#56 - Two Paths Meet at a Milestone

                                                          "Going Home at 5 - III"

                                                             "Going Home at 5 - II"

Fellow Art Lovers:

Up until now, my paintings have lived in two separate worlds. And, until now, these two worlds have never met, at least with me.

In one world, I’ve painted with a palette knife, and I’ve generally reserved that tool for my landscapes in Normandy. Yes, I’ve have painted some Philadelphia street scenes with a palette knife. But that technique seemed so well suited to landscapes because I felt the need to paint rapidly, to commit myself without hesitation, while laying down thick strokes of oil paint, and the resulting canvases had a very pleasing texture. The paintings transmitted a certain spontaneity, and – frankly – people like them.

In the other world, I’ve used brushes, and with them I’ve sometimes painted landscapes, but generally I’ve painted urban scenes and, especially, portraits, because brushes can give an artist more precision. Therefore, for me, brushwork takes more care and time, usually does not have the same spontaneity, and doesn’t give me the same feeling of freedom.  Although, my brushwork has loosened up a great deal in the last few years.  And, of course, I hope people like these paintings also.

In the painting you see at the top of this blog posting, those two worlds have met and joined.  For the first time for me. Actually, joining these two techniques on the same canvas felt good. There was no “When Worlds Collide” moment, for those of you who like old movies. Actually, joining those two techniques produced no explosion or big bang. It seemed a natural extension of what I’ve been doing and the direction I’ve been moving in.   

And, if you were to visit my studio, you’d see that I’ve painted this same scene numerous times. So, maybe repeating the same subject is what it takes to make real progress - keeping the subject constant, so I feel greater freedom to adapt my technique.

Now, if you have a few more minutes, please take another look at both of the paintings. You see how both of the paintings have large spaces of dark and light colors and a few selected objects. There’s no pretention to try and make the scene or the people look realistic. The idea was to show the beauty of life, the unity of the mother and daughter.  

But the version painted with a palette knife interprets the scene with less detail, less specificity, drawing more of your attention to the mother and daughter and the gaze between them. I know that I’ve shown enough, so you know what this and that are. So, now the version with the palette knife just tries to present an engaging surface. Why confuse the issue?

And this painting raises another issue. It points to what a lot of artists are doing today, and how we differ from artists who paint with an unbelievable level of realism. That is, the painters who achieve such high levels of precision and accuracy that, in one way, they approach photography. In some ways, these painters are like the Dutch Masters and the painters of the Italian Renaissance, who surely expressed ideas, like beauty and faith. And to emphasize their ideas, they used realism of the highest order, unbelievable precision and accuracy, and all of it even though they did not have all of the advantages we do today, like colors from a tube, a whole range of electronic tools, and every medium you could imagine just the turn of a bottle-cap away, just to mention a few obvious examples.

Let me say here that, in general, all styles are valid. Of course this is true, and it’s obvious. But I want to make sure that you don’t think that I’m passing judgment on anyone else’s style.

But the school I want to belong to are the painters who believe they are not bound by accurate realism, but jump beyond strict representation in their paintings to greater freedom to express their ideas. Sure, I’ve talked so often about my struggle to gain greater freedom that there’s no doubt that this is the group I feel closest to. And, with this latest painting, using a combination of tools, I believe I’ve moved a little closer to them.  

Thanks for your time.

Best,

Bill

# 55 - The Journey and "Going Home at 5"

                                                              "Going Home at 5"

                                                             "Going Home at 5" (detail) 

Fellow Art Lovers:

My Gosh, I’ve talked so much about pushing my painting style to greater freedom and greater expression. That is, making progress in my journey of transmitting emotion. If this sounds like a broken record, the best thing I can do is make sure that the record is at least short.

Okay, the painting you see here, ”Going Home at 5,” came about by chance. The place was at 8^th and Spring Garden Streets, just a block from my studio. Here, I saw a mother, her daughter and a baby in the baby carriage, and they appealed to me because the mom seemed to be one of those people who face life with courage. For me, this strength has a special kind of beauty, a certain urban beauty. (By the way, there is a actually a sheet-metal sign with the numeral 5 there, but I have no idea what it means.)   

My job was to show her and her children in their context, and get a feeling for them across to you, the viewer. There’s one major component in getting this emotion across to the viewer: I have to feel this myself, in addition to the painting skill and a whole bunch of questions like deciding what elements to use and placing each one of them in the right place. 

And, of course, my hope is that each time I undertake this kind of painting, it should be more and more successful each time I take up my brushes and palette knife. 

The painting should show that I’ve taken a few more steps in my journey of transmitting emotion to you by representing this beauty and emotion.

You be the judge, and if you have the time, you can tell me if you’ve been touched by this work.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Bill

#54 - Serendipity While Painting Sketch

                                                 A Carriage on Pine Street (final painting)

                                                A Carriage on Pine Street (oil sketch)

Fellow Art Lovers:

A funny thing happened during a walk in the bitter cold the other day.

As you may know, we’ve been having some frigid weather in Philadelphia. I was walking on Pine Street from 4^th toward 3^rd – looking for a scene to sketch in pen and ink, which I would then use to paint. Despite the cold, it was a beautiful day, with freshness in the air, and the sky was bright and blue even. Overhead was a canopy of bare trees, and in front of me was a luminous break where Pine Street ended at the at the Front Street park.  

I took out my little portable seat, found a spot between two parked cars, and sat down to record the scene with my favorite sketching pen. But no, the breeze was soft, but it sure was cold. I’m willing to sacrifice for my art, but how can you sketch when your hand is turning numb?  

I like to sketch because it lets me transmit some emotion onto the paper and show myself how a painting might look. It’s like the first step in painting, before ever touching brush to canvas. But when Mother Nature is not on your side, it doesn’t do any good to fight. So, another alternative is a camera, which I took out and started choosing shots and taking them.  

I took a series of shots, but nothing thrilled me. Too many cars, buses blocking the view I wanted to capture, no real center of interest. Then, just as I was about to leave, I saw a white horse-drawn carriage, and even though I didn’t know what shots I was taking, but I snapped a few before the carriage moved away. That evening, I looked at the shots I had taken on my Mac, and one shot of the carriage was really charming, just really nice. 

Some time later in my studio, I started a small sketch in oil, and before the oil sketch was completed, I felt an urge to paint a relatively large canvas of the scene. Well, I started it, starting to lay out the different elements of the scene, and then I realized something: The oil sketch was of the entire scene, but the real heart of the scene was actually only the left side of what I had photographed and painted in the oil sketch.

I’m showing you both of the paintings so you can judge for yourself. (In a rough way, I completed the sketch.) But I feel the large version, the real painting, shows all of the elements needed for a charming painting, and the composition is so much better. In truth, the right side of the scene – in my view – adds very little to the painting, and is not needed at all.

So, the oil sketch truly served its purpose, even though I couldn’t do a real pen-and-ink sketch in the cold.

As always, I’d love to hear your ideas.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Bill

-0-

#landscapes

#fineart

#urbanscenes    

#paintings

#homedecor

#sketch

#beautyinpainting

#53 - Simplify for Power

                                                      Fall Afternoon in Queen Village

                                        First Sketch for Fall Afternoon in Queen Village

         
                                            Our "Alternative Berlin" Guide Matthew Dylan

Fellow Art Lovers:

A long time ago, I was studying painting at the Conservatoire des Arts Plastique in the city of Fresnes, which is a suburb just south of Paris. The conservatoire had instruction in numerous arts, including drama, dance and painting. It was led by Jean-Marie Creuseau, who had been an instructor at the famous Beaux Arts, in Paris, and is a renowned painter in his own right. My course was painting, and I took classes every Saturday with one of my sons, a French friend and several of his children. During the class, Jean-Marie Creuseau would visit with students individually at their easels, examine their work, and make some constructive comments. If you asked me to tell you what advice he gave most often, the answer would be simple: “Simplify, simplify.”

And, of course, he was so right. I understand that today so much better than way back then. Now, I’m the one who constantly repeats “Simplify, simplify” to myself as I paint. And the reason is: When a painting is simple and direct, it has more power.  

Just a while ago, I made an entry on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/WilliamKosman58) about simplicity and Prof. Creuseau, and I showed a painting I was working on. That painting soon became two paintings. The reason was that I didn’t like the painting I was working on; it began looking crowded because there was too much detail. So I decided to do a second, larger painting, and paint it in a simpler style. Then, I went back to the first, smaller painting and simplified it. It was a lot better. (The painting you see above is the larger painting.)

As a side note, I often sketch scenes with pencil and pen as studies for a future painting. The act of drawing helps me work out the composition, decide which elements to include in the painting and where to place them, and even make some decisions about colors. This same method is or was used by more painters than I could shake a stick at.

In any case, I’m showing you the sketch of the scene that I sketched for the painting. By the way, the scene shows a calm afternoon at the corner of 4^th and Bainbridge Streets in Philadelphia. Most of all, I was struck by the perfect placement of the elements in the scene, and by the strong contrasts in light between the foreground, the middle ground and the background.

But back to simplicity. One area where artists have to paint simply, and very fast, is in graffiti. Now, numerous American cities – like New York and Philadelphia – are blessed with a lot of graffiti, but I happened to learn a lot about it in Berlin, where my wife and I spent a week last summer. Berlin is a city with a very active graffiti culture, sometimes to pleasure of inhabitants and visitors, and often to the distress of property owners. One of the things we did was take a tour called “Alternative Berlin,” which included visits to sites of graffiti all over Berlin’s buildings, bridges and most notably some remaining portions of The Berlin Wall. The graffiti show things like stark-looking faces, slogans (often against the gentrification trend in some neighborhoods, and a great variety of very, very simple designs).  

Our tour guide was an American by the name of Matthew Dylan (matthewdylan@gmail.com), a freelance writer who not only explained the different methods used by graffiti artists, but also told us about the different factors promoting the evolution of graffiti in Berlin. (Above also is a photo of Matt explaining something important to our group of perhaps 20 tourists.) I couldn’t begin to relate these factors myself, but I’d like to tell you one thing that fascinated me: graffiti artists often do their best work with a friend because they sometimes paint hanging over roof ledges while their friend holds onto their feet. Okay, here the most important word might be trust.

But hanging over a roof ledge maybe four stories up means that you have to find the simple form that gets your idea across. Fast.

By the way, you can also keep up with me by looking at my Facebook page – www.facebook.com/WilliamKosman58

Thanks for listening, thanks for your time, and thanks for your support.

I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season.

Best,

Bill

#49 - Instinct and the Automatic Hand

                                                       "Benjamin Franklin Portrait"

                                                       "Wonderment of Spring"

                                                            "La Bicyclette Orange"

Fellow Art Lovers:

Just want to bring you up to date on some of my latest works, and to talk to you about some of the way I’ve been painting lately.

Actually, the two things I’ll talk about have been going on for some time, and perhaps even for quite a while, but they seemed so natural that I haven’t even paid attention to them. I just happened to think about them while working on these three last paintings. And finally, these two factors about the way I work may be methods or habits of many other artists, but I have failed to take any kind of a survey.

I call one of the factors “the automatic hand,” and this name is just a touch of attempted humor. But the fact remains that, when I paint and I feel in my groove, my right hand can almost take off by itself. When I feel energetic and confident, my hand just moves the brush across the canvas, dabbing and swiping color in this place and that place, as if the hand knows what the forms and colors the painting needs.

The best example here is “La Bicyclette Orange.” I encountered this scene not far from my home, and I immediately knew that it would make an interesting painting. I loved the play of the shadows on the pavement and the building façade and the bicycle as a central element. The composition and the colors were perfect, just as they appeared. And, the act of painting just seemed natural and easy from the very beginning.

“Benjamin Franklin, Portrait” could belong to this category. But while I knew what strokes and colors I had to use, I had to slow myself down because of the level of detail in the different elements of the bridge and some other things.

The other factor I wanted to talk about is instinct, and in this case it means that, when I stop to consider one of my paintings, I can sense when one element is not working or that the painting is wrong. If something is wrong, I can feel it in my gut.  This actually happened several times while painting “Wonderment of Spring.” First, it was the colors, then the structure of the blossoms, then it was the colors and the surface of the pavement. And each time I had to go back and rework those elements.   

You’ll be able to see these and many other paintings from my blog in my studio during POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours) on Oct. 25 and 26. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a reminder and more information as those dates approach. 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the paintings.  (Please remember: You can click twice to magnify the images two times, and then click on the “back” arrow to go back to the blog.)

Best,

William Kosman