January newsletter #2

 

Resistance

from Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by Steven Pressfield

I quoted this in my latest newsletter because of a recent experience:

What is Resistance? It’s our own tendency-yours and mine and everyone’s-to yield to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, impatience, self-inflation, self-denigration, distraction, laziness, arrogance, complacency, and perfectionism. It’s our inability to focus, our incapacity to press on through adversity. It’s our ter­ror of finishing and exposing our work to the judgment of the marketplace. It’s fear of failure. It’s fear of success. Fear of hu­miliation. Fear of destitution. It’s our inability to defer gratifica­tion, to acquire and act with self-discipline, self-validation, and self-reinforcement. Resistance is our tendency to self-sabotage, fail to start, and fail to finish. In its most extreme forms, Resistance expresses it­self as vice and even crime—abuse of ourselves or others, cruel­ty, addiction to substances, diva-ism, compulsive self-dramatiza­tion, self-aggrandizement and self-diminishment.

Fun with assemblages.

I've been inspired by watching Gary Hanson make his assemblages on YouTube, and wanted to make one of my own. This one is called, “She Could Steal But She Could Not Rob.” 

I started by covering an iPhone box lid with old magazine pages, then adding elements from my seeming endless supply of odds and ends. 

I love the movement of the beads in the upper section, and also love the character of the little person, even though she leans a little to the right (literally, not politically). 

There are lot of things I’ll do differently next time. One problem I don’t know how to solve is getting the glass inset and glued cleanly. Gary uses silicone, but I made a big mess with that. So I tried gel medium, but that is also unsightly around the edges. I’m putting a question in to Gary on his YouTube channel, and hopefully I’ll get an answer. In the meantime, do you have a suggestion? 

Revisiting "Serial."

In 2014, “Serial” was the first multi-episode podcast I listened to. I was never sure about Adnan Syad’s guilt or innocence. But after 23 years in prison, he’s now been cleared by DNA evidence. 

Art + History: Gassed.

I completed another Smithsonian class, this time focused on John Singer Sargent's painting, Gassed. The class was taught by Paul Glenshaw, who always has fascinating insights into the paintings he discusses. 

The painting is large -- 9' high x 22' wide, and was first exhibited in May 1919 at the Royal Academy Exhibition in London. World War I had ended in November 1918. Sargent saw this scene himself a few months before the war was over. 

Until his favorite niece was killed in a bombing in London, Sargent had been fairly oblivious to the war, continuing his world travels and portrait-painting of the well-to-do. This event motivated him to go to the front as a war artist in 1918, when he was in his 60s.

The painting is nearly monochromatic, a procession of khaki and olive drab. Two exceptions: tiny brightly colored planes fly over the heads of the small group of soldiers, and a soccer game is visible between the legs of the main group. 

Shirley You Jest

In honor of Shelley Winters' birthday, here’s a collage I did based on her autobiography, “Shirley” (her name at birth was Shirley Shrift; they later changed the title of the book to “Shelley”). 

I always admired her big talent and her irrepressible personality. When her book came out, I was eager to read it and bought a copy right away. I'm sorry I didn't keep it, as hardcovers are now listed on Amazon for $103! But if you can find a copy, I recommend it. It’s a good read. 

The original collage is available here:

Shirley You Jest
7″W x 9"H, unframed

My real life yuccas.

Several years ago I painted a series of botanical illustrations in watercolor, one of which was a yucca filamentosa.

There are two areas of yuccas in my front yard. For many years, they’ve both bloomed, but this year one of them is chocked full of buds, and the other has nothing. It might be because I got too aggressive pulling out dead, spiky leaves last year. ☹️

But any day now this one is going to be full of blooms that look like this.

Watson & the Shark

I’ve mentioned my love for the painting Watson and the Shark by American painter John Singleton Copley several times. The romantic beauty of the pastel clouded sky paired with the sea foam green waves, creates a serene, dreamy feeling that contrasts with the heroic action at the center. There’s a lot to look at.

And then there’s the story behind the painting.

First, a little background: John Singleton Copley grew up on a Boston wharf in the mid-1700s. In his late teens, he became a popular portrait painter for wealthy American colonists, even painting the likes of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. The political situation in Boston was growing increasingly turbulent, and Copley’s family connections were all Loyalists, so in 1774 he set sail for London. After embarking on a nine-month Grand Tour of Europe, he began his painting career again. In addition to portraits, Copley tried his hand at historical painting. His first foray into this genre was Watson and the Shark.

The subject of the painting, Brook Watson, was orphaned at six and sent to live with relatives on a Boston wharf, right next to the wharf where Copley’s family lived — they probably crossed paths. At age 14, he began working on a ship and sailed to Cuba. While swimming in Havana harbor one day, he was attacked by tiger sharks. It took three attempts to rescue him and he lost his leg in the attack.

Twenty-five years later, now a successful London merchant, Watson asked Copley to paint the scene. He apparently commissioned the painting as a lesson to others about overcoming adversity. He went on to become chairman of Lloyd’s of London, a Member of Parliament, and Lord Mayor of London.  (Not everyone admired his ambition; one writer noted, “there are those whose sympathy is with the shark.”)

Copley had never visited Cuba, so he probably got details of Havana harbor from prints and book illustrations. It’s obvious that he had never seen a shark: he painted the animal with lips and eyes that resemble a tiger’s more than a shark’s. Gory details of Watson’s injury are hidden beneath the waves, though a hint of blood is visible in the water. Many aspects of the painting appear to be influenced by what Copley saw on his Grand Tour a few years earlier.

One of the many interesting details of the painting is the Black sailor who watches over the violent scene. Copley’s first sketches were of a white man with long, flowing hair, but instead he used this character for the final painting. The same man, whose identity is unknown, appeared elsewhere in a standalone portrait by Copley. The painter seems to be making a connection between Watson, the very white, very vulnerable blond swimmer, and the Black man who is holding the rope that will save him.

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778, causing quite a sensation. It’s currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

With Watson and the Shark, Copley created a dynamic and dramatic composition, and skillfully captured the varying human emotions. I can feel the fear, despair, and panic of the men on the boat, along with the strength and fierce determination of the young man standing at the front of the boat trying to fend off the shark. I never tire of looking at it.

Watson and the Shark was a blockbuster in its day, just like the movie Jaws was a few decades ago. Get a 'movie poster' featuring Brook Watson's shark attack here.

Botanicals, circuses, and Smithsonian classes.

An update on projects, products, and progress. There’s news about botanical watercolors, circus promotions, art history education, and more — see it here.

Marking an accomplishment.

I am now a proud graduate of the Smithsonian Associates World Art History program.🎓 To receive a certificate, completion of 4 core classes and 6 electives were required. The core classes took place in multiple sessions over the course of a month averaging 8 hours total, electives were 1-2 hours each. The classes were excellent and I recommend it for anyone interested in Art History. In past posts I’ve mentioned some of the classes, and here’s a list of my entire curriculum:

In-depth studies of works of art:

• “The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David
• “Watson & the Shark” by John Singleton Copley (this is my favorite painting — so I made a shirt!)
• “The Last Judgement” by Michelangelo

Specific periods in the lives of artists:

• Jacques-Louis David and Napoleon
• Michelangelo and the Medici Popes
• Duccio and Giotto: The Dawn of Italian Painting
• In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca

General art/architecture:

• Italian Architecture Through the Ages
• Italian Renaissance Art
• Drama Most Splendid: The Art & Architecture of the Baroque & Rococo
• Enduring Themes in Western Art Part 1
• Enduring Themes in Western Art Part II
• Notre Dame: Reconstructing an Icon

This is the certificate they sent me. If you ever want to have a conversation about art history, just say the word! Read about all the Smithsonian programs here.

Projects, ideas, and news to share.

A new edition of the newsletter is out. There’s life drawing, CCR box set packaging, Earth Day stuff, and last chance for the Ukrainian shirts that benefit All Hands and Hearts charity. See the newsletter here. The Ukraine t-shirts are here.

More practice, less perfection.

The Bargue Drawings that I’ve done in our weekly group have been beneficial for developing ‘cold, hard accuracy’ (as one of our video instructors put it). I want to draw what I’m seeing, rather than what I think I’m seeing.

But recently we decided to venture into drawing from life instead of copying reproductions of lithographs. But finding models always seems to be a challenge. So we took the easy way out and used YouTube — who knew there were so many channels dedicated to life drawing!

We projected the videos onto a big screen, and instead of focusing on detailed accuracy, it was about capturing gesture with loose and immediate marks, in sessions from 1 minute to 30 minutes long. Totally different than Bargue Drawing, totally fun.

The image above shows a few of the life drawings I did in last week’s session, and below are some of the Bargue Drawings that I’ve completed so far (my copy on the left, originals on the right). 

Projects, ideas, and news worth sharing.

The March 11 edition of my newsletter is out, containing projects and interesting ideas to share, along with an opportunity to support the Ukraine people. See the newsletter here. The Ukraine t-shirts are here.

Projects, ideas, and news worth sharing.

The February 25 edition of my newsletter is out, containing projects and interesting ideas to share, along with a confession of theft! See it here.