3 sheets of prepared paper, 2 sides to each sheet – 1 bird, 4 cats and 1 rodent

“For thirty years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don’t. Everything about me is a contradiction and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.”    - Orson Welles (1915 – 1985)

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I never liked this first set of 2 cats that I painted. I thought them too sweet. Yesterday I was talking to a friend about polarities, after that conversation I knew exactly what I wanted to do to these small compositions that I was struggling with. It’s the same cat on the front and on the back, taking up the same area on the paper. Maybe I call it Two Sides to Every Story.

As of now, this first one is my favorite. It’s organic. The cat itself is somewhat modeled after Bansky’s rabbits. I set up the skeleton in egg tempera and the cat in graphite, underneath is casein muscle structure. The background came about while I was trying to obliterate it.

mixed media – casein, graphite, gesso, egg tempera

early stage, casein under-paint

early stage, egg tempera

egg tempera

I guess I let go of the self-imposed set up, the idea of one side in pure casein and one side in pure egg tempera wasn’t working. I got another set of designs and reworked them too. The graphite took so well to the prepared paper, how could I not use it. I brought in hard and soft pencils, an eraser, sand paper, a scratch tool, and gesso. And I mixed the casein and egg yolk. The cat above and the rat below, are pure and painterly egg temperas. But their other sides – mixed-media.

egg tempera

mixed media – casein, egg tempera, gesso and graphite

I began all this the first week of May after Carolyn brought me a sheet of prepared paper. The first 2 images in this post are that sheet, it’s the lightest in weight and the most flexible and was the most precious. I was going to paint cats – for the fun of it. Obviously I enjoyed the surface of the paper, and all the mediums. I pulled out all my longer and softer paintbrushes. I painted.

- 3 sheets of prepared paper – 1 bird, 4 cats and 1 rodent later, my studio is a mess. It’s too hot to have egg yolk lying around, it smells. I’m done for now with the experimenting, drawing a day or a week thing. Time to pause, look – and reorganize.

mixed media cat study

This is the last paper I prepped and the final cat I planned to work on. I feel like I am just getting the hang of this and putting the paper to its best use.

This work is in casein, graphite, gesso and prisma pencil. The color went on so subtle in some places and so rich in other areas. I love the feel of the pencil on this surface. It’s unfinished, I’ll get to the background next. And the rodent on the other side  -  is going to get reworked and mixed with other mediums.

cielo / tierra

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.  - Shakespeare

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early stage of bird image

I finally complete one set of two paintings on one prepared sheet of paper. This came about because Carolyn gave me a sheet of drawing paper prepared in the way she prefers to work with it. I prepped two more sheets and have been working on several 2-sided design. They all relate to a cat in one way or another. I should note again: Carolyn uses graphite and acrylic wash and does not work on both sides of the paper.

Because I am experimenting I decide I will paint one side in casein, and the other in egg tempera. Normally I mix the two mediums, but I want to know how they each respond to the surface. Both mediums work well, laying bright and smooth. My brushes and my rags like the feel too.

These images are stages of the casein bird. I collage architectural renderings (I found in a trashcan the day I started all of this) onto this one paper and prepare it the same way. I have to adjust things so the design continue to show through. It’s how the background comes to be in this set. Look closely – you see the line work I follow, paint and scratch over.

Casein takes to the surface well – egg tempera even better. I’ve already showed you the cat at its completed stage, (I show it again here below), and here is the finishedl bird which I worked some more, until I liked it.

Bird, Casein collage on prepared paper, 12″ x 12″

I did experiment with a hanging system. I have to finesse it. It’s very possible this work will hang in downtown’s 515′s art space,  in June for there 515 to the 5th exhibit where each member invites 5 artists to show a small 12″ x 12″. Mary Shindell invited me.

Below is the (egg tempera) cat at an early stage so you can see the collage line work, and then the final image.

car, casein colage on prepared paper, 12″ x 12″

I am thinking about the title. If you have an idea let me know.

Cat / Bird
Una Gata / Un Pájaro  … simple.

Earth / Sky
La Tierra / El Cielo … I like this one.

Earth and Air
Tierra y Aire … I like this one.

Aversion and Attraction … This amuses me.

or … The One That Got Away.

marilyn zwak and our shared environment – a public art project

Our Shared Environment by Artist Marilyn Zwak, 1990

I’m not sure what the temperature was yesterday. I’ll guess – warm 90′s. Driving back from jurying an art show in Tempe,  we exit the 51 at Thomas, in Phoenix and Carolyn [Lavender] points out a woman on scaffolding.

C: Look! there’s Marilyn Zwak. She’s a self-taught artist who is restoring a public art work she did 20 years ago.

M: Wouldn’t that be a fun photo of an artist. You should have told me sooner, or slowed down or something.

C: Do you want to meet her?

We’re on the exit ramp – in rush hour traffic.

M: Yeah, Why not.

We park nearby and hike back to the highway exit.  I think we’re crazy to be walking the very busy intersection of the Thomas Street overpass.

Quick introductions occur while I stare up scaffolding and see a thin, energetic woman, with thick, silver bangs over animated eyes. I decide she’s dressed to match the sky. The only thing that stands out is the black head band across her forehead and her orange safety vest. She smiles as she recognizes Carolyn.  Marilyn introduces us to her assistant -Tom Greem. They seem to be resurfacing areas in the adobe of the wall carvings. She’s high up on the retaining wall of the 51. It’s noisy. I note her colorful prayer flags.

  

We don’t stay long and as we walk back to the car Carolyn fills me in on some history about the area, the project, and the artist. This is the Loma Linda neighborhood – it’s Carolyn’s neighborhood.

At the time the work began ( 20 plus years ago ) many people opposed the parkway and the freeway. People felt violated by the highway, which cut the neighborhood in half. There was an effort by the city to support community who felt something taken from them. Marilyn Zwak she notes, was/is very interested in the idea of healing, and entered the project and the space with focus on the future and awareness of the past. The site was to become a  Hohokam memorial.

Carolyn and I walk the underpass. The walls include obvious community involvement – they’re filled with personal objects, including shells, 45 records, metals, shards, rocks – and there are many narratives expressed through carving and text. The images below are from the South wall of the underpass. You can see the restoration in progress.

the underpass – shells embedded into the adobe

Mark Your Own Tracks

Vaya Con Dios

hands

45 records embedded into adobe

carvings, narratives (closer view below)

detail

detail

Carolyn emphasizes several times that Marilyn is a self-taught artist. I like her eyes and the way she moves her hands and I appreciate her vision. I’m glad she allows me to photograph her. I decide It was so worth the walk through rush hour traffic, at a busy highway exit, in the Phoenix heat – to meet artist Marilyn Zwak.

Last month Marily Zwak was a guest speaker for the Loma Linda Neighborhood Association. To read Carolyn’s flyer that includes a brief history of the project, Marilyn Zwak and the neighborhood → click here.

… art and artists, there’s never a dull moment …

¿rata o ratón?

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Often go awry.     - John Steinbeck

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I was not comfortable with the research phase of this composition. And now that I am almost done, I wish I’d painted an alive looking rodent (as opposed to a dead looking one). I loved discovering the small clavicles, the little shoulder blades. and the delicate rib cage.

Every summer I make time, usually 5 consecutive days, to complete one small composition a day. I work from morning to evening.  I like the intense practice that gives way to  creative solutions. I never know how things will turn out, but I determine to complete a composition that balances and appeals to my eye – and to do so rather quickly. By the end of the week, I have a series of little artworks.

In summer’s past I’ve printed, drawn, and done collage. This time I paint. It’s not a week of work though, it’s going on over a month at this point. I will have 6 small paintings on paper instead of 5. I am working steady and quick but this particular time the process requires a different pace.

It’s varies because I am working a bit larger than usual. I work the front and back of a prepared sheet of paper.  The images on each side connect, and I’ve decided material and color have to compliment. I make the egg tempera palette a little different for each panel. Drying time is part of every step. The running themes are the cat (or connection to a cat) and anatomy study, the latter requires research. Consequently I need more than a day to complete an image.

Today I’ve completed a rodent. Never confident the composition would work, I decide today I like the direction it’s taking.  The image at the top of the post is the casein under-painting. I finish below – with egg tempera. I planned to only make 6, I need the other side of this paper to complete that intention. But it’s possible I may continue and finish a few more, the challenge appeals to me.

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Common House Mouse (Mus Musculus)
Black Rat (Rattus Rattus)
Brown Rat (Rattus Norvegicus)

FYI – Rodents get their name from the Latin – rodere - to gnaw …

a final drawing day

Drawing 2 students taking down their final master reproductions

I ask the class what they want to do on our last meeting day, critique or complete their final assignment – the majority (all but 3) want the latter. I’m surprised and pleased – they want to draw.

Drawing 1 students work on a charcoal still life and Drawing 2 students reproduce an old master. Or at least 2 of them do. Jose tries to convince me that his choice of a comic book cover is a master work. And in the comic book world maybe it is. I clarify my definition – but I still let him go with his choice. Jose is studying Psychology, he’s not an official art student, he loves comic book art – why not.

Here are a few class works.

Manny’s Degas

Alejandra”s Gericault

Jose’s Spiderman cover

Tania – Three Glass Bottles

Alexssa – Skull

Adriana – Black Teapot

Lela – Tin Container and Glass Jar

…Summer Break! 

a casein bird and an egg tempera cat

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”

        ― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

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As I play with these small paintings on paper, I am reminded that in the Spanish language the word used for a new-born baby is criatura, which translates to creäture. I’ve studied anatomy for a good amount of time now, and working these small compositions I am most aware of how much structure we share with the animals.  I believe I have a better sense of why a cat is flexible and can jump high, and why a bird is able to fly.

I decide early on when first looking at cat anatomy, that I will make 4 cats. Very naturally, a bird enters this one set up. And because I have one more sheet of prepped paper, I plan to bring in a rodent because I am curious about their bodies and I admire Banksy’s rats.

I mention in the previous post I am experimenting with a new surface. Usually I work with both casein and egg tempera on one image, sometimes using casein as under-paint. In this case the bird is pure casein and the cat is pure egg tempera.  I wish I could give you a better sense of the surface especially in the image below. Texture shows nicely by the  lines I set in and the lines I carve out.  I think of aboriginal weaving while completing the pieces and play that up some.

I want to mention that I deal very differently with these animal studies as opposed to my large figure work. Though I am looking at basic structure, the figure work is a much more subtle study. One more play with animal structure and design and I then I plan get back to the large paintings.