Halloween

Posted on October 31, 2008 by pearce

Busy day. The festival was a blast – less of a turnout than last year, but still a total treat to celebrate Samhain by putting on an event like this. We ate a crazy amount of pumpkin pie and enjoyed ballet from Caitlyn Carradine and incredible music from my friend Jim Connolly who is one of the best human beings I have ever known. I really enjoyed dressing up as a dirigible captain!

My students displayed their work in one of our spaces that works pretty well for exhibiting paintings, even though classes are held in there regularly. They were fabulous! Their challenge was to produce seven large oil paintings in time for the festival. I am really impressed by the work that they accomplished – really good quality. I’ll put up some pictures soon.

I delivered a pile of crows and ravens to the High Studio ready for the opening reception of the Dreamscapes show. I guess I end up with half of the gallery for this show, which is great. I’m still selling crows, and hope to see some of them move. (Need the money for some rather interesting bills that have materialized recently.)

 

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Temperance gets another layer

Posted on October 28, 2008 by pearce

Working fast, I added a layer of burnt sienna and a touch of ultramarine blue into the leather overcoat, a bit of grey onto the pants and shirt. Raw Sienna is the perfect base for blond hair, so I glazed a layer on then scraped it with the knife to reveal the whites and greys of the en grisaille layer. I had deliberately brushed the paint in the hair area so it was thick and had some ridges in it so that I could use them at this stage.

Her wings are going to have to go back and to the right side of her body, slightly changing the design, but that’s okay. I must remember to paint the stream of liquid flowing from one bottle to the other, and I should get the background moving too.

I spoke to Courtney at the High Studio in Moorpark, who told me that they want to show “As The Crow Flies” and several of the big paintings in their “Dreamscapes” exhibit. While it will feel very different in their space, with a lower ceiling, I expect “Crow” to feel more dramatic, not less, as it will totally dominate the walls. Can’t wait to install it.

Posted in Amelia Earhart, Exhibits, Making work, The Cardinal Virtues | 2 Comments

Halloween Festival

Posted on October 28, 2008 by pearce

Much of the weekend went to installing Sean Sobczak’s Light sculpture installation in my gallery at CLU. I met Sean on Halloween at a party in Hollywood at Luca’s studio about eight years ago. He was dressed as Jesus, and was so convincing that I asked him to model  for me for the Crucifixion painting. We’ve been good friends ever since. He makes fabulous dream-like sculptures from fabric and LED lights, that are simply beautiful. Here’s a shot of his new octopus piece.

The Third annual CLU Halloween Festival.

Friday evening, October 31st, starting at 6.00pm

We will have FREE pumpkin pie, a scary ballerina performance, Michael Jackson Impersonator Miki Kiss, a costume competition (wear yours and win a fabulous prize!), Jim Connolly’s haunting live music and most important, the opening and lighting up of Sean’s incredible light sculpture exhibit.
 
 
You MUST come. You know you want to…

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Amelia reaches for the light

Posted on October 24, 2008 by pearce

I worked late and produced this drawing for the new piece. I’m not sure quite where this interest in Amelia Earhart has come from, perhaps it started with my friend Fred Tonsing, who’s her nephew or something. I’ve been thinking about her mythical status, of course, for “The Aviator’s Dream” painting (here’s a photo), and it seeems to me that the romance about her that works for me is as follows: Amelia is a beautiful woman of very strong character, determined to conquer the elements by circumnavigating the globe. She leaves the ground in her airplane and is taken by the air element for its own, because she can’t belong to the earth any more, having become too much one with the air. Now she flies eternally in the ethereal sky of the other world.

In this painting the air element (represented by Amelia) reaches out toward the light, which is not visible in this picture. There’s a bare light bulb suspended on the left of the canvas. The t-square is a dry-wallers square – perfect for drawing composition lines onto large canvases. Keeps everything on the level.

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Virtues in white

Posted on October 24, 2008 by pearce

This is going well – Here’s Justice with a quickly painted en grisaille setting the tone for the later layers. I really enjoyed the luxury of knifing down thick flake white paint so that there’s some rich texture in the body of the cloth. When I’m doing knife work I’m careful not to allow ridges of paint to build around the edges of things, because that would cause horrible problems later. The edges are always softened by a rag.

Flake white is my favorite white, although it’s toxic as hell, so I avoid getting any on my fingers as much as I can. 

After I got the flake white down, I added a bit of zinc white to it, because there’s a subtle difference between the two. Flake is a little grayer than the zinc, which is a touch more opaque than the flake. I use Titanium later in the process because it’s super bright and very opaque. I would use it earlier too, but there are too many problems with the surface of the paint when it dries – it causes further layers of paint to bubble and not sit properly. You can’t put much over a layer of white anyway. Look at those gorgeous pre-raphaelite paintings in the Tate Britain – they’re all crazed because of this.

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Space

Posted on October 23, 2008 by pearce

I’m interested in finding space in the paintings. I tend to fill my canvases with figures, and I think I’d like to find some tension in the composition by leaving large areas of space. I took that 48″ x 72″ canvas and divided it up using the geometry of diagonal and rectangular lines. I shot some additional pictures of my models a couple of weeks ago, so I think this may be the opportunity to begin a slightly different group of paintings.

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Virtues

Posted on October 23, 2008 by pearce

I sealed the two canvases with some burnt sienna and medium over the drawings, wiping much of the paint of with a rag.

The drawings drop back into the rich oxide and become harder to see, but the marks are clear enough for painting the next layer, the en grisaille, which will be the foundation of the painting. I like to keep this layer pretty loose to start off  with, then control and fix things. It makes the painting feel as though it grew off the canvas. Temperance will need a bit of carefully observed work on her face and hands in order to really pull off the painting effectively. I think it’s going to be very satisfying making these pieces. Clearly the background isn’t there yet and I’ll start building that, referring to my sketchbook.

It’s clear that getting the Fortitude painting moving is important if I’m going the get the three main images done together. I’ll have to get my model organized and sketch the image out. This all feels good.

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Closing reception for The Principle

Posted on October 22, 2008 by pearce

This Thursday evening at 7.00 pm (TOMORROW!) is the closing of the Principle exhibit. Please come to the Kwan Fong Gallery at CLU and join me for drinks and snacks.

I’ve been completely delighted by the way the show has been received – it seems that each time I’m in the gallery someone has something lovely to say about it. It’s so inspiring to hear such positive feedback. Thank You.

I’m selling individual crows, so if you’re interested in purchasing one, or starting your own flock contact me at pearce (at) clunet (dot) edu and I’ll be happy to get them to you. Prices are very reasonable – $100 for a small one, $200 for a medium, $300 for a large.

I’ll sell them off the wall during the evening.

Just in case you’re wondering what to expect, here’s that nice article about the installation in the Time out section of the Star newspaper.

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Virtues

Posted on October 21, 2008 by pearce


I’ve drawn Temperance and Justice and I’m pleased with both. This evening I’ll seal them both with some burnt sienna so that they’re ready to go. These look really good as first passes into the painting foray, so I’m full of optimism or them.
Temperance needs some wings and pigs, while justice is short of snakes and the blade.

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Justice

Posted on October 21, 2008 by pearce

Here she is!

I’m happy with the composition, laid down the centre line of the panel, with the figure centred on the navel. She’s looking good. I put a blindfold over her eyes, as is traditional for blind justice, and sketched in the scales quite loosely for now. I’m going to need to find snake reference materials so I can make a mass of them around the globe she’s standing on. I like this. I may add a sword to the composition.

It’s good to get back to work.

This afternoon I hope to get started on Temperance. Once both drawings are done I’ll get the primer down, and tomorrow I should be able to get into the en grisaille. I’m a bit behind with Fortitude, yet to sketch and shoot pictures for it, but I don’t think that really matters too much. I can work on that while simultaneously painting these. I do have my model for the image, and the pose is fairly straightforward.

I really like the pose she’s in, she’s very poised and balanced, just the way justice should be. I’m looking forward to painting her, I think she’ll be beautiful.

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