Fire and Ice - The Pandemic and the Painting Process

 

The months between March of 2020 and 2021 have indeed been strange.  I rent a studio space above a wine bar in our town of York, PA.  In mid-March of 2020 everything shut down.  Restaurants were closed.  We were told to stay in lockdown.  This is a painting I completed just prior to that lockdown.  I named it Fire and Ice.  It was the only snowstorm of the winter that ended in March 2020. 

Prior to the lockdown I felt that I was on a roll with my painting.  I tried a new palette.  I was painting large and expressionistic landscapes and loving it.  A year later, I find I'm in a bit of a slump.  This post is an attempt to assess this slump.  

When I learned that lockdown was inevitable, I packed up most of my painting materials and took them home.  I thought the lockdown would last a few weeks, not several months.  I tried painting in my daughter's old bedroom, but my husband was working from home on Zoom meetings all day.  I ended up setting up a studio at my neighbor's empty house.  This worked for a while.  

In the summer I was able to get into the studio again, but noticed I had several unfinished large paintings that were started pre-pandemic and never finished.  I was teaching an on-line college class and was pretty busy with that.  All of my studio classes at local art center were cancelled. In the fall I started teaching a landscape painting class via Zoom. 

For my demo paintings I purchased a bunch of 16x20 canvases from Michaels.  Six canvases for $10.99.  Teaching the basics of landscape painting, I was focusing on painting to help my students.  I produced 6-10 "finished" pieces and felt "at least I'm painting.  The paintings are all decently well executed paintings but I didn't "love" most of them.  

I continued to teach in January at two different Art Centers.  I continued the Landscape Painting with five students in the classroom and four on Zoom.  I started a beginners oil painting class in nearby Gettysburg.  I loved both classes.  I did notice that the biggest issue with adult students is that they get too precious with their work.  They tend to get tight and "tickle" their paintings to death.  I  decided to do a Painting without a Brush session in both classes to help them loosen up.  As a result, I realized my demo paintings were getting a little tight as well.  I created a bunch of small brushless paintings using spatulas, knives, credit cards etc. (See previous post).

Well, I got a little bored of those too.  When I went back into my studio this week, I took a look at my paintings started pre-pandemic and it dawned on me.  Last year I was painting for the joy of the painting process.  Over the months, I lost it somewhat.  Perhaps I am more aware of time and limitations.  Thinking about sales (which I never want to be my focus).  Covid has made things like studio time and teaching time unpredictable.  The restaurant closed again in December through the beginning of February.  February was a blur of snow. Life can get in the way.  Covid has been a huge wet blanket.  

Thursday I decided I was just going to paint what I wanted to paint.  For the first time in a long time, I went in to the studio to do just that.  Hopefully this will be a start to a better year.  

Painting Without a Brush

So during the usual rush before Christmas, I decided to paint a number of small paintings.  In 2019 I sold several of these mini paintings.  I thought I could try painting with acrylics so that they would dry quickly.  I quickly realized that I did not like painting mini landscapes with acrylics.  

For a change I decided to "Paint without a brush".  I had acquired a number of tools...palette knives, spatulas, trowels.  In addition to the purchased tools I knew that I could cut up old credit cards, cardboard and other assorted items to make interesting "marks"

Here is my first attempt.  I am pretty happy with it  It is only an 8"x10" painting which I can price rather inexpensively and also ship out in a priority mail box.  I have started several others, but most are not quite "finished".  I have a studio in downtown York above a restaurant.  The restaurant closed in mid-December due to Covid spikes, so I haven't gotten there very much.  So much for the pre-Christmas sales!

What I did do was introduce this method to my landscape painting class.  I teach at a local art association to adults.  The class was a success.  Most of my students loosened up quite a bit and felt successful. Since I started this method of painting I feel that I prefer it to the traditional brush method.  I am looser and not as nitpicky!  

 Hindsight is 2020 - Thoughts on the Year

2020 has certainly been a strange year.  I retired from teaching public school art at the end of the 2018/2019 school year with the goal of making art full time.  I started renting a lovely studio above a wine bar in York, PA.  

I thought I could get a few part-time teaching gigs to help me pay my rent.  I did, but they were not quite what I expected.  I loved the classes I was teaching, but after February, classes cancelled and we went virtual. 

I did have some successes in 2020.  I won an Award of Excellence for Healing Arts
from Manhattan Arts International in February.  I also won Best of Show in the Yorkfest Adult Juried Exhibition over the summer. The painting that won is Living Forest.  It is a painting of what was my neighbor's creek in the woods.  This is 30"x30" oil painting on canvas.  My painting style has changed over the years.  I earned my MFA in visual arts in 2017.  That experienced helped me to think of making art in a different way.  I am no longer trying to "copy" nature.  I am experiencing nature through the process.  

Most of the paintings I will be showing were created in the studio using photos that I took while walking through the woods.  We purchased our neighbor's 24 acre wooded property in December.  It is a magical place.  I also hike at the state park which is five minutes from my home with my dog and my husband.  He also retired this year.  Nature continues to inspire me. 

The Great Falls of the Potomac and "Purple is the New Black"

The Great Falls park in Virginia is an absolutely beautiful place that I visited in early October!  We went for a hike and I took a lot of photos with my phone.  This painting is a result.

What do I mean by "Purple is the New Black?"  We all know the TV series about the women's prison.  This has nothing to do with prison but it has everything to do with color.  So here is the second painting I did in this new series. (See post of December 19th for the first).   I changed my usual format to vertical (36x24).  I did not use any blacks or browns in the paintings.  This is an experiment for me and I am liking it!  One Artist who inspires me is the famed artist and teacher, Robert Henri.  His book The Art Spirit is on my side table.  I have read and re-read the book at least 20-30 times along with Wassily Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art.  Henri recommended using a palette that corresponds with the colors of the rainbow and I tried it.  I start with a red-violet to violet to blue to greens, yellows and ending with a cadmium red.   I mix colors directly on a large paper palette.  White is added for lightening and adding opacity on the second or third day.  I am thoroughly enjoying this new color palette.  I am currently working on the third in this vertical series.  I have a few more that are in square and horizontal formats that I might post soon!

Renewal of Negative Space

So I have not posted on this blog in a while and I'm wondering if there is still a viable audience.  I retired from teaching and I am now working as a full time artist.  I'm not sure if it is sustainable yet, but I love what I'm doing.  I've moved from pure abstract/non-objective painting back to landscapes with a new color palette.  No blacks or browns!  If anyone still follows, let me know.  I will either blog here and connect to my website or start a blog on the website. 

Above it All

I've been blog absent for too long. Primarily because I spent the last two years working on my MFA in visual art through Wilson College. For the first year and a half, I was teaching art full-time in a Pennsylvania public school.  I took a sabbatical leave of absence to finish my thesis exhibit from January 15th until the end of the school year in June.  I am now back to teaching full time and painting part time.

During my sabbatical leave I completed approximately 28 paintings.  I started nine or ten others that are still in process.   I exhibited 25 paintings at my thesis exhibit in York, Pennsylvania.  I worked with five mentors, local artists, who critiqued my work,  inspired me and shared occasionally shared their "trade" secrets.

I intend to post and write about the paintings I created during this amazing time of creative growth and transformation.   The paintings will not likely be posted in chronological order.  Instead I will choose a painting that I want to write about when it suits me.

I noticed a transformation in my work as I moved from purely representational painting to more non-objective painting.  I still do some representational work but it is more abstract.  I will discuss this and some of the other surprises I've found along the way.

The first piece I'm sharing is entitled, "Above it All".  It is large, 48x36.  I used both acrylic and oil.  The painting started as a forest from memory.  I began to add spirals.  I liked the painting in its early stages but felt it incomplete.  After leaving it alone for a while, I came in and added the winged looking shape.  I painted to music and began thinking more about harmony and balance and composition.  I was making marks.  It was a very joyful experience.    Here is the painting in the earlier phase,   I liked that phase, but it sat, unresolved for many weeks.  Perhaps I will revisit this on another occasion.

I'm writing about my process in painting in preparation for my MFA thesis.  This paint was one of the first I started in the fall.  It began as en plein air and morphed several times in the studio.  This was the painting about a month ago.  At any rate, I kept fussing with it and it became very over-worked.  I hung it up on the wall for a few weeks and I revisited today.  I have completely changed my style from this.  While I haven't totally abandoned landscape, my landscapes have changed.  I have also been making a lot more non-representational work.  Stay tuned. I'll be updating soon.