Insurmountable Opportunities

You may be familiar with the quotation from the cartoon character Pogo:  "Gentlemen, we are confronted with insurmountable opportunities."  The quote was elaborated on beautifully by the acclaimed photographer Sally Mann, in her memoir entitled Hold Still.  Mann writes, "It is easier for me to take ten good pictures in an airplane bathroom than in the gardens of Versailles."  So true.

There is something about limitations that forces us to delve deeply into our creativity.  And conversely, there is something about endless possibilities that can be paralyzing.  In fact, I  confronted "insurmountable opportunities" recently on a painting trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Staying at Old Orchard Creek Farm for a few days, there were beautiful sights in every direction. Paralysis almost set in--what should I paint--the distant ridges? nearby apple orchard? charming Victorian house? striking red barn?  I was ready to hyperventilate, just considering the overwhelming array of options.

Thankfully I was able to settle down and focus.  I got a few paintings that were very satisfying.  I just kept repeating my mantra:  "Shapes of Color, Shapes of Color".  And trying to focus on simple shapes, rather than on "things".  But still--sometimes it's easier to make something from nothing, than to face a gorgeous scene that is surely more beautiful than any painting of it could ever be.

I'm illustrating this post with some shots from the trip.  Hope you will enjoy these.  Finished paintings to go up on the website soon...

"Old Orchard Creek Farm"

12 x 12, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

How to Create

 On occasion I come across a book on a subject unrelated to painting, which nonetheless turns out to be a treasure trove of ideas that enhance my studio practices.  One of these is Stephen King's book On Writing.  You don't have to be a would-be novelist to love this book. If you are at all interested in the creative process, or simply in writing well, you will be rewarded by reading this one. I should have included it in my recent post on Summer Reading!

King's book is part memoir, part "how to" on writing. I found the memoir portion to be as instructive as the other parts on the subject of the creative process. His memoir provided proof that if you follow the things that have excited you since childhood, you are tapping into the best and most authentic material.  In King's case, think goblins, gore and things that go bump in the night.  

"Hermitage Road"

Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

Here are a few quotes from the book that I find especially applicable to my own work. Faithful readers may also find that they contain important life lessons:

"You must not come lightly to the blank page."

"Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation."

"Luther Street Bungalow"

8 x 12, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

"If you want to be a successful writer, you must be able to describe [the experience], and in a way that will cause your readers to prickle with recognition."

"Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."

Untitled

Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

And a personal favorite, so akin to what I strive for in simplification of my paintings:  "Good description usually consists of a few well chosen details that will stand for everything else."

"Backstage"

6 x 12, Oil on Canvas

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

I'm illustrating this post with some recent paintings, in which I tried to SEE clearly and DESCRIBE with a few details so that the work can be completed in the viewer's imagination.  Enjoy!

 

Shadow Study

 

What better time to write about shadows than now, just after Groundhog Day! This year, the Groundhog did see his shadow, and I have also been thinking about shadows in my paintings. Sometimes it is a struggle to get shadow colors correct. Why?  Because a shadow is usually not a very intense color.  Read on...

(c) Peggi Kroll Roberts

If a color is "intense", it is easy to name immediately. Examples are an apple, or a well manicured golf green.  It takes only a split second to identify one as "red" and the other as "green". But just try to name the color of the shadow beneath a car.  No name comes to mind.  The shadow color is of very low intensity, and thus very hard to identify. 

"Teapot and Fruit"

12 x 16, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

That said, the cast shadow can be the artist's best friend. It helps define the object that is casting the shadow. And it anchors the object to the ground. Take a look at the paintings above by Peggi Kroll Roberts. The cast shadow is as just important as the person casting it! And it my teapot painting, the shadow shapes help unify the painting and connect all the objects.

(c) Karin Jurik

For another illustration of the power of the  shadow, we need look no farther than the painting above, featuring the bicycle shadow. I might even say that the shadow MAKES this painting what it is.  Enjoy! 

Playing with Planes

"Planes on Pears"
Oil on Canvas, 30 x 30
(c) Lesley Powell 2020
(Available at Huff Harrington Fine Art)

Lately I've been painting quite a few still lifes in my studio. I've become obsessed with the yellows and greens of lemons and pears. And I've taken to heart the rule of thumb that "Where there is a plane change, there is a color change".  (Translation for non-painters: where an object's contour changes, the light it reflects changes, and thus its color changes).

It's easy to see the planes on a cube.  Not so easy to see on a rounded object, such as a human head. Or, more prosaically, a lemon or a pear.  Careful observation is required!

"Jug, Lemons, Pear"
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16
(c) Lesley Powell 2020
(SOLD)

With subjects like this, the fun is in the SEEING. It's a challenge not only to detect where the plane changes occur, but also to see the sometimes subtle color changes that result from the change. 

"Three Lemons and Creamer"
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16
(c) Lesley Powell 2020
(Available at Huff Harrington Fine Art)

One great master of this challenge was the British painter Euan Uglow. I hesitate to show his work in the same post as mine, because my work pales so in comparison, but just to make my case, see Uglow's lemon below. So beautifully observed and rendered. 

I've been trying to take some lessons from Uglow. If you remember my prior posts, learning from the masters is a time honored method of honing your skills. It's very humbling, yes. But as the poet Robert Browning wrote, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed one's grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

Face Off

I recently painted a "beret series"--a group of oil sketches featuring French men, women and children wearing berets. Working on this series has enhanced my already great respect for artists who paint figures and portraits. The slightest little angle can change an expression completely--or make the subject go from handsome to ugly. I spent hours  adjusting and re-adjusting eyes and mouths my French folks. And these are just "sketches"!

"Red Beret I"
10 x 10, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

Why are faces so hard to get right? It's largely because the human eye and brain are exquisitely sensitive to very slight changes in human facial expressions. In fact, we have a specialized brain module that is devoted exclusively to processing faces. Because of this specialized module, we have very fine "within-face discrimination". An image that presents as a face is automatically processed by the specialized module. Thus, whenever we see a face, we are geared up to make very fine judgments of very slight differences.

"Boy in Beret"
10 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2010

For proof, consider the top photo in this post. In it, the faces are shown upside down. They probably look fairly similar to you. Because they are upside down, they don't present to our brains as faces. And because they are viewed as something other than faces, we don't use the specialized "face" module in our brains to interpret them. As a result, we don't make ultra fine distinctions between the images. They look rather similar. But. But! Just look at the photo below. 

When the faces are rightside up, our brains read them as faces, which triggers use of our special module. One glance tells us that things are quite amiss with the woman on the right. Yikes! I can study the top photo at length and not discern these differences. Yet one split second glance at the real photo, and I realize that things are horribly off. What an amazing illustration of the heightened sensitivity with which we view human faces. 

The illustrations of the "face inversion effect" are from Margaret Livingstone's book Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing. Can't wait to learn more from this book! 

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!

Inspiring Words, Recovered

"Dusk Colors"
(c) Martha Armstrong, 2014

Years ago, I attended an "Artist's Talk" by Martha Armstrong, at Elder Gallery in Charlotte. I don't know exactly why I set aside the time to attend the presentation that morning, but I do know that I went away totally inspired. Martha was so down to earth, and she said so many things that really resonated with me. She talked about her perceptual approach to painting, and her words really hit home. This was long before I even knew what the term "perceptual painting" meant, and long before I tapped into that approach as my preferred approach to painting.

"View from Peter's"
10 x 16, Oil on Canvas
(c) Martha Armstrong

I scribbled some notes, and tried to write down word for word Martha's remarks that meant the most to me. And then I lost the notes!! Many times over the years I have searched for the notes from Martha's talk, as if finding them would unlock the key to some painting struggle that I was experiencing. 

"Lines of Light"
Oil on Canvas, 30 x 48
(c) Martha Armstrong

Well, dear Readers, I found the notes this week! Tucked inside of a monograph on Monet. On pages from my 2010 Daytimer. So it's been a while. But the words are no less inspiring eight years later. I am illustrating this post with Martha's paintings, and am sharing a few of my favorite quotes from her talk. If you are so inclined, you can also read a wonderful interview with Martha on the Painting Perceptions blog here. 

"In painting, the motivation isn't to get a representation, but rather to bear witness to the act

of seeing."

"Cedar Trees, Umbria"
Oil on Canvas, 20 x 24
(c) Martha Armstrong

"I repeat the same subject over and over. I want to get to know it. It's like a piece of music that you want to play again and again."

"When my granddaughter said that my drawings didn't look like flowers, I replied 'They're NOT flowers--they are DRAWINGS!'"

"Apples and Maple with Post 3"
Oil on Canvas,  5 x7
(c) Martha Armstrong

"Remember the words of Freud: 'Our senses are to the eye as intuition is to the Id.'"

Behind the Scenes

"South End Drive Through"
12 x 12, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(Private Collection)

I've been taking advantage of the warmer spring temperatures over the past several weeks, and have been painting outdoors. My studio is located in Charlotte's historic South End, so I can just walk out my door carrying my portable easel like a backpack, and I don't have to go far to find lots of interesting things to paint.

"Miller Services, Midday"
12 x 18, Oil on Panel
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

Walking along the light rail line, I usually see the backs of buildings. It's become a favorite motif for me. I know what time of day the facades are in sun, and what time they are in shadow. I can arrange my schedule to get the best view for the painting I have in mind. It feels like these latest works

Guild of Charlotte Artists

(c) Martha Armstrong

I had the honor of speaking recently to the Guild of Charlotte Artists. I prepared a handout, but we ran out of copies, so I promised to post the contents on my blog. Here you go--resources on Perceptual Painting. In this post, I've been able

Value Judgments

Photo from Jennifer McChristian

Painting is all about making value judgments. And I don't mean the sort that concern good and evil!  In the world of art, "value" describes the relative lightness or darkness of things. Many fine artists believe that value is far more important than color in the success of a painting. I remember quite well what Peggi Kroll Roberts said to us in a workshop, "Color gets all the glory, but value does all the work." So true.

If you're not familiar with the concept of value, you can start by thinking of a black and white

Seeing Deeply

I am always thinking about the process of SEEING, and how we perceive the things around us. Today I'm sharing a few quotations that illuminate the way that artists see. Enjoy!

"Quartet"
Oil on Linen, 12 x 18
(c) Lesley Powell 2017

"Ordinary things deeply seen can have a nameless beauty and mystery."  -- Donald Beal

"Cultivate an ever-continuous power of observation. Wherever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents." --John Singer Sargent

"Afternoon Light"
Oil on Paper, 8 x 8
(c) Lesley Powell 2017

"[In painting,] the motive isn’t to get a representation but to bear witness to seeing."  --Martha Armstrong

The real journey of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes." --Marcel Proust

The Shadow Struggle

If you've been reading here for very long, you already know that learning to paint is really all about learning to see. In learning to see, one of the trickiest things (at least for me) is learning to see the color of shadows. This is true for cast shadows (such as those in the top photo), as well as for the shadowed side of an object (called a "form shadow"). When light is striking a subject, its color is more readily apparent. But what lurks in the shadows??

One reason that shadows can be difficult to decipher is that their color is very subtle. In painting parlance, I would say that they are of "low intensity". Their color is a bit wishy-washy. It can be pushed in different directions, depending on the light, the immediate surroundings, and anything else in the field of vision.

"Miller Services Building"
8 x 10, Oil on Board
(c) Lesley Powell 2016
SOLD

There are guidelines that can be helpful. For example, the painter Richard Schmid has written that warm light produces cool shadows, and cool light produces warm shadows. An

Wyeth's Interiors

(c) Andrew Wyeth

I was recently in New England, and had the chance to visit the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. The museum has an extensive collection of works by Andrew Wyeth. I always think of Wyeth as a Pennsylvania artist, but he also spent his summers in Maine and did some beautiful work there. 

"Her Room"
 (c) Andrew Wyeth

Visiting the museum, I was reminded of Wyeth's evocative interior paintings. I don't know why I haven't thought of them before, in all of my posts about interiors! Far from the lush, inviting rooms that many painters choose to paint, Wyeth's rooms are stark. They seem to

Seeing Inside

"Dried Hydrangeas"
(c) Carole Rabe

It's always exciting to discover the work of a very accomplished artist whose approach to painting is the same as, or similar to, your own. It helps me see all that can be possible! I recently came across several paintings by Carole Rabe. The paintings immediately struck a chord with me, and I embarked on more research regarding Rabe's work. Lo and behold, I learned that Rabe studied with Robert d'Arista. D'Arista was also a mentor to a couple of my other favorite painters, Maggie Siner and Frank Hobbs. 'Tis a strong bloodline that holds together this group of perceptual painters!

"Dining Chair Lineup"
(c) Carole Rabe

I read an in-depth interview with Rabe, which confirmed many things that I had surmised simply from looking at her paintings. First, she paints only from direct observation of her subject, never from photos. As she says. only SEEING with her own eyes gives her the

Painting from Life

As faithful readers know, I prefer to paint from life whenever possible. (For the uninitiated, "painting from life" means standing before your subject in person, and painting what you see, as you stand there. By contrast, you do not paint from life when you paint from a photo, from memory, or from any other approach). Why do I prefer to paint from life? Let me count the ways:

(1) Painting from life is a thrill!  Something starts my heart racing and my brain brimming over when I stand in the landscape, studying to find my composition, and trying to discern the light and colors. Painting from life has a thrill factor (for me, at least) that painting from a photo simply lacks. The challenge of standing with the whole wide world around you, and then choosing the small slice of the world that you will paint to represent your experience of the whole--well, that's a WOW challenge. It is an entirely different experience than looking at a one dimensional photograph and reproducing it. Different, more difficult, and much more fun!

(2) Painting from life gives you more information to work with. For me, painting is all about learning to see. And you can't see from a photo what you can see with your eyes in person. Simply put, a human being sees things differently than a camera does. In life, you

Seeing a Shadow

What better time to write about shadows than now, approaching Groundhog Day! As we wonder whether the groundhog will see his shadow, I am thinking about shadows in my paintings. Sometimes it is a struggle to get shadow shapes and colors correct. 

(c) Peggi Kroll Roberts

One issue is that a shadow varies in intensity. The "core" of a shadow tends to be very dark, but the edges tend to be lighter. Or, as Leonardo da Vinci said  more poetically: