Malaise

Inertia is a helluva thing.

I desperately need inertia to be successful at anything I do. For me to be effective at doing something I almost have to build up a head of steam that can sustain me through the inevitable challenges that arise when taking on difficult tasks.

In other words, I hate stopping what I'm doing because it's very difficult to start doing that again.

Here's what our boy Newton had to say about things:

First law of motion: The velocity of a body remains

constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.

I think of art not unlike a rocket.

Seriously? Is that the best picture

of a rocket you could find?

It takes a huge amount of force to move a rocket off the ground. But a relatively small amount of force to keep it going. So after a working rhythm is built up, I find painting ideas come to me with unnatural speed. (Mostly as I fall asleep.) It's almost as if my brain is so used to working on painting related problems that after I stop painting, it is so set in the groove that it says, "Well, that color combination worked really well today, I wonder what else we could do with it." and it rifles through is filing system pulling from my own experience as a painter and the paintings I study until it coalesces into a concrete idea.

I have found that painting's turn out best when begun from a concrete idea. I used to just show up at the canvas with a rough idea and waited to see what would happen. But I've since moved away from that. And that requires inertia.

I hate inertia.

So, hopefully I can get things moving again. I am tired of writing now. Because blogging is like firing up a rocket ship. So here is a picture of a bunny eating a banana:

BANANNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Genius out n'stuff.

The Sad Pirate

By the time I was 5, I was almost completely blind in my left eye.

When I look back through family photographs, I would be challenged to find one where I don't look odd. Sweater vests, sailor suits and bowl cuts abound. However the ones that strike me as the most odd are those where I am posing with my just newborn sister. I was a very agreeable child and had not yet reached the age where I felt the need to exercise my god-given right to squirm relentlessly, nor had I realized that sweater vests made me look like a lumpy pumpkin. There I was, the very picture of smiling acquiescence gazing up at the camera (which I had been fooled into thinking was some sort of duck there to assume me) my right eye sparking with childlike wonder while my left eye seemed oddly preoccupied with what was going on on the other side of my face.

It seemed that my right eye was like a pair of miss-matched siblings. One was studious and focused (who we will call Clark) and the other's attention was prone to wandering (we will call this eye Morton). While Clark watched television, Morton would get suddenly bored and decide it was time to nap. Going dormant, Morton would roll around in the bed that was my socket whenever startled by bright lights of cameras that were masquerading as ducks.

As I got older my parents thought there must be something wrong. Eyes are supposed to be a package deal and it seems at least one of them didn't get the memo. The trip to eye doctor was a curious experience for my now 5 year old self. I remember the large heavyset man shifting some sort of a machine that could only have come off the set of "Star Trek" over my tiny head (beam me up Scotty!) and asked me to look at the screen.

Scotty: Do you know your letters?

Me: Uh huh

Scotty: Ok read the third line.

I concentrated…

Me: "D F N" (Hell yes. And WHY can't spelling tests be this easy?)

Scotty: Ok now. With just your right eye, read the fourth line.

I concentrated some more.

Me: (with growing confidence) P T X Z (WOOT! Me and Scotty were an unstoppable team. Together we would conquer the galaxy and have incredible adventures.)

Scotty: Ok, now just your left eye. Read the third line again.

The hell is that?

Me: Uh. Q….. a backwards Q… and... I think that's a triangle...

Scotty: Oh. Ok, try the second line instead.

WTF? Is that a spider?!

Me: (deeply confused) H… P… or possibly a seven. I can't be sure.

Scotty: Ooo. Ok one more, try the top line.

I want my mommy.

Me: (desperately trying to remember the letter at the top of the chart) I… don't know what it is.

Scotty: Ok I think that's enough.

The traitor Scotty informed my mother that I had failed the test and was kicked out of the spaceship club. I had failed the eye test so badly in fact, fatty-fatty-fat-pants said there wasn't even an eye test designed that I was capable of passing. As it turns out, my right eye was Superman and my left eye just got tired of trying to live up to his older brothers expectations. As such, left eye decided to quit it's job, take up online gambling and possibly try meth.

So how do we make lazy eye feel like a winner? Easy.

We chain down Superman eye with Kryptonite patch.

I remember when my mom first brought me the patch. She explained that I had to wear it everyday until my lazy worthless left eye could get off drugs and rejoin society. At first I was easy to convince. Mom handed me the eye patch and I put it on.

You mean I get to walk around and look like this (plus an eyepatch)

every day? Avast ye Scuurvy dog!

Awesome! I was a bonafide pirate. I immediately took of at full steam and after six or seven minutes of me running about the room chasing the dog with a discarded paper-towel roll. My mom caught me and sat me down.

She looked upset. Had my impersonation of Blackbeard not been spot on? Our dog was being punished for not swabbing the decks fast enough. Perhaps I had been too stern a disciplinarian? My mother looked directly at me and a never before seen compassion swelling in her eyes and said, very softly, "No, son. The patch goes on your other eye." I paused and gingerly slid the patch over my nose imprisoning Superman in darkness and dragging his meth- addled lazy brother Morton, screaming into the light.

And Morton couldn't. See. Shit.

I literally could not see anything more than 3-5 inches in front of me. I spent most of these agonizing days watching television, simply because it prevented me from moving around too much. When I was forced to move (either due to the call of nature or because my legs had gone numb), it was a precarious affair.

Ever get up in the middle of the night in total blackness and walk around with your arms stretched out so you don't kill yourself? That was my life. All day every day, all the time. In order to truly communicate my ability to see things, I have composed a sophisticated diagram.

A picture takes a thousand words to describe to a

kid wearing an eyepatch.

It took me three years before I was able to wear glasses sans pirate patch. My prescription for Superman was no stronger than that of a sheet of cellophane. Morton on the other hand, got coke-bottle level lenses which made my face look something like this.

I'm an artist. Did you know that?

It would be nearly ten years before I was able to stop wearing glasses as my vision slowly corrected itself. Morton changed his name to M-Dawg and now runs a successful chain of auto-body repair shops.

Good for him.

In closing, t the start of the new year I occasionally find it helpful to remember how I arrived at where I am, even that means remembering the day I got to be the saddest damn pirate on the seven seas. However, not everybody can say they "Got over being blind". And if nothing else at least I can say I don't look like these guys:

I had to wear a patch. These guys chose to.

I have big things planned for 2012. Big things.

Keep your eye(s) peeled…

-F

Christmas Gift!

Three days ago was my fathers birthday. He would have been 73 years old.

Damn. That's old.

I can be notoriously difficult to buy for for Christmas. Just, quite frankly, there isn't a lot I want at any given time. Occasionally I will have years where there is something I'm interested in. But most of the time, I operate with the mentality that I have everything I need.

I do have my hobby of building and painting little miniature figures, and I can always use new models. Because,

Q: What's better than a unit of 20 soldiers on the battlefield?

A: A unit of 50.

But right now I have more models than I have time to build. Tiny monsters given to me in December will generally hit my workbench by June. It took me nearly 18 months to get around to using the gift card I received in 2009. So, while I always want new models, if one didn't want to buy me models the options are severely limited.

My wife however, is not a woman to be daunted by difficult gift giving. Probably because her father is the most difficult person to buy for on the face of the planet (because he doesn't even paint miniature models). Kasey is doggedly single-minded in her pursuit of that perfect unique gift. So much so that it often surprises me. On more than on occasion upon opening a package from her, my initial reaction is "What the Eff is this?". Those gifts that at first seem silly and useless, eventually turn into all consuming passions. Miniature models for example: Kasey. Darts: Kasey. Cast Iron skillet: Kasey. And so on and so forth. The last few years her presents have even eclipsed that of my bottle 18 year old Scotch I received for my 25th birthday. The gifts keep getting better and better. So much so that I feel the slightest bit guilty at having things which I love so much.

This year my present held extra meaning for me. In a way that was unexpected and welcomed. Kasey and I had been talking about painting and how so many activities have been replaced with quicker, less interesting versions of themselves. Things like shaving. I had just read an article about shaving which outlines the age old practice of shaving with a straight razor. And Christmas morning what do I find in my stocking?

Straight Razors are known as "Cut-throat" razors.

Can you guess why?

That is a Thiers-Issard "Evide Sonnant Extra" 6/8 fully hollow singing razor. (it's called a "singing" razor because it hums when you shave with it.) To accompany my instrument of death, I also received a brush and some Truefitt & Hill 1805 genuine lather shaving cream. Christmas Day I held a piece of steel to my face that is sharper than surgeons scalpel. Despite shaving from a full, untrimmed beard, the razor took it right down to the skin without taking off said skin. It is an experience I will never forget. I learned, later that day, my father used to shave with a straight razor.

Which doesn't surprise me in the least.

Ultimately I am turning into a man who does thing because they are in themselves worth doing. Now, I shave with a straight razor. Not because I need a clean-shaven face, but because it is worth taking the extra time to use a straight razor. Shaving reminds me that I am like my father and my grandfather. The act, in itself, has value. Similarly, I paint not because I need paintings to hang on my wall, or because I need to sell paintings to eat. I paint because, intrinsically, painting is worth doing.

And anything worth doing, is worth taking the time to do it well.

Speaking of well, I have a new tromp l'oeil on the easel which should be finished by the end of next week. I'll post again when I have it finished. See you in January and may the New Year bring you the discovery of things worth doing.

-F

Hello baby….

So, in a brief diversion from my usual painting agony. I spent the weekend with my folks down in Sacramento.

I often forget how important it is to occasionally stop painting. My obsessive nature sometimes overwhelms me so much that I forget how to put on the brakes. I exhaust myself. One of the side effects of this is the inability to come up with new ideas, which leaves me recycling or reworking old ones, then I just start drawing overlapping lines repeatedly. If you were to look through my sketchbooks you'll find, interspersed between quick sketches and compositional notes, pages of nothing but horizontal and vertical overlapping lines. If those lines were a signpost they would say, "Here is where he lost his mind".

However one of the greatest cures for this, and anything else, is babies:

The only thing more dangerous than a baby is a bunny.

Yes, while on my trip I had the pleasure of spending some time with a very active 18 month old. Babies are so refreshing in their simplicity. And I think it's mostly because they do not follow nor understand politics. Immediately upon returning to PDX and checking Facebook I found a friend of mine was raving about some thing or another about what some Republican did and another was raving that Obama was a muslim terrorist alien or something and I could help but feel as serene as a 18 month old baby who had newly discovered that the channel changer can almost fit in his mouth.

I frankly don't understand the rage that people exhibit toward people they don't know, and the rage toward anyone who disagrees with them. My Republican friend once told me that if she happened to meet Obama in the street she would punch him in the mouth. I told her that I didn't think the secret service let crazy people within mouth punching distance of the president. She told me she would sneak up on him. I told her that smell of crazy would probably tip him off. She said she'd stand down wind and I told her that it wouldn't help.

My fiercely democratic friends are no better. While one was involved in a full blown temper tantrum on how Republicans refuse to fund legitimate charitable causes and instead deliver tax breaks to the super wealthy, I delivered a sincere compliment on her commitment to supporting Movember prostate awareness by growing her mustache out.

Am I the only one who doesn't care? No there are millions and millions of people out there who care nothing for Limbaugh, Maddow, O'Reilly or Olberman and most of them are under 3 feet tall (no not midgets). They are adorable, adorable babies. Next time you think about washington and you feel your political rage boil, meditate on this:

Hello baby….

Then see if you can fit the channel changer in your mouth.

Genius out.

-F

Captain, I believe I've just had an apostrophe...

We've all been at that place. And by all of us, I mean those of us who have ever sat down to work on a particularly challenging jigsaw puzzle.

Our fingers wander over the pieces we pick a few up and look at them; turning them over in our hands to see them from different angles. We put them down and move onto the next piece, usually taken from somewhere far off on the other side of the table.

As this process develops and progresses we occasionally find two pieces that match in one of two ways. 1. they actually fit together or 2. They have something other about them that makes us connect them. Perhaps they both a part of the same face in the puzzle, or a topmost edge. In one way or another we have found two pieces that have something in common, and we set them aside.

However, two perhaps three times during the course of a puzzle. Something spectacular occurs. We bring together several small section to form a complete picture. That place that I mentioned earlier, is the moment you realize "this thing" goes with "that bunch of things". Prior to that moment you may have known that those pieces you've been assembling in two's or three are important. You know that they connect but you're not entirely sure how they go together. Then, seemingly all of a sudden, you pick up a piece which connects them all and all those disparate pieces that have been floating around as groups of two or three things (that in themselves mean little), coalesce into a united organic whole.

For me, that is painting.

I have spent a great deal of time bringing together so many separate pieces of this 12 billion piece puzzle that is painting. Not unlike that comedic legend Gallagher, I smash those paintings apart into all their disparate pieces and gather them up on to the table. And I have spent nearly all my time, putting them together. The son-of-bitch about this process is that I do not have the box to look at for reference; no edges to string together, no corners to rely on. To further complicate matters new pieces arrive everyday. I lay awake at night, mentally arranging pieces, re arraigning pieces throwing ones out, digging through the trash to find them later and throwing them away again. I am continually building a picture of something: what it is, i'm not entirely sure yet.

I had the opportunity to talk with Gerald Ackerman, not terribly long ago, while the Gerome show was still up at Getty. I was particularly interested to ask him at what point Gerome really became a mature painter. He thought for a moment and replied that Gerome really hit his stride upon exhibiting "Duel After a Masquerade Ball":

If you are going to get into a sword fight.

Don't be the guy wearing the clown suit.

Not every painting after this was same of course. Gerome really continued to evolve as a painter throughout his life but here, something jelled for him.

I've felt frustratingly close to discovering that piece for a couple of weeks now, and it's a project I've been working on for months. Possibly years. Today I was sitting on my shower floor looking at my feet (It's what I do when I'm in the shower) habitually running over those pieces in my mind.

And BAM. It hit me.

By it hit me, I mean the shower-head fell of the holder and hit me.

It wasn't hard but it was enough to wake me the hell up. And in the moment of annoyance I happened to look at a glazed painting I had hanging in the bathroom. And not unlike Isaac Newton, being hit by an apple, I had discovered the missing piece of the puzzle while laying on the bathroom floor.

I have a lot of work to do now. I have so many small piles of partially assembled ideas and there is much to assemble. As such I'll leave you with what I worked on this week. I paint a self portrait every year, but I hadn't drawn one in a while. Oddly enough it look as though I'm looking at a puzzle piece trying to figure out where it goes. I expect my next self portrait will look much different.

Are YOU hiding my puzzle piece?

Genius out.

*While Isaac Newton did not discover the theory of universal gravitation while laying on the bathroom floor after being hit by apple, it does make for a comical mental picture.

The Paper Tiger

They say that "necessity is the mother of invention". Necessity does indeed cause many awesome things to be invented, but so does accident; stupidity, laziness, luck, obesessive behavior and caffeine all have their roles as well.

In my case, dissatisfaction with the availability of supplies and the desire to have all aspects of my craft under my supervision and control are the mother of invention. For these reasons (which probably fall under the category of necessity, and maybe the subcategories of "obesessive behavior" and "caffeine") I have begun making my own drawing paper.

Because I am generous and very tall, I have recorded the process and am posting the recipe as well as videos of the process. This is will be a real treat for you because you will get to hear my voice and see my hands move. If you are my mother (Hi mom) then you already know what my voice sounds like and this may not be as exciting for you. (Sorry mom).

Ok so, you will need:

1 plastic cup

1 yardstick or long ruler

1 Nylon paint brush (available from hardware stores)

1 sheet of 140 lb (300 gsm) Arches hot-pressed watercolour paper 140 lb.

I cannot stress enough that this must be "hot pressed". I would also suggest going with the single papers sold in sheets because it gives you a very attractive "deckled edge" which presents very well. you can go with a block for smaller projects or because that's what you happen to have lying about.

1 jar of "Golden" Brand Acrylic Matt Medium

This is basically golden acrylic gesso without the calcium carbonate (chalk.) In theory any other brand might do, but in my opinion Golden is a top notch product; and you get what you pay for.

1 each of Golden Fluid Acrylics

Ultramarine Blue

Hansa Yellow Medium

Pyrol Red

Carbon Black

Titanium White

The fluid part is pretty important as well. The regular acrylic paint is too think for our purposes and also not as strong. We need tinting strength here people.

1 jar Golden Gel medium "Fine Pumice Gel"

Get the fine stuff. The coarse stuff will be like drawing on concrete.

The sizes of each do not matter as much. We'll be using teaspoons of everything except for the acrylic matt medium (and we'll be using tablespoons for that)

If you were going to line everything up after you bought it, it would look like this.

Can you spot Kaiser Sose?

Firstly you want to prepare your paper with painters tape. I use blue painters tape, because it shows up on film better. But I suppose you could use just about anything; provided it was low-tack painters tape and you bought it recently.

A ruler and pencil are no-brainers here.

For my dimensions I measured out 2 inches on the left, right and top and 4 inches on the bottom with LIGHT lines from #2 pencil. This makes for a nice space on the bottom for some clean lettering and overall creates a killer presentation. If you are using smaller paper you can adjust your presentation accordingly. This type of high-quality paper is very much meant to be "show-paper". It's heavy, bright, has a clear watermark and deckled edge so it's nice to preserve and present it as a piece of art in itself.

After measuring out your dimensions, tape it out, being careful to follow your pencil lines:

Do yourself a favor and use 2 slightly

overlapping applications of tape

in case you get "brush happy"

So now the recipe.

I've messed with this recipe quite a bit. Mostly with the ratio of titanium white and water. You can vary the amount of the fluid acrylic you use to adjust the color. Because the pigments are so strong, it really takes very little to get what you are looking for. I wanted a neutral blueish-grey. And it seems the recipe below should give you enough for 3 applications. (on the big sheets). I would recommend using a plastic bowl or something similar. I would avoid wood and metal, the first because it will be hard to clean the second because I'm not sure that the metal will react in a weird way with the paint. (probably not, but I'm just being careful, so you don't write me back and say that you summoned some sort of lizard monster while using a metal bowl to mix this stuff)

Ahem:

2 tbsp Acrylic Matte Medium

2 tsp Pumice gel

14 drops Ultramarine Blue

16 drops Titanium White

2 drops Hansa Yellow Medium

When all in the plastic cup (or whatever your using)

A couple of things, you notice above I said that I experimented with how much water to add but didn't include any in the recipe. Yup. don't add water unless its super hot where you are. At first I thought that the mixture looked a bit thick. So I added water to make it easier to apply and it cause the paper to buckle wildly. I cut down the water and it spread just fine. If you cover the cup between applications you wont need to add any water at all. Unless you are making paper in the Sahara desert, (heat causes the acrylic to cure more quickly) don't add water. If you are making paper in the desert you will probably need a little water (no more than a 1/2 tsp) and you can probably exclude the pumice gel, as there will most likely be sand in your paper from the raging dust storms…

When you put everything together it will go from this:

Looks like somebody sneezed doesn't it?

to this

BTW if you know anybody whose sneezes look like that,

get them to a doctor quickly.

Now for the application. I made three videos to cover the application, because I thought it might be easier than me attempting to describe it without getting boring. It's the voice of genius time. Prepare yourselves:

Once dried overnight, the paper is removed from its state-of-the-art drying rack:

Technology at it's finest

Then the paper can be stripped of its tape, (carefully) and rolled until ready to use. Overall, start to finish, the entire process takes maybe 2 hours. With the most annoying bit being masking off the paper to begin with. If you are careful with the application of the size (the solution you mixed) you will not need to sand between coats. If you do need to sand because you were drinking heavily while making your paper (not recommended) then sand between coats leaving with 600grit sandpaper and leave the final coat as is. You don't want to sand off the texture.

When you are finished, you should have something that looks like this:

Are you ready to Rawk?

It's premium stuff and you can adjust the hue, tooth and texture to suit your style. While I originally made this paper for drawing, because I am using acrylic matt medium to seal the paper, it can be used for Charcoal, pastel and even oil or acrylic paint.

Total control over the process means total control over the product.

-Genius out

For the Love of Tiny

I have many interesting posts coming up. I'm currently preparing some drawing paper and taking a fair amount of pictures. I'm also working on another Tromp l'oeil that will expand on the theme began in "Degas: 'Dancers in Blue'". But before I publish a highly technical post. I thought I would take a second and just reflect on my work in general.

I spend a lot of time looking at other painters work. And generally speaking I can always find something to take away from another painter. But what gets me every time, is smallness.

The first painting I ever did that I could truly call a "miniature" was a copy of a Louis Moeller which I call "The little helper". (The true title of which I've forgotten and cannot find. If anybody out there knows the title, please let me know):

Louis Henry Charles Moeller

(1855-1930)

I was hooked. I had done numerous painting before that and, I believe, had completed a large figure painting just before this one that was rough 3' wide and 2.5' tall. My work at the time had started to push toward the small size. Even so, it wasn't particularly small so much as "not large". While it sounds a bit redundant, there is a striking difference between paintings that are "Not large" and ones which are small. Namely you look at it and think, "God damn. That's small".

The Moeller was the first time I ventured into that realm of painting. The painting above is my copy and sits at 8" x 10" (For those of you across the pond, that's 20 cm x 25 cm). I had never attempted to really work that small before. Ten years ago, if you had asked me if I could paint a face that was smaller than a 50 pence piece (50 pence, because I was in England and had just picked up watercolour for the first time) I would have told you to "get stuffed".

Believe it or not, as it appears on your screen it is nearly

twice the size of the original

I don't think the experience of painting "The little helper" has entirely left me yet. I've probably duplicated a hundred paintings, more or less, and painted countless originals. I can't think of a single painting I have done that has had more influence on me as painter; in terms of my taste, subject matter and execution. Even now you can definitely see Moeller's influence present in my work:

What's a Bobbin?

Oil on Linen 8" x 10"

(20 cm x 25 cm)

I can count on one hand the paintings that have made this much of an impact on me. It's almost a joke between my wife and I, I'll be telling her about an upcoming painting and I'll finish the description with. "And get this, this is the real kicker. It will be really. small." And of course I grin like an idiot as though this is first time anybody had that idea...

But still. I do paint "regular sized" paintings. If only because I have to eat. Tiny figure paintings aren't the rage right now. but I don't paint them because they are popular. I paint them because they are the paintings I love most in the entire world.

Study for "The Collector"

2" x 2" ( 5 cm x 5 cm )

If home is where the heart is, my house must be very very small.

Genius out.