My Most Maddening Painting

It started before Halloween. I was going to make a painting recycling the bottom of a cupboard drawer for the support. The painting would be a celebratory remembrance of a wonderful French dinner under my favorite tree in Strasbourg, France; a massive and ancient plane tree, full of knobs from decades (centuries?) of pollarding. The first layer was a sort of "staining" layer in acrylic. I wanted the grain of the wood to show through. I chalked in drawings of David and Mary.  So far, so good...

 Then, I began working on the visages of Mary and David.  Mary's eyes came out fairly convincingly. The goal was to have a cursory go over with acrylic and then add oil (from oilsticks) for detail and richness. I was very happy with the shorthand description of the tree.

Working along, Mary and David both off to a good start, or so I thought. David was not happy with his open mouth. To me, it looked like he was in the middle of a Francophile rhapsody, but the customer is always right (even though he is not a customer!)  I should have stuck with Mary as she is right now!







I took a photo of David with his mouth shut and used it to adjust his image. David was happy with the results and proclaimed the representation obituary worthy (!) I guess he can die happy... I thought Mary was reasonable, too. But, David felt her representation to be off. And so started an intense period of revisionism.

This was an interesting exercise, because, although I was quite frustrated in not being able to get it right, the work was exhilarating. I had endless energy to work and scrape, work and scrape. Still, it was not coming together.







One has to be able to both see the image accurately, and yet translate the visual information into abbreviations that read well from a distance. Too much information looks cartoonish and off from a distance.



I remember what I have told students, to always return to looking. Get your first hand knowledge and use it. Don't make assumptions, don't figure you know something before you know it! I made a drawing of Mary to see what I've been overlooking and/or over-emphasizing. I like the drawing, but it didn't help. I stayed up until 3:30 am working on Mary, but she was playing hard to get! So, I gave up and figured what I learned from this exercise was worth enough. I did not have to have it end exactly like I had planned.




So, I put myself in the painting. It was an evening I wanted to remember: sitting under this beautiful tree, having my third goat cheese salad of the trip (this one made with phyllo dough) drinking a red Alsacian wine in my favorite little Alsacian glasses. This is the first time I've included myself in a painting. Painting myself was fairly easy. We know we have preconceived ideas about our own likeness, so we have to be particularly careful and objective; really focusing on abstracting out the image. I was in the picture in no time at all! Or maybe, David just figured he shouldn't say anything about it...!

David even made the frame for the painting. I'm going to hang it where the old cupboard used to be. We can remember a fine trip to France and a wonderful evening. Though this was a maddening exercise, it also reminded me that I love the challenge of looking and thinking; translating what I see to the surface of a painting, being objective and subjective to make a convincing representation. I think I'll keep painting.
Happy New Year!

Resist Temptation

Thanksgiving Day 2013, 7 x 5"
oil pastel/watercolor

We are in the holiday season and there are a lot of temptations. It is the season to give in to those temptations. I'm giving in to the temptation of resist: where a medium is used that repels another medium that is laid over. My dominant mix of media are watercolor and pastel. I've been intrigued by oil pastel and its added quality of resisting water based media. I thought it would be fun to make a watercolor/oil pastel painting, starting with the oil pastel. This scene, with a canopy of pear tree leaves worked well, because I could use the oil pastel to create the spaces where light shines through. It was also useful in rendering the light layer of snow on the grass and on the hedge. The leaves were then created by rich layers of watercolor. The most striking thing about this setting was the intense color of the leaves: red and green with highlights of golden ochre. After a good bit of paint had been put down, I went for a walk to let things dry. When I came back, I added more layers and finished detailing with watercolor. Since I can, I added oil pastel on top. This made for a nice little painting finished in an afternoon.  Thanksgiving Day 2013 will be for sale at MS Rezny Studio/Gallery for Holiday Revels, and it can be found in the drawers at the back of the gallery. If you buy the work during Holiday Revels 40% of the price will go to Hospice of the Bluegrass and their art fund. You can buy gifts of art and help an important local institution at the same time!

Holiday Revels

MS Rezny Studio/Gallery

903 Manchester Street, Distillery District

Thursday, December 5th

4 - 7 pm

40% of purchase price will go to

Hospice of the Bluegrass fund for art

10-22-13 Weekly Watercolor

At Rogers Point, watercolor, 14 x 17"

This week's offering is from the "archives." Recently, I went through my mother's belongings in Maine. She died nine years ago, but my stepfather was reluctant to let go of her things, so when we were up in Maine for Richard's memorial picnic, we had a chance to collect some items. This is a painting I made for my mother twenty years ago. At the time, I was painting mostly in watercolor because it seemed the simplest with young children about (not sure why I thought that!) I must have worked on this while the kids were away a couple of hours at preschool. Working with watercolor is very meditative (though painting with kids running around would not be.)
      I shipped back several paintings and it is nice to have old visions hanging around once again. Here, I especially remember the refreshing visit to Maine in the midst of a hot, humid Kentucky summer. And what joy to see my children experience the wonders of the natural world. The coast of Maine is an excellent spot for that!

10-17-13 Weekly Watercolor

This week's watercolor is a commissioned piece, so I haven't given it a title or put the date on it. Painting the mountains was particularly fun. The shadows have different qualities: true shadow and shadow with reflected light. Rendering the shadows were critical for giving dimension to the slopes. The time of day was before dusk. The mountain tops are still in full light, yet the same mountains make for an early evening light for the town below. A beautiful setting!
    I'll write more after this painting has been received by the recipient...

10-8-13 Weekly Watercolor

Along the Bluestone, 9 x 4.5", watercolor

I'm thinking ahead to my next show, which will feature people and creatures. The working title is: Earthlings. At the same time, a new style has been percolating. After a couple of visits to the Musee D'Orsay, I've become smitten with some decorative panels by Pierre Bonnard. In these works, Bonnard flattens the natural backdrop and people are decked out in flat patterns that somehow also effectively define the figures.
     So for my Weekly Watercolor, I decided to make a study for a possible work for the next show. At a wedding over the weekend, I spoke with a cousin about my plans for my new work and I also saw a young cousin, and was once again struck by her spunky personality and I thought of how well this scene would fit my new way of working. I made a pencil sketch to work out the composition and traced that off on the watercolor paper (Arches, Cold Press, 300 lb.) This study has already given me ideas for tweaking the composition and is directing me on an approach. Students in my watercolor/pastel classes might recognize this image, as I've used it for a demo-painting.
    The scene here is at Pipestem State Park near Athens, West Virginia, my mother's hometown. The Bluestone River flows through a gorge and you have to take a tram down to the lodge below. We have had a lot of fun family reunions at Pipestem. It is a very special place!

10-2-13 Weekly Watercolor

Morning Work, 7 x 5",  watercolor

I'm home after a trip to visit my daughter in France. It is appropriate to feature a horse for my weekly watercolor. My sister, Jennie Rees, covers horse racing for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Sometimes I accompany her to the track or training center as she goes on her rounds. The easy demeanor of the riders always impresses me. They are coaxing these large animals to be calm, focused and energized all at once.
Gray/roan horses are my favorites.

9-12-13 Weekly Watercolor

Trio of Birch Trees, Cadillac Mountain
watercolor on paper, 5 x 7"

I knew the subject of this week's watercolor as soon as I spotted a trio of truncated birch trees on top of Mount Cadillac. The vegetation was quite striking at the top; the bronzy greens being set off by the pink marble rock. The stark white of the birch bark shone brightly, making up for the short stature of these birches. The dancing, playful quality of this trio was particularly alluring!