Harpy Meals Are In

On Saturday at noon, just as President Bush was announcing his proposed 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout package, Jeanette and I were setting up our folding chairs in the parking lot of the Dunkin Donuts in Kingston, New York to view the American Experiment firsthand.

Across the street, the McDonald’s customers were arriving in their Hummers and Expeditions. A bright banner proclaimed the new offering: “Angus Chipotle BBQ Bacon Burgers.”

The yellow sign with movable letters said “WIZARD OF OZ & LEGO HARPY MEALS ARE HERE.” I looked again, and it really said “HARPY.” I guess the signmakers ran out of “P’s.” Perhaps they were also unaware of the winged monsters from Greek mythology who punished King Phineas by stealing food out of his mouth just as he was about to eat from the banquet table.

I took a little time to work out my pencil drawing first, knowing that watercolor is unforgiving. I started painting on the right side of the composition, concentrating on the white car. I guessed it would only stay for 15 minutes while the owner was dining inside. In fact, he emerged after only 12 minutes.

The man stood beside his car with a cigarette and a cellphone in one hand and a soda cup in the other while waiting for his son to come out of the “Playplace.” The Playplace—the glassed-in structure at right in the picture—is a two-story playground retrofit from the 1990s. Kids can slide around through large intestine-like plastic tubes while digesting their cheeseburgers.

The son arrived as the man finished his Coke, his cigarette, and his telephone conversation. “Get your butt in the car,” the man said.

Alexander’s Dark Band

I know—it sounds like a Vaudeville jazz group.

In fact, Alexander’s dark band is the darker region separating the primary rainbow from the secondary bow. The secondary rainbow is reversed in its color sequence. It’s weaker than the primary rainbow. The light for the second rainbow comes from sunlight that bounces twice inside the spherical raindrops that are suspended in the air after a rainstorm.

The band of sky between the bows looks darker compared to the region inside the primary bow because a certain amount of light bounces back at angles below 42 degrees. In fact, in this photo there are faint “supernumerary bows” inside the primary bow.

Alexander’s Dark Band is named after Alexander of Aphrodisias, who first described the phenomenon. While the main bow forms at 42 degrees from the antisolar point (see last week’s post), the secondary bow forms at 51 degrees.

Here is a version of the double rainbow that I painted for Dinotopia: First Flight. To get the curvature exactly even, I attached the paintbrush to an improvised beam compass (basically a long wooden bar pivoting on a nail). It’s the best way in traditional oil paint to keep the arc geometrically perfect.

John Everett Millais Blind Girl of 1856 shows a double rainbow correctly painted in terms of the sequence of colors (red at the outside of the main bow). But he failed to show the lighter region inside the inner bow, and the darker band between the two bows.

The majesty of Millet’s conception comes from the knowledge that the blind girl is unaware of the glory behind her. Millet is careful to show the light coming almost exactly from the front. The shadows are cast just a little to the right of the trees.

The sun is behind us, a bit to the left. The antisolar point (the point 180 degrees opposite the sun) is outside the frame of the picture, just to the right of the flock of crows. It forms the center of the arc of both rainbows.
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Rainbow photo by Eric Rolph, courtesy Wikipedia, link.
Last week's post on the science of rainbows, link.
Another explanation of all this, with a nice diagram of the angles, link.

Simplfied Planes

To simplify something as complex as a rocky outcropping, it sometimes helps to think in terms of groups of planes.

In the case of these rocks along the coast of Maine, the rock naturally breaks into four fracture planes:
1. Top planes
2. Side planes in light
3. Front planes in halftone
4. Side planes in shadow

The actual scene had a lot more complexity of form and randomness of tones, but if you group the planes, it will be easier for the viewer to sort things out, and the form will carry more punch.

By the way, this was painted with a very limited palette: Black, white, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre. An ultra simple palette was enough for a pure form study.

When you're painting details of a larger scene, like these small figures in a Canaletto painting, you can simplify planes to light, halftone, and shadow. This makes the details read instantly, and it saves painting time.

Slowing Down

Back in 1994, my friend Garin Baker invited me to join him for a figure painting session at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was working from the model with a group of master figure painters that included Max Ginsburg and Steve Assael.

As I recall, they had already been painting from the same model for some weeks. This was their fourth or fifth session with the same pose. By the time I joined them, they had put in 20 or 30 hours into that one pose.

I was amazed with the quality of their work, which showed deep observation. I was so accustomed to painting from the standard 20- or 30-minute poses in most sketch groups, that even a three-hour session seemed like a huge luxury.

After two hours on the same pose, I felt like I overcooked the pasta.

So I applied the Ninety Degree Rule. Steve Assael became my subject. I felt energized. Here was a living, moving subject and only 45 minutes of time left. Even though he wasn’t holding completely still, there was a quality of life and tension that excited me.

I greatly admire what my colleagues have accomplished with extended observational poses, but I guess I’m more suited to catching life on the run.

I’m curious to learn from those of you who have more experience than I do painting from long poses. How much time is ideal for you? How do you pace yourself with longer poses? If you were running an atelier, how would you balance short and long poses?
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Related GJ post "Artists as Models," link.
"Ninety Degree Rule," link.
Websites for Steve Assael, Max Ginsburg, and Garin Baker.
Max Ginsburg has an exhibit "Visions of Reality," in NYC through Sept. 26.
Also, Garin, Steve, and Max are part of a group show called "The Old Hat Club" at the High School of Art and Design, through October 3.

Vibert’s Gulliver

Jehan-Georges Vibert (1840-1902) was an academic painter who specialized in realistically imagined scenes of court life.

Last spring, Sotheby auction house unveiled a large Vibert painting depicting a scene from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The painting had disappeared from public view for over 100 years.

Vibert visualized the army of the Kingdom of Lilliput with extraordinary attention to individual characterization and costume.

He placed the viewer at the eye level of the Lilliputians, looking upward at the foreshortened giant. The face seems miles away.
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Wikipedia Commons, 16 reproductions, link.
Gallery of Paintings by Vibert, link.

Art in Embassies Program

It is with sadness that I learned today of the loss of life of six Yemeni guards and four civilians this morning as the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, was hit by two car bombs.

I have a particular interest in that embassy because one of my paintings, “Hudson Highlands,” is on loan to that embassy, part of the “Art in Embassies Program” sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

There is no official word yet about the condition of the building or its contents, though reports indicate that further explosions and gunfire followed the initial bomb blast, and smoke was seen rising from the compound.

I also have a couple of paintings on loan to the U.S. Permanent Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.

In the short run, artwork has no power over guns and bombs, but I believe that cultural exchanges between countries can make a small difference in the long run.
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News photo courtesy ©EPA
News story here and here
Art in Embassies Program, link.

Plaster Casts

Artists pursuing academic training in contemporary ateliers spend time making charcoal studies of plaster casts. These replica sculptures are made from classic Greek, Roman, and Renaissance originals.

This is an excellent way to refine drawing skills, especially the close observation of light and shade on form. As an added benefit, you get to feast your eyes on the timeless beauty of master sculptures.

Here’s a plaster cast of Michelangelo’s Moses from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Plaster casts can be either gigantic full figure replicas or smaller pieces. These affordable casts of individual facial features are based on Michelangelo’s David.

Most art schools once had large plaster cast collections, but many destroyed them in the wanton orgy of iconoclasm of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The cast collection belonging to Vassar College in New York State (seen intact above) was a typical sad story. The director of the Art program, Agnes Clafin, ordered the destruction of the collection in the 1940s arguing that casts were no longer useful in teaching, and that “this was a time to innovate, to bring Vassar up to speed.” Only a few casts at Vassar escaped annihilation.

But fortunately there are still several museums and schools that held onto their plaster cast collections. Many will allow artists to draw from them, but the limitation is often the lighting. Typically, museum lighting uses multiple light sources, which makes the study of form and chiaroscuro rather confusing. If you’re drawing a cast that’s lit by multiple light sources, it’s best not to bother copying tones and to study the lines and shapes instead.
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Intact collections
George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts
Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Missouri in Columbia
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (including architectural casts)
University of Oxford, Great Britain
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Copenhagen Cast Collection
Pushkin Museum in Russia
for a full listing, check out:
Plaster Cast Collection Database

Story of the Vassar Casts, link

Retail Sources:
Note: beware that some are third or fourth generation molds, and may not resemble the original very closely.
Sculpt Shop
Fine Art Store
Giust Gallery