The Big Update--MFA Week-San Fran and Spring Break

 As the song goes. "I left my heart in San Francisco...."

Its been a few weeks since I have had a chance to update the blog with traveling and work, classes---you name it. As I sit here writing this update in the studio Spring break has started for me--and boy can I use it!

The last month has been a real mash-up between the strip, traveling to San Francisco and then back to Philly and classes. In San Fran I visited the John Pence Gallery twice and the Disney Family Museum to see the Snow White exhibit and to attend my buddy John Heebink and his lovely wife Bonna's wedding reception. I also got to catch up with some old friends who were also attending the celebration. I love San Francisco! I've been there 4-5 times now and almost moved there back in the 90's. It was a quick trip, only 4 days including the travel so I packed a lot in. I stayed at a great Hotel, the Hotel Carlton down near the Tenderhorn. It was a great little hotel with a new redesign, great freindly staff and located a few blocks away from Union Square.

 

It was also a few blocks from a great bookstore Kayo Books! man I could have spent days there looking at the great old paperbacks and pulps.

                                    One of the zillions of old great pulps to be found at Kayo.

I have wanted to visit John Pence for a long time, its a great gallery featuring some of the best realist artist working today with both the figure and landscape as well as the still life. It is also one of the few galleries that has a sizable section set aside to display drawings.

 Most galleries I go into don't have any drawing up and certainly not prominently on display. One of my current  favorite artists Jeremy Mann has work on display there. I first became aware of his work a few years back at the USArtist show that was held here in Philly. Principle gallery from Virginia had some of his work on display as well as Lynn Bodge. I've followed Mann's career as he has been becoming an even better painter--working more with figures than just with the landscape. I also saw work by Travis Shclat, Jacob Collins and many others including Peter Van Dyke who teaches at PAFA.

 

Jacob Collins

                                                                      Robert Liberace

                                                                         Jeremy Man

 
                                                            Detail of two of Mann's paintings

Along with my buddy Scott Cohn I hit the Disney Family Museum and saw the amazing Snow White show. I had seen many of the drawings before but never in person---just fantastic work.

 


I find when I see that level of drawing and craftsmanship I feel sad that we had lost so much by everything going 3D. It was remarkable to also see how they were really inventing the modern cartoon with more realistic figures. The craftsmanship alone was astounding when you see the animators clean up drawing and then the cell next to it that had to "keep the drawing"--amazing delicate draughtsmanship!

 I wish every animation student or hell--fine art student could see this work in person. It was also one of the best museums I've been to and maybe the best ever display wise. The layout and presentation of the work, touch screen technology was just so well designed, eye pleasing and enjoyable. APPEAL! That was the key word. Disney was always appealing from design to action, the whole corporate thrust was an appealing product and experience, and while it is common coin to knock things as "Mickey Mouse", being that well done isn't easy by far. I don't know if any other company ever pushed as hard to always grow the art and craft and appeal as Disney. Even today, decades after Waly has passed you can still see that esthetic on display at the museum.

                                                              Mary Blair's tabaret




 
One of the hundreds of  drawings from the story dept. on display as well a the amazing watercolor backgrounds! It was almost an overload of material to really take in and appreciate and I was awed, something that I am rarely. The amount of talent and craftsmanship and inventiveness was off the charts. I think its so easy to look at something this old and say, "oh, how old fashioned". But this was cutting edge and we are standing on the shoulders of all of these immensely talented men and women today.

One of the old animation desks that was lined up with a lot of great animation drawings! Boy would I love to have one of these!

 

Two great story drawing from Pinocchio, the top one by the great Gustaf Teggren.

Then it was back to Philly! Man I missed the California climate immediately!


                                                              OPEN STUDIO NIGHT
Right before I left for San Francisco we had the annual school wide Open Studio. The whole school is open to the public to cme in and visit the 10 floors of open artist studios to see what we all have cooking. Last year I was on the 4th floor but now I'm up on the 9th floor. As usual I didn't get to make it around to all floors myself as I was pressing the flesh and yakking about my own stuff--but I did get a chance to run about and snap a few pics before it was all over.

Here is a shot of my studio ready for Open Studio, and below a bunch of pictures of my fellow PAfa students and their studios. Our floor had a theme of the Gnome Prom, and there were all kinds of gnomes , including Noam Chomsky.

The weather was a bad actor this year and so I think some people stayed away, but it was a fun night and I had a great response to my current work.

When I got home the next weekend  DPC all got together for some food and painting at my place. We ate some of my famous curry and Jamie brought an awesome dip. We ate talked, painted, sketched and looked at art. These folks are like family to me and there are few things I enjoy more than hanging out with my pals and painting.

 

 This is the painting I did during our session of my dining room. I can't stress how important I think it is to have a like-minded group of artists to be there as a support and encouragement. We are at some similar stages and at some different stages in our art careers and I think that also helps the mix.

 

Back in school with Scott Noel, and Bruce Samuleson I continue to do one session drawing or paintings. Scott really pushes us with these complicated set-ups where Bruce is the opposite, he has us stripped down to just a model on the floor, a blanket and that's it.

Scott always has the books out and a bunch of drawings and paintings of his up to stress the points he talking about. The two drawings below are by him, my favorite is the first one where you can see how he drew the skeleton first and then drew the figure on top.

These are the last two smallish oil paintings from Scott's class by me and a drawing from Bruce's class. The drawing is in prismacolor pencil.

You have to work fast and bold to try and get all of these set-ups in as suddenly the light might change. My only real dissatisfaction is with the Reading and Research Seminar this semester. I really just don't like the class or how its run. I really enjoyed my class last semester, but this is a torture in many ways and I know I am not the only student who feels this way. I don't feel I am getting much out of the class, which is frustrating. But you know you just have to suck it up and keep your head down and concentrate on the good.

PAFA MFA-1 SPRING Week 3

 Snow, heat, fog, ice, rain, you name it, we had it all this week in Philly, some in the same day which made painting interesting and a challenge at the same time in the studio at home and even in school. The light was all over this week and that not only really effects whats happening as you paint but what I can plan on doing on any given day--especially if I want to work with a model in natural light. It also effects the time you as the daylight hours are still very short and the great light or angle of the sun after solar noon is a narrower window of time.

In my painting class with Scott Noel we once again had a cool set up, for me one of the best he's had in a long time and I wish we had more that one session on it. He called it his "romance cover" set-up. As always Scott had plenty of books out to help, inspire and discuss, he'd call the class over on breaks to point out certain things or stress points he wanted to make.

Scott is one of the best teachers, maybe the best teacher I have had in my time all through PAFA, the one I've had the longest conversation with, even though at times we just disagree on things, on esthetics. But he's always challenging me and continues to surprise me as well. I think this is an important point in the teacher-student relationship, which can be as complicated and heated as any you'll have, but more important to me as an artist than most relationships. The old saying "If you meet Buddah on the road, kill him" holds true. The idea is to kill the idea of perfection, or concept is essential to grow with and beyond your teacher. This is certainly more of an important idea in a masters program--the path to enlightenment as an artist in the western world--ha!

The drawing below is one of the many drawings or paintings Scott brings each week to class. I always love seeing his work.

This is the painting I cranked on in the class, there was a lot I wanted to do but thought I had to keep it simple in the end I was frustrated with it as I usually am with class work. I sometimes feel rushed or unfocused and sleepy! Eventually the old brain is cooking but I never really feel the flow. Scott really liked it--which is something--but I just tossed it on the pile...another battle lost.

The drawing is from Bruce Samuleson's Life Drawing seminar, litho crayon on newsprint, I cranked out a few but this is the only one that was "OK".

At home in the studio, (my whole house) I started two new paintings from life and the picture about is one of them that I experimented with in Photoshop.Its an oil painting 30 x 30 that I added a bunch of digital painting too.

 Its tra-digital and I think I will explore some paintings this way as well as staying traditional like the rough-in below. Continuing of with the beauty or bride series I'd pouring the gasoline on right now. I figure some will be good I hope and some just get burned up and be messes, but you have to risk to grow.

In my Writing and Research seminar wit Kate Moran we had to choose a few paintings of ours and talk about the influences of modern painters no my work. The facts are that the biggest influences on my work are not modern painters, and certainly not many post 1970 which is the focus of her class.

I showed my work along with artists that were an influence on my work. Moran wanted it to be artist 1970 and onward and frankly most of the artists that are an influence on my work  are dead. There are a few modern artists, I like, Zhaoming Wu, Steve Huston, Hicks, Lipking, Desiderio to name a handful.  But Wyeth, Sargent, Zorn, Cornwell, Rockwell, Fechin are all much bigger influences. I just found out about an artist named Balcomb Greene who is very interesting.

I showed my favorite Sargent painting and my painting in the Brandywine, the houses below are from the Brandywine as well. I showed them with Hopper who is still a big influence. That fact is I have a lot of influences, they are like rocks in a stream, so many you can't see them all. I am in some cases just as influenced ny Maurice Noble's designs for Chuck Jones cartoons as I am by Maynard Dixon. John Buscema as much as Michaelangelo.

Wednesday I happened  by chance to sit in on a perspective lecture by Michael Grimadli that he was giving in the cast hall.  Michael Grimadli  was set up and doing a drawing demo on perspective, so I decided to stay and check it out.I guess for the next few weeks Grimaldi, Peter Van Dyke and Scott Noel and maybe other teachers are going to be doing demos on perspective that are open to all of the students. I think this is great and they have had a few events like this in the past with Van Dyke.

Grimadli talked and answered questions as he sketched in the cast. Some of the concepts he was throwing out were:
1. Work from inside to outside
2. Drawing concepts should never over ride  visual perception.
3.The line of thrust vs the line of action.
4. Check for the central core of immovable landmarks
5.The lights ource must be considered in perspective.

This is where Grimaldi stopped his demo which he said he will pic up next week. He is such a great artist and teacher and this is one of the things I love the most about the school, these are real learning opportunities and its great to have such giving teachers.

Then yesterday I got together with my Dirty Palette Club buddies and we set up a still life and spent the day painting and eating perogies and Mexican food. This is the still life I did, its in oil and 18 x 24. There are few things I enjoy more than painting with my friends and this one the first time we have painted together since last summer. 

Next week is annual school-wide Open Studio on Friday Night, so it will be a busy, busy week, lots to do and clean up and haul out of the studio and make the shop look nice for visitors.