I thought I might get through the season without getting the nasty cold that practically everyone around me has had at least once already this Fall. Sugar, however, is a well-known immune suppressor, and I’ve had quite a bit of that lately, so alas, it’s my turn. That’s OK. I was going to go hiking in the outskirts of Vienna, but instead, I can finally catch you up on what’s been happening at the Academy (in between naps, German TV, Czech movies, and the ingestion of healthy food and supplements). By Monday (if not sooner), I’ll be back on track. I don’t want this to stretch on for a month as it did for my roommates.
I realize it’s been weeks since I’ve written about classes. Back in Canada, I would introduce people to new paintings almost weekly (especially during my blissful marathon phases). Working the Mischtechnik with oils, however, is a much much slower process, so I had better not wait until I’m finished a painting or else my post would be 10 times longer (I can hear you groaning). So this is what we’ve been up to.
In addition to shopping for our materials and sessions on:
- Sacred Codes by Laurence Caruana (Carved Stone: Gothic Worldview and Legends of the Netherlandish);
- priming panels with rabbit skin glue (3 coats of clear for the back / 4-5 coats with white Titanium pigment for the front, sanded in between) – luckily, nothing resembling a live rabbit was brought into the class for this, but it was smelly;
- imprimatura (base coat of paint) and transferring of images;
- the making of egg tempera – yup, a real egg was brought into class for this one;
- the Mischtechnik, applying whites, the monochrome underpainitng, colour theory (layering colour);
- alchemy, chemistry, and Laurence Caruana’s Quintessential 5-part Painting Medium,
- painting materials and mediums by Timea Tallian (chemistry, brush cleaning, workplace safety) – this class was very smelly and I had a bit of trouble breathing that day… this is the main reason I can’t imagine pursuing with oils after this course, but we’ll see…;
- 2-3 Life Drawing Sessions a week (I’m slowly improving – these are my best ones so far – it sometimes takes minutes of staring at the model for the differences in highlights, mid-tones, reflective light, core and cast shadows to reveal themselves to me – the greater challenge is still to draw them once I can finally see them… but I am improving!)
- and Museum Drawing;
we’re slowly progressing on our trimester paintings.
My Trimester Painting Concept: An Exercise in Self-Revelation:
I’ve already introduced you to one of my painting concepts – the one with the hands. It’s slowly evolving, but I haven’t spent as much time on it as I have with this, my primary piece.
I worked on the drawing for this painting for about a month, in between all of our lectures and special sessions. I invite you to look at it for a while to discover what it might mean to you before I tell you all the personal symbolism that went into creating it.
This drawing evolved quite a bit since its initial stages. It’s very much a self-portrait, albeit not in the traditional sense (I haven’t had long hair in years, but I’m definitely pear-shaped). Many of you are familiar with my many paintings of yoga tree pose ladies. I seem to have an obsession with painting trees as a representation of our Selves – present in the here and now, yet rooted in Mother Earth and stretched to the Heavens, constantly evolving (I gave a 30-minute presentation on the symbolism of trees during my Treedom exhibition, which I won’t repeat here). In this drawing, the tree-woman is the main character (although I realize that the higher contrast at the bottom draws your eye there at this point – that will change). She was modeled after the woman at the center of Ernst Fuch’s painting “Job and the Judgement of Paris” (breasts were significantly reduced, though) after I saw it in a book and realized she was in exactly the pose I had seen in my vision for this painting. My attempts to draw this pose from a live model weren’t nearly as successful as basing her on the drawing in the book. Her bark/body will be covered in sigils, sacred activated symbols that I developed during our 2-week intensive and since, relating to the theme of this painting. Interestingly, my spiral trees (especially this one) look a lot like Klimt’s tree of life, which I hadn’t seen until about 1.5 years ago (that I recall – who knows… I may have seen it and been influenced by it in my youth). Of course, being in Vienna, I am surrounded by Klimt’s art – both in museums and every souvenir shop in town. My decision to add the sigils to the bark came out of my wanting to honour some of Klimt’s work that I really admire without copying it.
The tree-woman’s roots are fed by her Divine Connection to the Source, a spiral of light in the distance. This touches not only on my beliefs in something greater than life here on Earth, but also in the power of guidance/intuition that runs through our very being like sap through a tree.
On her roots rests 4 stylized animals – the panther, boa, horse, and hawk. These were my power/spirit/totem animals from the age of about 10 all the way until my mid-twenties. I could fill books with the stories of our adventures together (I spent a lot of time on my own walking or on buses – never a dull moment – and the many chapters of my “imaginary” hero’s journey definitely helped me cope with the realities of this world). Instead of trying to paint these animals as they appear in nature, however, I’m choosing to make the look of this painting a mix of 2-D and 3-D – partly due to my skill level, but mostly because of my preference for this style over totally realistic work (seeing so much of Klimt’s work here has cemented this preference). Also, the fact that these animals weren’t quite real to begin with (according to the popularly accepted definition of that word) seems to fit this style better. These four, therefore, represent the main character’s guardians, helpers, connection to all life, qualities of character, and lineage/past.
So what about the angel? It was definitely inspired by my love of Antonio Canova’s “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss” – a sculpture I saw at The Louvre as a child and sought out again (both in Paris and somewhere in Italy) during previous trips to Europe as both a teenager and adult. I have carried a postcard of it during my many moves since I was a teen. This is highly significant for someone who isn’t very fond of museums and who hasn’t paid much attention to other people’s art, no matter how famous they are (I’ve never been an art history fan). This piece definitely struck a chord with me – a representation for me of Love as the harmonious union of Heaven and Earth (not that I’m waiting to pair up with an angel despite my beliefs in soul mates and twin flames). In that sculpture, Cupid revives Psyche. In my concept, he is still with her beyond the moment of awakening and throughout her physical and spiritual evolution. Intriguingly, the pose of the angel in my painting resembles more the one in Canova’s sculpture in the church across the street from our school – that I went to look at after a teacher told me about it. In the original mythology, he is her true love and lover. I won’t deny that that story is still present in my concept. In addition, the angel here represents divine presence, assistance, and guidance (my belief in guiding spirits and angels)- we’re never truly alone on our journey. The main light source in this painting will be in the union of their hands – representing their co-creative energy and potential. Growing up, I can’t tell you how many dreams I had of running scared in slow motion and knowing that if the person in front of me simply took my hand, I could run at normal speed to escape the dangers. These dreams had a definite past life feel to them in addition to reflecting my fears at the time. The union of hands, therefore, is personally very significant beyond its romantic symbolism and its representation of the union of two worlds. As you can tell, therefore, this piece is highly personal (there’s enough data in this post for you to conduct your own analysis of my psyche), yet I believe it holds within it Universal themes that will speak to many.
The Creative Process:
- First came the many stages of developing the drawing based on the armature of the 2:3 rectangle.
- Next, I placed a tracing paper over the original drawing (not to ruin the original) and drew a grid (3×3 cm squares).
- I then divided a paper the size of my final painting (50 x 75 cm) into the same number of squares and carefully scaled my drawing up in size by copying it square by square.
- With white transfer paper I traced over that drawing, leaving a white imprint on my Mars Red imprimatura (base coat).
- Using Laurence Caruana’s Quintessential Painting Medium, I started painting in the whites, slowly building up the image with Titanium Oil Paint. It’s much easier to get the desired transparent effect with the oil paint than with the egg tempura or Pelikan Plaka cassein (milk based), which I may use in later stages. It’s even easier with Lead White (which is banned in Europe, but still sold in North America, which some of my classmates have chosen to use. Since the teachers are well aware of my chemical sensitivities and fears of toxic fumes, etc., they wisely recommended the Titanium White instead.)
What’s next? Once my first layer of whites is complete, I will be covering it with a thin glaze, probably in yellow. Then comes more layers of white, different coloured glazes over each, localized glazes over more whites, and localized colour. This is what the masters’ Mischtechnik is all about – probably started by the Van Eyck brothers in the mid 15th century, revived by Ernst Fuchs after WWII, and passed down to my teachers in the last couple of decades. Its goal is to achieve superior light and transparency, 2 cherished elements in visionary painting. Here’s a link to a short video (1.5 minutes) by our director demonstrating the effect.
So that’s where I’m at. There are days that I think about how nice it is to not be working this year, and then there are days when I think how much harder I’m working than if I were teaching ESL part-time and painting on my own. It’s true that this learning process is not as fun as if I was simply doing my own thing in my studio 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This style of painting is challenging for me and some parts are less in synch with who/what I am than others. The fumes are especially challenging nowadays. However, I’m learning so much, and I’m 100% sure that it will inform what I do in the future in my own artistic practice. I’m not an oil paint convert yet, but I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this painting evolves. I’m practicing non-attachment though – fully aware that this is an experiment and learning process. Again, I’m embracing the mystery and moving forward. Stay tuned!
More immediately, I love how my recent exploration into zentangles has helped me improve my understanding of the human anatomy – an essential step in learning to draw the human figure. As you might recall, to do a zentangle drawing, you break up your paper or shape into sections before filling each with different doodles. Yesterday, during our nude drawing session, I found myself making the sections/bubbles without the zentangles and then seeing how light and shadow played within each part. It really helped me to focus on the details and learn to see what was in front of me (this has been quite the learning curve because even if I paid a lot of attention to details as a photographer, as a painter, I created strictly from imagination without reference to reality). Our model was perfect for this exercise as it was easy to see both his muscular and skeletal structure. I really like the horizontal one.
