Bored, I decided to depict one of the quails’ running across the street, playing “Chicken” with cars, flying at the last moment, against a backdrop of saguaros and balloon rides, with Pinnacle Peak in the distance.
Eventually the large version (above) was started sometime in 2007, but finished in 2010.
Each of the drawings here are done with various graphite chunks, pencils, charcoal sticks…. and a hammer. For erasing I used kneaded, typewriter and plastic erasers. After the drive I added large dark charcoal areas and red ball-point pen to the line drawing (below).
I’ll be posting the finished version sometime soon.

Self Portrait As A Quail (doodle/study)

To reiterate how I did this, First, the outlines of the Basilica were carefully traced from the original print ” The Splendor Of St Mark’s Basilica”, using regular tracing paper and a pencil. Next, I placed it over the best spot of the decorative paper and cut it out using an X-acto blade. The trick to do this is to do all your cutting first, then start separating the shapes from their positions, otherwise it’s very easy to rip the paper, especially with detailed pieces. Below is the tracing I used to cut the figures in front of the basilica.

Tracing used to cut out foreground figures.

After using select negative shapes to finish my Collagraph, ” The Splendor of St. Mark’s Basilica”, the pieces shown below were left, mainly the continuous line that formed the Basilica.

The background paper I’m using is a strong, tissue-like decorative paper, marbled with gold pigment, the paper that the Basilica was cut from is like black Canson paper, marbled in gold and silver.

More Later…

11/17/10

Updated progress.

The Splendor Of St. Mark's Basilica Revisited, Cut out shapes.

Splendor Of St. Mark's Basilica Revisited, Gold Marbled Paper.

The Splendor Of St. Mark's Basilica Revisited, detail.

View (from the west) of the Acropolis, Athens. From "Garner's Art Through The Ages"

The “Trumpeting Angels” canvas, and the stencil of “Acropolis” are from temporarily abandoned ideas. I drew the stencil back in 1987 on heavy Strathmore paper, cutting it out using an X-acto blade. I never pursued the idea and tucked it away. The “Trumpeting Angels” was one of a series of canvases depicting a Last Judgment scene, all but one of those canvases is painted over now. In July, when rummaging through portfolios, I came across the stencil and decided to spray it over the unfinished canvas.

First I pinned the stencil to the canvas in the position I wanted.
This gives sharper edges to the image being sprayed, and prevents the force of the aerosol from blowing away the stencil.

"A Glimpse Of Atlantis", Stencil pinned.

Next I liberally sprayed white enamel paint over the stencil, and repeated the process two more times in blue and orange, alternating the positive and negative shapes of the stencil as I changed the color.

"A Glimpse Of Atlantis", Stencil pinned and sprayed.

"A Glimpse Of Atlantis", sprayed in three colors with red wash.

After spray painting the stencil in the three colors, I considered how I wanted to paint it over in oils.
I reconsidered my subject matter, and decided “Acropolis” would become “Atlantis”.
First,  to create an impression of water,  I spread Stand Oil evenly over the entire canvas with a brush. Stand Oil is like linseed oil, only much thicker.  Next, I liberally mixed mineral spirits into Crimson Red oil paint, and preceded to splash and drip color randomly over the canvas to try for an underwater, or batik look.
Unhappy with the results, I smeared the Crimson paint and Stand oil together on the canvas with a dry towel, leaving a much thinner, transparent coat of red.
Then I picked up a clean brush, loaded it with mineral spirits, then splattered and pooled it, over areas on the canvas, finally getting a subtle underwater effect.

My results are in the image above.

After letting everything dry, I mixed with Damar Varnish with “Old Delft Blue”  directly on the canvas, covering it in a  translucent mix of varnish and dark blue pigment. Once again with a clean brush, I loaded it with Mineral Spirits, splattered and pooled it onto canvas creating a stronger effect of air bubbles.

After things were dry to touch, I painted areas with oil paints, brightening the insides of some of the bubble shapes, and darkened areas outside of them for higher contrast. The results were more like what I wanted, but I felt more contrast between the air bubbles and water was needed, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Results of this stage are below.

"A Glimpse Of Atlantis" with red and blue splattering.

One afternoon this fall, when walking on a blacktop driveway between two rows of tall trees, I noticed the shadow of the leaves being cast on the ground. The layered shadows of black, gray and the light of the sun, was the solution for how I wanted to accentuate the “air bubbles” in my painting.
I first thought of achieving the effect with a stencil and enamel spray paint, but instead, I decided on applying dots of oil paint over the canvas. I chose a blue, monochromatic color scheme, and  covered over everything between the “air bubbles”.
I kept as much of  the under painting as possible and used it as a map of values and shapes to determine the value of a dot placed over it. This allowed me to “pull up” and “push back” areas of interest.
I’m using Manganese blue which is a warmer and lighter in hue, and Phthalocyninne blue which is cool and very dark in hue, both mixed with Titanium white.

Below is the piece now with dots, but still in a working state. I’ll post the final image when it’s finished.

"A Glimpse Of Atlantis" with dots.

“The Splendor Of St. Marks Basilica”  was completed earlier this year. The other, “Storm Over The Basilica”, I finished around 2007. They were originally printed in the mid 1990s at The Evanston Art Center. I probably printed them the same day, reworking them several years later by adding marbled papers.
I never made an edition of prints from the plate to date.

The printing plate was created from a stencil I used back in the 1980s for two original oil paintings.

To make the Collagraph from my stencil, I first determined the size of my plate, 14″ X 19″, and cut it out of sturdy illustration board. Then using the stencil’s negative shapes, which were cut from a heavy Strathmore paper, glued them down to the board. Then I shellacked the plate, front and back, until I had a smooth surface. This step seals the plate, protecting it from breaking down from ink and solvents, etc. High gloss acrylic medium can also be used.

For  “The Splendor Of St. Marks Basilica” the plate was inked once in black, and ran through the press as a relief print.

"The Splendor Of St. Marks Basilica", 14"X19.5", Collagraph with marbled paper.

“Storm Over The Basilica”  was inked and printed twice. With the first run, I mixed a hot pink color and inked the entire plate including the recessed areas, as you would an intaglio print, then ran it through the press. For the second run I mixed blue, and inked only the surface of the plate with a roller (brayer) and printed it as a relief print, leaving the pink line exposed. I did minimal hand coloring with oil pastels on top.

"Storm Over The Basilica", 14"X19.5", Collagraph with marbled paper.

Afterward, for both prints, I traced the areas of the basilica to cut out. Then over the desired area, placed my tracing on the marbled paper and made my cuts with an X-Acto blade, and glued those shapes to the print using “Yes!” paste.

“The Splendor Of St. Marks Basilica” is in a private collection.

Although this is not a formal “how to” blog, you can find excellent explanations about Collagraph printmaking online. Below are a few examples.

http://www.artistterms.com/collagraph.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaSKKg-igNU

http://www.ebsqart.com/artMagazine/Live-Studio–Collagraph/za_567.htm

The following year in 1987, as a senior in college I did a photo essay / synchronized slide show, inspired by my experience of visiting the house and sculptures accompanied by the music of Frank Zappa. I went to Mary’s house on several occasions to complete my project, usually staying up all night working on other art projects, and before the sunrise, walking down that same path to photograph her sculptures in the first rays of the sun. Then I walked back to go to my classes for the day. I suspect she saw me photographing her sculptures through the fence those first mornings while her dog barked away at me, because on my last visit when I got down to her house, the dog was inside and her yard was open. The sun looked so amazing on her sculptures, I couldn’t resist walking timidly a short distance through the gate to take photos from the inside. Unfortunately, my slides were not returned after my show, so I now have only those slides I did not use in my essay. Some of these are shown here.

Path to "The Witch's House".

Mary Nohl, Sculptures before sunrise.

In 1992 I and a small group of other artists were doing a lot of volunteer work for Sr Thomasita Fessler (1911-2006), a prominent Wisconsin artist, contemporary of Mary Nohl and my painting professor at Stritch. As a surprise to us, Sr. Thomasita arranged a visit for us with Mary Nohl. We had no advance notice, and only one of us, Mary Smith, could get a camera to bring along. From the time we arrived, Mary Nohl was a very gracious hostess. She quickly acknowledged the “witch” stories and dismissed the rumors. She never married or had children, and her sculptures were not headstones for bodies rumored to be buried there. For someone who could have been very bitter about years of heckling and vandalism, she seemed to pass it off with some amusement. She was an artist who literally lived in her art. The interior of her house was as impressive as the outside, if one can separate the two. Nothing inside or outside was untouched by her creative hand. She walked us through the entire house explaining everything. Her chairs and couches were all hand painted, the banisters on the stairs up to her studio were all hand carved. Soft sculptures in jute hung from the ceiling and sat in chairs. Work was everywhere and in every medium. The house is a work of art in and of itself.
At the end of our visit, she kindly gave us each a ceramic bust she made, and posed with us for a couple pictures. Then she let us walk freely around the outside of her house to explore her sculpture garden while she stayed behind. It was a truly rare experience. A year later, I was still so inspired that I had to paint her portrait.

Group Portrait with Mary Nohl and Sr. Thomasita Fessler.

Mary L. Smith took the following photos the afternoon we walked around Mary Nohl’s sculpture garden, no photo’s were allowed of the inside of her home.

Mary Nohl's House.

Mary Nohl's House.

Mary Nohl's House.

Mary Nohl. Concrete Sculptures.

Mary Nohl. Concrete sculptures.

Mary Nohl, Concrete sculptures.

Mary Nohl, Concrete Sculpture.

Mary Nohl, Concrete Sculpture.

Mary Nohl Passed away in 2001. She gave her property to the Kohler Foundation for it’s preservation, and she graciously donated millions of dollars to the arts before and after her death. Her house is now on the U. S. National Register of historic places. Sadly, no tours are available at this time.

My portrait of Mary Nohl is based on the group photograph taken that day we got to meet her. Before that I had no idea what she looked like. At that time there were no books on her art, and I had no access to the internet. I was remembering the impression her paintings and sculptures had on me the year before.  I wanted to exaggerate her face in a way that reminded me of her large concrete heads, like the one below.

Mary Nohl, Concrete Sculptures in the morning.

My color was inspired by her use of bright, primary and secondary colors, exemplified in her untitled painting of boaters, shown here.

Mary Nohl."Untitled", 36"X24", Oil on Canvas.

To begin, I did three preliminary drawings in my sketchbook for studies. I first did a shaded, slightly detailed drawing, followed by two simpler contour drawings, shown here.

Study_A for "Mary Nohl".

Study_B for "Mary Nohl".

When painting the portrait, I began by using a “wet on wet” technique. First, I saturated the paper in water, and then freely added pools of colored ink and watercolor, slowly building up bright, warm and cool colors. I went back and forth between lifting wet color with a dry towel, to laying color down directly with saturated brush strokes of primary colors, to form her face.  I purposely avoided a preliminary drawing on the painting to allow her head to be distorted and become larger in the final composition. The painting was done in 1993. It measures 12″ X 8.5”, on handmade “Twin Rocker” watercolor paper. I’ve never exhibited the painting other than on my website.

"Mary Nohl", Ink and watercolor on "Twin Rocker" watercolor paper.

More about Mary Nohl;

http://www.kohlerfoundation.org/new_NohlSite.html

http://www.agilitynut.com/h/nohl.html

http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/wisc/nohl/nohl1.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Nohl-Outside-Barbara-Manger/dp/0615251188

As a kid I always enjoyed drawing. At the age of 13 I was asked to draw for the church bulletin cover, and that was the first time I used pen and ink with various sized Rapidograph Pens. I instinctively used dots and dashes which seemed to give me more time to work out my mistakes and refine my drawing , rather then cross hatching.
In collage our first lessons as beginning art students was to do multiple point and line exercises, and eventually I incorporated dots into my paintings.

All these influences led me to explore painting with splatters of color.

The canvas as you see above was last worked on July 21-22, ’10, but it was started in 2004 and has a long way to go before it is finished.
It is a companion piece to another painting I call, “New Years Evening, Madrid, Spain” (below), which I have won two awards for.
I’ll be writing more about each later and be showing the progress of “At The Bus Stop”.

"New Years Evening, Madrid, Spain" Oil on canvas. 72"X48".

"At The Bus Stop". Oil on canvas. 72"X48". July, 2010.

"At The Bus Stop" (Detail)

The painting by George Grosz (1893 – 1959)”, “Cain, Or Hitler In Hell” was a big inspiration for me to approach the biblical story of “Cain and Able”. I wanted to do an interpretation of the story but I had been more familiar with artworks showing Cain killing Able

Ghent Alterpiece (detail)

or the events leading up to the murder, but like Groz, I wanted to make a painting showing the psychological effects on Cain after he kills his brother.

Cain by George Groz

^“13But Cain answered the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! ¹⁴Since You are banishing me today from the soil, and I must hide myself from Your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.”
¹⁵Then the Lord replied to him, “Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. “And the Lord set a Mark upon Cain,lest any finding him should kill him. ¹⁶Then Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” – Genesis 4:13-16.

Thumbnail sketch #1

Thumbnail #2

Thumbnail #3

Thumbnail #4 (sketchbook entry).

In my preliminary sketches (above) I focused on Cain’s isolation. I wanted him confronting his hands and what he used them for, “reflecting” on the consequences of his actions. I represented him walking out of frame aimlessly in a landscape, walking past a dying tree in a blood red field under a harvest moon.

I had to decide how I really wanted to interpret these small sketches and further tell the story as a painting. I decided to start a Paper Cutout using scraps of leftover shapes from various projects, beginning with a unique large arm left over from “St. Francis the Troubadour” paper cut I had done prior to this idea.

I spent hours cutting more shapes and positioning Cain’s body in different poses but was totally unsatisfied with all my results. The problem was the shapes I cut were solid colors loosely resembling preliminary sketches #2 and #3. I had no background other then more irregular shapes suggesting a landscape. Other then the large arm (above), the whole idea was heading toward a dead end. The work done here was eventually “scrapped”.

Frustrated from being confined to the small size of my colored-aid papers (6″X9”), I decided to stop working on Cain’s body and focus on his background. I began looking at full-page magazine photos for inspiration eventually coming across one of a goldfish that I used. The image of the fish was exactly what the piece needed, the symbolism was perfect and it fulfilled everything I wanted in his surroundings without using a typical foreground, middle ground or background.

So now I had no choice but to make a Photomontage of the entire piece.  I substituted the solid shapes that were previously used with body parts from photos in various magazines. I paid particular attention to Cain’s head, hands and feet, building him up like the Frankenstein’s monster, but I wanted to preserve as much of the fish background that I could so I ignored his torso, composing him with only a head, hands, arms, legs and feet.

Finally, after days of cutting colored papers and magazine photos with an X-acto knife, constantly repositioning and swapping images in and out, I ended up with the results you see below for my photo collage, (no computer used, didn’t have one at the time).

"Cain", Photo Collage.

How to make the photo collage into a painting was my next challenge. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to further distort the proportions of the composition and move slightly away from the original, or let the process of painting resolve whatever issues I had with my collage. In doing a couple watercolors studies of the collage (below) I decided to stick close to representing the collage and allow any distortion to happen in the process of  drawing the image to canvas.

"Cain. Head Studies."11X14 (sketchbook entry)

"Cain." 11"X14", Watercolor study on paper (sketchbook entry).

Next I decided on the size of the canvas, 36″X58″, I built the Stretcher bars, stretched the canvas and applied acrylic gesso. Then to “transfer” the collage, I hand drew it onto the canvas using chunk graphite, pencils, charcoal sticks, and blending stumps with several types of soft and hard erasers. I did not use a grid or project my image to the canvas in any way. The drawing alone probably took a month or more of work. When it was complete I totally painted over it in oils taking liberties in my color scheme and resolving Cain’s torso problem. Unfortunately I didn’t have a digital camera at that time so my preliminary drawing was lost in the painting process. This work is currently in a private collection.

Cain, 36X58, Graphite and oils on canvas.