Mosley

"Those who have lived..." from The Art Spirit by Robert Henri

2008-07-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

Those who have lived and grown at least to some degree in the spirit of freedom are our creative artists. They have a wonderful time. They keep the world going. They must leave their trace in some way, paint, stone, machinery, whatever. The importance of what they do is greater than anyone estimates at the time. (my italics) In fact in a commercial world there are thousand of lives wasted doing things not worth doing. Human spirit is sacrificed. More and more things are produced without a will in the creation, and are consumed or "used" without a will in the consumption or the using. These things are dead. They pass, masquerading as important while they are before us, but they pass utterly. There is nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so constructive, so life-sustaining.

Munsell Grayscale

2008-07-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

The idea behind this image is fairly self-explanatory I believe. However, my intention behind creating it is (providing I can get a fairly accurate print out of it) is to have a guide to help me judge values and pre-mix grays and colors to specific values. I understand that one can buy a Munsell grayscale chip book that includes about 100 steps from black to white which would be most useful as well. However, if you would like to print out this image for your own purposes please feel free to do so. I intend in the future to correspond these values to specific colors and/or extend the grayscale to match specific colors, stay tuned to see how this develops.

On His Blindness, John Milton

2008-07-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Milton Dictating to His Daughter by Henry Fuseli

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

wburg show

2008-05-26T00:12:00.001-07:00

Coverage of the show. Thanks to Adam Tyson.

RICHARD SCHMID Portrait Painting Landscape MAY

2008-05-04T09:42:00.001-07:00

Inspiration for May!

The Portrait Sketch with Jeremy Lipking

2008-05-03T16:07:00.001-07:00

Love his work.

Portrait of Madame Gautreau

2008-04-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Portrait of Madame Gautreau by John Singer Sargent

Pretty simple and basic, not too over the top extrordinaire, really a colored line drawing, a good one to copy. I think the dress is ivory black mixed with ultramarine, he's got some earth colors, burnt sienna perhaps, and to the left of her head cool and warm mixed to get a grey (ultramarine and sienna?) Then he's got some cooler blues, not cerulean which is grainy, maybe manganese blue or a green mixed with ultramarine (viridian and ultramarine possibly.) To the right of her head, the violet is a pure unmixed color to my eye. I noticed on one of his Venetian watercolors, he had some kind of violet (again I believe is pure, not mixed) which he floated on top. They had less choices than we have today, it could be cobalt violet, maybe, I'm not sure (an expensive color, but hey, when your Sargent....) or mauve perhaps (I'll have to break out the Ralph Mayer and Max Doerner on this, anyone with any ideas or possibilities or knowledge on the subject of Sargent and Homer watercolor palettes, I would greatly welcome). There are a host of colors invented since 1940 that he didn't have, they are more bright and not always lightfast (but in fairness some are and can be utilized to advantage), I'm interested in trying to find palette similar to Sargent and Homer's.

Timeless Detail

2008-04-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Timeless Detail by Daniel F. Gerhartz

"I never think about pushing the emotional content or style of my paintings. It is my firm belief that if artists are honest and faithful to what they see, recognizing that God's creations are far more powerful than anything they could invent or any emotion they could impose on a subject, their statement will automatically come through to the viewer in a way that constitutes a personal style or vision."

from the Winter 2005 issue of Worshop magazine

Elephant Painting

2008-04-17T15:31:00.001-07:00

I was very touched when I first saw this. I did a little online research subsequently to find out about elephants that paint and learned that they are trained in Thailand, and you can buy their paintings online. However, this particular elephant has been able to master doing a representation. Yes he (or she) was trained, nonetheless the thought occurred to me that among us there are those who seem to hold and manipulate a paint brush with such ease, control, versatility that we call them "masters". It would seem to me that this particular elephant is a master among his (or her) peers.

Love for the City

2008-04-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

study for the Slav Epic by Alphonse Mucha

"Imagine an artist, and if an artist had spent all the last years of his or her life on one particular work of art, maybe it would be a novel or a poem or a sculpture or something like that, imagine a great artist spending all, doing nothing else, sanctifying him or herself to do this, don't you think that when it was done, you could look at it and you could tell a little bit about the artist? Absolutely. In fact, frankly, a whole lot more than if you just sat down and had an interview. Go look at the art!"

from the sermon, Love for the City by Tim Keller

Sargent

2008-04-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

The information we do have has come from examination of his pictures and direct analysis of his paint. The same commonly available range of pigments is seen in virtually all of the Tate's later portraits and on existing palettes. The range is quite wide but does not include every pigment available at that time. He regularly used Mars yellow (a synthetic iron oxide) and cadmium yellow; viridian and emerald green, sometimes mixed; vermilion and Mars red, both alone and mixed; madder; synthetic ultramarine or cobalt blue; and ivory black, sienna, and Mars brown. The dark backgrounds of many portraits include a mixture of ivory black, Mars brown,and a generous quantity of paint medium: a combination that produces a color similar to the traditional Van Dyke brown. A pale shade of chrome yellow, cerulean blue, red lead, cadmium red, and cobalt violet were found on occasion, but not in every portrait examined. There is a more limited selection of blue and yellow pigments in the later portraits than in the earlier ones. This narrow range of blues,yellows, and greens in his palette went some way to create a color harmony and to fix a cool or a warm overall tone to each painting.

Sargent mixed lighter colors such as flesh tones by adding to lead white, vermilion, and a selection of other pigments including bone black, on occasion rose madder, and even green viridian. Mixing them together roughly on the palette, he then worked them into and onto adjacent brushstrokes on the canvas to give more subtle variations in tone.

(Jacqueline Ridge and Joyce Townsend; "How Sargent Made it Look Easy"; American Artist magazine; August, 1999, page 29)

Life’s Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925

2008-01-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

Salome by Robert Henri

Made it over to the New York Historical Society today to see the exhibition Life’s Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925. My favorites were the paintings by Robert Henri, especially the one of Salome and also Chez Mouquin by William Glackens. Also I enjoyed paintings showing the High Water Bridge when it was in a more bucolic setting. It's still inspiring today though, despite all the congestion.
Also enjoyed seeing Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School. Several stood out but one that always leaves a strong impression is Thomas Cole's Desolation.

Rockefeller Quote

2008-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

“God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God . to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.”

Brushed with Light

2007-11-07T23:40:00.000-08:00

This Homer wastercolor is a great example of harmony with a limited palette, I think he used only a green (Chromium Oxide green maybe, not sure) Paynes Gray, and just a hint of a red lake or crimson or some such, just those three colors: a cool gray, a warm green, and a transparent cool red, the charachter in the boat appears to be unique color in the painting, an ocher, yet still relates (I'll get a better idea when I see the original at the Brooklyn Museum). In the same area is the brightest light in the painting (close to pure white paper, no paint). I also notice that the tree goes straight down to the figure, points to it, drawing our attention to the figure. The tree's neighbor is all curvey, but that tree is deciededy straight. Despite all the contrast in this area, the tree tops of the palm trees, are for me, the main area of interest; this is where my eyes seems to rest. The masses of the tree tops are silhouetted against the light sky. He gave careful attention to the shapes of the tree tops forms and depicted with loving care the fronds and created further interest with variety of color, alternating between warm greens and cool Paynes Gray.
Also interesting to notice is how the area of the painting exlcuding the sky, the distant plane and the ground plane (in this case the water), is divided into quadrants of four values, in simple words: a "checkerboard effect". Again, notice the curvey tree I mentioned before (the straight one's neighbor), how the top part of the trunk before it bends, jumps over and continues on a mysterious form that leads you once again to the yellow ocher figure, the secondary center of interest.

Enthusiasm makes the difference

2007-10-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Bruno Cote is one of the more successful painters living in
Baie-Saint-Paul--in all of Canada for that matter. The first
thing you notice on entering his studio is the cleanliness and
lack of clutter. Further, he has only two small windows, and on
those the blinds are drawn. Bruno, 67, told me he learned the
hard way that he doesn't need distractions.

Working on thin panels of Masonite or hardboard, he archives
large numbers of paintings vertically in a relatively small
space. Panels for field sketches have wide edges for holding at
arm's length. He has a separate drying room for oils. "I found
out oil is at its most dangerous when it is giving off fumes
while drying, not while painting," he tells me. Two months ago
he started working in acrylic, "for the first time in my
life--I like it, it works fine," he says. Bruno is a big, jolly
fellow who laughs a lot and speaks with a strong Quebecois
accent.

The studio is on two levels, one an afterthought of the other.
The lower area contains the workstation and easel. A wide table
sits in front of the easel, all but preventing close work that
might interfere with his exuberant, wet-in-wet style. The table
contains a two-dozen-sized muffin pan loaded with pure
out-of-the-tube acrylics. Around the edge of this pan Bruno has
a homemade rubber gasket on which a heavy piece of transparent
plastic can be placed. A few squirts from a spritzer and "it's
good for a week," he says. So you can get an idea of Bruno's
work and studio, we've included photos at the top of the
current clickback. See URL below.

In the middle of the easel and rising up behind it is a
brightly painted board with the cryptic letters "EMTD" at the
top. It stands for "Enthusiasm Makes the Difference," the title
of a book by Norman Vincent Peale that Bruno read when he was
young. "It changed my life," says Bruno. EMTD is more than
Bruno's motto, it's his primal force and method of living. I
ask him how he gets enthusiastic when he isn't feeling it. "It
builds up," he says. "If you don't work for a while, then you
need to and you do it. I come in here and go for it. I work
myself up. I work very, very fast and get a lot done for every
blast. If you're not enthusiastic, it's no good."

"All I need is the idea I can get in the sketch; then I can
make it bigger." (Bruno Cote)

Esoterica: Like a lot of fine artists, Bruno comes from a
sign-painter background. He has the worker's edge, and his mind
isn't cluttered with rationalizations or pretense. A direct
problem-solver, he has systematically mastered the mysteries of
colour. Monochromatic and analogous schemes vie with the
complementary, while bravura brushwork dictates energetic skies
and noisy, active watercourses. Bruno has never taken a formal
lesson, nor has he taught. "I can't teach it," he says,
"because I go by instinct."

Words of Wisdom from Robert Genn

2007-07-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Know that others have gone where you wish to go.
Put "getting good" ahead of "making a living."
Learn to be alone and to be your own best critic.
Cut back on impedimenta and outside distractions.
Work more hours than the average factory worker.
Notice interesting directions and go there again.
Become a perpetual student of your own progress.
Don't expect too much help from anyone or anything.
Stick to your vision, but don't fear change.
Do not be adverse to developing skills.
Know that raising standards has to be chronic.
Know that marketing is easier when you have quality.
Be curious about everything, including how you turn out.
If you fall in love, accept the gift, surrender.

Thriving is all about self-education. "Go to your room," is my
advice that has had the most significant effect. Funnily, all
kinds of would-be lifers somehow neglect to do just that.

PS: "When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece."
(John Ruskin)

Esoterica: "Starving artist" is one of our popular myths.
Dentists would starve too if they didn't know a molar from a
bicuspid. Getting into the mode of perpetual self-generated
studenthood may not immediately make all of us thrive. The
human psyche has too many other frailties for that. But it's a
direction that gives maximum satisfaction--a feeling of
personal accomplishment and the possibility of worthwhile
public enthusiasm. You can try other directions like spin,
shock, extreme narcissism, smoke, mirrors, etc. While some of
these may very well work for you, they might also represent the
sort of sham that I noticed when I was your age.

Finding the True Color Wheel

2007-05-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've long been fascinated with color theory and what has been accepted as a standard color wheel. Artists use the color wheel as an aide in achieving color harmony based on ideas of complimentary, analagous color, split-complimentary and by mixing opposites or compliments to achieve "neutral" colors.
There is the traditional color wheel or what could with the three primaries: red, yellow and blue, and three secondaries: orange, green and violet (or purple). With these colors equidistant on the color wheel we have complimentary pairs of red and green, yellow and violet, and blue and orange.
I would venture to say that every artist knows this color wheel and complimentaries by heart. But the question arises in my mind, "is this the most accurate color wheel and do these compimentaries the best at neutralizing each other.
So this leads one to consider the Munsell color wheel as a possiblity. With the Munsell color wheel you have 5 primaries consisting of red, purple, blue, green, and yellow. The five secondary colors are blue-green, yellow-green, yellow-red (which is the same as orange, but calling the color yellow-red has an advantage that I will demonstrate later), red-violet and blue violet.

Is the Munsell system better than the traditional color wheel we are all taught? Some books say that it is. As I said, it's my guess that 100% of the artists in the world can recite the color wheel which we are all familiar with and their complimentary colors. But how many artists can recite the Munsell color wheel and its complimentary colors, my guess would be less than 1%. Perhaps it is an inferior theory which doesn't produce results as well as the old fashioned color wheel. But certainly the inherent complexity, with its two-name colors including red-yellow instead of orange (which I will come to shortly), is partly to blame. I believe no one has done a sufficient job of explaining the Munsell color system in a simplified way which can easily be remembered.
All of the complimentary pairs are different than the traditional system, except for blue and orange, which the Munsell system calls yellow-red (I'm coming to that soon, I promise). OK, so we've got one pair of compliments, for the rest, there is a simple solution, as an alternative to the traditional complimentary pairs, where COLOR A is the opposite of COLOR B, say instead, COLOR A is the opposite of a COOL COLOR B. For instance GREEN would be the opposite of a COOL RED which is the same as saying GREEN is the opposite of RED-VIOLET. There, you've now mastered the Munsell color system. The benefit of calling orange, yellow-red, is that the opposite of a single-color name is a two-colored name. One can easily draw the Munsell color wheel by first drawing a circle and within it a pentagram, and on the five points along the circle are the primaries. directly across (180 degrees) are the secondaries.
A few years ago I worked in the printing press business. Their primaries are cyan, magenta, and yellow. The discovery of color separations wtih filters by Ducos Du Hauron made modern day color printing possible. Read this web page for further explanation.
Would a color wheel based on these principles be more accurate than the two already mentioned. If we return to the traditional color wheel, we can create this new color wheel, with it's triad of three primaries, red, yellow and blue and substiture the printing colors of magenta (or red-violet), yellow and cyan (or blue-green) and the secondary colors of red, green and blue (the additive colors of light, in simplified terms, with lights, one adds colored lights to get white, and with subtractive (CMY), one must "subtract" color to get to the white of the paper, adding all the subrtractive colors together creates black and likewise taking away all the colored lights you would be left in black darkness. See this web page for futher explanation.) Also, another good web page with explanations can be found here.

I've discovered that an artist named Don Jusko had this idea and is marketing this color wheel at this website http://realcolorwheel.com/
I intend to carry out experiments wtih paint and put these ideas to the real test. The results should be forthcoming in another blog entry.

Further reading from a webpage titledThe Science of Color.
Also of interest by Mark Roberts from a webpage titled The Primiary Colours are NOT red, yellow and blue!

Finding a Motif

2007-05-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Usually, to find a "motif" to paint in a landscape, I search around and when I find something that appeals to me, I say "aha" and I know I've found my subject matter, so I set up and begin to paint.
When I'm asked, why did I choose this spot to paint, or why did I choose a certain subject matter, I'm sure the person asking the question, wouldn't be satisfied with the answer, "well, I said 'aha' to myself." Therefore, I decided to come up with an answer that is a little more concrete than that.
Let's say I want to paint a boat. Let's say there happens to be a boat that I particularly like, it is picturesque, perhaps a 19th century schooner, and I've decided I want to paint it. There's much more to the matter than simply finding an interesting subject. One has to study it from all vantage points, and consider it in different lighting situations, what surrounds it, all these questions lead to the major consideration: is it an interesting composition. Simply put, if I "posterize" it, that is reduce it to flat patterns of value, hopefully not more than 5, irrespective of color, will it make an interesting design. That is what I end up with when I have an "aha moment", but with the aid of intuition more than reason, at least that is my approach. It's good to double check my hunch and see if it follows this guideline of an interesting composition. But I say intuition, or inspiration, because the "aha moment" if you want to call it that, has to move me in some way, I have to have a "feeling", it has to really move me in some way, for me to want to paint it. And that is why I'm reluctant to put the matter into words, because it's a very elusive matter, in my opinion. But for those who enjoy my paintings and are interested in the "wherefore" of it, for their benefit have I written this.
Having explained this, one can understand why I sometimes venture nearby the vicinity in which I live, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. In other words, I don't feel I have to venture out far to find subject matter to paint. Aside from the interesting architecture and views of Manhattan, it is the play of light, juxtaposed against buildings, trees, etc., whatever it may be, in unending and ever new interesting ways that draws me on, be it blocks from my home, or thousands of miles away.

Eugène Boudin

2007-04-04T20:51:00.000-07:00

"Anything painted directly, on the spot, always has a strength, a power, a lively touch that is lost in the studio. Your first impression is the right one. Stick to it and refuse to budge."
Eugène Boudin

Home for a Painting

2007-02-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

It's a practice of mine to revisit places that I've painted to paint them again. Sometimes it is a matter of seeing the subject in a different light, the obvious example is Claude Monet's series of haystack paintings, Rouen Cathedral, etc. another example would be Martin Johnson Heade's marsh scenes under different cloud conditions, many other examples abound. Sometimes however I return to a subject for another reason, which is to see what new I can bring to it, what insight I've gained over the years and how I can improve upon my earlier efforts as my knowledge, understanding and experience have grown.
One such series of paintings that I've done is of a place I call "The Secret Garden" (this requires some explaining). It is a particular spot in the Conservatory Garden (within Central Park in New York) and at the heart of it is a fountain sculpture that I admire immensely created by a sculptor that I naturally also admire immensely, Bessie Parker Vonnoh. The sculpture is called the Burnett Fountain Memorial, the author of "The Secret Garden". For more details click here.
A friend of mine and fellow painter introduced me to the Conservatory Garden and I quickly fell in love with many of the different areas within the garden.

Returning to the idea of revisiting a motif, I've painted "The Secret Garden" on several occasions. I recently sold the very first effort to the owner of the house where Bessie Parker Vonnoh lived. To read the "Never a Day Without Painting" entry, click here. She was married to the preimmenent Impressionist painter, Robert Vonnoh. The couple lived in Pleasant Valley near Old Lyme, Connecticut which is known as the home of American Impressionism. To find out more about the birth of American Impressionism and the role Florence Griswold played in it, click here. At the time this painting was sold, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was holding an exhibition, "Americans in Paris" which featured artists from America who studied and lived in Paris and among them was Robert Vonnoh. I went to see the exhibition so many times I lost count.

At any rate, I'm honored to have my painting hanging in the former home of Robert Vonnoh and Bessie Potter Vonnoh and I'm glad that the present owners of the home are enjoying my painting. The photographs here show my painting, in the house, in the bathroom. Next to my painting is a reproduction of one of Vonnoh's paintings titled "In Flander's Field". I'm very happy my painting has found such a nice setting with these associations.

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

2006-11-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

"One uses colors, but one paints with feeling."
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Edgar Payne

2006-11-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

"The study of art is a lifetime matter.
The best any artist can do is to accumulate all the knowledge possible of art and its principles, study nature often and then practice continually."
Edgar Payne

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman

2006-11-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

Night, East River, New York
Johann Berthelsen

A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood tide,
the falling-back to the sea of the ebb tide.
It avails not, time nor place-distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation,
or ever so many generations hence.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow,
I was refresh'd
Walt Whitman

Gospel of Art, Kenyon Cox

2006-11-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Work though for pleasure: paint or sing or carve
The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.

Who works for glory misses oft the goal;
Who works for money coins his very soul.

Work for the work's sake, then, and it may be
That these things shall be added unto thee.
Kenyon Cox