Inside Looking Out, Part III

"Red Clay Next Door"
12 x 9, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

The top photo shows the first painting in my recent "Inside Looking Out" series. I painted this one looking out the window at my surroundings, and something about it sparked a desire to explore the surroundings further. That's the way it tends to happen--I seldom start out with the express intention of producing a series of paintings. Instead, one painting triggers a desire that leads to more paintings in the same vein, and voila!, there is a series.

View out the Window

As for this particular series, all have been painted during the pandemic restrictions, looking out my studio window. I find that simply paying attention to the things around you is a way to stay centered and grounded, and to relish the joys of the everyday. Furthermore, it is one of the most important skills of a perceptual painter. 

Julia Cameron has written about this concept in her book The Artist's Way. She writes:

The quality of life is in proportion,

always,

to the capacity for delight.

The capacity for delight is the gift of

paying attention.

Moreover, Cameron notes that "The reward for paying attention is always healing."  

"Bungalows"
10 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

Yes, paying attention is a gift, but it is also a practice that can be cultivated. Quiet times are fertile grounds for cultivation of this gift.  I'll be working hard on paying attention these days. It's a useful practice to keep in mind, not just during the time of the pandemic, but always!

Inside Looking Out, Part II

Social distancing and quasi-quarantine measures continue and escalate. Virtually every operation in my studio building has come to a screeching halt, which means that I am usually the only one there--certainly the only person on the 2nd floor. While it seems entirely too quiet, it does feel relatively safe in terms of avoiding contact with others.  And so I continue to go in, and to gaze out the windows, and to paint what I see.

Looking, really looking, at these views is revelatory. Sometimes you have to do a lot of looking before you SEE. And SEEING is the most important skill of a perceptual painter. It is a lifetime's work.  That may all sound like voodoo, but it's not. (For the curious, I have written more about what it means to "see" here).

I'm illustrating this post with a painting of an apartment building across the street from my studio. I have looked at it thousands of times, and I love the way the stark whiteness of it reflects nice light into my space. But until I started to paint it, I had not really SEEN it.

"White Apartment Building"
8 x 12, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

When I finally tuned into it and received the visual information it was providing, I realized that the facades of the different wings reflect light differently, and as a result appear different shades of white. I realized that, from my altitude, the flat roof presents an interesting oblique shape. The most startling realization was that the facade with the central door is curved. Yes, curved--it is concave! How could I have failed to see that before?? It was not until the conclusion of the painting session, when I had watched the shadow shapes change with the movement of the sun, that I figured out why they were changing the way they were--that that the changes were due to the curve of the wall.

And so, I will never look at that building the same. I treasure this little painting for the way it helped teach me to SEE!

Inside Looking Out, Part I

Unfortunately, the words "social distancing" and "quarantine" have become part of our everyday vocabulary over the past week or two. But fortunately, I have still been able to go to my studio every day. For better or worse, my studio location allows me to work without interacting with other people. In fact, the current crisis contains something of a silver lining: with meetings and appointments cancelled, there are extra quiet hours for reflection and for listening to one's own inner voice. 

"Two Gables"
10 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

As I reflect, I have been looking out the windows of my second floor studio. In these quiet days, my strongest impulse has been to paint what I see out the window. I keep thinking of what the painter Frank Hobbs has said: "Your life's work lies in the courtyard just outside your house."  

The top two photos show what can happen when you take the time to study a view that you typically just glance at every day in passing. There's a lot of chaotic information in that view, but the window panes just happened to hand me an interesting composition.  Quick, quick, before the angle of the sun changed too much (I didn't want to lose those great shadows under the eaves!), I grabbed my plein air easel and set up next to the window. 

The last photo shows how the painting started, with my "searching" lines, as I started to put the composition together. Lots of angles. In the end, I decided to leave some of these initial marks visible. I think they add to the energy of the painting. Let me know what you think! And stay tuned for more views out the studio windows...

Fast and Slow

Faithful readers know that quotations are sprinkled liberally throughout this blog. I recently ran across a startling one that I had never before heard. It goes like this:

"Fast is fine,

but accuracy is final.

You must learn

to be slow in a hurry."

The words are attributed to none other than the famous gunslinger of the Wild West, Wyatt Earp. You can imagine what he meant when he said that accuracy was "final". 

This quote seems especially instructive in the context of plein air painting. When painting outdoors, many things (light, clouds, temperature) are constantly changing, and the painter has to work fast. But being fast is not enough--the painter must also get the right colors, in the right shapes, in the right places on the canvas. It's always a eureka moment when you put down just the right stroke of paint--it works!--and you can lay it and leave it. That's what I'd call accuracy in painting.

"Quiet Hamlet"
12 x 8, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell
(SOLD)

But how do we achieve that accuracy? By being "slow in a hurry". That's quite a paradox--it appears to make no sense, but it actually holds a powerful truth. While working very  quickly, the painter must still take time to look deeply, to analyze what he sees, to compare each color to the next.  In other words, he must slow down enough to make careful decisions, but still work at a hurried pace. Just being fast isn't very helpful if you're not doing the right things!

"Atmospheric Hills"
7 x 14, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(Available)

And how do you go "slow in a hurry"? I suspect it has  to do with sustained practice--repeating certain challenges so often that the approaches to them become second nature. Such practice allows us to develop painting skills that become almost instinctual. They become part of our artistic DNA. They can be summoned in an instant.  When we slow down to make the decision about the next brushstroke, the decision can be taken relatively quickly. And the entire series of decisions can be made in a hurry. And so we "go slow in a hurry".  A useful goal to keep in mind.

"Paris Pont"
10 x7, Oil on Carton
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(SOLD)

I'm illustrating this post with a few favorite plein air paintings that I've done over the past year or so.  These are the miraculous ones  that came together completely in the field, and required no adjustments back in the studio. Final!