Unexpected Outcome on a Dark and Rainy Night

Woman with Pink Headbband
8 x 5" watercolor

Sometimes you don't know what the day will bring--or the night. Today is Wednesday. Each Wednesday night from 8 to 10, I join a dozen fellow artists at the Art Alliance Gallery in Red Bank to share the space, chatter, and a model and paint or draw for 2 hours. Except on the last Wed of each month when this coop gallery is receiving art for the next month's show. Then, if I have a submission, I arrive early to fill out the paperwork to submit my piece to the jury.

Tonight I got there in plenty of time--put out my little work table and chair to secure a spot where I would get a good reflection of the model in the large studio mirror (reflections make for deeper space and much more interesting compositions). Then I submitted my piece--two small watercolors done on prior Wednesday nights.

 Lo and behold, 8 o'clock rolled around and there was no model. We milled about. Hemmed and hawed. When it was established that there was a bona fide mix up and the model was just not late, I stepped up to the plate and sat for the group. As a young woman I had worked as a professional model and so knew how to strike a good pose. I'm just not as young as I once was so holding the pose was a bit tough. It was funny to be back up on the stand hearing the conversation around me. Attendance was light as it was raining buckets and everyone seemed to find a vantage point that pleased their sense of design.

As I sat there, frozen in place, I worked out the strategy for the new egg tempera piece I'm going to start on Friday. Will I sponge on colors? Which ones? Will I make a mask? Of the figures? How will I keep the green of the large expanse of lawn from overpowering the piece? All of this ran through my head against the backdrop of brushes scratching canvases, charcoal on paper.

This was not the way I had expected the night to play out. But it was good. Everyone quit by 9:30. By that time, the juror was done selecting the work for the show. One piece got in and one didn't. So if you are around Red Bank this Saturday night, stop by the gallery from 6 to 8 PM and check out my little watercolor, Woman with Pink Headband. There'll be lots of other interesting art, people, and snacks.

I wrapped up the rejected painting in bubble wrap and plastic to protect it from the downpour and plunged out into the rain.


 www.eileen-kennedy.com

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. Here I am implementing yet another news year's resolution--don't neglect my blog. Pretty pathetic after a more than 2-year hiatus. Actually, today I start a pretty scary adventure. As of today, (with a little help from Obama-care) I am no longer officially employed full-time. In an attempt to de-stress my life and spend the 20 years I have left doing what I love, I have taken a part-time job with a local non-profit (I can walk to work!)so I can do an amazing thing--actually sell my art. Who would have thought. Of course, I've just spent my last paid vacation getting over the flu. Even so, I've managed to gather all of the elements needed to put up an Etsy shop, which will go live some time over the next 2 weeks. I've also tried to reach my other 2013 goal, which was to complete my egg tempera painting, Wetlands. It doesn't look like I'm going to make it, but I'm might close. I started this in August, after I learned to make my own gessoed panels at Koo Schadler's workshop in New Hampshire. It's getting mighty close. Wishing you a creative and surprising 2014.

Wednesday Completed on Monday

Finally, I have completed a new painting. Called Wednesday, I finished it on Monday of the Columbus Day weekend but have been on the go ever since and have not had a chance to post it. This is 19" H X 30" W in egg tempera. I think I'll be working on a few smaller pieces after this so that I can try a few techniques I learned (or had reinforced) at Koo Schadler's workshop in August. If you aren't familiar with her work, check it out at www.kooschadler.com.

Every Day is Wednesday

Before my last piece (Nautilus) was even completed, I was already working on a new piece that took a really long time to gel. Is it old age that images no longer just pop into my head? Or just proof of the fallicy of multitasking?

In any event,Wednesday was initially a real struggle--countless thumbnails in my sketchbook, on the proverbial napkin in restaurants, and even in meeting notes at the office. I had a vague concept in my head--which is not the best way to create art. I also had segments of images. I needed a human subject but didn't want to resort to another self-portrait. I wanted a new challenge but was concered about the fact that, while improving, I still don't really have completed control of the egg tempera medium down yet. That could also be a good thing.

Then, in a blinding flash it dawned on me--why not ask my neice to pose. We had a great time doing a photo shoot. In a happy accident, her new kitten, Lucy, wandered onto our set and added another dimension. Here you can see a prelimary study and the final drawing in a near completed state.

Wedesday is about sequence, seriality, and the passage of time--as well as notions of obscuring and revealing images needed to advance the narrative as well as to explore more fully the process of working in egg tempera. In this medium you build a painting from many veils of color and paint--sometimes obscuring and sometimes revealing. This work is both a metaphor and a demonstration of that process. Time will tell how successful that will be. I was brought back to the need to work in a "multiple" format while executing my piece, A Meditation on the Stations of the Cross, completed in 2008. Then I saw the Chuck Close printmaking retrospective in DC last summer and this need was cemented in my brain.

This is the largest piece I have attempted in this medium and to keep from going insane will be incorporating techniques learned from Koo Schadler (check out her site at www.kooschadler.com) as well as suggestions gleaned from Robert Vickrey's book, New Techniques in Egg Tempera. Stay tuned.

Nautilus

Finally, another painting finished--Nautilus, portrait of my son Thomas and an homage to George Tooker--after his self portrait done as a young man. This painting was a struggle. About 4 months in I felt I had lost control of the flesh tones in the shadow side of the face and sanded off several layers of paint. The paint did not come off smoothly and took a long time to fill back in. In the end I am pleased. It is better than the last painting, although scale still presents problems. I found working at this scale--about 3/4 life size--difficult. This is mostly due to vision problems. At this scale, I spend much of my painting time wearing a magnifying headpiece reminiscent of the father in Honey I Shrunk the Kids searching for the miniaturized children lost in the lawn. I'm already on to the next piece. Will have a drawing to show shortly. Ta.

Watercolor Wednesdays

A few months ago I felt the need for a change of pace in my Wednesday night drawing sessions so I shifted from creating large, detailed pencil or charcoal drawings to small watercolors. It engages different skills and brain functions--and delivers some very different results. I was in a rut and now I'm not. In the studio, we have the benefit of a large mirror behind the model stand and, if the curtains are opened, we can create compositions of some depth--including all of the artists working on the other side of the room. The image of "Debbie" at the top of the page was particularly juicy--the lavendar chair was a wonderful foil for the black and white stripes of her garments accented with red lipstick and watch.

"Susan" was painted in Joyce U's garden before we all sat down to the sumptuous annual "linguini supper."

All of these works are painted in a small (6X10") watercolor pad with my miniature Windsor & Newtown travel set. The paintbox measures only 3 X 4 inches. I spent about 1-1/2 hours on each, accounting for breaks. The works were small enough to scan -- you can see the fairly rough tooth of the paper.

Finally, here are two images of "Bernadine" painted about 1 month apart. One relied more heavily on the pencil drawing than the other. I have found it so freeing to work in an unfamiliar medium in which I have no particular skill or experience. The immediacy provides a welcome relief from the rigor of the egg tempera works that occupy the rest of my time.

Homage to Tooker

September already and still I haven't covered all I saw and felt in my little jaunt to DC--the most important part. But now the tale would be stale so I'm on to the next thing--a new painting. Another portrait of my son Tom that is also a salute to a major influence on the last 25 yeaars of my work--and to my decision to delve into a completely new medium these past few years. Here is a link to an on-line image of George Tooker's self portrait in egg tempera. It was painted very early in his career when he was probably about the same age as Tom is now - 23. In my piece, I have incorporated the young man and the nautilus shell (although a different species)but stopped short of the tondo format.

I took a series of photos of Tom in variations of the desired pose and combined the best elements. As usual, my skill as a photographer doesn't give me the level of detail I really require so I resort to memory and surreptitiously staring at him. Tom's rather severe expression is his valiant attempts not to laugh. I'm working to soften that in the painting.


Still wedded to the terra cotta Prismacolor pencils for the detail and warmth that suits my human subjects, this drawing is 14" wide by 18" high--the same as the painting.

Working at this reduced scale remains a struggle for me--both the need to spend so much time on so small a piece (even though I know art is not like real estate) and my increasing problems with eyesight. Spending long days in front of a computer and then painting for 2 - 3 hours at night is taking its toll.

As you can see from the ghostly image in this early state of the painting, the forms develop very slowly. I am using a lighter touch in this painting--as I have done with each successive piece. Each one gets closer to the result I'm seeking--but not quite. I don't really keep track but I would say I have put in about 30 hours on the painting at this stage.


I'm painting the flesh tones with a verdaccio underpainting using terra verte and ivory black. The background already has 3 successive layers of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna with a little yellow ochre. Alternating layers of complementary colors will utlimately give me a gray that resonates.

How ironic that this is exactly how I created some very luminous grays back in the 70s and 80s when I was creating large 3-dimensional wall pieces of balsa wood, handmade Japanese woodcut paper, and water color--layer upon layer upon layer of pale washes of pure color--dried with the hair dryer in between. I find this concrete evidence that no knowledge or experience is wasted comforting.