Saturday Morning, 1964

Saturday Morning, 1964
12x16 oil on panel

At our house Saturday mornings were spent gardening and doing any needed repairs on the property. The sound of the mower and the smell of cut grass meant that it was the weekend, everyone was home and that order was being established. It was the only time that my very formal father would remove his shirt and be seen in public in his "undershirt". Khaki pants and a pair of wing tips that were too old to wear to the office completed his working uniform. My brother or father pushed the mower and pruned the shrubs, and my mother always picked up and bagged the clippings. I was thrilled when at an early age I was allowed to cross the gender line and make the mower sing and spray my Vans with bright green confetti.

Value study, burnt sienna on panel

I painted over the value study, establishing the colors I planned to work with. Trying to stay true to the values I had established, I worked to capture the vivid quality of my memories. In following sessions I refined the details of the machinery and the colors of my memory. The final piece, at the top of the page, has the feel of the super saturated Kodacolor photos of the time.

Agave Americana

Agave Americana
20x24 oil on panel

I painted this large because this variety of Agave is massive. I was dwarfed by an enormous stand of its tangled arms in the Huntington Garden in Pasadena California. Focusing on the base of a single plant gave structure to the web of leaves, reaching and bending around and through one another. I read a description of this variety of Agave as looking like a plant that is growing underwater, flowing with the currents. I certainly felt a bit drifty while painting this.

                                      

                                         The tonal drawing, in Burnt Sienna

                                       

                                             I decided to start by laying in the darkest areas

Sticking to the median color and value of each shape,
I developed the underpainting

Then I spent days finding the variations within each shape,
and the rhythms of the whole

Basket of Zippers

A Basket of Zippers
8x10 oil on panel

When a simple basket of zippers caught my eye as I was walking around the Mission District in San Francisco fond memories came flooding back. I realized how unusual it is now to mend existing garments, much less make your own from scratch. Daily life may be easier, but it seems a little light on the pride of ownership that once was a natural part of things.

When I was growing up the women I knew sewed. In Junior High School girls were all required to take Home Economics, which had a large sewing component, and the boys took Shop, where they learned basic wood and metal working. It was generally understood that part of growing up was learning to use tools that would help you fix, maintain and possibly create things.  My mother didn't just sew her own clothes, she periodically reupholstered our furniture, measuring out and creating her own patterns. My friends and I routinely made our own clothes, and enjoyed trips to the fabric store, and discussions of our plans and progress toward the final product. School dances and events always sent us into high gear. I've gone out on a limb here and included a photo from the archives.  

On our way to my High School graduation, my mother and I model the clothes we made for the event.  It appears that she bought a bit more fabric than I did! After choosing the pattern, selecting and purchasing the fabric, laying it out on the carpet and cutting, pinning, sewing, pressing and fitting the garment we hand finished the  hems. It gave a woman a different kind of pride in what she wore!

Binoculars

Binoculars
8x10 oil on Panel

These sturdy, well used old French Binoculars caught my eye. They hung quietly on a rough wall, against a broad leather cinch strap. Were they used for hunting, bird watching or were they a tool of the French Resistance, at the bottom of the basket of long loaves on the back of the bicycle the solid baker's wife peddled around the country side? The years of wear, whatever it may have been, only made them more beautiful.

The tonal drawing, done in Burnt Sienna on a gessoed panel

The first day of working in color on the image I lay in the broad areas of color with as much accuracy as I can. The following days will be spent on details on top of this layer, refining the color and shape of the work done on this day.  

Echeveria 2 and Echeveria 3

This 12x16 oil on panel is Echeveria 2. 

This 12x16 oil on panel is Echeveria 3.

These siblings grew up together in the same garden. As I painted them simultaneously I became a little worried about the family relations. It seemed early on that the big sister, Echeveria 2, was very outgoing and assertive, with a "look at me" streak a mile wide. Her quiet little sister, Echeveria 3, was so retiring that I foresaw problems in their future.

Imagine my delight when I found that they had found balance when I wrapped up the paintings. Instead of becoming bossy and domineering, #2 had mellowed with age, while still retaining her beautiful depth and range, and her dramatic flare. Mousy #3 had come into her own with the passage of time ( and brush) and surprised us all when she applied her bold lipstick.

Tonal under painting for #2

#2's bold teen years

Tonal underpainting for #3

#3's quiet phase

OK, perhaps I'm spending a little too much time alone.

In The Shed

In The Shed, a 12x16 oil on panel I finished yesterday.
String, who doesn't love it? How many purposes does it serve, and how long does a spool of it last? Every household develops a collection of various weights needed for different projects, and they sit together nobly waiting on a shelf in a shed or a garage to be called to duty.  Mending, wrapping, fixing. It occurred to me while painting this that you might be able to judge the stability of a family by their string, twine and rope collection. A wide variety represents not only many years together, but an active effort to care for, maintain and improve things.  I inherited a few spools of my father's collection that now nestle in with the collection we had developed, all destined, I'm sure, for some shelf in our children's future homes.

I started by covering my panel with a thin coat of Burnt Sienna and then doing a line drawing using my brush. Once I felt that I had the objects properly placed I differentiated the tones by lifting out the light areas, and stroking in a little more Burnt Sienna in the darkest areas. This helps me see the value pattern and will give me  a structure of values to abide by as I develop the color.

This is part way through my first day of working with color. The first step is to get  the average of  each color, abiding by the light and dark pattern I established in my tonal sketch.

Here I have completed getting the basic colors down and I begin refining. I  look at how the light hits each object and develop it's light and shadow, and the overall relationships of color and value.

Then comes hours and hours of detail. I begin to introduce the tiny paterns created by the way the string is wound on the spool or ball, darken the back wall and the shadows cast on it by the uprights in the shed,  and continue to become more accurate with the local color of the objects.

 I stand back and look look the overall. The final step is to make last minute adjustments ( I realized that after all the hours of looking at this, the tall white spool was too narrow at the top, and leaning in a Tower of Pisa kind of way)  I tone down the blue of the basin, thicken and darken the knotted rope on the right, and eventually find myself making such small adjustments that I realize that I'm done.

In The Barn

 I found these well worn, stacked galvanized buckets on the floor of a big barn. The doors were thrown open and the late afternoon light bounced off the concrete floor and illuminated these old work horses as if they were devotional objects. The notion of all the loads they'd carried, the powerful hands that had clutched their handles and the velvety soft muzzles that had carefully found every oat within them made me smile. I think I might have heard the angels sing.

Here are the first two steps I took in making the painting. I covered the panel with a layer of Burnt Sienna and then did a line drawing with my brush to place the objects. I then wiped the paint off the panel where I wanted to place light tones, and brushed in more Burnt Sienna in the areas I wanted dark. This helps me to place the objects and make sure it is a composition that I think is interesting.

After this initial decision making I got so caught up in the painting that I NEVER ONCE remembered to pick up the camera in the many days that followed. Suffice it to say that it was an epic battle between light and dark, warm and cool, hard edges and soft and painting time and sleeping time. I can only hope that all the right forces won out.