Mysterious Thrills

Ink Drawing - Created during The Butterfly Project performance
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, New Jersey
June 6, 2009
Link to journal entry: Mysterious Thrills

Cargo Pants

Sketching in Old Lyon, France

Link to journal entry "Travel Tips for Artists - Cargo Pants"

No time to be fussy

Link to journal entry on wordpress.com

Rapeseed Fields in Southern France

Link to journal entry
Third Time Around

Mother's Day

Watercolor Sketch painted in Arles, France. Cafe La Nuit, painted by Van Gogh.

Link to journal entry... Mother's Day

Cypress Trees in Southern France

Link to journal entry

An adventure in France

My dear friend, Mlle. Jane, treated me to a trip to France!

Over the next few weeks I will post sketches, photos, paintings and rambling thoughts on my wordpress blog. Each time I add a new post, I will also post an image and a link on this blog.

Link to today's post on wordpress.com

Bad Link

Sorry for the bad link on the last post.

Here is the link to my wordpress blog: chriscarterart.wordpress.com

A Shift in Direction

Trying once again to simplify my life, I have decided to try wordpress for my illustrated journal blog. After visiting Alexis and Nicole's blogs, it appeared that I might find it might suit my needs a bit better. I'm not sure how wordpress and blogger are related, but I was able to import all of the posts on this blog into my new blog. On occasion, I will post to this blog, but probably not more than once a month.

I believe it is easier to subscribe to the wordpress blog. You will find a "Blog" drop down button in the upper right corner that allows you several options including subscribing. My new blog is Third Time Around at chriscarterart.wordpress.com.

Over the next couple of months I am working on a large commissioned piece. I doubt that I will post paintings on Ebay during this time. I might simply vanish until late Spring when I will offer Creativity Workshops and Painting Workshops from my home studio.

Image: Maggie Segale - oil on paper

One Hung, One to go

I'm cutting it close. The paintings must be dropped off at Wing's Conservatory before noon on Saturday. The paint will still be wet when the color studies are hung. Fortunately the paintings are oil on paper and need to be matted and framed under glass, protecting the wet paint from being smeared by curious fingers. Within an hour or two I will have completed the last of the little color studies and will begin cutting mats and framing.

Working four days a week at the prop shop has forced me into a discipline of scheduling my time carefully. Another benefit, aside from that of a regular paycheck, is the pruning of priorities. Over the past five years I have spent a great deal of time on marketing that has not proven to move me toward my goal of becoming a better painter. Ultimately, learning to paint with clean, fresh, exciting color that suggests moods, atmospheric conditions and excitement will bring me far greater satisfaction than adding more exhibits to my resume.

I look forward to disappearing from the public eye for awhile.

Image: Ellen Mihalick, painted over black & white, giclee print of photograph by Elayne Wishart.

Eric Ortega

The energy and movements of Eric Ortega have been an inspiration to me since I began painting him four or five years ago. He inspired my spontaneous Zakar Art work and now the first oil painting of him. The exhibit Reflections of a Dancer opens next weekend at Wings Conservatory in Chester, New Jersey. Along with a selection of my watercolor paintings and Zakar paintings, a series of color studies created from the photographs of Elayne Wishart will be presented. This study of Eric is one of the paintings that will be on display. The exhibit is a fund raising event for the Butterfly Project. For more information on the Butterfly Project, click here.

Reflections of a Dancer - Exhibit at Wings Conservatory

First Image: underpainting
Second Image: first glaze over underpainting.

The exhibit, Reflections of a Dancer, opens at Wings Conservatory in Chester on March 7th, 2009. The exhibit will raise funds for The Butterfly Project, supporting children's cancer research.

The technique used in the color studies I have created for this exhibit is new to me. The images were taken from the beautiful photographs of Elayne Wishart whose work will also be shown in the exhibit along with the work of Deb Gichan and Ana Tatoris. Using the traditional technique of underpainting and glazing, I first used the computer to transform Elayne's color photographs into black and white photographs. I then printed giclee prints and painting the initial underpainting (first image posted here) directly onto the print. I felt like a hack doing that. My goal was to play with color and glazes on figures as I did on landscapes last year. Taking the time to redraw the images of twelve paintings for a fund raising exhibit was not part of the plan, especially when the images themselves were not originally mine. Still, it worked against my grain to simply paint over someone else's photographs. These paintings are not just inspired by Elayne's work, they are, beneath the surface of paint, Elayne's work. So be it. I have learned what I set out to learn by this experiment, that complementary colors in an underpainting does not always work as well with interior/figure work as with landscapes. Analagous colors glazed over the surfaces of walls, backgrounds and flesh worked a bit better for me.

However, struggling through the color studies, nuances of color were suggested that I would not have thought to experiment with and will lead to further studies. Heaven forbid I find myself at a dead end of exploration. I had planned for the orange underpainting in many of the studies (not shown here) to be obliterated by the glazes. Instead, I left a great deal of orange as it added energy to the work. The flesh tones often conflicted with the walls and had to be adjusted. I will choose the colors for the underpaintings differently the next time I work on figures in an interior.

All in all, it was a delightful experiment and I am grateful to Elayne for allowing me to use her work for this small series of color studies.

For Exhibit information visit www.chriscarterart.com and click on the link for schedule of events.

Transformation of a Painting

The top painting began as the painting below. I thought I had resolved the painting, cleaned my palette and brushes, shut off the lights and returned home. Next morning when I arrived back at the studio I noticed that the dark spaces between the branches of one of the larger trees on the right was too dark in value and came forward rather than recede. I thought it would be simple enough to make the adjustment. One small adjustment led to another. I added a bit more definition to the small, isolated tree in the mid-ground area on the far right. I lost the subtlety I had liked in the grassy area. The painting lost its spark for me.

I'm not sure what happened next. Perhaps I began making a few more adjustments. At some point, the painting began to take on a new life, a far more vibrant life than the original version. The image began to have a heartbeat and I responded by giving it air to breath and space through which to move. I have had this experience many times while painting with watercolor, but only recently have I experienced it while oil painting.

Transformation is thrilling. Allowing the painting to go in a totally new direction resulted in a far stronger painting.

Abandon

Creating Freddie the Cockroach for Andrea Kramer's Butterfly Project delighted me. After painting in oil for the past eight months, returning to watercolor refreshed my sense of spontaneity with paint.

Unveiled - the Anatomy of a Painting which hung at Monsoon Gallery in Bethlehem throughout the month of October is now behind me. I am pleased by Geoff Gehman's review in the Morning Call.

Visual Arts

By Geoff Gehman of The Morning Call November 2, 2008

FIVE ELEMENTS, FIVE SKILLS

Chris Carter's show at Monsoon is a showcase of five artistic elements: color, line, shape, texture and value. It's also a showcase of her five-tool talents.

The resident of Califon, N.J., is a versatile, canny portraitist. Nicole, an extreme closeup in oil, features a fiery curtain of hair over one eye, a snaking blue shadow over the other eye and an air of fragile mystery. Watercolor/acrylics of nude women are splashy, tattooed landscapes. A pastel of a skeleton has glowing teal bones, a clever carnival touch.

Especially engaging is Between Here and There, a series of oils of fields, forests and roads. Carter easily blends lacily veiled hues, slaloming perspectives and bubbling macadam.

Carter's drawings are just as dynamic. Inky squiggles of dancers are charmingly breezy; a pencil illustration of a boy dreaming of adventures with his collie is just plain charming.

Getting around to Playing

After working for about six hours on the two paintings of Gaudi's walls of brick and stone I felt tight and lacking in creativity. It is one thing to look intently at a scene in front of me and to respond to the details that I pull out of the reality. It is quite another to study a photograph with the same intensity. Photographs are terribly limited when it comes to color. They can't help it. The color is created by pigment, not light. Translating pigment to pigment is quite different from translating light into pigment.

After deciding it was time to stop working on the brick and stones, to let the paintings dry and hope for a bit more energy to come from the next layer of glazing, my choice was to lock up shop and go home or to paint the first layer of glaze onto the last of the Road Series canvases. I had decided to use the painting Morning Dance as inspiration and to see what might happen. The painting is not at blue as it appears here.

With simplicity in mind I began to paint; I began to smile, to feel that rush of pleasure when something unexpected begins to happen. My fatigue vanished and I followed the muse. The final painting is another example of how working on a series results in breaking through barriers and finding myself in a new, unexplored territory. I adore simplicity, yet it is so difficult for me to express well. This painting is finished and I am delighted with the results.

Interior of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Image #1: Charcoal drawing on canvas.
Image #2: Underpainting
Image #3: First layer of glaze in the bottom, right corner.
Image #4: First layer of glaze completed.

Two days after the show at Monsoon comes down, the show in Pennington opens. The October sunshine is calling to me and I must resist the temptations to pack my paints and head to the woods. The architectural paintings along with four more of the road series must be completed and at least dry to the touch to hang by November 1st. Painting the amazing tree-like columns of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is as close as I'll get to painting in the woods this week.
Though my palette is the same that I used for the Road Series, the mixes are more neutral in this first glaze of paint over the underpainting. I enjoyed a break from the greens of the landscapes. Not much of a break, considering I worked on landscapes yesterday and will work on at least one tomorrow if all goes well with the next layer of glazing on the remaining two architectural paintings.

Straube Center Fall Art Show

The exhibit at Monsoon Gallery closes on November 5th and the exhibit at Straube Center opens on November 7th.

Several of the paintings that have been posted over the past five months were not included in the current exhibit at Monsoon Gallery. I eliminated half a dozen from the Road Series and all of the architectural series. The architectural series, inspired by the works of Gaudi, will hang in the Straube Center Exhibit.

Venus as Garbo

Sunday morning, 10am. All the paintings are framed and packaged... except for one, Venus as Garbo, the climactic painting of the upcoming exhibit. For over a year I have stressed over the presentation of this painting.

It is difficult for me, when I am working on a painting, to analyze the composition pretending not to see six inches around the edges. This is the challenge that presents itself when I am painting on an unstretched canvas. This has been the dilemma with Venus as Garbo. To present it without losing the perimeter would mean to turn it into a wall-hanging or a canvas stretched like the skin of an animal to a framework outside of itself. I came to the painful decision that I had to forfeit the outside six inches of the painting and stretch it.

Good news... the decision was made. Bad news.... stretchers do not come in the sizes I need. Fine. I'll make my own stretchers out of some frame molding that I will never use for frames. I'll skip the next several good news/bad news events that led to this morning's struggle to make the wrong materials do the right thing.

I was in a wonderful state of mind having spent all of yesterday with Alexis at the Dodge Poetry Festival. Tom had ripped the extensions of the fill-in molding that I had glued to the frame molding the day before. I met Tom at the shop and he set me up to use the belt sander to even the edging of the homemade stretcher strips. He then left to work with Alexis grouting the newly laid tiles at home.

The sanding went well as did the re-cutting of the strips on the chop saw. Then came the assembly. It was impossible for me to make accurate diagonal measurements of the stretcher frame. I did the best I could, squaring each side and adding cross pieces for internal support. All this was done against the rounded edges of the round-edged frame molding that I cut inverted so as to leave the outside squared. The final result, at that point, was that one side was 3/8 inch longer than the other in spite of the fact that they started off equal lengths. I decided to glue the corners for added inflexibility and poured a cup of coffee with which to regain my balance while the glue dried. Hah!

With perfect timing, Tom and Alexis arrived back at the studio having completed their task of grouting. Neither one of them had found it to be a pleasant job. With Alexis as another body and another set of arms, we re-measured the frame and discovered that the diagonal dimensions were off by over half an inch. Not good. Unscrew everything and start again........

How wonderful it would be to leave the framing and stretching of artwork to professionals. I really don't know how artists afford to do solo exhibits (50 - 70 works) if they don't do the framing themselves.

With Alexis as moral support and an uncomplaining helper, Venus as Garbo was stretched over the re-adjusted framework of make-shift framing molding. We sandwiched it between protective layers of corrugated cardboard and added her to the pile of paintings ready to be loaded into the car on Thursday morning.

Preparing for this exhibit has been a marvelous journey. The left side of my brain and the right side of my brain worked as partners, each getting out of the other's way at the right time and stepping in again only when needed. I didn't think such a collaboration was possible.

Such a revalation leads me, of course, to taking on even greater challenges. What fun!

Painting Out the Road

How refreshing.

As the painting developed, the road became less significant. During the final stages, nothing about the road worked anymore, the shape, the value, the color.... , it had served its purpose of being the seed and it was time for the road to vanish and vanish it did.

Clinging to elements in a painting that no longer work can be disastrous to the final outcome of a painting. Flexibility, willingness to allow the painting itself to begin dictating the resolution of composition, of color, of character and personality is an essential part of the creative process. Knowing exactly what the outcome should be and making sure that it turns out that way negates any chance of creativity being part of the process.

In order for a canvas to develop a personality, a direction of its own, a painter must start somewhere, plant the seed, do all she can to nurture the seed and then let go of the controls when she sees that something other than a duck has hatched out of the egg! For those of you who missed out on the joy of sitting on your mother's lap and listening to her read to you, I'm making reference to The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

On The Road #1

On The Road #1 was the first of the series Between Here and There. This painting has undergone more drastic changes than any other painting in the series.

The first glaze, a light value glaze of cool blue convinced me that I would, in spite of my doubts, enjoy the technique of glazing. I thought the composition was strong and I looked forward to the dramatic impact of the final painting. The second glaze, the glaze applied over the trees and over both the sky and the road, also went well. Without hesitation, except for the week of drying time between glazes, I applied the third glaze, a darker blue of the sky and a variety of greens on the trees. I did not plan for my emotions, so terribly susceptible to the moods of those around me and to the pressures of daily life, to take control of the painting. Without realizing it I changed a perfectly calm and evocative mood into one of frenzy and discord. The clouds shot diagonally across the narrow canvas in a state of frenzy.

At the next sitting, I painted out the lower clouds believing I could taming the energy of the upper clouds to my advantage. I was wrong. During the next sitting I painted the clouds out completely and pruned the tree on the right significantly. The following session involved further pruning of the trees on the left and total removal of the tree on the right. I was getting into a more Zen state. In addition, time had passed since I had started the series of Sky,Road and Trees. I'd grown quite weary of the subject and needed to do something drastic just for the fun of it.

During the past few days I've been reflecting on the direction of my painting. How does representational work really fit into my life, or does it at all? In the September 2nd Twice-Weekly Letter by Robert Genn wrote about refocusing on what one's passions were as a child. With that in mind I went back into the painting with a lighter touch, adding happier colors into the sky and allowing the trees to be more playful. At this point, the road seems to have very little to do with the painting. I will deal with that at the next sitting.