expanding more than my waist line.

In his notes about himself Hundertwasser says, "The work of the artist is very difficult, because it cannot be done by force, diligence or intelligence.
I think that by strength and diligence and intelligence one can do anything else in life, but the rewards of art are totally unattainable by these means."

G: Milton Glaser

2009-03-24T15:19:00.005-04:00

By far the easiest letter to populate for me—G is for Glaser. Milton Glaser is the single most influential artist in my design/illustration life. I was fortunate enough to sit in an audience while he spoke about design, ideas, and creativity at one of the many HOW Design conferences that I have attended. Through the power of the internet, I have found several amazing video clips where he discusses his process and thinking. One of the best
Of these videos was Milton Glaser: How great design makes ideas new on TED

His site, MiltonGlaser.com, is a very simple-to-use website full of fabulous imagery, writing, and thought.

Most people are familiar with his I (Heart) NY graphic. His identity work also includes the graphic for Barrons, Grand Union Superstores, and the Brooklyn Brewery to name just a few that I really like. In his talk at HOW, he described the incredible and exciting challenge of rebranding an entire grocery chain from the identity, to environment, to product labeling.

He does it all. His illustrations are meaningful and finely crafted. I’m not sure what else to say about his work other than to display some of it here and encourage anyone reading this to visit his site for more beautiful work by this living legend of design and illustration.

F: The Fifer by Eduoard Manet

2009-03-22T13:20:00.003-04:00

I recently became the recipient of an incredible library of art books that were in the library of Mrs. Gladys Zutz, a fabulous lady and artist. I was browsing through a book on Eduoard Manet and came across The Fifer, a portrait of a young boy in the Light Infantry Guard. This painting is amazing. The absent background; the dark red and black clothing; and the gold and white accents draw you into the youthful face.

The subject of the painting apparently created some controversy. According to a Princeton-based blog on the image, "On first glance, Fifer (1866) is simply a painting of an innocent young boy. In reality, however, it is one of Manet’s oddest “portraits” of Victorine Meurent: she was one of several models who sat for the painting. As a result, her eyes seem to peer strangely from another’s face. The fifer’s intense but abstracted gaze and light, half-formed eyebrows seem lifted directly from The Street Singer, and the hand that blocks Victorine’s mouth in that painting is echoed here by the fife before the boy’s lips (Armstrong 161)" (http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/f05/nlagerfe/the_fifer.html)

In the book Manet: 1832-1883 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1983)" The young model was a boy trooper in the Imperial Guard at the Pepiniere barracks..." The author goes on to say that it was suggested that the model was Victorine Meurent and there was a resemblance, however nothing beyond the eyes resembled the woman. The Princeton website uses this resemblance to show a significance in neutralizing her sexuality. The Met book indicates that the "identification matters little." To me this discussion doesn't matter at all.

What matters to me is the impact of the image. The flatting of the painting, simplifying the shapes and their relationships while maintaining perfect balance and contrast is what makes and impact on me. The shining metal is in stark contrast to the sash and the drape and texture of the uniform. The uniform is simple and clean and defines the figure. The ornate hat, the row of buttons, the line of the fife, and the curve of the sash and stripes all draw you almost forcefully into the eyes. Interestingly, the uniform is a "dress-down" or fatigue uniform of the day (think about the camoflaged uniform you see today). The grey background allows all of the color to snap forward.

The Met book presents the subject as "a familiar and commonplace figure assigned a new significance." This sparks thoughts about the nature and significance of the subjects of works of art. I often get stuck trying to say something with my paintings and art, rather than just painting or drawing. Perhaps my next painting will be something simple. I can try to focus on simple shapes, colors, and light. As an intellectual persuit, less is more is amazingly difficult.

In the end, I like this picture. It speaks to me.

E: Thomas Eakins--American Master Realist

2009-03-20T15:01:00.005-04:00

In order to make My Visual Vocabulary fun, I did a random search of Artists beginning with the letter E. I continue to work on the premise that I will follow the alphabet for a while, finding inspiration in that order. Who did I land on? None other than Thomas Eakins. Way back in my “art in the dark” classes, I came across the incredibly raw and vibrant works of Thomas Eakins. I put him in the back of my mind, often pulling his 1875 work The Gross Clinic out when thinking about light and impact.

According to pbs.org’s American Masters “When Thomas Eakins died in 1916, he left behind a body of work unprecedented in American art for its depth, strength, perception, character, and commitment to realism. Yet during his life, Eakins sold less than thirty paintings. Rejected by the public and the art establishment of his day, it was only after his death that a new generation of scholars and critics recognized Eakins as one of America's greatest painters.”

The site quotes Walt Whitman, "I never knew of but one artist, and this is Tom Eakins, who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be rather than what is."

It is this quote that interests me and echoes a concept I encounter in many forums on observation. One of the greatest obstacles to creating realistic drawings and paintings is that the mind will interpret the “ness” of something, that is, what we believe something looks like in our mind, not necessarily what we actually see. Our mind tells us a table has four legs, so we draw that instead of what we see, which might only include three of the four legs. Using measuring tools and other techniques, we can isolate the parts and avoid rendering “table ness”—rather depicting the lines, shapes and shadows that we actually see.

The Philadelphia artist Eakins was a realist and a perfectionist. His compositions were carefully thought out and mechanically precise. As I recall, he thought that the painting should precisely convey the time, season, and environment of the setting. In his painting The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), Eakins portrays his friend Max in a single rowing scull on an October day on the Schuylkill River in the afternoon. Eakins puts himself in the scull behind Schmitt.

The image tells a precise story and pinpoints so many things about that moment in time. It is a story so rich that “A poem titled The Mystery of Max Schmitt, written by Phillip Dacey in 2000, is based on the painting and is spoken from Schmitt’s point of view. It contemplates the changes the popular sport was about to undergo.” (Mental Floss, Feel Art Again: The Champion of Single Sculls, A. Fernandez)

If I remember correctly, Eakins was one of the first to use photography to study motion.

This little adventure in random research has revived an interest in Eakins. I will have to browse the many images of his “unprecedented” body of work for more entries into My Visual Vocabulary.

D: Daughters

2009-03-15T22:30:00.003-04:00

A major inspiration for the past 24 years has been the two people that my wife and I created. Erin turned 22 this past week and Alexis blogged about how she feels about her in http://www.hotfuzzonmylegs.blogspot.com/ . Very touching.

I don't get to see them as much now as before since Erin is a senior in college across the state and Alexis lives on the other side of the Eastern Shore. This week was different and I had some quality time with both. Alexis helped us move some furniture and watched the critters while we traveled 5 hours to watch Erin play in the goal for her college women's lacrosse team. Both of my girls have had great sports careers in high school and college, which has been a source of great pride and lots of fun for my wife and me.

These two people are very different and have strong and independent personalities. They are both have incredible senses of humor and always have stories and things going on in there lives. They are very creative in different ways and provide endless entertainment and meaning to my life.

They both believe that our dog precedes them in my favor. It is a long standing joke and Alexis will say that this proves that I can't mention one without the other. Not true.

We have a collage in our family room full of pictures from their youth. It has been amazing to watch them grow and develop, and hopefully I didn't screw them up too much. They seem to be pretty well adjusted and they are definitely good people who care about their world, their family, and their friends. I continue to look forward to seeing what will happen next with them.

I attempted to draw a picture of Alexis when she was a baby, but it was critically reviewed and I haven't tried again since. Perhaps one day.

C: Cartoons

2009-03-11T14:05:00.012-04:00

One of my favorite cartoons (left) from the TeamSTEPPS Program, Shared Mental Model

If you visit my website, http://www.davedrawsitall.com/, you will see a very eclectic collection of drawings, designs, and artwork. One of my favorite genres is cartooning. As a child of the 60s, I grew up with Saturday morning cartoons and the worlds of people like Chuck Jones, creator of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and (my personal favorite) Pepe Le Pue. Who couldn't love that bounding little furry French ambassador of zee love. Except, of course, the cat with the stripe painted down her back.

Another icon of the time, which captured my pencil and imagination, was MAD Magazine. I copied the styles of Jack Davis and studied with great passion the creations of Al Jaffee and others in the cast of usual idiots. Alfred E. Neuman was a chameleon, matching the hottest movie and political icons of the day. This magazine was about as naughty as a 12-15 year old could get his hands on. Fortunately my older brother shared this interest, so the supply was available.

I remember getting in trouble for injecting a little "MAD" quality into a illustration of one of my brother's English reports. The teacher was a savvy publisher in her day and detected the minute activity happening in the back of a Spanish galleon with eagle eyes. She must have used a microscope. The paper was returned with the minuscule naughty activity circled in bright red.

Through college, I continued to create cartoons and caricatures. When I was in Officer Training School, I occupied the down-time while awaiting for the end of Saturday inspection with a cartoon of the week. Everyone enjoyed the posting until one cartoon bounded over the line. I was called on the carpet by a captain who, restraining an obvious appreciation for the subject, told me that I should probably move on to another subject. When an officer would come into the classroom, rather than upsetting the chairs and creating kaos, the class would come to attention in their seats to the command " in seats--attention." The cartoon was set in the stalls of the latrine, where boots and dropped drawers were visible below the stall doors. The motion of clicking boots accompanied the same command. Come on, that's funny.

These days, the cartoon that I most closely follow is Dilbert. I insist that someone in my world is feeding the artist, Scott Adams, daily reports. It draws its humor from touching on the exposed nerves of today's cubical dwellers. Once a week, http://www.msnbc.com/ posts the week's political cartoons and I feast my eyes on the last bastion of true free speech. The modern-day bearers of the banner of Thomas Nast still peel away the smoke and mirrors of the political beasts to expose their naked, poached, and bloated underbellies. The source of inspiration seems endless.

B: Buildings

2009-03-09T18:08:00.007-04:00

I love looking at buildings. I enjoy drawing them and painting them as well. I think that the combination of design and function is what inspires me most. Buildings are living sculpture, changing every minute with the weather and the light. Each structure draws its life from within and from its relationship to its surroundings.

Artist Andrew Wyeth has been one of my greatest inspirations for my entire life. The buildings of Maine and the Brandywine Valley of Delaware and Pennsylvania were often key elements in his work. He used a very simple and subtle color scheme and relied on the shapes and play of light and shadow to define the image. In the "Widow's Walk," he paints the windows and details so cleanly and simply. The shadows do all of the work, providing definition and temperature.

When I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, there were several popular artists in the area. One of them, John Moll, is someone who I attempted to emmulate and still do today. I had an opportunity to observe him working once and set out immediately to try to copy his process. I have long-since moved forward from that point, but I often hear comparison when I draw a house portrait. I enjoy the challenge of leaving out the right lines and capturing the texture of brick, stone, or wood.

When I travel, I try to take pictures of buildings to gather images of the structures and details. Modern homes are often lacking in the details and dressing of older buildings. These older buildings really put the face on a town or city. I enjoy looking up to see the tell-tale structures that give clues to the history of a building or street front.

A: Artist Magazine

2009-03-05T20:54:00.007-05:00

I enjoy reading Artist Magazine among other design and art magazines and books. I've also started searching art lessons on YouTube which has had some interesting results. In the April 2009 issue I was particularly inspired by the Master Class article by Jerry Weiss.

Clear Eyed Romantic dealt with Richard Parkes Bonington, "A consummate draftsman...[who] painted the essence of a vanishing Venice in watercolor." (Artist, April 2009) The featured illustration Equestrian statue of Colleoni by Verrocchio in Venice caught my eye. I had the loose qualities that I remember from Honore Daumier (i.e. Don Quixote at right) and Windslow Homer (i.e. watercolor below), artists that I studied back in painting and drawing classes in college 25 years ago. The pallet was limited and draftsmanship lively and simple.

As it turns out, Mr. Bonington was a "candle in the wind." According to the author, he "was a proficient watercolorist by age 16. When he died at 26, he left a body of work that established him as one of the great painters of the Romantic era."

It was a great gem that triggered some memories and sent me searching the internet for images.

I Need to Think this Through

2009-03-04T17:06:00.001-05:00

This is my first attempt at this. Although I have a professional portfolio and a personal website (davedrawsitall.com). This is a new forum for me. So I need to think it through.

I think this blog will deal mostly with managing my "visual vocabulary." Since the shorter version was already taken, this means something to someone else. For me, this has been a term that I use for anything that I encounter--artwork, music, people, settings, places, or ANYTHING--that I draw on (no pun intended) to create my artwork.

Since I am a solo-designer in an in-house setup and I have mostly virtual contact with my artist friends, I have to do a great deal of leg work to do on my own to build my visual vocabulary.

So, I'll think this through a little more before truely getting started. I started today so that I could post to my daughter's blog Seriously! (hotfuzzonmylegs.blogspot.com). Enough for now.