Art appreciation is just disguised lechery in another form!

yeah, it’s like being a voyuer…and i oughta know!(art appreciation, that is!)….cj….

Very nice to hear from you again, Martin. The images shown were early Botticelli’s. He did a series on the same tale. In answer to your statement, I guess I don’t think of myself as a realist, but a creator of a parallel universe, where the vision is a bit hyper. Colors are stronger, tonalities often a bit enhanced, expressions more intense. I know this world doesn’t look just like the one I live in, but it is coherent, and better expresses the subject matter I wish to realize. Some pieces are more in this world or that, but all carry that oddness you speak of. In this particular piece I had no time to think about what I was doing. It is, environment-wise, a pure Hess invention. I had a guy sitting in my studio for 4 of the days I worked. I think he was a bit baffled that my landscape just evolved, no reference material to speak of. The trees, bushes, earth, roots, branches, and leaves are all out of my head. This was partly a function of speed. With the deadline, there was no time to work from real trees or bushes, even if I’d wished to. So the result is a pure product of my mind’s eye.
Like you, I have no idea how a painting will proceed, but faith in my ability to pull off whatever direction it runs in. I never made foliage in this exact fashion before, so that was an experiment, that had to work. And did.

great painting full of interest

We’ll see you at the opening, then?
It is fun to share the process. And I even got some useful feedback that made the piece better.

I’m shooting for the opening but may just see it quietly. Your pieces are absolutely luminous in the flesh (and well worth the 5 hour drive). I still find myself day dreaming about ‘Self Portrait with Up Turned Collar’…

Thanks, Kent! Tiny compared to the piece you are working on.

Richard, as I recall you live in NY. Maybe it is a SoCal thing, or my simple medium, but my layers are usually dry the next day. My under layers follow the Dutch method… lots of earth colors. The expensive colors are saved for the top layer. The earth colors dry fast, as does Cremnitz white, my main working white. Rembrandt would often mix some umber into his lake colors (fast and slow driers) to speed up drying, and he lived in a cold environment. I do the same, but it was really hot during the last two weeks in LA. Stuff dried fast.

yes, mine are generally dry the next day as well, though after a while, they start to get tacky and need a break. And yes, I also stick to earth colors in the underpainting, though I’ve never used Cremnitz. I used to use a pre=primed lead white ground, but they stopped making it. (just as well, it was always powdering off the edges). I’m just impressed that you could get such complex layering of colors throughout the painting in only nineteen days… without the photos, I wouldn’t have believed it, lol. I think you had a piece in NYC recently, which I unfortunately missed. I hope I can see your work in person next time.

I read up on the Cremnitz. It is Lead white, is it not? (its basis is Lead carbonate.) Are there any issues with yellowing over time? Those thinner layers (I mean painter with turp – the white dries over night for me in San Diego. (I stopped using any zincs, and even titanium and went to Gamblin’s radiant white (which I like very much) but I’d like to try lead white.

…and the horse can’t take its eyes off of you!

Yeah, I saw that yesterday. I felt vaguely guilty!
Koplin Del Rio Gallery, 2nd installment of their 30th anniversary series, this one about narrative, September 8th, 2012.

It will be at Koplin Del Rio Gallery, 2nd installment of their 30th anniversary series, this one about narrative, September 8th, 2012.

In my home town. I started a local civic art group there. Will you be making a FB announcement? I will share w/ the peeps. How long will it be on exhibit?

But now I’m hungry again!

Thank you for posting this day by day on Facebook. I truly enjoyed watching the progression and evolution. And especially the banter!