Bobs Open Studio Class

Portrait of B

2012-01-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

Here is a rather 'straight' portrait with an intermediate drawing from the photograph so I have some planes and angles to diverge from 'straightness'. I have very little interest in making a close copy of the photo.

It took a few sketches from the photograph to finally get some offbeatness ideas. In the forehead I have left on the painting some thin first layer drips and a neat gash and smooth edge to the hair as a doorway for another painting to follow this idea and see where it leads to.

Portrait Style

2011-12-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

Some of the portraits painted a few years ago rely on intuitive placement of paint and brushstrokes--the gestural method of surrealists and abstract expressionists.

Green in the face always reminds me of modernist Matisse and his portrait of his wife that made a big commotion and delayed Leo Stein's purchase. In my more recent portraits the Cubists and their fractured planes have entered the equation.

Modern Art proceeding through Cubism first broke open the shapes allowing areas for flat space and decoration. Later Cubism allowed synthesis and combining various elements.

Here is a picture I call "How I Got My Good Looks", purely for fun.

Fiber Arts Guild Exhibit

2011-11-11T19:41:00.002-08:00

Take advantage of art exhibits in media you

don't normally work in to get ideas to move your

art forward. The Santa Barbara Fiber ArtsGuild Exhibit at the Faulkner Gallery from November 2 to 28 gave me lots of ideas to try in my own drawing and painting.

Many of the wall hangings were examples of how colors relate to each other without trying to form particular objects. Bingo. I can borrow some palette choices for their emotional or aesthetic value. Good thing I brought along my sketchbook to write down these ideas.

Other pieces reminded me about a repeating pattern and stitching functioning as lines in a drawing to direct the viewer's eye. These lines were dashed lines which I don't normally use. What other kinds of lines can I make?

Surface texture I often ignore and its tactile quality reaches out to be touched in these pieces.

Collage with various assembled fabrics was shown. Collage in my drawings is overdue.

Functional art like a hat or decorations to make a bicycle more visible and personal were possible ideas to pursue.

The traditional historical aspect of needing to make your own items is a possible direction.

Sustaining resources and recycling materials to use in your art form could lead to interesting possibilities.

Working on a large scale with the piece becoming the environment is possible. Attaching multiple sheets of paper together to make a larger drawing or painting?

Appreciation for the discipline and concentrated focus involved in spending the hours necessary to complete these pieces can pay dividends like a meditative peace of mind. I enjoy the intense silence in drawing class that happens after a few minutes when everybody is really involved in seeing and mark-making.

The bottom line is we all want to grow in our art and we need ideas to incorporate. Ample ideas abound if we just look.

5 Minutes with an Artist -- Egon Schiele

2011-10-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

The goal of this topic is how we can learn from another artist. I got my information from the book Egon Schiele's Portraits by Alessandra Comini.

Schiele lived in Vienna from 1890 to 1918 when he, like my grandfather's brother, died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. He didn't live to age 30.

Schiele used the composition device of how the figure fits on the page as part of his Expression. The self-portraits tell us about what Schiele was feeling inside himself.

This take on the artist and his model is an interesting version. Two pages from his sketchbook are insightful. We see how he visualizes the figure's shape.

He experienced the ending of a century and the 'ego-centric and exotic Vienna' and the 'decay of the Hapsburg Empire. We experienced the Y2K crisis and have avoided the end of the Mayan Calendar so far and our American Empire seems to be heading for a non-preeminent status.

Also living in Vienna was Sigmund Freud and Scheile's portraits were inspired from within a person's Psyche, (Expressionism), not from the world outside ourselves, (Impressionism).

Scheile's work was evolving and changing and Vienna from 1898 to 1909 was the scene of important exhibits for young artists to study. Van Gogh's charged portraits and Munch's agitated forms and pessimestic content were among the exhibits. The Viennese Expressionism movement was present. We are in the Post Post-Modern phase and every movement is available for our use as artists.

Early portraits had no narrative or painterly background. Later portraits were very richly painted.

Let us summarize some ideas for learning from Scheile.

Scheile had a short life. We should be prolific but eliminate the poor work and only save the best.

We should pay attention to our times and use current ideas in our art.

Schiele was a figure artist and we should also learn from his compositions, expressionism, and express our view of the human condition.

Self-portraiture is a good subject area for us to explore.

Take advantage of what art exhibits are in our museums and galleries and learn from them.

We can use our sketchbooks to capture ideas and visualize compositions.

See what art movements are happening and work in this style to learn new expressions.

Book Review - Lee Krasner

2011-05-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Lenore Krasner's parents lived in Russia with the hardship of poverty and Jewish persecution so in 1907 they immigrated to Brooklyn with their 3 children. A year later daughter Lenore-later labeled Lee- was born and she faced discriminatory hardships all her life as a female artist but in her new American culture she developed a tough fighting independent spirit.

She had trouble in school with undiagnosed dyslexia. Drawing and painting as a teenager she knew she wanted to be an artist so she attended a high school with an art program, then went to Cooper Union women's art program, spent time at the Arts Students League with Bridgman teaching Life Drawing, got accepted to the National Academy of Design learning classical methods and composition, and then studied modern art at Hans Hofmann's school. Her technical art training was superior to most but the times favored macho male artists. Even Hans Hofmann said in class of her work, "this is so good you would not know it was done by a woman.'

Krasner worked in the new Abstract Art which was struggling for acceptance. Her method of learning is important. Impatient with stasis and inertia she was constantly evaluating, reworking, and destroying her past work and moving to new challenges and fresh expressions-swinging back and forth between polarities of classic architectonic structure and baroque action, between open form and closed hard-edge shape, between brilliant color and monochrome.

Modern art was available to see in New York with the opening of the Museum of Modern Art's 1929 Post-Impressionist Show of Cezanne, Seurat, van Gogh, and Gauguin, with the opening of Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1931, and other venues.

Imitating Henri Matisse's development, she began investigating new ways of showing form creating volume through color rather than chiaroscuro, and modelling by studying Cezanne still lifes.

In Hans Hofmann's classes Krasner drew charcoal studies from the model in which lines of motion and muscular tension take precedence over literally descriptive reproduction. Teacher Hans Hofmann tore her figure drawing into pieces to reassemble it in a relationship of the figure to the picture plane, telling her not to just work from the center but consider all 4 sides of the composition. To pay attention to all four edges of your page and create a 'distinctive movement'.

For Krasner, making art was making a sublime statement with the artist trying to go beyond this real world to reach some transcendental reality. She listened to an inner rhythm and depended on an inner voice to let her work breathe and come alive.

Jackson Pollock who she later married also abstracted the figure into dynamic lines of action which he eventually converted into all-over gestural abstractions. Pollock's work in contrast with Krasners was an outward gesture that he threw about flamboyantly. He had the most fame of the New York School Abstract Expressionists but he suffered from alcoholism and self-doubt in their 13 years together.

She lived and worked another 25 years after his death until her recognition in a 1983 Museum of Modern Art retrospective, with her now over 70 years old. She said her 'slow recognition was a protection, a coating. I had to go into my studio and keep myself painting my own pictures because the outside world wasn't dealing with it anyway.'

She was born in the USA without Old World religious and cultural baggage.
She lived through the Great Depression and hard times
She fought for acceptance of art by women as artists, not women artists.
She constantly developed her own voice.
She teaches us to learn by studying and absorbing aspects of all art, classical and modern.

Book Review - Grant Wood - A Life

2011-04-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Actually we learn in this book that Grant Wood had several lives. His first 10 years he lived in fear of his intimidating father over a societal issue which arose after the Civil War of masculinity. His two brothers were thin, dark and scraggly like his father but Grant was blond, chubby and interested in drawing and in books of fantasy. Unmanly said society.

His mother was sympathetic and after his father went to work in the family farm fields for the day's chores, Grant went into his art studio--under the kitchen table, shielded by the checkerboard tablecloth.

The next life began when his father died when Grant was 10 and the fear of authority left. He still had feelings of frustration at not being able to meet manly expectations. He was first sent to a military academy and then to Minneapolis to study art. He went to Paris several times, beginning in 1909 and the first half of his career was spent in the French Impressionist mode of loose, thick painted landscapes. He met a patron who owned a funeral home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, close to his Anamosa childhood home, and his patron provided a home for Wood, his mother and his sister to live in. Wood lived with his mother, sharing sleeping quarters for the next 30 years until she died at age 77. He was 44 .

In the field of Art, the School of Paris artists were making modern paintings with various -isms as philosophy. Grant Wood rejected this and began painting on panels tight controlled scenes of American Life. He had success in 1930 submitting two paintings to the Chicago Art Institute. American Gothic is still exhibited there and is an icon as famous as the Mona Lisa. This style of painting was called American Scenes by his New York art dealer and together with John Stuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood's work is called American Regionalism. During a very prolific period including Time magazine cover, graphic illustrations and portraits, Wood had artistic success.

Issues of homosexuality and its conflict with a

conservative American population resulted in being his expelled from the Cedar Rapids house that his benefactor had been providing rent-free. Wood moved to nearby Iowa City, the university town 30 miles away where he had been teaching. The third phase of his life was the final 7 years when he had married, his mother died, and his painting output was minimal, with only 3 major paintings in this time.

One important idea from the life of Grant Wood is his decision to follow his own path. He rejected art from the Paris center of the art world and translated memories from a troubled childhood into memorable paintings in an American style. His paintings contain personal codes and puns and references to his lifestyle. He did start an artist colony which lasted 3 summers but the branding of his output as 'American Regionalism' was the result of art critics and his art dealer. He had artistic success but not without criticism, and his style of art was mostly ignored when another homegrown American flavor--Abstract Expressionism--took over top billing.

During his European art study he also saw north European Renaissance art using the newly discovered single-point perspective, and including a small scene at the vanishing point. Woods borrowed this idea to add a narative element to his work. I can't stress enough how important it is for our evolvement to borrow and build on various ideas artists have used before. Grant Wood is worthy of our study.

Book Review - Guston

2011-03-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Philip Guston is considered a modern master and his life is 'a chronicle of ideas and events that transformed American painting in the 20th Century'.

He was born in 1913, went to High School with Jackson Pollock, and by age 13 began to draw profusely. Most of his education was outside of school. He learned about Art by studing artists from the Renaissance like Ucello and della Francesca and modern artists like Picasso and de Chirico. He saw Orozco paint a mural at Pomona College and became a political muralist in the 1930's, at the time of America Social Realism and Regionalism. He was a painting teacher at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and in St. Louis, the heartland of American Regionalism, before moving to New York.

The isolation of the midwest enabled him develop a personal imagery, combining the monumentality of the Renaissance masters into 'bold volumetric forms and complex spatial dynamics' influenced by modern artists Max Beckman, and Picasso's Guernica.

He wasn't satisfied with the method of developing a 'cartoon' or diagram of the composition to modify the painting on the easel. His painting switched to the 'improvised spontaneous legible recording of all decisions going into the conception and realization' of the Abstract Expressionist painting.

Before we can learn our craft we need to lear
n How To Learn. One time-honored method is to study various master artists and incorporate their ideas and solutions into our methods.

In the 1950's, the influence of John Cage and D. T. Suzuki's teaching of Zen and its inclusiveness of everything and nothing, provided an alternative to the Existentialism prevalent at the time.

The late 60's America provided an end of the Kennedy optimism and we suffered with assassinations, demonstrations and police violence and cynicism. Guston developed a new form of figurative art, still keeping the influence of Piero and Rembrandt as well as Mondrian, de Chirico, Picasso, Beckman and introducing comics like Mutt and Jeff and Krazy Kat that he had loved as a child. We see also influences of George Grosz caricatures, engravings of Jose Guadalupe Posada, Tiepolo and Goya.

We are lucky in having ALL the previous methods and schools of ART available to us, to steal our ideas from. Let us continue to have a Process that involves constantly inputting ideas and giving ourselves the ability not only to succeed but also to fail. That is how we will learn.

Book Review - The Yellow House

2011-02-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

The Yellow House is about Van Gogh, Gauguin, and nine turbulent weeks in Provence, the south of France, in 1888, when they lived and painted in The Yellow House. Both artists had gone through a period of deep religious lifestyle. Both artists now decried the diminishing role of a Supernatural Being and the disintegration of Christianity in modern life. Science explained how the world worked and Invention provided the machinery for human use and a better lifestyle. Peasants left country land for the City where often they experienced poverty, illness, and homelessness. Van Gogh and Gauguin fled to the country to brew their artistic response.

Their pursuit was tied together by their relationship to art dealer Theo Van Gogh, the brother of 'just plain Vincent', who a lot of folks thought was mad. Gauguin's art dealer was Theo and he was just starting to sell a few things --Degas had just made a purchase -- so Gauguin received a monthly allowance. Both were poor but by sharing expenses in Arles they could live cheaply and in the brilliant light and color of the South of France. Both were influenced by the Oriental Prints being discovered in Europe, with their bright colors and flat shapes. Vincent and Gauguin would work together in Vincent's Art Colony until success came their way. That was the plan.

Read the book to find out what goes on but they were polar opposites in Facebook Profiles and couldn't exist that close to each other.

We learn it is thought Vincent suffered from bi-polar disorder. Living on a roller-coaster cycle of extreme highs, with prolific, productive, joyful moments. His chemistry would change he couldn't suppress the mood of low self-worth. Today, Lithium is available as medicine but not in 1888.

The author feels that some artists now would NOT take a treatment because they want to have the extreme exuberance of the higher highs, even at the horrific price of having lows that linger long.

This leads me to wonder WHY WE MAKE ART anyway. Vincent made art to 'console' people. Think Sunflowers. Gauguin made art to develop new symbols of what was valuable. Think Jacob wrestling the Angel. Charles Garabedian, up now at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, says we make art to discover who we are. If Vincent had available and had taken Lithium we wouldn't have the starry nights and the crows and cornfields though. Who we are seems to be always changing. We can figure out where on the Manic ------Depressive Cycle OUR campsite is TODAY, but Tomorrow is a Different Day. Who we are isn't who we are.

Therefore it is necessary we practice art -- Drawing is ideal--Each and Every Day.

Can I get an "amen?"

Book Review - Just Kids

2011-02-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

This salute to New York City starts with remnants of Beat Generation poets echoing into the late 60s and 70s Art Scene.

During the Summer of Love and the riots a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion and initiation.
Two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Patti Smith earned success as a Poet and Performer and Robert Mapplethorpe doing highly provocative photography.

Coney Island, Forty-Second street, sitting at the Round Table at Max's Kansas City in 1969, living in Hotel Chelsea with a community of the famous and infamous, The influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe hanging on. The time of heightened awareness with the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, sexual politics colliding and exploding.

Reading this tale I was reminded of Picasso and Fernande living in poverty at the Bateau Lavoir, trying to find daily food and survival, living in the current Art Capital of the World. I felt the Perseverance necessary for True Artists to Create an individual Path to discover the World and Themselves. Some Artists have the drive for Success at the highest level and they network with the cutting edge. Luck helps, also being in the Right Place, and so does having Friends who are devoted to help you Succeed.

Book Review - The Cubist Epoch

2011-01-09T11:07:00.002-08:00

This easy-to-read highly illustrated book tells the story of the way that ART with a capital A works its way through History, with a capital H.

Many Art Histories tell who did what movement when but not why or what they were trying to accomplish. This book clearly and concisely focuses on the Cubist art movement, those who developed it, and those who jumped on the bandwagon.

In Cubism, the founders were updating the reality of the Renaissance with its geometric perspective and picture-in-a-window eyesight interpretations. Picasso, Braque and Gris were part of the School of Paris when Modern things were happening, just like today. They wanted to find a more realistic reality to communicate in a modern sense the Portraiture, Still Life and Landscape subjects of Art.

I liked reading how Cubism evolved and what steps (in their Process) Picasso and Braque took in their effort to more realistically tell about form and space. I put myself in Europe as a Modern Artist from 1906 till just after World War I. I was able to look around Europe to see how artists were reacting to Modern Marvels of Engineering and Science and how it entered their creations and thoughts about what it meant to be an Artist.

Today Modern happens faster and as Artists we have all kinds of Ways to deliver our Message all kinds of places. Even more now we need to touch base with the basics and be in touch with what our 'school' is and where we are on the Circle, as Jorgen basically says. To see which of the four points of the circle is our looking glass for interpreting Modern Times so that we can move more in the opposite direction and become Richer Artists. (not measured by money)

Book Review- the bauhaus group - six modern masters

2010-08-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

This wonderfully written book gives a glimpse of what the life of these six art masters was really like during a turbulent time in Germany from just before World War I to just before World War II.

If you haven't read much art history you assume that the artists and movements we consider important today were regarded in their time and revered by society.

It Ain't So.

This is the story of the Bauhaus, a truly revolutionary art and design school, and the struggles of six of the Masters of Art that made it so. It is the story of what it is like to be an artist and to live as an artist and to survive as an artist, finding a way to nurture visual pleasure and the act of seeing and creating.

Walter Gropius - the founder, was the architect who streamlined design and made an ideal place for designers to collaborate.

Paul Klee - combined limited ingredients with spontaneity, seanse of proportion, fascination, and lively inventiveness.

Wassily Kandinsky - the abstract pioneer who used bold colors with visual vibrancy and 'sound' effects

Josef Albers - was there the longest, from student in 1920 to master in 1933, and then carried the ideas to Black Mountain College in the United States.

Anni Albers - the innovative weaver who loved the process of anything.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - the amazingly creative architect who had his most inventive period while leading the school.

Lines

2010-07-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a handy reference for one of our Toolbox Elements, LINES. What I really like is that by putting the lines into the rectangle, you are also dividing up the space in a related way.

This chart can be used to make some variations in your composition.

As you observe your subject matter try your first expression using say the first line choice, Horizontal Line, as a predominant feature. Carry this to as much of an extreme as you can. What elements in your composition are helped by the characteristics of Horizontal Line?

Then try making an expression with predominant Vertical Line as the feature.

Going through the list with the variations it presents will encourage your creativity and expressiveness.

Use this chart and see where LINES will take you and your art.

New Tools I JUST NOW heard about

2010-06-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

As artists, we use Tools to intervene between our intellect and the surface we create on.

I admire fecund toolkits. I see some walking past the Hand-Car-Wash places. They use a two-shelf cart, on wheels, and filled in an orderly way with lots of different colored spray bottles and other cans. Just like having lots of different paint and brushes. Their colorful very liquid palette exudes a lusciousness with emotional appeal.

I JUST NOW noticed two new tools that I hadn't heard about before and I wonder if YOU have any idea how they might be useful in the creative fields we are eager to plow.

I know that a function of the artist is to be the adventuring pioneer and discover a new way to use a tool. And I know that tools are changing in very PLASTIC ways with 'paradigm' shifts possible.

So here goes.

I received a postal mailer about infoComm10 . (you know, the Information Communications Marketplace, aka a convention in Las Vegas going on right now. One of the topics it deems important to be aware of is "Telepresence Systems".

I hadn't seriously thought about trying to be both here AND there at the same time. Sounds pretty neat. Think I'll set up one of those "Telepresence Systems".

Info Comm. Information Dissemination. The Artist wanting to communicate ideas, feelings, emotions, soul. New ways are happening in the digital age.

The other tool I just heard about has to do with coming up with a solution to the BP petroleum gushing problem. This tool I heard described in the manner of its application. There are three phenomena that happen in succession that need engineers to understand how to maximize the efficiencies as the phenomena is passed off among these 3 systems.

Here goes:

In order to seal the leak, BP's plan is to use Explosive Hydroforming to create a Force Imbalance that will Pinch the Pipe Shut.

I heard the word "create" so I know the disseminating Information Agent of the BP Corporation is an Artist. I am assuming he isn't just creating bu**sh*t out of words. Why should the Corporations have ALL the fun?

Having and Utilizing THIS TOOL might be more for the Sculptors of YOU. Anybody make any underwater sculptures recently? Stepped in any BP bu**sh*t lately?

Welcome to Artists Open Studio --- 04-14-2010

2010-04-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Artist's Open Studio.

Do you notice anything Special about the door to room 22? The other door? As you look around the room, do you notice something extraordinary?

There is something rather special about 'room 22.' These doors open into Artist's Open Studio, a special environment where each of YOU are in charge of whatever world you create.

YOU make the rules. YOU decide what rules to follow--what rules to break.

That's different from the REAL WORLD outside these doors. Those rules broken and mistakes made often impose a severe penalty.

Inside these doors You have Artist's Open Studio. You should dare to make a mistake.

How can you use this Special environment? You have 7 weeks in this term.

Decide on an overall GOAL.

Complete one painting.
Complete seven paintings.
Learn a new technique.

Each week has 3 hours. Have a PROCESS--a series of steps to follow--so each 3-hour period will be productive.

Having this system of steps gives you a system to enrich your art. You just vary any step to add something new.

Welcome to Artist's Open Studio.

ARTIST--to be an artist is to exercise the tremendous power of creativity.

OPEN--There is no limit to what you can create--just your imagination.

STUDIO--space to work in--a collaboration. By sharing energy and ideas.

Use your sketchbook to collect and nourish these ideas.

Jorgen Hansen quoted the Sufi philosopher:

Tear the bindings from the laces on your feet

so that you may run free ahead of the pack.

Rembrandt Drawings

2010-02-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

An exhibit at the Getty Center in Los Angeles called "Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils"
compares side by side a drawing made by Rembrandt and a drawing of a similar subject made by one of 15 different pupils of the art teacher.

The curator has given us some clues to help our looking and studying of the master Rembrandt.

The listed Elements of Style in Rembrandt's drawings are these:

Sketchy and Suggestive Use of Line
Selective Description of Details
Nuanced Expression and Gesture
Precise Rendering of Light

The curator describes examples to illustrate Rembrandt's style:

'a few dark broad sweeping pen lines over a lighter sketch indicate spiraling drapery';
'selective details worked into narrative';
'consistent powerful subtle gestures, a powerful stance, outstretched finger';
'light and shadow on figures, active play of light, solid direction and variation in wash'

These elements have to do with our mantra of 'picking your battles'. Rembrandt didn't have to prove that he could draw and so he didn't try to describe EVERYTHING in the scene with bold thick pen and ink outlines. He decided what was the really important visual part he wanted to tell us about and made sure this stood out boldly. The rest is lighter and secondary. This is how we want our mind's eye to see.

I wasn't able to photograph the drawings in this show. There is a published book of the show available through the Getty. I was able to photograph several Rembrandt drawings in an adjoining show. They are included here for your study.

Fixing the Toyota Brake defect

2010-02-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

Before when I still subscribed to Television, I would have something like C-Span or CNN running in the background, just in case of nuclear war so I knew when to duck under my desk.

In current times I have the radio running and usually it is Public Radio informing me. I feel confident that I can believe what I see on the radio, mistrusting pictures I see in newspapers since I know about Photoshop and it's magical way of alteration of the visual truth.

Just last week, the radio was reporting on the defective brakes in some models of cars. What I heard was a comment from the auto manufacturer that they would 'adjust the software in the car to make the brakes work correctly."

Wow.

I remember brakes being mechanically connected and mechanically adjusted.

I remember my father had bought an old Model A Ford about the time I was going to college. When I drove it, he warned me about the 'mechanical brakes' this car had. I was used to hydraulic or even power brakes.

I saw how he made a 'heater' inside the car by drilling a hole down below the dashboard just the diameter of a frozen orange juice can. Then you could take the can out when you wanted some air to pass though the hot engine chamber and warm your feet. You just replaced the orange juice can when it was wet, or in summer when you didn't need the 'heater'.

Has anybody seen any art supplies with software inside to adjust the output of the tool? Coming soon we will be able to choose the Microsoft digital compressed charcoal with Windows Operating System controlling the mark-making. Or will it be Apple who gets this done first?

SBCC Spring 2010 Fine Arts Lecture Series

2010-02-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

The Spring, 2010 schedule is out now for the Santa Barbara City College Fine Arts Lecture Series so tune in your antennas toward the Atkinson Gallery and the Santa Barbara City College campus.

The Atkinson Gallery takes advantage of its role in presenting diverse fine art to promote our visual awareness and not needing to show art for popular appeal to sell. Director Dane Goodman keeps hitting them out of the ball park.

Here is the program.

February 24
Drive By Press
on campus during the day with Printmaking on Wheels
www.drivebypress.org

March 3
Stephanie Smith
Founder/CEO of WeCommune,
a web platform that helps users come together and share resources.
stephaniesmithsofar.wordpress.com

March 17
Randall Stout
Architecture challenging conventions,
while transforming light, shadow, form and material
4.30 p.m.
www.stoutarc.com

April 7
Dan Connally
Painter, professor College of Creative Studies, UCSB.
Juror of the student exhibit.

April 28
Tim Fisher
one of the founding members of MK12, Internationally influential
motion graphics company formed in Kansas City in 2000
www.mk12.com

Lectures held in H220 in the Humanities Building, unless otherwise posted.

Book: A Forest of Kings

2010-01-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

A Forest of Kings--The Untold Story of The Ancient Maya, by Linda Schele and David Freidel, is a treat to examine.

The Mayan hieroglyphs constitute the first written history of the New World before the European invasion. The authors have spent considerable time learning to read the hieroglyphs and thus tell us of the way civilization was like in the Americas 2000 years ago.

What interests me is the Mayan language of symbols and how it is used to communicate the legend of their Kings and their Conquests.

We gain an understanding of the structure involved in their monumental statements. Their announcement has four parts--Date of event, the Event, the Actor involved, and "in the land of" location described by an expression.

We could use their system and have our painting contain these four ingredients, in a wide variety of ways, both symbolically and realistically.

We could even use their system of pictograph symbols and tell our story this way.

what, corporation again?

2010-01-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

For the third day in a row, the initial word at least is corporation.
what?
how?
Public radio news tells today of the Supreme Court decision letting corporations contribute unlimited money to political campaigns, thereby undoing what campaign reforms had been enacted to limit the money involved.
Instead of reforming the campaign situation to make it easier, cheaper, shorter, less corrupt.....these radicals want to make each election more expensive than the past one and that means more to go to their rich friends.

wow, I digress.
into politics.
so I stop.

Easy 123 Art Set

2010-01-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

It just happens by coincidence (?) that corporation is mentioned in two consecutive blogs.

In a credit card billing statement from a corporation, I won't say which oil company it is, came enclosed this nice offer (see picture) to obtain through the corporation an 'all-in-one set' of art materials. Even the chance to share with 'buy TWO and SAVE $5'.

There is certainly a democratization of art tools available. So much so that just your average nobody can pick up an art set and think themselves as creative off the charts. Happens every day.

I object to the oil company making profits off my art career, because I am NOT. (Not to mention that I find their promise of 'draw, paint, and sketch to your creative heart's content' long-winded and undeliverable.

Who is this art set aimed for? Why should they expect to believe that by using this set of tools, the result will be 'ART'? It would be so much better for the corporation to include a book of ART to color. Something with the lines already drawn in so the frustrated artist won't be discouraged. And certainly the corporation logo to color and some fine scenic corporation gas stations in their patriotic American settings. Just remember, stay within the corporation lines.

Turn Your Photos into Art --Push Button here

2010-01-18T19:04:00.000-08:00

I was rather disgusted by an assertion I heard while attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month.

The slap in the face happened during a demonstration from a Digital Camera maker pitching their wares. This picture shows their pitch crew promoting the latest and greatest.

What hurt me was the part of the pitch that went "you can turn your photographs into instant art just by pushing this button." Some built in the camera software makes the image surface look like loosely painted oil, so if it looks like a Duck it must be Art.

This corporation could be pushing the idea that their camera rather than the brush makes art images in the New Improved Modern Way. Maybe the corporation owns the patent on their process and you have to pay them a royalty to use the future's only legal way to make art images. The corporation censors your images that have to be stored at their location.

Maybe the corporation collects data from a built-in sensor to build a database of your GPS coordinates at any given time in your life. Maybe the camera has eyes and is spying on all your activities. Maybe there is a built-in Taser to hurt you if you commit a sin or don't go to church sunday. Maybe I wake up and it is not 1984.

Maybe we should continue to use some old-fashioned analog tools like horsehair on a stick and pigment in an oil.

Learning from Bonnard

2010-01-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am finding at least a hectare of ideas from the book, Bonnard and the Nabis, by Albert Kostenevitch. Let me share with you some of the ways Bonnard used ideas from the art and the times available to him.

Bonnard was a young artist in 1888 attending our old friend the Academie Julian to learn how to be an Artist by showing up to draw from the Life Model. He started to hang out with some other artists he met there. (Does THIS sound familar? Is THIS possible in Santa Barbara?) This 'group' would meet regularly to talk about Art, weekly at a certain cafe, at an Artist's Studio, and an art magazine publisher's office. They called themselves 'the Nabis'. They weren't all in perfect sync but they stayed together as a fraternity tolerating their differences, believing in a 'theory of equivalences', namely, a genuine respect for individuality, which let them regard very different artists in high esteem.

For the Nabis, Color was important. (Remember, YOU want to know what basic element of Art YOU are exploring.) The last big thing in art had been Impressionism, so these friends followed the Impressionists, attempting to develop their achievenments by overcoming a naturalistic conception of color, that is, in art not copying nature. The Nabis wanted to use color more effectively as a means of expression. Gauguin, who met with the group on several occasions, expressed his Symbolist view of color use this way. How do you see that tree? If your tree is green to your eye, then pick a 'pretty green' and use that shade.

A huge impact was made on Bonnard by the Japanese woodblock prints in an 1890 show at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he was then a student. The Japanese print artists taught Bonnard the stark simplicity and refinement not possible to learn at the Ecole. They taught him to abandon perspective and build up his picture as an arrangement of flat silhouettes, and to appreciate the expressive power of patches of color.

The Nabis studied the art of the Past and were influenced by Synthetism. They named their method Neotraditionalism because they referenced links to the past, like medieval stained glass windows, mythological or religious subjects, or the color prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige. Maurice Denis said, "we learned that all works of art are a kind of transposition, a certain caricature, the passionate equivalent of an experienced sensation. This was the starting point of an evolution in which we at once became engaged." I think that maybe these guys are reading our blog. Don't WE use ideas from the history of art, put them in our artist sketchbooks, and recycle and personalize them?

The Nabis were considered of minor importance for several decades because they went their own way, differing from the official French art world in which principles of Classicism reigned and Realism dominated. Their 'dull' paintings were 'overpowered' by more bold Fauve colors, by more radical Cubist compositions, or more dynamic Avant Garde pieces. But they grew as artists and when they eventually grew apart, they had each developed their own power to communicate in their own voice.

Bonnard believed "a picture is a patchwork of colors when combined form an object in such a way to allow the eye to glide freely over it without encountering obstacles." He delighted in walking a tightrope between stylized decorative abstraction and unstylized realism.

Lets look at an early triptych that Bonnard painted for the mansion of his Russian patron Ivan Morozov around 1911. I see a lot of testing the waters of ideas, from expressionism to abstraction, with each piece working as an entity but texture, shapes, and common elements bringing all three pieces together into a synthesis greater than the sum of the 3 parts.

Book: The Studios of Paris

2009-12-30T12:46:00.000-08:00

The Studios of Paris, the Capital of Art in the late Nineteenth Century is the title of this book by John Milner.

We see pictures of some of the most successful artists of that day in their Art Studios. We find out that there are thousands of artists in Paris and only a few are having a good life as an artist.

We discover that successful artists then are unknown and obscure today and the current value of their work today is much less, no matter how great their worldly success and prices were then. How weird.

The pathway for success for the Paris Artist of this time was to survive the 'cut' of these 40 members of the Salon Jury, and have your piece be one of the 5-6000 art works the jury selected, and then to have your piece hanging in an eye-level spot and not by the ceiling. Then somebody important had to buy your piece.

The salon was for officially sanctioned subjects and styles approved by the Academy and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Not Impressionism! Not modern art! What mattered is what this group of 40 thought.

This is the Great Hall in the Ecole des Beaux Arts where the student could study and draw the classical statues. Looks like horses were big. Note also the classical Greek columns to set the mood. Better stay within the lines, cross your t's and dot all your iota's if you want to pass the course and have success as an artist.

Just in case you don't recognize this successful artist, he is Henri Gervex, working in his Artist Studio. Looks like it is luxurious, spacious with good lighting and comfortable seating, and the Artist is surrounded by lots of fine art objects for inspiration.

Just in case you don't recognize this struggling artist, he is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, working in his Artist Studio.
His space looks a little more cramped and the painting he is working on looks 'modern' and of ordinary Paris folk, certainly not of sufficient class to be commanding such a large canvas, let alone doing anything historically significant, just partaking in the ordinary event of dancing.
This artist just doesn't GET IT about what to paint and how to paint it.

He'll never amount to anything.

Revelations in the Digital Age

2009-12-12T11:04:00.000-08:00

You know how I like the concept PLASTIC, the thinking outside the box.

You know my system of art growth,---- a DNA mixing of art-nugget components, especially if they don't seem to go together. You get to individualize them to make them go together. Take what you want from Matisse e.g. and add some Duante Cul--pepper. This is of course the artist entering into the artwork. The artist personalizing his creation with bits and bytes of himself.

This process is worked out in your artist sketchbook.

Well, today, my coffee just hit me.

I have spent the past few months studying art from a 'business' aspect AND studying the computer language behind web pages. Mostly right side of da' brain stuff.
Everybody's Web Page, mine especially, needs rebuilding, modifying, creating, or adding to.

I am also looking Forward (motto of state of Wisconsin) to the annual Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas early January. I need to brief up on what technology is 'hot' so I can examine it there.

Here's the bottom line:

I realize that my ART WORK needs to be written in XML as economic product units, making up my own DTD. This will form the structure and content that can then be skinned with CSS for whatever immediate need arises. Of course, we will use CMS software to handle the HTTP requests, and new EPU's can be delivered from the MySQL database to keep everything fresh and actively crawled by the BOTS. (SEO will help here.)

The World temporarily Stopped

2009-12-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

If you've ever wished for that song, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, to be true, that time is NOW. We are in-between terms and have a 2-month hiatus. Take advantage of the Opportunity. (You should KNOW that the Open Studio Class Spirit LIVES ALWAYS as we adopt and adapt the things we learn when we do GATHER TOGETHER.)
The Opportunity is to:

evaluate
consolidate

prepare the soil for NEXT TIME.

Gather together some of the art work you did over the previous term. Make a cupa tea and take a moment to look at this group of works and EVALUATE what 'succeeds' and what doesn't. Look at a group of your works together and see how they relate to each other. Think a little bit about what you wanted your marks or brushstrokes to do and whether you succeeded.

CONSOLIDATE your gains by wrapping up the loose ends of what 'method' you have been studying and integrating into your art. What Picasso would do when he was ready to change direction and finishing up one phase (he was through following a particular idea down its pathway), he would make one or two HUGE PAINTINGS summarizing that idea. Then he was ready to explore the next idea.

Our philosophy is you enrich your own personal ART-DNA by constant ingestions of the art of others. Our method is using the artist sketchbook to visualize, to explore, and to capture these treasured idea nuggets.
Summarize and write down in your artist sketchbook your recent results.
Pat yourself on the back.

Now you have prepared yourself to move forward as an artist. Over the hiuatus be sure to look at original art when you can. Take notes in your Artist sketchbook. Look at your PROCESS and decide on what step to alter and how to do so.

Sign up for the next session so you can both share what your new ideas are and enrich the Open Studio Class for all of us.

Allison Saar artist talk

2009-12-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

The Fall 2009 SB City College Fine Art Department lecture series closes with the December 2 Allison Saar artist talk at 4:30 in room PS 101 in the Physical Science building.

When we dialog with the art we are creating we are bridging the gap between the purely visual and the rational explanation for the idea we want to communicate.

When we attend a presentation by an artist about their work, we can realize common struggles.

When the artist has a clear powerful symbolic vocabulary and is recognized by inclusion in our nation's major museums, we should saddle up our horses.

For show information, visit the Atkinson Gallery.

Thanks Giving

2009-11-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

I am Thankful for all the Class Members and for your participation in making the Open Studio Class a success. I am Hopeful that we will have the support to continue with our Opportunity for the Personal and Artistic Growth and Development that practicing Art provides.

During the 2-month period when we won't have Schott Center available for use, we don't want to yield back our time slot to the General Fund. Plan on being at your easel at 9 a.m. Wednesday and continuing with your exploration of a theme. Plan on being at your reading station at 9 a.m. Wednesday and read an artist biography. Walk in that artist's shoes.

Continue with your study and practice of Art.
Thank you.
Bob Mask

Be An Artist

2009-11-14T13:22:00.001-08:00

Artist Statement

2009-11-12T01:26:00.000-08:00

You might need to have an Artist Statement about your work so you can make a Press Release to let the World know about your ART.

Maybe this will help you out. This description of the Art is from a Press Release from a big gallery.

xxxx is pleased to announce our solo exhibition of work by YYYY. Very much invested in the alchemical and supernatural experience of the act and viewing of painting, YYYY is following multiple, circuitous paths through psychedelia, figuration, abstraction, and painting’s own history.

ZZZZZ is a trio of works in which YYYY employs grand scale and low threshold radiance. Emanating interwoven concentric circles are overlaid with a systematic grid of collaged, raw canvas squares. Here canvas doubles as ground and medium to construct a topographical map both conceptually and literally of surface. In VVVVV, YYYYY utilizes grid distortion and subtle grayscale shifts. This manipulation of surface further complicates the work, sometimes in a very visceral way.

Less structured and directed, paintings in the series CCCCC present a more intuitive, improvisational and imploded approach. Un-phased by, yet ever-mindful of the heavily mined territory he’s negotiating, YYYYY continually expands his personal capacity for discovery through painting. These works, direct and deft in execution and accurate in self-expression, coalesce the conjurer and the personal.

WARNING! Don't use this verbatim. It is somebody else's piece of work. And you just might have to explain what it means, in English.

Open Studio Class Road Trip

2009-11-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Open Studio Class Members had the option to go on an ART ROAD TRIP on our session holiday, Veteran's Day, November 11. Some members were able to take advantage of the extended class and so our Destination was the Culver City Art District with its concentration of art galleries within a walking area.

On the way there we stopped in Beverly Hills at Trigg Ison Fine Arts because he has some of Jorgen Hansen's paintings for sale. He is showing 2 of the 5 he has for sale.

We soon discovered that Trigg Ison is HOT right now with a show of Chuck Connelly's paintings. Check out Ison's website-it involves Martin Scorcese's movie New York Stories, an HBO movie, a planned sequel, a movie that Ison is producing, more, too.

The Culver City Art District has been going on for a few years and I heard it is growing, maybe adding a couple new galleries each year. You park in the area and walk up several blocks of Washington Blvd and then a few more blocks on La Cienega Blvd and you can pop in a dozen or more art galleries. We even went into the new "million dollar gallery", competing for space with workers doing finishing touches in the unidentified big white building.

We saw a LOT of ART. We had a GREAT TIME.

Look for further trips.

Extra Credit-Get 5 Points (or More)

2009-11-03T09:35:00.000-08:00

Points of Departure, That Is.

A Point of Departure is what we are looking for when we come across an interesting piece of art and in looking at it we find enjoyable aspects to study.

A Point of Departure is an Idea to Express in Paint or other art medium.

Let us start our departure from an excellent book of photographs taken by Brassai.

The photographs were taken in the 1930's and 1940's in France of accomplished modern artists and Brassai was an artist who also worked in sculpture, drawing, and writing. All the photographs are wonderfully composed.

We look at the image on the back cover. How we study a work of art is by looking carefully at it and responding with sketches in our notebook. As soon as I start to sketch I am discovering details in this photograph of Dali and I am getting ideas.

Idea 1 is a Group Portrait, with the conversation including sculptural busts

Idea 2 is noticing the pattern of abstract rectangles and their pattern of light and dark.

Idea 3 is of making a self-portrait.

Idea 4 is making a triptych by breaking the composition into 3 scenes.

Idea 5 is noticing the pattern of abstract curves and their organic rhythm.

Our departure recipe composes a heaping portion of Brassai soup stock updated with Your current interest. Find YOUR departure points from this excellent image and then refine and merge it by further sketching. Add and Boil YOUR ingredients to simplify and serve YOUR New Soup de Jour to us hungry artists.

Book: New Artist's Handbook

2009-10-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

The book jacket promotes this book as 'the definitive guide to the tools, materials, and techniques of the artist's craft."

Okay, thank you for your modesty. Show me what you got.

I am impressed visually with the design since pretty much every page has some color or illustration on it. The contents seem both vast in their reach but nicely nuggetted into consumable portions.

I see that this volume was published in London by Dorling Kindersley and that a very accomplished Ray Smith revised in 2003 an edition first published by Knopf in the United States in 1987. The back cover tells us of the 'new sections on public art and digital media'. I am reminded of finding delightful photography reference books and discovering that the wonderful designed ones you wanted to use came from London.

I am all over this one (like a fly on... flypaper) and am looking out there on the internet to own my copy.

We all want to have some Art Cookbooks to find out how or why we should do some process in a correct way. This is a very good one. It may be in the public library on the 702.8 shelf. Or it may be checked out if that other blog reader got there before you.

Negative Painting

2009-10-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

An aspect of painting came up in four or five situations today. Was it coincidence?

One ardent student has been learning to paint, first by copying compositions from masters like Matisse. Today's lesson involved being inspired by the abstract paintings of Willem De Kooning. Observing some excellent reproductions from a well-printed book led to questions about what color was painted first and how the process went.

I responded that the process of applying the different layers of paint usually has the artist painting a background and then creating an object in front of the background. What you paint directly is the object. This is the instinctive way. You want to represent a tree so you paint a tree. Simple and direct.

The other way to operate, which I could see was what De Kooning had done often, was to see what you want to keep in the painting and then paint out the rest. What some might say as "painting the negative space".

I could see in the De Kooning paintings that a broad swath of color was first applied horizontally across the canvas, later an opaque light color painted vertically across it to leave a definite edge of color. The shape from the underlying color was made by covering up some of it and what you left became the object.

The intermediate step of studying the De Kooning paintings by sketching some of his color shapes in our notebook was faithfully followed. Concentrating on a single aspect as you study (draw) the master's work is the best thing we can do to develop our eye. (Other than eating Chocolate, or Ice Cream, or both.)

Several other students were painting today. If they were struggling, it seemed a good change of tack to stop their wheels spinning harder and harder as they tried to define the object more clearly. I suggested they leave the object alone and concentrate on painting what was NOT the object. The negative approach that was positive in reversing their eyes to try a new approach.

This same advice seemed appropriate to plant inside other fertile Enquiring Minds. I am glad it was discovered very early in the day. It was needed for the rest of the day.

D's Process

2009-10-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you one of the many GOOD THINGS that happened in our Open Studio Class this morning. Let's just wrap it up with the phrase "D's process", for the artist D, who PERFORMED a new creation today. D used PROCESS to create a splendid painting.

As you recall from our discussions about 'process', knowing about your process is key for good use of your Studio time, and crucial for your development as an artist, and by extension, a GREATER Human Being. One on the TOP TIER of Human Beings.

What I learned TODAY about process is that it has two stages. The first stage is simple. Just get something started on the canvas.

D's process involves starting a large piece of paper with subconsciously generated spontaneous gestural lines drawn with a color oil pastel stick in each hand, using both hands at the same time. The lines are somewhat circular so there end up being lots of ovals to fill in with color, which is the second step in D's process.

That is where D had stopped, unsure of what step to next take. Luckily, I just came then along. We reviewed the steps taken to 'mess up' the paper thus far. As D wrote down the Process steps in a notebook, a light went ON inside my head and I realized the two parts to the process.

Part one is done from an intuitive sense of feeling and just IS.
Part two requires some mental acuity evaluation before attacking with the purpose of bringing "meaning" to resolve the painting.

Notice that inside my head the light gets some watts brighter.

As you look at the painting and open up to have a dialog with it, you see that there are just two things to 'worry about'. make that, to deal with. The Subject, and the Background.
And, there are just two choices of ways in which to deal: Simplify, or un-Simplify.

So the second half of the PROCESS, the periodic checking up on and analyzing one, is simplified to Pick one of two to work on (Subject or Background) and pick one of two objectives (combine together or tear apart).
Voila,
turn down the lights now,
we in california need to conserve the energy,
love, peace, and OUT.

I helped D see what was accomplished so far on what had been just ordinary paper an hour before and together we defined a structure to follow for further exploring. D was drawing on the paper. Now painting. With this new tool D performed the second half of steps in our Process. First the background, which bothered D, and simplified those areas into interesting shapes. Then the subject was worked on. Back and Forth went the refining.

While refining we introduced the concept of the surprise. Doing an unexpected item. You were expecting yellow here also since I had put it in the first three places. Surprise, surprise. I now pick "gamilion" or whatever that other color is called.
So with the order and structure of Process a wonderful painting was created. Along the way D learned to stay alert enough to throw in a twist here and there.
aw, hell. D celebrated the Beatles and threw in a TWIST and a SHOUT.

Using Your Sketchbook

2009-10-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

I can't emphasize enough the importance of using a sketchbook on a regular basis.

When I am visiting a gallery exhibition, I want to have a portable sketchbook to make notes about compositions, palettes, shapes, or other elements from the art toolbox. Using a sketchbook lets you concentrate on a part of the whole and isolate a component to study its use. Progress means learning and discovering an idea for YOUR use.

When you decide to do some careful looking and make some notations in a sketchbook, you are developing your eye and your skillful hand and extending your vocabulary.

When you have a painting in process and are pausing to evaluate what is happening, make a sketch. This may show you ways to combine and simplify shapes into a more powerful statement.

Pause during your day for some moments of quiet study with relaxing sketching. Often the simple ordinary things we surround ourselves with have an importance to us that we should pay more attention to. Sketching lets you explore your ideas and revelations will come from adventuring in this uncharted territory.

Here is an Internet link to the sketchbooks of various artists .

PROCESS, in general terms

2009-10-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

I posit this message as a General Layout for setting up your Process.

1. Pick a subject you know and LOVE and want to explore.
2. Consider what is changing in your subject. (life is motion, change, the cycle of creation and destruction. You don't want to make Static Art, but Dynamic Personalized by YOU Art. THIS CHANGE is what you want to convey in your painting. THIS is your Subject Matter and What to Paint.)
3. Find the center of interest in the piece you just started.
4. Paint the bigger shapes first. Use your tools at hand to modulate the colors and the values.
5. Step Back and evaluate what is happening on your canvas.
6. Simplify the forms, especially those away from the center of interest.
7. Remember WHY you are making this painting and STOP when this goal is accomplished.

Walk a THIN LINE to create enough SPACE

2009-10-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

As the Open Studio 'secret' gets out, we find the class has grown a little critical mass and room 22 threatens to fill up.

One of the Reasons we are in OPEN STUDIO and a Crucial Reason we need ART in our LIVES EVERY DAY is that Art helps us deal with the stress of daily life and it teaches us how to solve problems. We don't rush out and welcome more problems just to be better artists, however. Enough are coming naturally to us for a solution.

When we come together to use the space in Room 22, we are able to find a workspace so we set up and start to work our Process. Among the tools we need for our Process to work is the ability to concentrate and the need to be in amenable surroundings.

Let us just make sure that we respect the Different Degrees of DISCUSSION Desirable and take any private chat (cellphone or in persona) OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM. Let's reserve the INSIDE for just the necessary amount of ART TALK, mixed in perhaps with amounts of JUST PLAIN SILENCE. We all love each other so be sure to greet and say 'hi' to your neighbor, but if you have any serious catching up to do, find a comfortable bench outside to share.

Help keep ME honest on this pledge and remind me to SHUT UP if I mention my closeted skeletons or injury scars. Thank you for your support.

What is Your Process?

2009-09-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

The word for today's class is PROCESS.

I think it would be extremely useful for you to define what process you use to make your art.

What is a process? It is merely a recipe or series of steps you complete to make a work of art.

Why is having a process useful? Our three hour class period may seem like a long time but it goes by quickly. Knowing How you are going to start and What you are doing next will keep you focused and productive.

Having a process also makes it extremely easy to add some variation when you want something new in your soup.

Let's look at some typical examples:

process 1

Tear off a big sheet of paper from the paper roll and tack it to the wall.
Paint with my left hand, using 3 colors, gestural marks on the paper.
Rotate the paper 180 degrees.
Define and Combine areas by applying thin layers of semi-transparent paint.

process 2

Bring in 3 objects and 1 small-medium size canvas.
arrange 3 objects several ways making small thumbnail sketches in notebook.
pick the best composition from among several choices.
complete a black, white, and gray painting of your composition.

You can see how easy it is to alter your Process when you want to try something NEW. For the first example you could use a SMALL sheet of paper. You could use ONE color. You could collage shapes on the paper. You simply take any step and change something in that step.

It may seem too simple to do but I believe that by thinking about what process you are using, and then writing the steps down, you will have a definite advantage in exploring the variables that keep you excited as you expand your art and your art skills.

Drawing Assignment -From Mother Nature

2009-09-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

This drawing assignment was given for the four weeks break between Summer,2009 and Fall,2009 sessions.

Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens was used as a starting point with lots of possibilities. So much, in fact, that it forces you to simplify. By isolating and looking closely and wanting to express freely and loosely, we can abstract some line pathways from amongst the plant forms and just use blind contour as a starting point to explore seeing.

See one student's drawings.

When you take the time to draw are you trying to get an exact replica of your subject? Do you sometimes just want to escape 'reality' for awhile and just let your mind wander, appreciating a winding line or a pathway around some colored texture-rich area?

Book:Understanding Paintings

2009-09-22T11:33:00.001-07:00

This book is a valuable source of ideas. It is titled: "Understanding Paintings. Themes in Art Explored and Explained" by editors Alexander Sturgis and Hollis Clayson.

I periodically borrow
a copy from the local library, Dewey Decimal call number is 750.11

What I really like is the organization of the material. Usually art history books with a broad survey proceed in a conventional, chronological order. This book's approach is different

Understanding Paintings discusses types of painting with chapters on

religious painting
myth and allegory
the nude
history painting
portraiture
landscape
genre
still life
abstract

For each subject we see a variety of styles and approaches to the subject being explored.

Have YOU seen this book? What did YOU find USEFUL in this book?

Welcome to Bobs Open Studio Class

2009-09-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

This blog was started by Bob Mask who conducts an Open Studio class in the Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education Division.

Welcoming Speech by Bob Mask

Welcome to Open Studio.

What is Open Studio?

The first sentence from the city college course description in the official city college catalog says:

     “In a studio atmosphere,
 students leave the problems of daily life outside
 and have a supportive environment
 to explore their ‘inner artist’ 
 and develop their creativity.

So, explore your ‘inner artist’?
and, develop your creativity?

O---kay.

I believe that to live as an artist is a high calling because you are Outside the NORM.

( I was and still am ‘outside the NORM’ because Norm was my Dad’s Name.---
YOU have to each find your own way).

As an Artist, you have the chance to live out on the fringes, in New Territory. To Do Things your Own Way. ----But a random way to develop is not a good way
.

What you need is a Place

and, a Method.

To concentrate in a fertile place, with sources of ideas. A place away from the distractions of life’s duties.
We offer This Space----.
But, no matter where you do your art, you need the discipline to focus. To shut out the distractions of life’s duties.

A Method.

Since as artists we all have a basic set of ‘tools’ to use– line, shape, color, –we can learn from the great artists of the past and see how They used our tools.

The best place to record and track your discoveries is in a sketchbook.

Until you make a drawing and record some information or Idea in your sketchbook you don’t really see and don’t really start to understand what you CAN see.
The sketchbook is also an intermediate step where your individuality starts to mingle with a previous artist’s solution and you incorporate your Being with theirs.
You are developing your Creativity, your uniqueness, in a sound and effective way, You are discovering thru proper study the LIFE of a great artist with respect to Art History and What was Happening in the World at that time.

My goal for you is to clarify and help you realize WHAT about ART You are interested in exploring.
Is it Color? Is it ‘Realism’?
And to help you be on a path to learn how other artists with similar interests explored what YOU like TOO.
I have available books to look thru and copy ideas from. When you find Something of Interest in a Source, Note THAT in your sketchbook. As you look and draw you will SEE more the longer you pay attention.
Finding a way to merge some of your idea with some of theirs is growing your creativity.
Developing your art.
Your unique-ness.
Your style.
Your YOU-ness.
Thank you for signing up for this journey in our Open Studio Laboratory.