Cleaning up the studio, a painting in progress, and some art books in the works

The year 2011 arrived with blinding speed. In fact, I have a little trouble wrapping my head around the idea of 2011. It is a year past epic milestones of science fiction. No flying cars, no glittering Nehru jackets to wear. For that I am grateful. I am one of those people fascinated by artist's studios so I am sharing some recent pictures of the studio Valerie and I share together. As always, click on the image to enlarge.

The above view is looking towards both my easel and Valerie's writing desk. Thanks to Fairbanks Antiques I was lucky enough to get a decent music stand to put my gramophone on and stash some of my 78's inside. Makes the studio feel larger. In the corner are paintings of Charlotte including my latest one from last October. Below that are some of Valerie's Victorian fashion illustrations. I can't remember if they're from Godey's or Harper's.

 This is a view from my easel looking over towards my drafting table where I work on the collages. The painting on the easel I had started at least a couple of months ago and was going fairly well. It's based on a photograph I took of Valerie.  The painting is on cold press watercolour paper and like much of my other work is a combination of coloured pencil and acrylic. The mood of the painting was originally more wistful, but took on the more melancholy aspect after the death of my cousin Amanda whose future career in the arts ended before it even truly began due to a automobile accident. I have been thinking of doing a commemorative painting of Amanda but right now it is too painful to contemplate. In the corner over the drafting table are more paintings of Charlotte and some images that I find inspiring including my little reproduction of the Gainsborough painting I wrote about previously.

This is the studio looking towards the fireplace from the edge of the drafting table over to the French doors. My favourite painting of Valerie hangs over the mantel along with some of my early photographs of her. Piled on the mantle are my James Lane Allen books and along with some of my other treasured Victorian era books. The lovely Christmas tree is Valerie's handiwork. In the corner, Barnabas Collins maintains a melancholy watch over a renaissance lady on top of the bookcase.

As we come around full circle, more books, a music corner with my Edison Amberola 30 cylinder player, a steampunk AM/FM cassette deck in the form of a Edison Home Phonograph courtesy of the Thomas Radio Corporation. The closet stores paintings, art supplies belonging to both Valerie and myself. My favourite painting of Charlotte hangs on the door.

Upcoming paintings:


At the moment, there are two paintings in the pipeline. The lady listening to the gramophone and a small painting of an embracing couple. The latter painting is feeling a bit stuck but other painting is going well. I'm reviewing recent sketches with a view towards picking out my next several paintings. I've also been giving thoughts to my next set of collages but want to get at least two or three paintings finished before I shift the focus back to collage.


Art books I am working on:

It's been in the thought process for a long time, but I'm finally making some progress towards doing a couple of books featuring my paintings and collages. The first book will be an overview of what I hope are the best of my paintings and collages as well as including some of the sketches. I'm contemplating perhaps having a section on how I, as a colour blind artist work in colour. A lot of the photographs I've taken of my paintings over the years will have to be rescanned to improve the quality for print. Many of the web images do not enlarge well.

The second book will feature only my paintings of Charlotte over the last thirty years.  Unhappily, this project will require my rephotographing much of that work. About four years ago, I had photographed nearly everything to use in a future project. I had made a slideshow movie with the images and had hoped to use them in a book later only to lose them when my computer died. The back up CD I made has yet to be found.

The first phase of this project will be to purchase and install the software I've identified as an affordable page maker.  I intend to publish the books through Lulu.com when they're ready. I tried using their "portfolio" maker but found it too limiting. Bear with me as I have multiple irons in the fire.

Here's hoping that 2011 will be a very productive year!

My Heart Dreams of a Sea of Stars

This painting is titled My Heart Dreams of a Sea of Stars. Click on any of the images in this post for a larger view.

After a long winter where it seemed that I wasn't getting anything done, I've now finished my second painting this spring. I had started it in the autumn but set it aside for a few months until I could focus on it better. This is the third painting of my friend Norma in a boat gliding in the night with a gramophone playing of a series of four paintings so far of people in boats with gramophones in a night sky. Why do gramophones appear so much in my paintings? I think it's because the outside horn gramophones are the perfect blend of romance and technology. They were comparatively portable and gave people who did not have musical talent a way to share music with a loved one. Some of that music can be heard on this blog's music player in the form of a block of songs by the Irish tenor John McCormack who in his day, was an international superstar. McCormack sang both opera as well as more popular songs including his famous and somewhat spooky "I Hear You Calling Me", a ballad about someone pining for his love who has crossed over.


In the more fanciful paintings I'm doing, the gramophone is not only a symbol of romance but in a way an almost steampunk (springpunk?) propulsion system as the sound waves coming from the morning glory horn somehow propel the boat across the night sky. One might imagine the boat would move faster or slower depending on what was spinning on the spring powered turntable.

The gramophone is once again my 1907 Columbia BI Sterling. I'm rather partial to the Victor outside horn machines of the same era, but I actually own the Columbia. Those who are experts on these machines probably have noticed that my Columbia is missing the turntable ring and that the crank is in a slightly odd place. That's because the original motor was replaced with a double spring Victrola motor and the modifications were made with great care and to the untrained eye appear as original. The cabinet was refinished by Roger Rudd of the Kentucky Antique Phonograph Society and a reproduction "Columbia Disc Graphophone " label affixed to the front. I bought the machine from Brian Gorrell, a friend of mine who with Roger restore old gramophones and other antique phonographs. I got this machine knowing it was modified from the original and because of that more affordably. The stronger Victor motor probably plays better than the original. With a fresh needle and a good record it plays as well as it did in 1907.


Now if I could only paint metal more convincingly. I'm getting the mass of the horn, but I'm still having trouble getting that metallic surface right. Maybe my brush strokes are too rough or thick or something. Sometimes I do subjects multiple times because it's as simple as trying to get it finally right. Of course it would be easier to paint Victor machines with their black morning glory horns but their unique petals present other interesting challenges. I've been painting the Columbia more because I have it in front of me instead of relying on my photographs of other machines.

More often than not, it is because there is something that continues to fascinate me about the people I'm painting that causes me to seek often unsuccessfully for that definitive statement of what that person means to me especially loved ones. The emotions felt inside always render pale any attempt at painting them. Is that because my feelings and the pressure of self imposed expectations are too complex to paint, or is it because I need a lot more serious art training than I got at Berea College 24 years ago? Probably a mixture of both. The 1980's were not a particularly good era for artists wanting to be a Pre-Raphaelite but that is a subject for a different blog entirely. I do know that some of the people I love most are the hardest to paint, not only because of my expectations but sometimes theirs as well. Maybe someday I can get out one of those pictures and say to myself "why didn't I finish that?" and then have the whole painting fall into place.

Whatever the reason, I do not intend to let my current limitations as a painter stop me from trying to do better.