Chairs

"Red Tray"
16 x 16, oil on linen

I have always loved chairs. The best ones are like pieces of sculpture. And a chair with personality makes a perfect punctuation piece in interior decoration. So it's no wonder that I have been obsessed lately with painting chairs. I started with the painting above, playing with reds. (That's my apron thrown over the back of the chair).

"Teapot and Grapes"
19 x 17, oil on canvas

My primary muse has been a little balloon back chair (above) that I found in a antiques mall.  This style was popular in the mid-1800's. It's curvy, but not too fussy. And believe me, it presents plenty of challenges in the drawing realm.

"Skirted Chair"
16 x 16, oil on canvas

I branched out from the balloon back chair to a Sheraton/Hepplewhite style chair (directly above). Lots of fun negative spaces in the carved back of this one! Along the way, you will notice that I also became enamored of including a napkin draped over the edge of the chair. I love painting the folds of the linen, and besides, it's a great device for drawing one's eye into the painting.

In closing, I will leave you with a few chair paintings by great masters. The first, which is Van Gogh's own chair, was one that he painted many, many times. The second is Gaugin's chair, also painted by Van Gogh, presumably during the time they lived a painted together in the south of France.The last is by the masterful John Singer Sargent.  It goes to show---there is scarcely any motif that has not been fully explored by our predecessors in the art world!

"Chair", Vincent van Gogh

"Paul Gaugin's Chair"
Vincent van Gogh

"Chair"
 John Singer Sargent

Mirror, Mirror...

Painting in the studio is usually a solitary endeavor. One can get so involved and so focused on the work, that the eye becomes "immune" to certain errors that may creep in to the painting. It's hard to self-critique when you can't see the forest for the trees! Enter the painter's best friend--the mirror.

I don't understand all of the physics of perception, or the neurological aspects of vision, but I do know this: when you view your painting in a mirror, you suddenly get a fresh perspective on it. It is as if you see the painting with new eyes. I call it my "magic mistake catcher". Certain errors just jump right out, and you wonder how you got so far along without noticing that the chair was crooked, or that the building was leaning to the left, the shadow was way too dark.

I keep a large mirror on my studio wall. It is positioned so that I can glance quickly at the painting in the mirror every time I step back from it. That helps prevent me from getting too far off track. But when I take the painting off the easel and hold it directly in front of the mirror, I still catch errors. 

Here is a short video of Maggie Siner painting. I remember that when I first saw it I was struck by how frequently she looked in the mirror. Now I am a believer!

The mirror is useful in plein air painting as well as in the studio. Peggi Kroll Roberts taught me how to take a small hand mirror out into the field, and use it to look back over my shoulder at my painting. Here is Peggi checking her own work using a mirror:

Peggi Kroll Roberts

Peggi even sells a small kit that has a mirror on a lanyard for this purpose. Very clever! Don't leave home without one...

Copy That!

Photo: Maud Taber-Thomas

Does this look like fun, or what?! Copying from the Masters is a time-honored tradition in the art world. Ever since the Louvre Museum in Paris opened to the public in 1793, painters have flocked there to hone their skills by copying the museum's great masterworks. The list of those "copyists" is like a Who's Who of the art world over the past century or two. Interestingly, the copyists include not only the great classical painters (Turner, Ingres), but also those who were breaking new ground, and moving in a completely different direction from the artists whose work they copied. Such ground-breakers as the Impressionists Manet and Degas, and even some Modernists (Chagall, Giacometti) spent time copying the masterworks in the Louvre. 

Photo: (c) Lesley Powell 2013
Artist copying Degas at the Musee d'Orsay

The concept behind copying is that, by learning how the great master solved various problems, one improves one's own artistic technique and finds solutions to one's own problems. Paul Cezanne went to the Louvre regularly to copy Michelangelo and Rubens. He said "The Louvre is the book where we learn to read".

Closer to home, the copyist tradition is alive and well at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Also, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery permits copying, pursuant to these regulations for obtaining a permit.

Lesley drawing at Musee d'Orsay

I have spent time drawing in the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay (above), using charcoals and pencils. That does not require a permit. Perhaps in the future I will consider getting a permit and following in the steps of the copyists, just to see what the fuss is all about...

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Bouquet of Roses"
SOLD
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

Happy Valentine's Day! To celebrate the holiday, I wanted to share this painting. I loved the thick impasto paint, and the purposeful stride of the bouquet-bearer.

Wishing you a big bouquet for Valentine's Day!

Anatomy of a Still Life

The set up

One of the most popular posts on my blog has been the one entitled "Anatomy of a Painting", showing a plein air landscape painting from start to finish. I thought I would try to give the same sort of illustration for a still life painting that I recently completed in my studio. The top photo shows the setup--it may look simple, but it took a lot of arranging and re-arranging to get a pleasing composition of objects, shapes and colors. Plus I had to engineer something of a stand to put the chair on, so that I would be looking at it from a good angle. Then it was on to the drawing...

Drawing...

The next step (above) was making the drawing on the canvas. I always try to retain the energy of the drawing in the final painting. I don't want to do TOO much drawing, or else the painting gets too "tight" and rigid feeling. You can see that the drawing here is something of a mess--I was not satisfied with the first effort, so I wiped it off, and turned the canvas upside down and started all over again. I think the messiness of the first drawing showing underneath turned out to be a plus, and kept me from wanting to just "paint inside the lines".

Putting down those first colors...

Moving to the next phase---now I am really concentrating hard, trying to see accurately. I am putting down my background color. I am also identifying, mixing, and putting down my darkest dark, my lightest light and my brightest bright. These will define the universe of the colors I will use to complete the painting. Sometimes this is the most exciting phase of the painting for me. It's where the creation starts to take shape on the canvas!

"Red Tray"
16 x 15, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 42014

Here's the finished product. It's really hard to show all the different reds in a photograph, but you can get the general idea. And now you know the background story. Thanks for reading!

Wartime Provence

"The Madonna of the Village"
Marc Chagall, c. 1940-41

In the cold of the mid-winter, my thoughts have been turning to the warmth of Provence. I am eagerly anticipating the workshop there this summer with Maggie Siner. Our hosts, David Atkinson and Liz Evans, write a wonderful blog about life in the little hamlet of Les Bassacs. The blog sometimes focuses on artists who have roots in the South of France. Just recently, they wrote about the great modernist artist Marc Chagall. His story is a fascinating one, and the journeys of the painting shown above, "The Madonna of the Village", are worthy of a thriller.

Chagall had emigrated in 1910 from Russia to Paris, where he was part of the artistic avant-garde that was changing the face of the arts. Their modern, expressionist art was attacked by the Nazis, who favored traditional German, realist art. In 1940, Chagall made the decision to leave Paris, because his work was under such criticism from the occupying Germans. Being Jewish, Chagall was concerned about being arrested, or worse. He moved to the village of Gordes, in the Luberon area of Provence. By all accounts, he was happy and productive in Gordes, and work proceeded on "The Madonna of the Village". Unfortunately, however, he was not safe even in Gordes from the risks of deportation.

Varian Fry (left) visiting the Chagalls, and posing
with "The Madonna of the Village" painting in Gordes

To the rescue came Varian Fry. Fry was head of a private American relief organization that aided refugees threatened by the Nazis. He assembled an elaborate rescue network (detailed in his book Surrender on Demand). Fry helped over 1500 artists, writers, musicians and other cultural elites to escape France and the Gestapo. Chagall was one of those he spirited safely to America. 

Chagall took over 600 kilos of paintings to America with him, including the "Madonna of the Village". You can read all about the perils of his trip here. The painting was eventually shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946, as part of the first retrospective of Chagall's work (photo below). As the Museo Thyssen-Bornenisza writes:

The Madonna of the Village was the mute witness to that long journey in which it and other works by the artist were obliged to experience the hazards of travel in a continent at war in order to finally be displayed with honour in the new world capital of art.

After the war, in 1947, Chagall returned permanently to France. He lived on the Cote d'Azur, in the company of Matisse, Braque and Picasso.  He went on to create an extensive body of work, including painting the ceiling of the Paris Opera House, shown below.