Life in the Time of Cholera

The day after the election nothing is settled yet, but there is hope that the old, fat, orange tyrant will go down.  Figure painting has become my refuge. For a while, as I'm working I can feel alive and free of the stupidities of American leadership and the shadow of Corona.

I don't know if the quality of the photos will turn out once they are posted. They are showing up on the post quite fuzzy, so I may have to repost them.

 

More studies with the model I've been working with. I'm really liking the results. She is a natural talent and it's easy to get enthusiastic about it. The images are shot in natural light and it has been a challenge recreating that light. But when I've gotten it right, it has been educational.

 

Architectonic Views of Florence and Cliff Palace

These are the latest paintings from the series of paintings that make use of architectural elements from buildings in a specific city. I'm really enjoying the process of putting these things together.

In this painting, I broke the rules a bit and incorporated some landscape components. Don't feel like talking, but here they are.

 

Little Lifelines to Sanity

So I've been spending a lot of time figure painting during the "isolation", I have been painting 4 or 5 hours a day usually on a couple of different projects, but the figure stuff is just really engaging. So many problems to solve. The model is a young woman that the Pre-Raphaelites would have killed for. She has this amazing thick, curly hair that changes color in the light and runs anywhere from golden-yellow to auburn and her skin is almost almost luminescently pale. I know the photos are not doing the images justice, but I will reshoot them at a later date. The first couple were in natural light and it was like channeling John Singer Sargent. The second image when you see the painting in real life the body seems to glow, so I was really happy with that result. The last painting was the pose from Bronzino's Exposure of Luxury that we tried to recreate. and I think we managed fairly well. So we move ahead trying to stay alive. I went out to Colorado for a week to climb and hike and that really helped, so we just keep trying to stay ahead of the ax-man.

The Course of Empire

The painting below is the most recent in a series of works that takes architectural elements from buildings in a specific city and then deconstructs and superimposes them. The end result hopefully is that you could recognize the city. These two paintings from the series are also making use of Thomas Cole's Course of Empire idea. I've taken the elements and combined them with natural elements to suggest the collapse of civilization. The top painting is Tikal, Guatemala. The Classic Maya city is submerged in the jungle that currently surrounds it. The bottom painting is Rome under water. I'm liking the creation of these images. It is labor intensive, but I think they are pretty visually intriguing.

Birth of Venus Project

Right before the Corona virus thing I had begun working on a project where I was going to have a model pose for some iconic figure paintings from Art History. Knowing that most of these figural images were constructs, often not even utilizing live models and the end results were often physically impossible or anatomically improbable. The first one I wanted to do was the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, with its improbably long neck, dislocated left arm and sloping shoulders as well as it's engaged leg being far too far underneath her to keep her upright. So this is the result. I had hoped to make some corrections to the painting, but with everybody in quarantine, this is currently on hold. I do like the painting though and I did several other studies from the same model. I've included the ones that I like best.

In the Corona Era

So we are a month or two into this Corona thing and I am not going to comment on it as I am sick of every conversation being about this topic. I have time in my remote teaching schedule to catch up on some things, like updating the blog, filing paintings, transcribing and recording my sketchbooks digitally, etc...So this is the latest update on my Sisyphus project. The photo directly below is of last year's project. It climbs up the bluff about 60 feet, it was about the same distance along the base of the bluff. A couple of posts ago I recorded its destruction, but I wanted to add a postscript.

This photo was taken from the base of the structure after the bottom of the bluff was washed out. That stack of surviving stone is about 12 feet off the beach, balanced on the sheer wall of what remains of that section of the bluff.

Once the stack collapsed I began to salvage stone and tried to build a new wall to protect the base of the bluff. Got a pretty good section laid in and it washed away in the next big storm like it wasn't even there.

All of that stone tumbling down the bluff was also washed away, leaving only this little pile on the top of a ledge which was the highest point of the sculpture.

That would disappear with about twelve more feet of bluff leaving this bare wall of clay exposed. All told I would guess we lost about thirty feet of bluff. The base eaten away, the upper portion collapsing only to be washed away...rinse and repeat and there it all goes.

But I must say, this clay wall is really quite beautiful and it has already ended up in one painting and I'm sure it will be used again in the near future. A little consolation, I guess. If you are one of those fuckheads who still thinks climate change is some kind of conspiracy or something...please, please, please, don't reproduce. Let's just get those genes out of the pool now. I am writing this as snow falls out my window on May 8th. 100 year old trees were washed away by the dozens along the shoreline and lie up and down the beach, tossed by fifteen foot waves like they were matchsticks. Oh and by the way, Michelle, thanks for your comments. I started a new project for this year further down the beach. Hopefully it will still be up the next time you pass through.