The class at the League goes from September through May. It focuses on portrait and figure painting but also includes still life, composition, color, drawing, pretty much anything that has to do with indoor painting. But to be a well rounded artist you must also be familiar with the principles of outdoor painting. DuMond was an avid fisherman and, I am told, took students with him on his fishing/painting excursions to Nova Scotia. After he bought a small farm in Old Lyme, CT he invited students to join him there. When Frank took over the class he took his students to Lubeck, ME to paint seascapes. By the time I came along the class was meeting every June in Stowe, a beautiful skiing community in northern Vermont. We would meet 3 times a week for critiques and work on our own for the rest of the time. I've moved the class to southern Vermont to the town of Pawlet, a good place for the class for a number of reasons. First, I have my home and studio there. It is a farming community which echos the DuMond's Old Lyme class. And finally it has long had resident artists and is comfortable seeing them along the roads. Ogden Pleissner, a former DuMond student, and Jay Connaway both lived there. Pleissner was famous for his sporting art, especially fly fishing scenes, and Connaway was a great landscape painter known for his big bold brushwork. So for the past month we dotted the landscape with french easels and pochade boxes at all hours of the day and often late into the evening. Obsessed with greens and blues and light and atmosphere. Before long we will all be back at the League again, obsessed with bones and muscles and structure and form.....

I painted these peonies from my garden on a Monday, early the next morning Frank passed away. I think it would have made him happy to know that a few hours later the landscape class was out for a sunrise crit. The tradition continues. Elizabeth and I attended his funeral service in New York on Saturday. Colleagues, clients and friends filled the pews of the beautiful Grace Church in lower Manhattan. Many of his former students were there, arriving from Pittsburg, Nashville, New Orleans, even Venice, as well as neighboring states. There was a large number from Vermont where Frank and Anne owned a house for many years and where Frank taught his landscape class. We all said farewell to our old mentor then met at the Salmagundi Club to share our memories. After the reception we walked down to Chinatown for a bite to eat with my old roommates and dear friends Bill and Kim Darling and 4 of their 8 children. It turned into a rather jolly meal and, unwilling to part with them again so soon, we decided to walk back uptown with them. It was a pleasant, sunny day but there was a sudden late day cloudburst. We found shelter and when the rain stopped continued our trek uptown. As we walked along there appeared rainbow after rainbow. Finally we stopped and looked back downtown to see a particularly intense rainbow. It was right over Frank's studio. We were all thinking the same thing, it was obviously Frank showing off his new palette.....

En Plein Air
48 x 48 Oil on Linen

Not long after I wrote the previous post I received word that Frank Mason had died. It's hard to believe that the 53 year old powerhouse that I studied with at the League is gone. Yes, he was 88 years old, but I had seen him survive lead poisoning and heart and lung problems that would have taken down any normal man. I thought he was indestructible. He was a great, great artist and had enormous influence over the next generation. He shaped my artistic vision and that of countless others. Of course I have many memories of wonderful demonstrations, critiques and lessons. Many of his students share those memories, but from time to time I remind myself to make mental snapshots knowing that the moment I am in is important to me and one that I will want to remember. Those snapshots are not always of painting, but of Frank playing baseball with us after a landscape crit, or Frank playing the piano at one of the parties in his studio, of the time we were adjusting the lights in his studio at 2am because he was having an open studio show the next day, of the two of us having lunch during a break as I framed and crated his paintings for an exhibition. One day Elizabeth and I were at his house in Vermont helping him prepare canvas. We worked all day until suddenly Frank began to panic. "The sun is almost down and we haven't painted yet. Drop everything" he said. So we did and quickly set up and started painting. We only had about 20 or 30 minutes before the light was gone but in that time I did a small study on paper of Frank as he stood painting the last light of the day. It is the only time I ever painted him and is one of my sentimental favorites. Many years later I made En Plein Air from that sketch. The world has lost a great artist and a great man, and I have lost my teacher and my friend.....

I know my painting lineage better than my own family tree. Frank Vincent DuMond started painting with Sartain and Beckwith at the Art Students League in New York in the 1880's and then went to Paris, as was customary at the time, where he studied with Lefebvre, Constant and Boulanger at the Academie Julian. Shortly after returning to America he began teaching at the League, at the age of 27, and continued as an instructor there for most of the next 59 years. Frank Herbert Mason enrolled in DuMond's class at the age of 16 and continued to study with him for the next dozen years or so. One day while they were sitting together in the League's cafeteria DuMond asked Mason when he was going to start teaching. Mason replied that he wanted to paint and had not thought about teaching. DuMond let Mason know that he didn't expect him to keep everything he had been taught to himself. When DuMond died in 1951 Mason took over the class. He was, like his mentor, a young man when he began to teach and would have a long tenure as a League instructor. Frank had been teaching for over 20 years when I arrived at the League in 1974 and, after a few months of studying anatomy and drawing with Robert Beverly Hale, I became a Mason student. As Frank began his 57th season at the League he realized his health was not up to the challenge. I had substituted for him for a day or two over the past few years but this time he asked me to teach the class for a few months while he recovered his strength. So I returned to my old classroom, this time as the instructor. As the weeks wore on it became clear that he would not be going back and he informed the League's director that he was retiring. I was soon asked to stay on and became the 3rd instructor to teach the afternoon class in Studio 7 at the Art Students League in the last 116 years. I'd had over 20 years to work on my painting but now it was my turn to pass on what I'd been taught. I suppose 50 some years from now an artist will write a blog post about how they studied with someone who studied with Torak, who studied with Mason, who studied with DuMond.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Low Tide, Cape Cod

Oil on Panel

Image 10 x 12 - Framed 15 x 17

$900

Once, as a young boy, I was idly thumbing through a book on the lives of the saints and came across St. Therese of Lisieux. As a young Carmelite nun she was ordered by her superior to write an autobiography. At first she protested that she was a simple person and had nothing to write about. She was not a big fancy rose, she said, with large showy petals, a rich fragrance or intense color, but rather a delicate little wildflower which is easily overlooked. In accordance with her vow of obedience she began writing and her work was published two years after her death at the age of 24. Her simplicity and devotion inspired many to follow the example of the little flower, as she came to be known. Her story came back to me many years later. As I set up to paint Low Tide, Cape Cod I thought to myself "There is nothing here to paint." Where are the waves, the sailboats, the big puffy clouds, anything? But artists too have taken a vow, a vow to paint no matter what, and I proceeded to paint the scene before me. As I worked I began to understand my subject. It was never going to be the sketch for a big impressive painting showing off the grandeur of nature. It was forever going to be a lovely, delicate, humble little painting. The kind of painting that could be easily overlooked... or greatly enjoyed by those who are sensitive enough to stop and appreciate it......

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Low Tide, Cape Cod, which retails for $1600, is being made available for $900 (includes shipping, VT residents add 6% sales tax). To purchase this piece contact me at thomastorak@gmail.com. Payment is by check only please, no credit cards. If you prefer you may make 3 monthly payments. This offer is available for 30 days from the date of this post.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

20 x 30 Oil on Linen

The previous post prompted a reader to inquire how I define my painting style. This is a subject I amuse myself with from time to time. Among the terms currently available I find myself landing in a group called contemporary realists. It is, however, a most unsatisfying solution to the problem. I don't deny that I am a contemporary artist but that won't last forever. It seems rather silly to call Marcel Duchamp modern when he did his best work 80 years ago and died over 40 years ago. So contemporary seems to be of limited use. Realist suggests that one is in competition with trompe-l'œil painters and photo realists for the title of most exact rendition. That's not a good description of my work. I like the term classical when it means reaching for the ideals of truth and beauty, but less so when it requires adherence to rigid canons. My work is somewhat romantic, but not so much so that the classical ideals are buried by irrational exuberance. Traditional always sounds old and stale and unimaginative so I don't see that working for me. Representational has become popular over the last few decades. As far as I can tell it means not non-representational. I might well be a representational abstract expressionist. This is where my brain starts to shut down and I realize that my time might be better spent reading a book. When I don't overthink it and go with my heart instead of my head I refer to my style as visual poetry.....

Yellow Variations

24 x 20 Oil on Linen

In the art world there is an implied power structure. Anything cutting edge, no matter how well or how badly done, is at the top. Next is anything that used to be cutting edge but is now dull edged. Then what never had an edge but was none the less considered to be a new idea within what is known as modernism. Finally there is anything that has a germ of an association with anything before the modern era. In the field of what is known as representational painting, or traditional, or classical, or to some people old fuddy duddy obsolete painting, there is also a hierarchy. Here those that do large figure compositions are at the top. Followed by those whose figures stand alone, then figures in landscapes, landscapes without figures, and the lowest of the low, still life. Which brings me to my current painting. Yellow Variations starts out with virtually no respect in the art world. Flowers? Please, give me a break. Well, at least they're well painted. And the title isn't so bad, it suggests the painting isn't really about the flowers. Maybe it incorporates some abstraction. And, hey wait a minute, the coffee pot is from a drip coffee maker and that vase is a milk carton. Those things are modern. This could be considered a modern painting. What if it's like a retro thing? Yeah, retro with a modern twist. That's kind of cool. Maybe retro is the new new. This might be the next big thing, it could be...cutting edge.....

Before I go to sleep at night I like to visualize what I'm going to be painting the next day. It's very relaxing, a kind of meditation, and I always see myself painting well. For this painting I knew the flowers would not last long so I focused on what I needed to do to finish them, as much as possible, in one sitting. I saw myself deciding which yellow or combination of yellows I would be using to paint the centers of the two daffodils facing me. Then deciding on how I wanted to approach the white petals, how high to go in the lights, how low in the shadows, how much reflected light I was seeing and how much transmitted light was coming through the petals. I visualized how I was going to apply the paint, big, rich opaque strokes in the lights and thinner, more transparent ones in the shadows. Next I would boldly lay in the milk carton and then decide how to use the background to set off my bouquet. With the flowers finished I could relax a bit and then go after the muffins. Rounded golden forms, they made a nice variation on the yellow theme of the daffodils and carton. On and on it went as if I were watching a How to paint a still life video with me doing the painting. I don't remember when I fell asleep but when I went to the studio the next day I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It all seemed so familiar somehow.....

Spring has arrived, the growing season begun, daffodils are blooming. As I was falling asleep last night I thought about how I would like to paint them this year. When I awoke this morning Brahms' first piano trio was playing in my head. Before long the daffodils and the music merged and I clearly saw, and heard, the composition for my painting. A bit of shopping, a trip to the flower patch growing by the stone walls lining my driveway, pick up a few things from the kitchen and off to the studio. Scrape off the old, dried colors on my palette, prepare some fresh paint, strain the clear mineral spirits (for cleaning my brushes) into a clean jar and wash out the sediment from the old jar, look for a canvas that is the right size and has good karma. Now that the still life is set up and my materials organized I am ready to start painting...almost. What's the rush? Sit, meditate, gather your thoughts, hear the music. The hours have passed by quickly but no time has been wasted. I have only an hour or so left to paint but that is all I need. On the first day of a new painting I like to take my time. It is like the final rehearsal before a performance. I get the feel of the canvas, plan my composition, lay a few tones down, perhaps practice some of the more difficult passages. Tomorrow I go off to the League to teach and when I come back it will be dry and ready to go.....

Silver and Gold

23 x 36 Oil on Linen

I've been reading Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia. It examines the place music occupies in the brain and chronicles anomalous perceptions of music by his patients. Some experience seizures when exposed to certain kinds of music (musicolepsia), others hear tunes or musical phrases repeated over and over (brainworms), some, like Schumann, are tortured by a single repeated note. Some suffer from amusia (perceiving music as noise) while others with perfect pitch cannot help identifying the musical signature of a car horn, or a sneeze or a dog's bark. Last night I read the chapter on synesthesia. Synesthesia literally means a fusing of the senses. The most common form is seeing color when hearing music, D major is blue or G minor is yellow. Some people experience letters of the alphabet as colors while others can taste musical notes. Normally only the auditory cortex of the brain is activated when one hears music but a synestete experiences activity in more than one part of the brain. If they see color when hearing music both the auditory and visual sections are activated. I hear my paintings as music and am often asked if I experience synesthesia. I think not because my associations are not so specific but rather general patterns and rhythms and dynamics. The auditory and visual sections of my brain are playing with each other or having a conversation rather than acting in concert. Reading this book has made me aware, however, that I hear music all the time. It is at a very low volume and is easily overridden by, or combined with, any other brain activity. It does not disrupt my life in any way but it is always there. If my mind is not occupied with another activity the musical volume increases and keeps me company. It has been my constant companion as far back as I can remember. On the other hand I've probably never experienced a genuine moment of silence in my whole life.....

Roses and Apples

18 x 16 Oil on Linen

I met someone at a party and introduced myself as an artist. "Oh I would love to have your life" he said, "just wake up each morning and paint exactly what I see in front of me." We were standing near a kitchen counter with a toaster oven, a small vase with a flower and a napkin holder on it. "Well" I replied "if you paint exactly what you see you'll be painting a mask of what is there." He looked confused. "You are only seeing the front of everything" I continued. "To paint a convincing illusion of what you are seeing you need to also paint what you cannot see. You must be able to convince the viewer that the vase not only has the front that can see but also a back side that you cannot see, and that there is space between the vase and the wall. You can't see weight and yet the flower must look lighter than the toaster oven. Then of course you have to think about what it is that you want to express." "Oh" he said deflatedly "that's a lot harder than I thought it would be, but at least you get to do what you want and then sell it for a lot of money." "Oh yes" I said not wanting to deflate him again "Rubens did quite well for himself." I didn't mention that Van Gogh only sold one painting, or that Rembrandt had to sell everything that he had, or that Hals died in the poorhouse.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Spring Runoff

Oil on Linen

Image 16 x 14 - Framed 22 x 20

$1400

When winter begins to fade away the word spreads quickly. As soon as the temperature nudges above freezing the first few drops of melted snow drip into the hard stream bed. Each drop seeks out another and before long they join together and start flowing along. As they go they begin to send out the word "spring is coming, spring is coming" they whisper. Awakened by the call the frost begins to thaw in the ground and rises to the surface to accompany the little stream. Now the melting snow in the lowlands and valleys joins in and the stream becomes stronger "spring is coming, spring is coming" is heard clearly across the land. The momentum builds and soon water is rushing from the mountain tops "SPRING IS COMING, SPRING IS COMING". There is now so much excitement that the water dashes over the rocks, jumping and splashing, tripping over itself in it's headlong rush downstream. Landscape painters know when nature is about to put on a good show so you will often see them perched next to the rushing waters, painting the spring runoff.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Spring Runoff, which retails for $2400, is being made available for $1400 (includes shipping, VT residents add 6% sales tax). To purchase this piece contact me at thomastorak@gmail.com. Payment is by check only please, no credit cards. If you prefer you may make 3 monthly payments. This offer is available for 30 days from the date of this post.

Winter Scene

14 x 16 Oil on Linen

We changed the clocks last night and the first day of spring is not far away, but I can't let the seasons change without a post on winter. Winter is always on your mind when you live in Vermont. We jokingly call the four seasons winter, mud season, the fourth of July and winter. It all starts out quite charmingly, the magic of the first few snowflakes, the familiar smell of the woodstove, the nip of a chill in the air. Then soon enough the snow is quite deep, the roads slippery, the woodstove becomes a daily chore and that nip of a chill turns into biting, bitter cold. You have two choices, either embrace the snow and head off to the slopes or hunker down. Those who hunker down find ways to keep in touch with a monthly book group, a weekly drawing session or, for the heartiest, moonlight hiking. Others are grateful for a few extra hours to read, or reflect, or spend that longed for time with some Schubert lieder. If the artist should start to feel low he has only to visit his palette. While the rest of the world seems dark and cold and forbidding the artist's palette is light and cheerful and exciting. Everything is high in pitch. Instead of white in the highlights now white is everywhere. Even the shadows have moved from the bottom of the palette up to the middle. The only thing at the dark end are the stubborn evergreens who refuse to partake in the change of seasons. Everything on the palette, and in nature, is soft and gentle and noiseless. Goodbye dear winter. Soon the finches will be putting on their golden spring outfits, the daffodils will push forth to announce the growing season, and the brilliant greens and blues and yellows will return to the palette.....

Daffodils

20 x 18 Oil on Linen

I have more paintings in my head than I can possibly produce in one lifetime so if this idea appeals to any artist reading this post please feel free to use it. I am thinking about a series of paintings based on Bach's cello suites. Each of Bach's six suites starts with a prelude, setting the theme and mood of the piece. That is followed by five dances, a moderately paced allemande followed by a lighter courante, a stately sarabande, then a pair of minuets (or gavottes or bourrees) and concludes with a gigue. Now let's take that format to the easel. For a landscape it might look like this, a suite of six paintings of the same scene. The prelude would be sunrise, followed by a clear morning (allemande), then clouds and wind appear (courante), an afternoon storm (sarabande), a rainbow or sunset (minuet) and finally the same landscape lit by a full moon (gigue). For Andy Warhol fans the suite might be arranged for unaccompanied soup cans, tomato (prelude) followed by vegetable beef (allemande), cream of potato (courante), beef barley (sarabande), chicken noodle (gavotte) and minestrone (gigue). We could use Daffodils and Bartlett Pears from the previous post as the prelude for a suite on the theme of daffodils, although it would also work nicely as the minuet. Daffodils seems to me to be a sarabande. Now, four more daffodil paintings and my suite will be complete.....

Daffodils and Bartlett Pears

20 x 18 Oil on Linen

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote six magnificent suites for unaccompanied cello. They are very high on my long list of favorite pieces of music. I like them so much I have four different recordings of them; an intense, full bodied version by Mstislav Rostropovich, a lighter, livelier interpretation by the Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma, Yo-Yo Ma's correct but somewhat colorless rendition and the warm, sensitive performance of Pablo Casals. I find it fascinating to hear the different personalities even though they are all playing from the same score. I try to develop this same sense of uniqueness in my painting students. I am the composer telling them what to paint and how I want them to approach it and they are the musicians, each interpreting my instructions in their own way. This week is the annual class show for my class at the Art Students League. As we hung the show on Sunday I was delighted to see all the different versions of the same pose. Each student worked hard to get the drawing, light and shade and atmosphere, trying to understand and employ what I was teaching them, but each brought their own personality to their work. Some intense, some lively, some colorless, some warm and sensitive. A mature artist, on the other hand, often works alone and consequently there is only one version, one interpretation of his subject. I often wonder how my still life would be rendered if there were another artist in my studio painting the same subject. What would Daffodils and Bartlett Pears look like if painted by Mason or DuMond, Matisse or Cassatt, Manet or Goya or Breughel.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Untitled Landscape

Oil on Panel

Image 16 x 16 - Framed 21 x 21

$1600

I painted this Untitled Landscape twentysome years ago. I don't remember why. I doubt that I was taken by the subject, the trunk of a half dead apple tree in front of a whitewashed old shed, a gate that hasn't been closed in a generation. And why a square panel? That's certainly odd for a landscape. The play of light and shade is delightful and the abstraction is quite compelling. Was that my motivation? It's an unusual piece yet I've never had any desire to rework it or wipe it out. I've tried several titles but they all seemed rather pedestrian. Sometimes I'm a mystery even to myself. Perhaps one day a critic or an art historian will explain it to me. I've kept it all these years because I like it, it fascinates me, I don't know why....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Untitled Landscape, which retails for $2600, is being made available for $1600 (includes shipping, VT residents add 6% sales tax). To purchase this piece contact me at thomastorak@gmail.com. Payment is by check only please, no credit cards. If you prefer you may make 3 monthly payments. This offer is available for 30 days from the date of this post.

Quoddy Head, Maine

24 x 34 Oil on Linen

A few years ago, quite a few years ago, I had a yearning to paint the sea, to paint waves, really big waves. So I packed my landscape easel and headed off to Maine, to Acadia National Park. It's my favorite place for seascape painting, partly because it is so beautiful and partly because it is public. There is nothing worse than finding a beautiful place to paint and then have someone tell you "You can't paint here, this is private property." I stayed a few days and painted even though it was misty the whole time and consequently no big waves. Then proceeded to drive up the coast hoping to get out of the persistent fog. I stopped in Lubec because Quoddy Head State Park was there and I could stroll along the public coastline. The fog had indeed gotten thicker but I was determined to paint. There is a lighthouse there that is situated on the easternmost point of the United States, I sallied forth and set up my easel. The fog was now so heavy that I couldn't see the lighthouse but I decided to work anyway thinking that when the fog burned off I could dash in the lighthouse in a few strokes. All I could see in front of me was my easel, I thought of Philip Glass and how, with the wide range of notes available to him, he would pick out a few notes and repeat them over and over and over again, and I thought with all the beautiful colors on my palette I was now repeating the same few tones over and over and over again, and my mind began to see shapes and patterns in the dense fog and I tried to get that variety in my painting as I repeated those few tones over and over and over again, and then the shapes and patterns became rocks and a footpath and I realized the fog had softened to mist and I had a few more tones and colors to work with, Philip Glass gave way to Claude Debussy and there were delicate melodies and harmonies, and the endless repetition became a tone poem. Everything was lovely and peaceful and wonderful even though I never saw the lighthouse and there never were any waves, any really big waves.....

Sailing near Brooklyn
14 x 16 Oil on Linen

Sometimes inspiration is served to the artist on a silver platter. This happened to me a few weeks ago when I received an invitation to enter a competition at The Salmagundi Club. The Salmagundi is wonderful arts organization founded 137 years ago. It is now housed in a beautiful brownstone building on 5th Avenue in lower Manhattan. Elizabeth and I have been members since the early 90's. I love being part of a long tradition, walking the same halls and exhibiting in the same gallery as such great American artists as J. Francis Murphy, Childe Hassam, William Merrit Chase, Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Louis Comfort Tiffany, as well as my teacher Frank Mason and his teacher Frank Vincent DuMond. The competition involves an exhibition at the Salmagundi to celebrate the Dutch founding of Manhattan 400 years ago. Artist members were asked to paint contemporary scenes of New York waterways. From this exhibition juror Leendert van der Pool (you can't get much more Dutch than that) will select 40 works to travel to the Zeeuws Maritiem Muzeeum Vlissingen in the Netherlands. Holland, the home of great seascape painting, Ruysdael, van Goyen, van de Velde, de Vlieger. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that, but I moved out of the city 14 years ago and whatever cityscapes I had were sold long ago. What to do, what to do, think Torak, think. I used to live in Brooklyn Heights and frequently walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to lower Manhattan, I especially enjoyed exploring the South Street seaport area. So I rummaged through some old sketch books. There's got to be something there that I can use. Aha! The bridge! Perfect! Late afternoon, the sun to the south of the bridge and west of Brooklyn. Yes I remember it well. Keep it luminous, the Dutch love luminosity, a few big clouds, the Dutch are famous for their clouds, simple, contemporary, atmospheric, cheerful...done. The show opens at the club on Monday. Wish me luck.....

Onions

24 x 36 Oil on Linen

Why does an artist paint a particular subject? Where does the inspiration for a painting come from? Many artists will answer "I don't know, ideas just come to me." The more poetic might say "Inspiration is everywhere, it's in the air." Students, generally, are not inspired at all but are given something to paint, a still life or a model. Their goal is to paint what they see. Fair enough. After that goal is achieved the budding artist begins to struggle with expressing the character of their subject or their emotional reaction to it. Bravo. Soon enough they are out of the classroom and must find their own subject matter. A flower, an aroma, a bit of conversation, a written phrase, the seeds of inspiration are easily planted. Now how does one go from inspiration to masterpiece? How those seeds are nurtured is often what makes a work of art. Some artists invite everyone in, "Come see what I'm doing. What do you think?" He feeds on every comment, every suggestion, anything that comes along while the work is in progress. Then he takes what he likes and uses it to cultivate his seed. Other artists can't bar the door fast enough. Any interference with his thoughts is considered poison to his seed. He ponders and puzzles and toils in solitude. Only when the seed has matured into a strong healthy painting can it be shown to others. I belong to the latter group. I often become very quiet in social situations, rarely offering my opinion. It's not because I am antisocial or uninterested in the conversation, it's because I am in my garden of inspiration protecting my seedlings.....

The Morning Newspaper

18 x 20 Oil on Linen

Elizabeth did a wonderful painting of me 15 years ago. I was working on a painting and she painted me in rim light which made me seem to be at the moment of inspiration. Tom Painting she called it. Later that year I was inspired again as Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. She agreed to spend the next couple of days in her bathrobe as I worked away at The Morning Newspaper. Not long after I did that painting we moved to our new home and studio in Vermont. It was the year of our 10th wedding anniversary. We don't keep many of our paintings because we need to sell as many as we can to make a living, but we decided to give each other these two pieces as anniversary presents. It was the perfect way to commemorate our first decade together in our little studio in New York. It seems like yesterday but it was 14 years ago. Today is our 24th anniversary. Harmony, happiness, delight...bliss.....

There is a famous quote from Picasso that goes something like this, "When I was young I could draw like Raphael but it has taken me a lifetime to draw like a child." That sounds good, everyone finds children's drawings very charming. But on reflection is drawing like a child a desirable thing? Is he referring to the innocence or the ignorance of the young artist? He seems to be favoring ignorance, rejecting the knowledge and skills of Raphael. But do children really draw that way? Ask any child about the scribble they drew and they will tell you exactly what it is. "It's daddy" or "It's a princess in a castle" or "It's Fido playing with a ball." I've never heard a child say "I don't know, I was just expressing my feelings." They are drawing with all the knowledge they have and rather than avoiding or shunning knowledge they gather it in at a rapid rate and apply it to their drawings. Before long the princess has a face with a nose and eyes, and Fido has four legs. Knowledge doesn't bind an artist, it frees him. By this line of reasoning Raphael drew the way a child draws. He used all his knowledge to express what he wanted to say. A child is satisfied to draw a line to indicate a nose but Raphael wanted to express the character and dimension of the nose he drew. As the things you want to express in your drawings become more sophisticated your knowledge must increase to convey those ideas. Perhaps Picasso just wanted to return to the innocence of childhood, but is that such an enviable thing? There is an interesting passage in the bible that addresses this, "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things." Let's try Picasso's quote another way. Imagine a poet who says "When I was young I could write like Keats, but it has taken me a lifetime to write like a child" or a musician who says "When I was young I could play like Heifetz, but it has taken me a lifetime to play like a child".....

Jelly Donuts

8 x 10 Oil on Panel

I needed some new brushes and a few other supplies so I thought I give the old Santa Claus trick a try. I didn't want to give up Elizabeth's fresh baked cookies so I left a few donuts out in the studio for old St. Nick. I didn't really think it through very well. How was Santa going to fit through that 6" chimney pipe on my woodstove? "Well, why let a perfectly good donut go to waste" I thought the next morning. So I started to chomp away as I puttered around the studio. I opened a bag of handmade paints that one of my students had given me as a Christmas present. The alizarin crimson he made was a beautiful color and prepared perfectly. "That would be just right for the jelly in that donut" I said to myself. I reached in the bag and pulled out a few more tubes. Cadmium yellow light, ivory black, titanium white. Soon I was squeezing the paint on to my palette. These old brushes aren't that bad and that little canvas is ready to go. So I set to work."Why let a perfectly good still life go to waste" I thought. Oh, right, Santa. Well, I suppose next year I should go back to the traditional cookies and milk. A tall white column of milk, a few cookies, maybe something with a fruit filling and a dusting of sugar on top. Yeah, that would be great to paint.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Moonlight in Vermont

Oil on Linen

Image 24 x 24 - Framed 31 x 31

$3200

Every now and then the neighbor's sheep get out and come to our place. My dog is usually the first to know they have arrived and in her enthusiasm to greet them sends them running in every direction. One day I saw them first. I gave the dog a marrow bone to keep her busy, grabbed my sketch pad and slipped outside to do some drawing. I didn't want to scare them off so I stayed a little distance away and made a few scribbles. Gradually I got closer and closer and my drawings started to capture more of their character. Suddenly they noticed me but didn't run because I wasn't threatening. They knew they weren't supposed to be there and they looked, well, sheepish. The five of them huddled together and moved as one behind the trunk of a small apple tree hoping to hide. I continued to draw, this one grazing, that one staring straight at me, another in profile. I gathered quite a bit of information before they went off down the road looking for adventure. When I came back to the studio I looked around for my moonrise sketch. The sheep were just what I needed to bring the scene to life.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Moonlight in Vermont, which retails for $4500, is being made available for $3200 (includes shipping, VT residents add 6% sales tax). To purchase this piece contact me at thomastorak@gmail.com. Payment is by check only please, no credit cards. If you prefer you may make 3 monthly payments. This offer is available for 30 days from the date of this post.

Elizabeth has written such a profoundly beautiful post on drawing that I can do no better than refer you to her blog
On the Easel.

Fall Colors

36 x 40 Oil on Linen

In Vermont we have two versions of fall colors, the famous autumn leaves for the tourists and the harvest for the farmers and gardeners. A comparison of the two gives us an excellent opportunity to discuss how artists mix colors. Let's take, for example, a pumpkin and a maple tree full of orange leaves. Both are bright orange but one is brilliant and the other, by contrast, somewhat subdued. The maple is in full voice, the pumpkin is singing sotto voce. To convey the intensity of the maple leaves the artist uses pure colors. You can make a wide variety of oranges by mixing cadmium yellows, from lemon to yellow deep, with the cadmium reds. If it is too gaudy reduce the chromatic value by using the less severe earth colors, yellow ochre, terra rosa, siennas and umbers. Stay away from black and white as much as possible as they will rob your tree of its color. When you paint the pumpkin however black and white are your best friends, we want the pumpkin to be a bold but less intense orange. By slowly adding white we can gently bleach, and thereby mute, the color in the lights. A touch of black will delicately drain the color in the shadows, be careful not to use too much or your pumpkin will start to look moldy. Combine the two and you will have a lovely gray to subdue the color in the middle range, should you wish to do so. I'm not fond of rules so take these thoughts as my observations, not as formulas, and use them as you please.....

Oops. My pumpkin is starting to collapse. "It'll keep" I thought. I feel like a cartoon character caught in a dilemma with a good angel whispering in one ear and a bad devil whispering in the other. "It's okay Tom" said the good angel "you got a good start yesterday, don't be discouraged, keep going." "Don't be a sap" said the bad devil "the whole thing is ruined, wipe it out, ditch the still life and paint something else." "Think of the color" whispered good angel "and the design of the whole." "It's halfway to the compost heap already" sneered bad devil "just soak a rag in turpentine and get it over with. Who cares about beautiful painting anyway?" The little devil went too far there. So the pumpkin is collapsing, so what? Any good art student can paint a round pumpkin, where's the challenge in that? Try painting a convincing collapsing pumpkin. I accepted the challenge, the good angel sat on my shoulder to watch me work and the bad devil went off to see if he could create some mischief at the woodstove. So I set to work. Brilliant orange for the pumpkin, being careful not make it garish, a bit of reflected light coming back into the collapsed side. A rich, but not brilliant, yellow for the spaghetti squash, what a great chance to paint perspective. Colorful gourds in front. Drapery winding like a river around the pumpkins. "Not a bad days work" said the good angel...damn, why is the woodstove leaking smoke into the studio.....

Elizabeth set up a great still life for her last workshop. Squashes, pumpkins, gourds, it was beautiful. Rich, colorful, joyful, lovely rhythms, big sweeping motions, a late Mozart symphony. I knew I had to paint it. Our big still life table is on wheels so I moved it to my studio, then continued to work on other projects that were already started. "It'll keep" I thought. A week or so later I got started. There were two pomegranates, I love painting pomegranates. They were sitting next to each other looking in different directions, very nicely composed, but I couldn't resist breaking one open. A freshly opened pomegranate is so luscious and so juicy the sight of it makes your mouth water, how could Persephone resist eating a few seeds? I had to paint and I had to paint fast, before it started to turn brown. A few broad washes set the composition then I jumped in and painted the pomegranates. Beautiful cool whitish flesh dotted with a wealth of garnetlike seeds. What a marvel of nature, what a marvelous thing to paint. Surround it with a tough rich red skin, drive the knife through it for dramatic effect. How delightful, what fun, "lucky me" I thought "to be an artist." Just enough light left to put in that little gourd in the front. Wonderful, exhilarating, satisfying...not a bad days work.....

Breakfast

16 x 20 Oil on Linen

Like most artists I've always painted the way I wanted to paint, but have been uneasy explaining why I paint the way I do. The recent political season helped me clarify my philosophy of painting. As I considered my vote I asked myself "How does someone raised in a conservative religion come to live by a liberal philosophy?" Which led to "How can someone with a liberal philosophy paint in what most people would call a conservative style?" I grew up in a middle class Catholic/Labor Union family, the kind that voted for JFK and later Reagan. I've always loved the kindness, gentleness and humility, the "love God, love your neighbor" aspect of religion. It was a good fit with the "look out for the little guy" view of the labor unions. My interpretation of the Bible is closer to conservative socialism than it is to social conservatism. I love the core philosophy of Catholicism, it is a wonderful guide to living, but I've never been big on rules and rituals, I'd rather apply the lessons in my own way, thank you very much. I seem to have approached painting in the same way. Looking for a solid foundation to build on I sought out those who could teach me the basic concepts of painting. Beginning with light and shade, creating the illusion of three dimensional form on a two dimensional surface, moving on to anatomy to make that form more convincingly human, then on to space and atmosphere, color and composition, the laws of harmony and of dissonance, the power of abstraction. These are beautiful principles, they are a wonderful guide to painting, but I'm still wary of the constraints of rigidity and orthodoxy, I'd rather apply these lessons in my own way, thank you very much. So there you have it, one part conservative tempered by one part liberal, one part classical moderated by one part romantic, and always a healthy dose of curiosity.....

Fruit Basket and Peonies

30 x 34 Oil on Linen

Rejoice oil painters! Be happy! Celebrate your uniqueness! For you have the only medium in all the visual arts that is fat. Acrylics, watercolor and printing inks are all lean. Pastels, drawing and sculpture are dry. Oil painting has a distinct advantage. Grind your pigments in linseed oil to achieve the richest colors. Add some lead to your oil and it will dry faster. Heat it in the sun to thicken it. Cook it in a pot with lead, mastic and turpentine and it will become a gel. Use a loaded brush for a thick bold stroke or lay it on thin for a subtle glaze. Make it as solid as a rock or as transparent as stained glass. Use walnut or poppy oil for a more delicate effect. Blend it as much as you please or let each stroke stand alone. Beautiful, rich, voluptuous, lively, vivid, lustrous, fluid, dynamic. Use your oil, fellow painters, to your advantage...make it a part of your expression.....

Studio 7 at the Art Students League has a unique and remarkable history. In the last 100 years only 2 instructors have taught the afternoon class there, Frank Vincent DuMond and Frank Mason. It is where I learned to paint. When I was a student in Mason's class it was sometimes so crowded that I couldn't see the model. I would use that opportunity to paint the other students as they worked or paint the plaster casts that were available for us to study. My favorite cast was Donatello's David. A heroic yet touchingly human version of the biblical hero. Since it was a white plaster cast against a gray wall it seemed logical to me to do a black and white painting. I did my best to create the illusion of form, of light and shade, of weight and atmosphere. Frank made a few kind remarks about my efforts then gently manipulated what I had done, making it both stronger and more subtle. He used the shadows in the background to create a composition and reinforced the lights on the figure. Then came the lesson that I never forgot. "The entire spectrum of light is coming in through the skylight" he said, "so why are you using only black and white?" He deftly added a few cool blues to my gray shadows and then splashed some warm reds and oranges to express the reflected lights. "Never let your painting die" he said.....