Sometimes these things take awhile . . . .

Thanks for bearing with me here at Studioflint. I have moved from Raleigh, NC back to the lovely, albeit more overcast, Pacific Northwest and to Portland, Oregon. As it was my home two years ago I am very familiar with the city. It feels good to be back. The new studio is just about set up and I should be posting on the blog regularly. Newest piece sent out to Robert Lange Studios before driving 3000 miles. Symphony, 48" x 36", oil on canvas

This is a head drawing . . . done for fun and traded for other original art.

The title of the post reflects the bizarre nature of creativity and how 'Symphony' went unfinished for a couple of years. I left it hanging in my house while I looked it over many times, wondering what was the 'right' way to complete the narrative. I think the painting needed space to breathe, not to rush it, and let the idea marinate till it was ready to pop out. One of those situations that taught me about the importance of patience and risk.

Stairwell

from the sketchbook. . . . . . . . more updates (with paintings) on the way.

Belated

Article on group show at RLS:

How'd they do that (my title, not the articles)

Have a look at the show,RLS, and see many varieties of approaching color harmonies, color relationships, and color mixing used to create a piece. In some cases a few artists have multiple paintings and their corresponding palettes.

Looking at these provides insight into working processes, problem solving , and visual literacy.

July Group Show

Coming Up!

July Group Show at Robert Lange Studios

Opening Reception:
July 15th 5:30 -7:30PM

As part of the Palette and Palate evening, where top restaurants come together with great galleries across Charleston. Sounds Delicious! My question is, are the pantings made of marzipan? I guess there is always next time.

The show structure pairs the paintings with the palettes used to create the piece. A few examples are below, mine's top.

Expanded roster exhibition so make sure you have a look at the variety of work on display. Use the link at right to go to the RLS website.

Where are you looking?

Sketch for a painting . . . a painting that may or may not get done. And this will be piled on the scrape heap of art history, my own personal art history.

Back from vacation, go have one yourself if you can. . . .does wonders.

Make . . . .

. . .Believe.

Funny how I may start with reference for a painting. Then through twists and turns of the creative/painting process I end up abandoning the ref for my imagination. Things get pushed and pulled with the paint. Layers get applied, layers get scraped off, areas dry and then I try to leave the marks that don't need to be adjusted. This painting is consistent with that description. Really just searching for the "right" paint application.



Night Points east, oil on panel, 7"x5"

Close Ups

A few close ups of the title painting, Invisible Cities.

Solo Show Coverage

Here are a set of pics from the opening of the show. Since I don't have a smart phone, like the rest of the world, or have a Facebook page, like the rest of the world, or use Flickr, like whomever, I put them on the blog. Lacking all of this stuff means I couldn't post images as the event was happening. I know we are all so use to the 25 hour news cycle and everything on demand and instant food but its not in the Studioflint's budget, both time and money, to get my media outlets modernized, yet. Maybe at our next board meeting we can discuss these upgrades and have them in place for the fall. Woo hoo, exciting times coming ahead.

Anyhow, enjoy the pics and thanks for dropping by.
















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To explain a few things:
- The small gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings are the ones clustered together and framed behind glass. I usually have a set of smaller works that provide a wide range of subject matter.
- At the end of the night artists sign the door; so me and the two musicians etched our names next to many other talented individuals.
- I'm laughing because its 95 and humid and I am melting towards the end. Oh we suffer for fashion, its not just you ladies.

(All photos courtesy of Robert Lange Studios. There are many more covering the show on their website: RLS.com)
Show is over and its on to the next paintings/shows and back to the studio. I'll leave you with an imaginary head painting/ experiment. The head is oil on paper.

Today . . . .

. . . head over to The RLS Super Blog as the paintings gets hung for the show. There will be pics of all the works in the gallery today and throughout the weekend covering opening night. So far they have a collection of my small gouache paintings up on the wall. (Please use the link in the updated links section at right). All the artists from the gallery use this blog to post works in progress, finished paintings, and other musings of being an artist. Good resource.

My website has been updated with all the work for the show: www.joshuaflint.com
If you want to see the paintings in more detail, I'd head over there at some point by using the links section.


Enjoy your weekend!

The Past Is Prologue

A reminder for my show opening up this friday. Head over to Robert Lange Studios by clicking here to see the images. All paintings will be posted on my website this Wednesday.

Here's a painting from a series of statues that will be in the show.



The Past Is Prologue, 24" x 15", oil on panel

Solo Show

American Art Collector feature on my solo exhibition:
Joshua Flint:Invisible Cities









New Paintings will be posted on my website next tuesday and a few more will be posted here towards the build to the show.

Thanks for dropping in.

Process

Here's a process breakdown of a painting for my upcoming show at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston,SC.
Opening night is June 3rd. Still working on getting the last few pieces completed.


- Quick vine charcoal sketch:



- I pour out shellac over the sketch and smooth it around with a business card or squeegee. It doesn't need to be one perfect layer. The varied drying times in different sections of shellac adds a varied layer of texture and opacity. This stage mimics the traditional layer of glaze one might use with oils without the drying time. The shellac is dry in 10 minutes or less. It also blurs and smudges the charcoal drawing underneath in a spontaneous manner. That sense of spontaneity is exciting and the results can't be totally controlled. I like that.



- Then the oil painting caps off the piece. As with any of my works there are multiple layers of paint built up. That furthering layering of paint also has its own narrative in addition to the subject matter. Sort of a bad photo with this last stage.



As Yet Untitled , Oil, Illustration Board mounted on panel, 15"x10"

I do read the comments when they are left on the blog. I apologize if I haven't thanked those of you for dropping in recently. I always like to hear how others react to my work. So a massive thank you to those who left a message.

Docs and Pods

If you are like me and need something to listen to in the studio as background noise, while working on your painting, these couple of links could provide just the tonic.

A slew of art documentaries covering all genres and time periods in art history. I'd recommend anything by Simon Schama and also The Art Of The Steal, which is getting press lately as events continue to unfold. You'll know what I mean when you watch the doc. Many more in the list to pique your interest I'm sure. New favorite site.

Streaming Online Art Documentaries

I'm also very interested in hearing about the narrative of an artists life but get bored with critics or writers telling these stories. I want to hear from the artists and get it right from the horses mouth, so to speak. Often these artists were doing representational work in the height of modernism in the 50's and 60's and experienced real rejection by the art world. The Newington-Cropsey Cultural Studies Center was established in 1990 by The Newington-Cropsey Foundation as an interdisciplinary educational resource for art and ideas. It put out this series of podcasts, following the link below.

NCCSC Podcasts
(Be aware that not all podcasts listed after the jump are available in iTunes. So, right click and highlight 'download linked file' to your listen on your CPU or just click the 'listen' link and you will be directed to an online player. Mac users use the option button.)

Although a podcast hasn't been done for a year, there are a nice collection of hour long (roughly) conversations with artists. A few highlights would be Milton Glaser, Burt Silverman and William Bailey who is the Kingman Brewster Professor Emeritus of Art at Yale. Certainly a few luminaries in the representational world of art. Quite frankly I didn't know much about some of these artists but I guess you can never know everything, unless you are Donald Trump.


If you want to hear a 45 minute discussion from the living master that is Antonio Lopez Garcia head over to The American Video Painting Magazine. It may cost a few bucks, $10 exactly, but you get his interview and another hour or so of painting content.

AVPM Downloads


I'll leave you with a new painting for my upcoming June Show at Robert Lange Studios.



Dusk's Gold Filigree, 36"x18", oil on panel.

Vincent Desiderio Workshop

If you take away something of value from this post it'll have been worth your time, if not I swear I'll post better stuff in the future, so don't desert me if you are left disappointed. Not sure why it got so in-depth but here goes.



I was one of around twenty artists (I think) who received a Regional Artists Project Grant from the United Arts Council for 2011. Since Raleigh, NC is in Wake County that is the branch that awarded my specific grant. At the heart of it they provide funding for an artist to complete a project that benefits his career. It could be for educational purposes, or used to purchase necessary studio equipment, or in a number of other ways. With such a wide scope for a project I would recommend any North Carolina artist to look into the program in your respective county.


My project was of the educational type. I attended a Vincent Desiderio Workshop at the Pennsylvania academy of Fine Art (PAFA) in Philadelphia. He teaches at PAFA, the New York Academy of Art and is represented by Marlborough Gallery. If you don't know Vincent Desiderio's work and enjoy Contemporary Realism there are a few paintings below. If you like what you see I'd encourage you to click on the gallery link. He also has a very nice monograph. when you are looking at the images below just consider that all of his figures are life sized or slightly larger. Scale of idea is very important when viewing his painting. Its as if these characters could walk right out of the scene and into our life.
His large scale triptychs truly epitomize his work, like the one below.

Pantocrator, 82"7/8 x 194" , 2002



Interpretation of Color, 81.2" x 70.3", 1997



Sink, 48" x 64" 1/2, oil on paper, 2010



Being acquainted with his oeuvre and interested in what he had to say about narrative painting in the modern context I booked a train to Philly. I arrived at the oldest art school in the United States just in time for his lecture.



The class centered around realist work in the last 600 years, roughly. With such a wide sweep of history to cover thank goodness Mr Desiderio has an encyclopedic knowledge of the art movements, artists, and philosophies that existed in this time period. Not only did he know dates, names, and titles, he could also summarize large swaths of history. Ultimately, he delivered the information in very definable terms. I received insight into the social milieu of these eras and the constraints faced by many artists. And he cracked many jokes along the way.

Outside of the historical backdrop to the lineage of oil painting in the western world, we also were there to paint. We focused on both direct and indirect painting, which involves the technical narrative and dramatic narrative. Since we were working from models and not developing a personal piece, the dramatic narrative was discussed in relation to realist work in the modern context. That may be a post for another day, so back to the task at hand. I have some familiarity with the indirect method but I normally don't involve glazes in my paintings. I have occasionally used them in the past but not in the last 6-8 years. Certainly not in the manner I'll describe later in this write up.

Much of the philosophy around indirect painting is based on layering opaque paint and transparent glazes to build a painting, where one would go back and forth between the two to achieve the end result. By doing so the painting attains a great depth in the darks. Light will pass through the many layers of glazed color to give off a great effect. At the same time a glaze will obliterate the lit areas forcing the painter to build them anew after each pass. This method allows for an artist to really control how the lit masses will be resolved. This is what has been referred to as the " Mountain Over the Fat." By softening the edges of opaque scumbling into the glaze below, with each successive layer, one can build the 'skin' of a painting, bringing about a tremendous solidity of form. Here's a visual maybe it will make more sense in displaying the notion of blending the transitions of opaque paint into the glaze.



Here are my two studies. The top one follows the indirect painting practice. The second one is much more direct, even though there is a layer of shellac underneath the oil, which is the amber color evident in parts of piece not yet painted.

25'x17"


22"x 15"



The process to set up the indirect painting was as follows:

Using 300lb. hot press watercolor paper I did a quick block in with vine and compress charcoal. At this beginning stage it is a very loose sketch with no details just big masses. Then I spread a layer of shellac over the whole sheet of paper (see pic below). The shellac dries in less than ten minutes as the paper absorbs quickly. At this point I painted the two models thinking mostly about color temperature. In anticipation of the first glaze I was instructed to lighten the value contrast between the shadow and lit areas. This first stage of painting should cover the entire canvas and the paint can be quite thick. As I painted I kept in mind color temperature, edges, and some modeling of the forms but still not getting too caught up in detail or any refined marks. That paint layer dried with the help of Liquin Fine Detail and we applied a burnt umber/ van dyck brown liquin based glaze over the whole image. What you see in my study above is the next and final layer of paint that time allowed. I have completely reworked the models, adjusting the drawing as needed. We only had a few hours so my piece is not developed by any means but it is has the beginnings of a figure which has real weight and 'lives' in its own space on the paper. You might not able to tell with my dodgy photos but in person there is a solidity that can't be attained with direct painting.

The infamous shellac that I used. Sorry about the table it got pretty trashed. Wasn't me.


On the last day we had time to watch Mr. Desiderio revamp another artist's underpainting.



Here are a couple of close ups. Not accustomed to creating a painting with this methodology I really couldn't tell what he was doing for the first half hour. I was sitting there thinking, " well thats not right." However, his color relationships were exquisite and the forms were beginning to slowly emerge. It could have been a reaction to the rich glaze that he was working on and thinking ' how am I going to handle this process.' A short time later, It did come together creating a powerful statement about the figure. His brush marks at first were composed of gentle stabs at the paper, which didn't cover the surface uniformly allowing the rich dark browns of the glaze to shine through. Further on, once enough paint got on the surface,he controlled the entire piece paying closer attention to the transitions, edges and true values of the forms. As more paint was applied and areas were resolved much of the glaze underneath was lost. The shadows maintained thinner paint and the opaque paint was softened into these areas to create the 'skin' of the painting, bring a real sense of weight to the figure. Which refers back to the whole mountain over the fat idea. As you can see from his painting below.



Vincent Desiderio demo study:



He was so animated and lively with his lectures, how could one not be inspired by his enthusiasm. I was enthralled the whole time. Above so many great qualities his openness and honesty in discussing life as a painter was the most memorable. It didn't matter if it was technical, philosophical, professional or personal, he was more than candid about what he knew and really wanted you to fully understand the information. He simply enjoyed discussing what he knew, like an old friend would. This ability to relate his findings and combine it with his own experiences as a painter is evident in his body of work and the nature of his vision. A true scholar and gentleman. He's left an indelible mark on my maturation as a painter. These pics get the brilliant man in full flow.



Lastly, here is a pic of us in the classroom at the end of our workshop. I think it's an apropos image in regards to my outlook as a painter. It's a lifelong journey where we are never too old to learn about our own creativity and where it can take us. This mystery has driven the history of painting.



I've got pages of notes which I am going to compile for my own use and maybe I'll post some more in the future. I'll definitely need to experiment with some of what I learned before coming to any further conclusions. It has prompted me to delve further into the chemistry of oils, its additives, and how I can manipulate the media to best realize my ideas on canvas.
However, right now is not the time, as I am prepping for my own show.

So off to paint and I hope some of you will be that much more inspired today.