#87: Monet's famous Japanese bridge. Not my most successful product, but fabulously wonderful process!

When Gerlinde, Karen, and I went to Paris in March, we decided to take a daytrip to Claude Monet's most fabulous creation - his home an garden in Giverny. It was a perfect blue-sky Spring day with a touch of coolness in the air with the plants just beginning to send out shoots, leaves, and flowers. The site had only been opened for 2 days so far this season so there were very few visitors. We had the place almost to ourselves - well, relatively speaking! That famous Japanese bridge was only very rarely free of people taking selfies or having others photograph them (I'm definitely included in that number!)

I love the way the trim all around the room, and
 even on the furniture is painted a darker color.
I don't know that I would be so bold!
(I also don't have such ornate,
beautiful trim!)

The yellow dining room. Everything was yellow other than the
floor! There were also different shades of yellow here, like
in the blue room, but they were less noticeable here.
This felt very much like a room for a large family.  I could
almost hear their voices echoing off the walls.  (He had 2
children, his second wife brought 6 into the marriage - BIG
family!)

The kitchen! Blue tiles. Huge stove. Large room. I covet his
kitchen!

I also want these pots, shiny
copper bottoms all lined up in size
order. So beautiful!!

We toured Monet's fabulous, huge studio where he painted the gigantic water lily series which he donated to the French state and which can be found installed at l'Orangerie. Then we went to his house - what a fabulous home! It was nothing short of inspiring to see how he chose to decorate it - very bright and colorful rooms full of light and art. He collected Japanese prints and had them hung in many of the rooms on all the walls.  Of course, he also hung his own works, as well as those of his friends.  The ones hung there now are copies, but it gives the feel for how it would have looked with his works in progress and finished works all over the house.  

Gerlinde and I are standing by his bedroom window by his
desk. There is a simliar window by his bed. He awoke to
this view each day he was home and died in this room, with
this view just outside.  That sounds pretty close to heaven
already.

Karen was nice enough to take a picture
of me pretending to paint at Monet's
easel. That was heady stuff!  I WISH!!

The views from the rooms were stunning! They all looked out onto his gardens which were his other creations. I'd read about his gardens and had looked at pictures in books, but I never got a sense of how they were laid out. It was wonderful seeing them!

A boat just like this shows up in many of
Monet's paintings.  It was so easy to imagine
him here painting. Glorious!

This small creek wound grace-
fully beside the larger pond.

To try to give you a sense of it: you can see his house at the top of this post. Behind the house is the lane that goes through the village. I didn't notice any windows at all looking onto the lane. All the windows are directed towards the gardens. The formal, symmetrical gardens with many trellises for hanging roses, wysteria, etc. are directly in front of the house. They extend maybe 50 yards.

Part of the garden in front of his house

 Then there is a high wall.  We were directed to the right where there is a tunnel that goes under the road and emerges into the second garden, a much less formal one, where the pond is. There the plants appear less formally planted, but I have a feeling that they are every bit as carefully placed. Weeping willows, wysteria hanging from the famous bridge, azaleas, rhododendrons, bushes, shrubs, tulips and other seasonal blooming flowers, and, of course, the water lilies (which weren't yet in bloom when we were there).  There is a path all the way around the pond along with several secondary paths which branch off from and lead back to the primary path. The views from each aspect were stunning and made me want to stay for months painting, drawing, gazing, absorbing.

I am aware that the house and gardens have both been refurbished since Monet's time, and I believe the pond has even been enlarged, so they may not be completely faithful to his times, but I think there were great efforts made to be true.  I'm so glad we went!  It was a wonderful day with perfect weather!

Portender of what's to come!

After we had gone all the way around the pond, we decided to rest for a moment on one of the benches set there for just that purpose. I couldn't help myself - I got out my watercolors and journal and began to paint! The scene was too gorgeous to NOT at least try to paint. Gerlinde did the same. Karen served as cheerleader and photographer for our process.  For the next hour or more, we sat in the perfect sunshine and drew arguably the most famous artist's garden in the world.  As I worked, I felt very good about my art, enjoyed what I was doing, liked my results.  When I was finished, I felt chagrinned - it hadn't turned out as well as I wanted it to.  I made excuses - I'm not good at plein air, watercolor isn't my medium - I can't do it very well, I needed more time. I could have done it better in pastels, especially from a photo.  Any and all of that may be true, but, really, it just doesn't matter.  I had a wonderful time working on the piece. It was very fun when people came by and commented. It filled my heart with joy to create in Monet's garden. Period. Full stop.  The results just aren't that important.  (Though, honestly, I do wish they were better!)

When I got home from Paris, I found out from my brother that he and my mother had been to Giverny together quite some years ago. They actually sat in the exact same place and also painted!  When I visited my mother last week, she showed me the painting she did there. THAT was what I'd wanted mine to look like!  Mom is one of the best watercolorists I know.  It was great seeing her version of what I'd tried so hard to capture! Maybe one day she and I will go back there and she'll show me how to do watercolor like a pro like she does!

#87
My version of the famous Japanese bridge, 3/2019

and my mother's beautiful painting from 2004.
Watercolor by Emma Lou Marchant Martin.

#85 - #86: Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. Oh well!

#85

This happened on a whim. A friend had some cheap liquid white acrylic paint. I was curious to learn what its coverage was like, so I painted with it on black paper in my journal. I really enjoy how the paint ran out unevenly towards the end of the paper.

I decided to play with the image so I did it again in red on white paper. The paper was unevenly cut and had some kind of stain on it. I changed the composition by playing with adding more lines. I've decided I prefer the black and white composition, but I can't learn what I like and can't expand my horizons if I don't try new things! My motto in working in my visual journal is "I wonder what would happen if I...?" That allows me to do whatever comes in my mind. In fact, that's a requirement! Sometimes the results are wonderful. Othertimes, they're questionable, but the process is always something I'm grateful for.

#86

#86 cropped

#80 - #84 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Drawings from Teaching Drawing

One of the things I appreciate about teaching drawing is that, occasionally, I also get to draw!  Sometimes I draw as a demo for students. Other times I draw while they do. Either way, it's such a pleasure to feel my pencil glide across the paper, to see the image evolve, to find the darks and lights. I love working with color, but drawing in graphite was my first love and still has my heart every time I do it.

#81

The exercise for the pears was a chance for students to pull together everything they'd learned in class up to that point - volume, line, value, shadow, and more - and put it into one picture - no pressure! I find they seem to be glad to work for an hour or more on a picture with no pressure to rush - just the delight and absorbing pleasure of working until they feel finished.

#80

And then there are the still lifes... When I was in school, I found these so boring - such stupid items placed together in such dumb ways - what was the point?! Now as a teacher, I have a different understanding - it helps students tackle composition and complicated images. It's a chance to work on the relationships between items and to draw difficult objects like glass and to practice creating form using value. Now I kinda like doing them.

#82

#83

One of the exercises I give my students in Intermediate Drawing is to bring in a single object which is rather complicated. Then I give them the assignment to draw it at least 10 times in 10 different ways (using gesture, blind contour, modified blind contour, super-sized, 1" small, etc.) using different materials each time - pencil, charcoal, peelable charcoal, pen, etc. It tends to be a challenging exercise as it stretches a student's ability to think of different ways to approach the same subject and to keep it interesting.  Below is my drawing of our wire cutters.

#84

#74 - #79 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Working/Playing Hard with Divine Inspiration

Working/playing hard today



I feel as if I’m finally getting someplace I’ve been wanting to go for a long long time. Finally. Time makes a real difference. 

I have five small canvases I started working on before Paris. They’re all of Iceland. I painted them realistically, giving them all the tenderness I feel for the land. Recognizing what I have to give is not what Monet has to give. I don’t have those strokes. I have a tender gentle realistic stroke. 

Then I wanted to infuse the strokes with feeling, with the intensity I feel when I am there. With the light that is behind the clouds. With the energy in the ground. The pieces morphed. I had to start new ones. And/or risk a crazy change and assume I wouldn’t want to do it, wouldn’t have it available in my thoughts, if it wasn’t the right thing to do. It’s 12” of canvas. Who cares?

And magic is happening. I’m very pleased. I have decided to go to Iceland for the month of September. July is too expensive and too soon and I’m already obligated to teach then. 

Here are the pieces:

#74

Finished. I enjoyed the smoothness and subtleties of this. There are many colors in the grey, no black. And lots of colors in the white. And then I had to do this on a second canvas:

Same scene. More feeling. Disregard for visual reality. Attention to emotional reality. 

I did this image several months ago in pastel.  I'd been wanting to try it in oils to see if I could do more glazing and make the colors more luminous. It's one reason I wanted to start painting again - to try this piece again.  I'd begun it before Paris, but today, this is where I went with it...

#76  I love it. THIS is what I’ve been trying to express. THIS is what I want to say. 

This was finished. Then the others happened and I knew there was more to say here. How did I feel when I saw this scene in real life? What was going through me? I didn’t see the grey. I felt the heat, the love, the glory, the beauty. So then this happened. It may or may not be finished. 

Then there’s this which is saying what the photo says but doesn’t show what I love about it. I’m not clear what else to say here, so I’ll leave it for now. It’ll let me know.  

This one went through many iterations today.  Here's how it started:

Here are other iterations:

And the final one.  Maybe.  I'll see how it feels tomorrow.

#79

Obviously this is how I need to be living, what I need to be doing - painting all day, experimenting, listening. trying, looking, playing, delighting in color and texture and form and place. Now to figure out how to make that happen!

I hope your day is feeling equally divinely inspired. 

#73, Misty Morning on the James, creating mist with ink??

Continuing my efforts to figure out how Paul Landacre created his fabulous woodcuts (see previous blog), I picked out this image of mine from the James River one morning when everything was shrouded in mist. It was a good exercise to try to convey the sense of mist using ink. When I was doing the sky and water, it helped that my pen was almost completely out of ink so I could create lines that had very little ink in them, thus giving the sensation of mist.

I have created this piece in pastel as well.  I've posted it below this more recent piece.  Do you have a preference?

#73 Morning Mist on the James
pen and ink
8"x8"
unframed, $150

I have to admit, I was surprised to see this! I thought I had combined the colors to a greater degree so it would look mistier. But I remember now - this is how I start the pieces that will be very neutral in color.  I put in lots of difference light hues then continue to layer them until they eventually look neutral.  With this one, I liked how this looked so much, I stopped here. Good thing I keep records so I can see what I've done!

Morning Mist on the James
pastel
10"x10", framed 17"x17"
$350

And here's one of the misty pieces where I kept layering until the colors were more neutral.  It started out the same as the one directly above. 

Three Rocks on the James
pastel
10"x10", framed 17"x17
$350

If you're interested in purchasing any of these, please email me at SusanSingerArt@msn.com.  Thanks!

#72 Thingvellir Valley, a pen and ink drawing

One of the last days of my 2017 visit to Iceland, I was traveling with my dear friend Zuzana to Thingvellir, the site of Europe's first Parliament in 963. It is a broad valley in the south of Iceland with sufficient water and grassy lands for folks to gather and find what they needed to stay a while. It also has the most interesting rock faces which were formed by earthquakes and the movement of tectonic plates.  I don't know enough geology to be able to begin to explain what happened, but each time I visit there, I am enthralled by the walls of rock. They are 20'-30' tall, bereft of life other than a plant or two sometimes growing out of the crevices. They're imposing, silent witnesses to all that has happened there. Laws were created; justice was meted out - sometimes cruelly as from the hanging rock or the drowning pool; alliances were formed; couples were coupled; horses and sheep were traded. In more recent times, Icelanders have gathered there to celebrate freedom from Denmark and other important hallmarks.

Tons of tourists go there because it is relatively close to Reykjavik and is part of the "Golden Circle" trio of sites: Thingvellir, Geysir, and Gullfoss (a waterfall). It is where the European and North American continents meet - you can even scuba dive at Silfra, the rift between the continents. There's a place you can touch both continents at once! The water is so clear there, it's disconcerting even to experienced divers.  And cold!  The water that feeds it is glacial, so you have to wear the right diving suit, etc., to have that experience!

When I go to Thingvellir, I tune in to a most remarkable energy that makes me feel really good. It emanates from the ground and swoops through me. I gather inspiration and a feeling that all is right with the world from it. I visit there each time I am in Iceland to experience the energy and even chose to stay on the lake one year for 18 days to have more time there.

The picture I created here is from a part of Thingvellir National Park where there aren't so many tourists. The rift valley seems to extend forever, and I can well imagine horsemen arriving from the North for the annual gathering at Thingvellir. I'm guessing it looks very much now like it did over 1000 years ago.

#72 Thingvellir Valley
pen and ink
11"x8"

My impetus for creating that picture was Paul Landacre's woodcuts. I saw them on Pinterest and wanted to try to create something similar. In drawing my piece, I learned just how difficult it is to simplify the landscape as beautifully as Landacre did. I plan to keep trying, but my marks became much more detailed, not as general. I really like his work and want to learn what I can from it. I find it very helpful to try to copy art by artists I admire - I learn a lot from their style and methods of working and eventually incorporate it into my own work, or at least have a sense of their strokes in my own fingers as I work.

Monterey Hills
by Paul Landacre
woodcut

#65 - #71 Creativity Affirmations

Another group of affirmations which help me consider the possibilities...

#65 "Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment, we are timeless."
~Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, the best book I've ever read (5 times and counting) about creativity 

#66 "The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable."
~ Robert Henri

I wrote this a lot of times because it feels so very very true. I wonder what that compulsion is about - why exactly do I need to draw or paint the things I see which are so uttery beautiful? Why can't I just look and be content? Perhaps it's because I feel a need to capture them and bring them through my body, my brain, my soul, so they stay there forever. Is everyone like that, or is it just artists and writers and dancers and other creatives?

#67 "I just want to make beautiful things even if no one cares."
~ Felix H.

#68 "She who works with her hands is a laborer.
She who works with her hands and her head is a craftsperson.
She who works with her hand and her head and her heart is an artist."
~ St. Francis of Assisi (except for the pronouns - I changed those)

Believe it or not, there were times in my life when I got grumpy! When the kids were around at that time, they would often very kindly and gently suggest I might need to go into the studio to make me feel better. They were invariably right. Out of the mouths of babes...!

#69 "I am always doing what I cannot do yet in order to learn how to do it."
~Vincent VanGogh
and
"If anxiety, fear, desire, and restlessness have come into your life
and time, energy, and calm have left you, you are probably an artist.
Make something. 
Anything.
You will feel better."
~author unknown

"An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour."
~Eric Maisel

I've thought about this so often - if you think about the ancient civilizations of Greece or Rome, what do you think of? Probably the architecture or the art you know from that time. It's how we learn about the people and their beliefs and values.

Or is it? Do our artists reflect our beliefs and values? Or are they the canaries in the caves? The ones who scream with primal angst to warn the civilizations about what's happening? I think of the artists in Pre-Hitler Germany. They were beginning to address their concerns about Hitler and his policies. Artists today are creating art about global climate change. Will we listen and act accordingly? Or will future civilizations find artifacts from our artists and draw slightly false conclusions about our beliefs and values - they are warnings, not pictures of how things are - more, how they could be.

Civilizations aren't remembered by their business people, bankers, or lawyers. They're remembered by their arts."
~Eli Broad