One of zillions smillions planets

gauche on canvas 9 x 12, I am a Planet, illustrations

I am a Planet, by Samantha and Pat Darnell

gauche on 9 x 12 canvas, originals scanned

Studio: Artist's Winsome Dreaming

Wickedly Sublime
by Pat Darnell

Response to: Carol Marine's Painting a Day: Yellow Splash


"...Someone else asked when my studio will be done. I honestly don't know, but we hope..."

In response to studios: I often tell myself that when I finally have my "dream" studio, I will be sleight of vision and hand, and possibly have only weeks left to live.

After a lifetime of crawling on floors, hiding in attics, freezing in garages, stumbling around in backrooms, fighting dust balls, tumble weeds, bad light, and birds, insects, mice and snakes...

...I have to tell others that a studio is a dream notion I may never realize in my lifetime, and as it is to most of us... it is always in "the works."

The last real studio I ever worked in was at Trinity U, in the early 70's... Yikes!

Life has taken many turns and a studio has never been a "family priority.." for my bunch. Why do I say this? Almost every artist I have pleasure to talk with says "my studio is almost finished..."

Thanks for sharing that studio note there, CM. I sense, and appreciate, the irony of the statement.

Nihilism is a poison

Retrieved by PD
(event) by stripe Wed Mar 25 2009

Throw it. Watch it spin in a perfect arc until it smashes against the wall. Watch the water fan out in a crystal spray. Watch the drops fall and shatter into tiny spheres. The broken glass mingling with the wetness will reflect light in a beautiful pattern. It will sparkle like you've never seen - rather, like you've seen but never felt. So easy. So perfect. Create the breathtaking sequence of seconds that will - for a flash of delight - redefine your aesthetic. Just throw it.

...But the moment's passed. You hesitated, and lost the will. Or did you stop yourself? You aren't ready to give in to destruction. The chaotic impulse has, once again, been overridden. In your mind, the cup breaks, the water sprays, the light shines, over and over, a false memory of wishful thinking. Your desire will be stuck on repeat until you cave... but the moment's passed.

Is this the ninth time? Tenth time? Have you been counting? Next time it won't just be a glass of water. All those glasses of water add up to a project, or a relationship, or your car plus another. Oh, sure - take martial arts, paint like Pollock, go to one of those junkyard therapy places that let you smash old TVs with a sledgehammer. Compromise. Accept substitues. Imitate the real thing so many times that the shadow takes on substance. Hope that the substance weighs so heavy on your heart that those dark leaping urges are stilled.

It won't work. Just throw it.

1969 Red, Yellow, Blue and White

Never said I was a prodigy...

Talking about Painting, by Pat Darnell

If you are a good draftsman, then always work toward your strengths. Lay it out, and work with perspective and proportion. Here is a Lighthouse scene. I usually put reference page and photo credit on any 8 x 10 studies. "Eagle Bluff Light, Ephraim, Wisconsin: marks the entrance into East Channel into Green Bay. It was built on Lake Michigan in 1868, standing 75 feet above the lake, with originally a third-order Fresnel lens. It is a brick tower still aiding in navigation today" (Crompton, S W. UB of L, 2005).
It doesn't hurt to under paint a scene with complementary color scheme. Using acrylics for this; remember if you are oil painting, you have to put water based colors under the final oil base paints; lean under fat as the saying goes, or fat over lean. This roof for instance is going to be Terra cotta, so I under painted with blue slate color.
The bush is in shadow, so I started with dark coloring moving toward lighter later. This is the best way to to produce details in shadows.
And the foreground wall will be yellow limestone, so I under painted with blue shades, Payne's gray, with more dark blue in the clouds. Again it all moves from dark to light, background to foreground. The subject lighthouse

will hopefully end up detailed and sculptural, framed in rich, subdued colors.
Add color. In this case I am doing a study of the various aspects of lighthouses, and not too concerned with palette. However, as I become familiar with lighthouses as a subject then I would choose a group of harmonic colors right now, and stick with them. Here I am using primary colors, mixing pastels from those, as I add features. It turns out the painting starts to fall apart, as complementary colors are set in juxtaposition. Soon the adding of shadow starts to mess up the perspective, and details begin
to get lost, straight lines become
bowed lines... either optical illusions, or just lazy brushing.
Here is an inverted color negative showing true color complements. This could help in coloring the problem areas of the piece.

How to keep the painting together is to make decisions as the rendering continues. Decisions are based on observable data. For instance, lighthouses are generally not a romantic get-away. Rather, they are situated on crags and wind-swept reefs that were once noted as demons
on nautical maps. So, I am experimenting with colors to try to capture forebodings; a bleak place where existence is difficult; structures that must stand up to sheer brutal punishment by natural weathering winds. Thus, buttressing walls, stone and brick construction, copper storm shutters and scuppers, and heavy roofing.

The most difficult part of doing a study is in trying to balance the mess. Some of the intermediate stages have features that look really good. But as another area of the canvas is worked it somehow cancels the parts that I just finished. Highlights fade, and shadows take over, or become ambiguous...
I see as I go that the underpainted version looks real good. I like the bold red lighthouse tower, and the blue mortar in the house. But alas the total structure is made from local yellow sandstone. So for believable finish everything stone becomes yellow's cousin.

I think before I call this quits and spray it with varnish, I might try to do some "glazes" in red-blue, purple, hues to make some shadow on the house and tone down the yellow. Most of the structure is trimmed in copper, so tarnished copper and green are good for other color trials. If this were a 144 inches by 96 inches, first trial, I would at this point be pulling my eyebrows out. No lie!

Fortunately, it is only 8 x 10 inches and manageable for trial and error. Also, I want to point out after all the groundwork has been laid out as it has been now, I as artist can anticipate some fun with the project in final stages. More on that aspect later...

A study like this is without parallel for learning a subject. If I decide to do another, and larger painting of this, it will take less time, and less mess to accomplish. Most of the time I skip this study stage, leaping rather right in with large brushes, and lots of oil. I end up making brown of my colors, and grey skies... so you decide how to go about your own dabbling in rendering.