Dammi i colori

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2012-01-29T17:33:00.002-05:00

Muffins

Oil on Panel

Image 10 x 12 - Framed 15 x 17

$1200

I often paint what I hear in addition to what I see. When I was painting Muffins I heard a rather whimsical woodwind quartet in the style of Prokofiev. I heard the oboe gently dropping chocolate chips into the dough, a playful flute signified the muffins rising in the oven. A bluesy clarinet played the muffins cooling on a rack while a witty bassoon indicated a dollop of jelly being spread on the half eaten muffin. I've never actually heard a woodwind quartet by Prokofiev or even know if he ever wrote one. But if he did, and someday a musicologist finds it in some dusty archive, I'm sure there will be a notation calling it the Muffin Quartet.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Muffins, which retails for $2200, is being made available for $1200 (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.

2012-01-17T18:46:00.001-05:00

Square Nocturne #4: Midnight
16 x 16 Oil on Panel

At midnight on a moonless, cloudless night, I turn off all the lights in my house and use a flashlight to guide my way to the middle of an empty field. Then I turn off the flashlight, lie on my back and stare straight up at the sky. I am alone, there is no evidence of human existence. As my eyes adjust to the darkness I become vaguely aware of a distant hillside and an arboreal phantom in the blue-black void. But I am drawn like a magnet to the heavens. I reach out my hand and feel like a giant next to the tiny stars. Then watch the distant stars getting smaller and dimmer as they recede into the vastness of space, and suddenly feel very small. The twinkling stars make the heavens seem like a lovely, sensitive living thing, and it's strangely comforting to lie here alone in what feels like the womb of the universe. I contemplate the infinite possibilities of time and space, and dream about my next life, when this fetal existence ends....

2012-01-10T20:02:00.000-05:00

Square Nocturne #3: Winter Moonrise

16 x 16 Oil on Panel

The moon was a bit tardy tonight. It was nearly full last night and was expected to be the star of show this evening. I was sure it would have made its entrance by now. Perhaps it had a quarrel with one of the constellations last night and was refusing to go on. Was Orion the hunter a bit too aggressive, or Cassiopeia the queen making unreasonable demands? In the midst of my silly musing a glow began to appear in the night sky. Before long the moon made a dramatic entrance, choosing to appear behind the branches of my favorite apple tree. The glow was so bright it obscured the edges of the lunar disc. Rising slowly it highlighted one branch then another. Some of the branches made gnarly silhouettes while others reached out to catch a moonbeam. There was the excitement of anticipation in the air. It was a grand entrance indeed and I couldn't wait to see it join the stars for tonight's celestial performance.....

2011-12-23T09:37:00.001-05:00

Ice Skating

18 x 20 Oil on Linen

In rural Vermont fire safety is a bit problematic, there is no such thing as a network of fire hydrants. What many people have instead is a pond nearby that can easily be drained by the local volunteer fire department. Our house has one such pond. On our first Christmas here Elizabeth bought me a pair of ice skates. While she sat by the fireplace reading her new books I went out to clear the new snow off the pond. If you get to the snow before it starts to melt you can create a perfect skating surface. My timing was just right so we bundled up with scarves and gloves, laced up our skates, and headed out. It was crisp and cold with a bit of a breeze. We glided and talked, marveled at the passing clouds and paused to watch the white tailed deer bounding across the neighbor's field. When we went back inside, all aglow with rosy cheeks, Elizabeth made hot chocolate and we enjoyed a few Christmas cookies. I turned on the radio. The weather report said to be cautious going outside, to not stay out too long, with the wind the temperature felt like -30! Since then, when I can time it just right, we like to have friends over for impromptu skating parties. It always reminds me of those charming old Dutch paintings, and I couldn't resist painting one myself.....

2011-12-02T21:06:00.001-05:00

Sunny Afternoon

9 x 12 Oil on Linen

I often ask my students to tell me their thoughts about the piece they are working on. Not that I don't have my own thoughts, but it clues me in to how they are thinking as they create their paintings. Recently one of my best students, who was working on a nude, said he wasn't sure if he had gotten the leg right. Yes, I replied, it looks a bit dull and lifeless. Well, he said, I saw more light there but I didn't want it to compete with the big light on the torso. There's your answer I replied, you've taken a negative approach. You painted the leg so that it would not be something. Wouldn't it be better to paint the leg so that it expresses what you want it to say rather than what you don't want it to do? Let it live, let it take its rightful place in the painting. If nature has blessed it with light then express that with joy and confidence. It is always better to approach your painting, or any part of your painting, with a positive attitude, "this is what I want to have happen here", rather than negatively, "I don't want this to happen here". When you paint a negative thought you tell the viewer "don't look at this". When you paint the leg in its full glory you say to the viewer "come, celebrate with with me, for we are sharing something amazing".....

2011-08-24T22:51:00.009-04:00

Round Bales

16 x 16 Oil on Panel

I love when composers write variations on a theme and when musicians improvise. West Pawlet Farm, in the previous post, was painted on location. It is a lovely interpretation of what was happening at that place on that day. A romantic painting of rural charm, round bales of hay drying in the open air before being brought to the barn to be stored for winter feeding. As I looked at the painting in my studio I began to hear variations, passages being expressed in different ways. I pulled out a panel, a square panel, a more daring shape than the original, and began to improvise. The horizon moved up in the composition to create a more dramatic view up the hill to the farm. The weather became full sunlight to make the hay bales dry faster. I decided to make the clouds big and thick, moving swiftly through the sky. Still romantic but lighter and faster. I hear West Pawlet Farm as an adagio movement, Round Bales as an allegro tempo. I could hear other variations, a thunderstorm perhaps, presto, furiouso, or a largo with a rainbow. The elements are the same but with a different character. Perhaps in another variation the hay bales would be gone and cows would be grazing in the field. The possibilities are endless. I can see an entire exhibit of paintings of the same scene, variations created in my studio, inspired by a single afternoon painting en plein air.....

2011-08-19T22:10:00.008-04:00

West Pawlet Farm

11 x 14 Oil on Panel

Indoor painting is for introverts, outdoor painting is for extroverts. You are alone with your thoughts when painting indoors, outside you share your thoughts with birds and cows or anyone passing by. Indoors you usually know what you will be painting before you enter the studio, outdoors you never know what you will paint until you come upon an exciting scene. Indoors everything is under control, the light is consistent, the temperature just right, anything you might need is nearby. Outdoors you go with the flow, a storm can blow through or a rainbow appear, something is always happening. Indoors you can work on the same painting for many hours or many days, outdoors you can finish several paintings in a single day. Indoors you meditate, outdoors you engage. Indoors it is quiet, perhaps too quiet, let me just check my email. Outdoors it is wild, exciting, perhaps too wild, why is that hawk staring at me.....

2011-08-14T21:51:00.018-04:00

Near the Battenkill

8 x 12 Oil on Panel

I had the most delightfully lovely day today. Elizabeth and I rose late and decided to have breakfast out. There is a marvelous cheesemaker nearby with an unspeakably charming goat farm. On the weekends they have a cafe where one can have various baked goods or a goat cheese panini with fresh coffee or a pot of tea. It isn't meant to be a money making enterprise, just a pleasant environment for friends to gather and chat and, often, make new friends. We arrived this morning to find our friend Tim (who you may remember from an earlier post) playing his recorder with two other recorder players and accompanying a lovely singer. Each of the recorder players had several recorders with them and took turns playing the alto, soprano and bass parts. They played mostly renaissance music, the singer showing a talent for interpreting the works of John Dowland. This was not about money either, they were playing for free for anyone who cared to listen. It was a gloriously sunny morning, we sat outside with our refreshments, listening to sweet music, watching the nearby kid goats frolic, visiting with old friends and new. After a few hours we started home, we had promised our dog that we would take her for a hike in the woods in the afternoon. As we drove home through a breathtakingly beautiful landscape I was reminded of how much I love the life I have. Well, there isn't anything about painting in this post, but it's my 144th post so I'm taking a bit of a break. Besides, if you don't get out and enjoy life you probably won't have much to say with your paintings.....

2011-05-28T16:27:00.013-04:00

Atlantic Surf

36 x 36 Oil on Linen

The new League catalog just came out with the schedule for the summer and fall classes. If it had a hard cover it would make a wonderful fine art book. Each instructor is given a full page with a beautiful reproduction of their work, some biographical information and a description of the class. In the back are examples of a student's work from each class. Near the front of the catalog is a page with the header Leading artists talk about the League. There are quotes from Peter Max, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Mark Rothko and others. My favorite is from Georgia O'Keeffe talking about her experience in William Merritt Chase's class. "Chase", she says,"encouraged individuality and gave a sense of style and freedom to his students...There was something fresh and energetic and fierce and exciting about him...To interest him, the paintings had to be alive with paint." I may not be as fresh or energetic or fierce or exciting as Chase but I express that same philosophy to my students, the painting has to be alive.....

2011-05-15T21:21:00.008-04:00

Peppers

8 x 12 Oil on Panel

When an artist sees something beautiful he must paint it. In order to give it form he must also paint the space behind it. He then realizes that there is space in front of the object and that he is standing in that space. Now he is aware that he is in a room and that room is in a building. The building occupies space in a city and the city is but a small part of the world. It soon becomes obvious that in order to paint his beautiful object in its full glory he must bring to it all the expression and wisdom and experience of the entire universe.....

2011-04-23T10:59:00.021-04:00

Bread and Wine

16 x 20 Oil on Linen

The Paris Salon exhibitions were so large they had to be organized alphabetically. Artists whose names began with A were in the first room, B in the second room and so on. Manet was in the same room with his friends Monet and Berthe Morisot, with Jean-François Millet, known for his paintings of peasant scenes, Gustave Moreau, who painted religious and mythological themes, and Meissonier. Ernest Meissonier was arguably the most popular and highest paid artist of his time. His genre scenes and history pieces drew large crowds who stared breathlessly at those meticulous paintings. His historically accurate and exquisitely detailed works drew the highest praise from the critics. Manet’s paintings, by contrast, were mocked. Meissonier won medals, Manet was rewarded with ridicule. Meissonier was applauded, Manet was laughed at. This went on year after year, Salon after Salon. Meissonier’s funeral was attended by state dignitaries, Manet was buried by a few friends. The tide quickly turned however. In less than a generation Meissonier’s paintings were being mocked and laughed at and ridiculed. He is now nearly forgotten and Manet has come to be known as one of the fathers of modern art.....

2011-04-13T21:42:00.013-04:00

The Fruit Vendor

34 x 30 Oil on Linen

Manet had a rather vexed history at the Paris Salon exhibitions. He did not enter a painting to be juried until he was 27 years old and that piece was promptly rejected. Two years later, however, he had two paintings accepted. The Spanish Singer was well received and won an Honorable Mention. His Portrait of M. and Mme. Manet was less kindly received. One critic wrote that the artist’s parents “must often have rued the day when a brush was put into the hands of this merciless portraitist.” At the next Salon his entries were rejected. Not only did he suffer the ignominy of hanging in the Salon des Refusés but his painting, Le Bain, was given a prominent position where it could receive the maximum ridicule. It was mockingly referred to as Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, the title by which it is known today. The next year his two paintings were accepted but savaged by the critics. The following year two paintings were again accepted. One was of Jesus mocked by the soldiers, the other a nude. He knew his Olympia was going to be controversial and went to the opening with great trepidation. He was relieved when a number of people rushed over to congratulate him on his work. They were, he was told, the most superb seascapes. Seascapes? Manet was perplexed but soon enough discovered the source of the confusion. The two admired canvases were not by Manet but by an unknown 24 year old artist exhibiting at the Salon for the first time, his name was Monet.....

2011-03-30T16:26:00.004-04:00

Melons

24 x 30 Oil on Linen

Like the painting in the previous post Melons is more conceptual than narrative. Yes, the melons were fun to paint and the painting can be enjoyed as a lively depiction of a variety of colorful, juicy fruits of the vine. For me, however, this piece is all about the composition. Circles and spheres moving in space. The cantaloupes are spheres, one in the process of being bisected, another with a sliver missing. The watermelon is half a sphere as is the honeydew, which becomes a circle as it turns to look straight out of the canvas. The bowl is also half a sphere, a bit elongated and turning to tell a joke to the watermelon which blushes and responds with a big belly laugh. All of these rounded forms create a visual playground. A roller coaster for the eye, going up and over and around, in and out of the painting. For those who can see beyond the obvious this is one of the most playful paintings I've ever created.....

2011-03-13T19:00:00.012-04:00

The Open Melon

18 x 20 Oil on Linen

The Open Melon is not a painting about an open melon. It is a conceptual piece that explores the use of warm and cool colors in a painting. When I am painting landscapes I find myself repeating a pattern, the cool blues and grays in the sky dominate the top half of the painting and warm earth tones prevail on the bottom half. So I decided to see what this arrangement might look like in a still life. Artists have always thought this way. Whistler titled his famous painting of his mother Arrangement in Grey and Black. Rembrandt could have called his portrait of Jan Six an arrangement in red and black. You can find other arrangements in Monet's water lilies or Turner's late seascapes, Morandi's still lifes or a Hals portrait. Perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan said it best “Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream”.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2011-02-12T12:33:00.014-05:00

Sledding

Oil on Linen
Image 8 x 10 - Framed 15 x 17
$750

As I stepped out of the 86th St subway station and started walking to the Metropolitan Museum snowflakes began to fall. They were large and they came fast and furious. Everyone put their heads down and charged forward, but I couldn't resist looking up catching a few flakes on my tongue. When I got to the museum I stood on the steps and looked up and down 5th Ave. The scene could not have been more glorious, the falling snow softened the harsh edges of the buildings and the traffic seemed to move in slow motion. It was a classic New York moment. After I left the museum I decided to walk through Central Park to the League. It was alive with children playing in the snow and muted laughter. I stopped to watch some teenagers sledding down a hill. No longer children but not yet adults they were savoring a last moment of youthful innocence. I watched them slide and tumble, trudge up the hill and follow their well worn path down again. It too was a classic New York moment. When I got back to my studio I did a small oil study of the sledders from memory, a souvenir of a perfect winter day.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Sledding, which retails for $1600, is being made available for $750 (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.

2011-02-05T12:03:00.021-05:00

The Red Bowl

24 x 36 Oil on Linen

Most artists use light and color and design to express what they want to say about the objects in their paintings, I do just the opposite in my work. I use subject matter, apples, flowers, trees, mountains, portraits and nudes to explore the possibilities of light and space and poetry. Most artists begin their paintings by drawing the subject on the canvas, then lighting it and finally giving it space and dimension. I start my paintings by envisioning the space in the painting, then letting light enter that space and fall on the subject, and finally bring that subject to the canvas. Most artists construct the subject on the canvas, building to the completion of the painting. I prefer to let my subject emerge from the canvas until it is fully formed. Most artists refine the details in the final phase of painting, I subdue the details so that they do not destroy the unity of my painting. I am the opposite of every artist you’ve ever known.....

2011-01-17T23:05:00.018-05:00

Mostly Apples

24 x 30 Oil on Linen

I read a lot about art and artists when I was a sudent. One of my favorite stories was about a, perhaps apocryphal, meeting between Van Dyck and Hals. As Van Dyck was on his way to England to paint for King Charles he stopped by the studio of Frans Hals. Without introducing himself he said "I have a little time before my boat leaves, would you paint my portrait?" "But of course" Hals replied. He grabbed the nearest canvas and set to work. Forty-five minutes later he showed the sitter his lively masterpiece. "Excellent" the unknown man remarked. "You looked like you were having quite a good time as you worked. Would you mind sitting for me? I'd like to give it a try." Hals, always ready for an adventure, agreed. Forty-five minutes later, painting as quickly as Hals himself, the mysterious stranger's picture was finished. Hals walked around the easel and found a magnificent portrait. Astonished, he gave the man a quizzical look. "You're either Van Dyck" said Hals solving the riddle, "or you're the devil".....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2011-01-08T19:59:00.001-05:00

Rhapsody in Green

Oil on Linen

Image 18 x 24 - Framed 25 x 31

$1500

My intention was to set up a beautiful little classical still life. I was hoping to hear a piano concerto by Mozart or Schubert or Brahms but instead the opening clarinet glissando from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue poured into my head. I decided to go with it and see what would happen. Like Gershwin I stayed with a classical structure but moved away from the concerto arrangement to the more free flowing rhapsody form. He used jazz themes to make his piece livelier, I brought in a wicker basket to make my arrangement less formal. The fruit gravitated to the basket making it the lead instrument. The still life came together quickly, spontaneously, and I painted without restraint, as if I were improvising on the canvas. Classical, but informal, rich and lively, thanks for the inspiration George.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Rhapsody in Green, which retails for $3200, is being made available for $1500 (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.

2010-12-31T10:29:00.010-05:00

Women in Art II: Preparing to Paint

30 x 40 Oil on Linen

Artists who painted illuminated manuscripts expressed their love of God. In the Renaissance artists painted for the church, after that for wealthy patrons. Early nineteenth century paintings glorified nature. Late nineteenth century paintings celebrated art for art's sake. The twentieth century focused on the deconstruction and finally the death of painting. The current art of the image is video. End of story. Well not quite. The rise of photography was expected to put an end to painting too. But painting coexists peacefully with photography, as it will with video and digital imaging and whatever else comes next. The question is not will painting survive, but what will the artists paint, and for whom, and what will they have a burning desire to express and glorify and celebrate in the 21st and 22nd and 23rd centuries.....

2010-12-12T17:40:00.003-05:00

White Roses

20 x 16 Oil on Linen

Edges. Artists, especially art students, think and talk a lot about edges. With great intensity they discuss the merits of soft edges and hard edges, warm and cool edges, edges between positive and negative spaces. They become very important as a compositional elements, directing the viewer over the surface of the painting as if guiding them through a maze. I don’t mind a good edge from time to time but I don’t see as many edges as most artists. In my paintings edges exist only where two planes meet. The top of a table meeting the front, for example, or the where the two side planes of a book meet. In White Roses the only edge is where the cloth lays flat on the tabletop and then drops over the front plane. There are no edges to the flowers or the vase, the leaves, stems or drapery. There is no edge to a rounded form. A rose has no edge. Many artists see an edge where the rose meets the background. The form, as I see it, turns away from the viewer but has no edge. It does not meet the background, there is space between the two. There is a change of color, value and texture where the eye loses the flower and picks up the background but it is not an edge. An edge would exist only if the flower were pressed against the background. The glass vase also turns and has no edge. Where the vertical plane of the vase meets the horizontal plane of the tabletop there would be an edge but that is hidden by the drapery. You might argue that my definition of an edge is a bit too literal, but I would say that it is not literal but liberating. By limiting my edges to true edges I allow my painting to express a greater variety of forms, more space, breadth and atmosphere.....

2010-11-30T17:40:00.010-05:00

Portrait of I.I. Rabi

36 x 30 Oil on Linen

Shortly after we were married Elizabeth's grandfather asked me to paint his portrait. I. I. Rabi was a champion of science, a great physicist, chair of Columbia University's physics department and an advisor to presidents. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on nuclear magnetic resonance. Rabi had a beautiful mind and we had marvelous conversations as he sat for me. There were two moments that have stayed with me and helped shape my artistic philosophy. One came as we were discussing beauty, not only in art but also in mathematics, philosophy and science. When he was solving a problem, he said, it was not good enough to simply come up with a correct answer. The problem was not resolved until it had an elegant solution. The second came as we talked about teaching. His students would often approach him with ideas for a doctoral thesis and ask if it was an appropriate subject. He would answer with a question of his own, "Does it bring you closer to God?"*.....

*I don't want to misrepresent Professor Rabi here, he was not a particularly religious man. Unlocking the mysteries of the universe was his way of being closer to God. No matter how you define God, Rabi's remark is a profoundly beautiful way to approach one's endeavors.

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-11-10T13:12:00.015-05:00

Autumn Poem
Oil on Linen
Image 30 x 24 - Framed 39 x 33
$3000

Felix Mendelssohn wrote eight volumes of Songs without Words. Composed at various points throughout his life, each volume consists of a series of six short lyrical pieces for the piano. A few of the songs have aquired titles, The Spinner's Song or The Morning Song, but they have essentially survived as songs without words as Mendelssohn intended. With that in mind I composed my Autumn Poem. Perhaps I'll paint more poems throughout my life and one day there may be an exhibition of my Poems without Words.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Autumn Poem, which retails for $5200, is being made available for $3000 (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.

2010-11-03T08:14:00.015-04:00

Hubbard Squash and Onions

34 x 40 Oil on Linen

While delivering paintings to a show over the weekend I heard an interview with Michael Caine on the radio. He was talking about his early acting experiences. Once he had a small part playing a drunken man. He staggered onto the stage and slurred his lines. No, no, no the director shouted, you are only imitating what a drunk looks like. In order to act like a drunk you must think like one, someone who is drunk is trying very hard to walk straight and talk normally. It was an important lesson, one he never forgot. It reminded me of what happens so often in painting. Many artists get so caught up in the tones and edges they see that they merely imitate what is in front of them. They are outside of the painting looking at the subject as if it were an animal on exhibit in a zoo. The artist should be more like the actor who inhabits his character. Instead of standing outside his work he must become one with the subject of the painting. The artist is the voice for the sitter. He should be able to tell the viewer what his subject thinks and why it looks the way it does. Then there can be communication between the viewer and the painting: a conversation with the portrait, a desire to walk in the landscape, to smell the flowers and touch the fruit. Not simply because it looks real but because it is saying something, there is something interesting about the painting that we want to explore, to know and absorb to enrich our life.....

2010-10-27T14:47:00.005-04:00

Autumn Trees

10 x 12 Oil on Panel

These are hard economic times. Many people are having a hard time coming up with money to pay for food and housing. Buying a painting is way down on their list of priorities. Galleries are closing their doors. Artists are having a harder and harder time selling paintings. “Don't give up hope” my teacher once said to me “so long as there are two people left on the face of the Earth one is going to want the other to paint his portrait”.....

2010-10-09T20:48:00.006-04:00

The Dutch Bowl

36 x 30 Oil on Linen

Painting has completely taken over my life. Everywhere I look I see shapes and forms, patterns, rhythms, compositions. I no longer use language to communicate. I speak in pigments and taste color. I hear sounds as gradations from black to white, voices have warm or cool tones. I smell opacities and transparencies and analyze the structure and weight, volume and texture of everything I touch. Each breath is a brushstroke. Sometimes I think if I cut my finger I would bleed linseed oil.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-09-21T19:33:00.004-04:00

The Morning Newspaper

Oil on Linen

Image 16 x 24 - Framed 23 x 31

$2100

Is the world we are painting now so different than the one the Old Masters were painting? The light that falls on us today is the same light that lit a Rembrandt portrait. When that light is blocked we experience the same mysterious shadows that Caravaggio painted. The air we breathe and the space we occupy is the same space that Frans Hals' Laughing Cavalier inhabited. The wind that blows through our landscape is the same breeze that animated Corot's trees and our stars also appeared in Van Gogh's Starry Night. Yes there have been advances in science and technology, and we now read the morning newspaper and sip coffee made in a drip coffee maker, but is it really so different?.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month The Morning Newspaper, which retails for $3600, is being made available for $2100 (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.

2010-09-01T15:50:00.003-04:00

Upholding the Classical Tradition

24 x 36 Oil on Linen

Artistic experiences: part 6, Mason’s class
I soon found out I wasn’t the only League student working at Carnegie Hall. Several of the ushers were artists too and we became fast friends. After the evening’s concert was over 4 or 5 of us would go across the street to Carney’s bar and talk for hours over a few pitchers of beer. They had been in New York longer than me and I was anxious to hear what they had to say. The conversation was not just about painting, although there was plenty of that, but also about music and philosophy, politics and history. These were not a bunch of dopey social misfits, as artists sometimes are, they were highly intelligent, well educated and fascinating. I was impressed by their conversation and, even though I had yet to see their work, wanted to know who they were studying with. They all had the same answer, Frank Mason. I knew Mason’s work from an article in American Artist magazine and his full length standing portrait in the League’s Instructors Exhibition was my favorite in the show. They introduced me to their mentor and I signed up for his class without hesitation. My first critique was a little embarrassing but very profound for me. Mason’s class was so popular that it spilled over into a second room. Because I was starting in the middle of the week I had to find a place to paint wherever I could. Both rooms were packed and there was no place for me to set up where I could see the model so I set up near the doorway, opposite the skylight, and started a painting of a plaster cast of Donatello’s David. Mason showed up the next day, quickly glanced at what I was doing, then said “turn your easel around so you can get more light on your painting and get yourself a hat so you won’t be blinded by the skylight. Now follow me around and watch the other crits, you’ll learn much faster that way.” It only took 10 seconds but it was extremely important to me, I was being taken seriously as an artist…..

2010-08-29T12:41:00.006-04:00

Studio Interior

44 x 54 Oil on Linen

Artistic experiences: part 5, the League
Five days before my 21st birthday I left my old life behind and started my new life. With all my possessions in two large suitcases I boarded a train for New York and checked into the 63rd Street YMCA. I knew I had to find a job and an apartment but the first thing I did was register for a class at the Art Students League. I purchased a big newsprint pad and some vine charcoal, headed up to the second floor, found an empty chair and started to draw. I never felt more alive. As the weeks passed by I found a place to live and got a job working at a concession stand in Carnegie Hall, half a block from the League. I would visit galleries and museums in the morning, draw at the League in the afternoon and listen to the concerts while I worked in the evening. My cultural life was definitely improving. The instructor in my first class was nice enough but more encouraging than instructive. I was hungry to learn and switched to Hale’s anatomy class. Robert Beverly Hale was a legendary anatomy teacher and I drank in as much as I could. I couldn't learn fast enough. I practiced drawing boxes of all sizes and lighting them from different directions. I worked hard on shading forms from light to dark and drawing lines that went around those forms. Soon I found myself reading and copying out of anatomy books at midnight when I got home from work. During the breaks in my drawing class I would wander around the League poking my head into the painting classes. I knew I had to improve my drawing skills but I was eager to paint…..

2010-08-26T16:38:00.001-04:00

Silver and Gold

16 x 18 Oil on Linen

Artistic experiences: part 4, art school.
No one ever told that me that I could make a living as an artist, but then again no one ever told me that I couldn’t. In fact I never discussed it with anyone. After my friends went away to college I got a job in one of the local factories. I decided to try to learn something about painting at night and sent away for the Famous Artists School painting program. I would produce a picture according to the lesson plan and mail it to the school, an artist at the school would correct my picture and mail it back to me. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was no way to learn how to paint so after 3 lessons I became a mail order art school dropout. It did make me aware of how much I wanted to get started painting. So I did some research and sent away for information from every art school I could find in the country. They were all pretty much the same. There was a prescribed course where you learned drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, etc, etc, etc. And they were all expensive. Then I received the catalog from the Art Students League. The work by the instructors was better than at any of the other schools. At the League you pay a small amount per month and choose what classes you want to take. No prescribed course, no papers to write, no grading, no degree program. No portfolio to present for admission, I could just show up and learn to paint. I knew immediately where I was going…..

2010-08-24T12:00:00.002-04:00

Hals and Fruit

16 x 20 Oil on Linen

Artistic experiences: part 3, the museum.
While visiting the home of one of my high school friends I saw two pictures on the wall which moved me very profoundly. I looked for them in the art books at the library the next day and found one was Rembrandt’s Girl with a Broom, the other was Frans Hals’ Bohemian Girl. They were cheap reproductions but a spell had been cast. Shortly after graduation I took myself to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As far as I knew no one in my family had ever been to a museum, neither had any of my friends. In my uncultured world I was sailing into uncharted waters. I started up the enormous stairs leading to the museum, it seemed as if I were climbing Mount Olympus. I was in fact about to enter what would become for me the home of the gods. The first room I entered housed an early Renaissance altar, quite beautiful but I came to see paintings. The next room did not disappoint. I entered and stood before Rubens’ Prometheus Bound. I was frozen in my tracks. I had never seen or experienced anything like this before. A 7’ x 8’ tour de force with Prometheus tumbling out of the canvas while an eagle swoops in to peck at his liver. I had never perceived anything so terrifying and yet so beautiful, so powerful, expressive and compelling. I was unaware of my surroundings, nothing existed for me except this painting. My heart was pounding, my head swimming, I was transported to another dimension. I’m not sure how long I stood there but I knew my life had changed. At that moment, though I had not yet touched a canvas with a brush, I knew I was an artist…..

2010-08-16T20:33:00.002-04:00

Apples and Pears

12 x 16 Oil on Panel

Artistic experiences: part 2, school days.
When I was in first grade my mother gave me a nickel each morning so I could buy a pint of cold milk at school to go with my peanut butter and jelly or baloney sandwich for lunch. I stopped at the corner store instead and bought a pack of baseball trading cards. When I got home I would take a piece of paper, a pencil and a few crayons and draw portraits of the ball players from the cards. This is my earliest memory of drawing. Later, in high school, the final project in my French class was to have a group of 4 students write a small newspaper in French. I was terrible at French and suggested to my group that instead of writing a story I would create a page of comics for our paper. They were thrilled because we were sure to be the only group with comics in our newspaper and I was happy because I could fill my page with drawings and had very little to translate. So there were Charlie Brown and Beetle Bailey, Blondie and Dick Tracy all beautifully drawn and speaking French. Apparently I did not translate “Good grief” properly but the teacher was very impressed with my drawings. I may be the only student in history to pass French class by drawing in French…..

2010-08-15T17:19:00.009-04:00

Golden Delicious

12 x 18 Oil on Linen

Artistic experiences: part 1, finger painting.
I grew up in what I refer to as a culturally deprived home. It was a nice home, in a small town with the kind of people you see in Norman Rockwell’s illustrations, but it was artistically uninspiring. There were no books in the house, except the bible. My main stimulation was the black and white TV with its 3 channels. Its sterile programming of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver echoed my Catholic upbringing. My musical experiences were shaped by my sister watching American Bandstand and my parents taking in the adult music of Sing Along with Mitch and Lawrence Welk’s champagne music. The Ed Sullivan Show introduced me to the current cultural trends. The pictures on the wall were either family photos or something so uninteresting that I can not now recall. There were no paintings. I never knew anyone who painted, even as a hobby. My mother told me that growing up in Philadelphia she used to draw her friends as they played in the street but I never saw her draw. I remember my father made a drawing of a cowboy for me when I was very young, maybe 3 or 4. I was amazed that he could do this, but it never happened again. When I went to kindergarten they gave us finger paints and told us to fill up the paper with paint and make designs with our fingers. “This is really stupid” I thought to my young self, “Why can’t they teach me to draw a cowboy like the one dad did?”…..

2010-08-12T22:02:00.006-04:00

Festiva Maxima

14x16 Oil on Linen

Not far from where I live there is a beautiful historic estate called Hildene. It was built by Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, in 1905. Behind the house there is a magnificent garden, known as the Hoyt Formal Garden. Some years ago the Friends of Hildene, who now oversee the estate, decided to have an art competition of paintings inspired by or painted in the garden. The top prize was $1000 and I was invited to be the juror. The resulting paintings were so wonderful they decided to repeat the competition the next year. This time I was able to participate. There are many varieties of peonies in the Hoyt garden, so I decided to paint a still life of peonies inspired by Hildene but from my garden. It was quite elaborate so I called it The Peony Symphony. I was delighted to be awarded First Prize at the opening. The next year I assumed I would not be in the running for a prize and decided to do a smaller piece. This time I worked in the garden painting a few Festiva Maxima blooms directly from the plant. I was alone in the garden with the estate gardener and we chatted cheerfully as we both worked. The painting was fresh and free and lively. I attended the opening to see who would get the top prize this year and was quite surprised to find I had won again. When my name was announced I heard another artist behind me whisper "again" and began to have thoughts of being pummeled by a gang of angry artists in the parking lot.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-07-25T19:44:00.001-04:00

Pas de Deux

Oil on Linen
Image 10 x 8 - Framed 17 x 15
$1500

Another painting inspired by chamber music. This time the objects are not so much conversing as moving in unison. The music not quite so melodic as it is tonal. The content is less narrative, more poetic, less illustrative, more evocative. I hear it as a cello sonata, a tone poem by Debussey, add choreography and it becomes a pas de deux.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Pas de Deux, which retails for $2400, is being made available for $1500 (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.

2010-07-21T18:36:00.007-04:00

Peonies in a Water Glass

14 x 16 Oil on Linen

I've been listening to a lot of chamber music recently. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, trios, quartets, sextets...heaven. I love the intimacy of this music, I love the serious pieces and the playful, I love the conversations. It is so delightful to hear a violin play a melody, the viola respond, then the cello and piano voice their opinions before they all start talking at the same time and finally come to a resolution. Some artists might refer to small interiors as the chamber music of painting but I like to compose mine as still lifes. A few simple objects in conversation, they are often completed in one or two sittings. In Peonies in a Water Glass the flowers and their leaves, the water glass and the draperies all play their own parts beautifully yet move seamlessly in and out of conversation with each other. The rich blue drapery deeply moved by the delicacy of the peonies, the green stripe on the white cloth echos the color and rhythm of the leaves, the water glass hears them all and adds its own sparkling voice. All at once there is intimacy, profundity, playfulness and joy. Many artists think they need to be symphonic or operatic to be heard, often the louder the better. Others, like me, prefer to speak with more subtlety, with fewer voices, in trios and quartets and sextets.....

2010-07-17T22:28:00.005-04:00

Reynold's Farm

8 x 10 Oil on Linen

This is my favorite Frank Mason story. For me no one could paint atmosphere like Frank. He was the master of painting something he couldn't see with materials he didn't have. Although he was brilliant at painting atmosphere, he was not always quite so successful at explaining it to his students. One time he started a critique with a casual remark, “You need a tube of atmosphere paint,” then proceeded to rework the student's canvas showing him how to bring more light and air and space into his painting. But the lesson the student got was that he needed a tube of atmosphere paint. So after class he went downstairs to the League's store and asked for a tube of atmosphere paint. The fellow behind the counter, who had studied with Frank, asked “What class are you in?” “Frank Mason's class” he said proudly. “Oh I see” said the salesman, and then with a devilish grin added “Well, we're out of atmosphere paint. Why don't you go next door to Lee's, they might have some.” So he went to Lee's and said “I need a tube of atmosphere paint.” The salesperson seemed puzzled by this request but she checked through her list of supplies, then said “We don't carry that, why don't you try Sam Flax down on 53rd street.” So off he went to 53rd street where he was mercifully told that there was no such thing as a tube of atmosphere paint. He returned to class the next day and told us of his unsuccessful search and then added that he would never again fail to look for the atmosphere in his painting.....

2010-06-29T17:00:00.008-04:00

Remembering Van Gogh

34 x 30 Oil on Linen

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Art as the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty. Britannica Online characterizes Art as the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others. Various artists have offered more poetic definitions. "Art is the signature of civilizations" -Beverly Sills. "Art is the child of nature" -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. "Art is the expression of the immortal part of man" -Ignace Paderewski. "Art is the escape from personality" -T.S. Eliot. Others are philosophical. "Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else" -Marc Chagall. "Art is a revolt against man's fate" -Andre Malraux. "Art cannot be modern, art is timeless" -Egon Schiele. Some are cynical. "Art never expresses anything but itself" -Oscar Wilde. "Art is making something out of nothing and selling it" -Frank Zappa. "Art isn't something you marry, it's something you rape" -Edgar Degas. Others more positive. "Art is seduction, not rape" -Susan Sontag. "A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle" -Robert Henri. "Art is the triumph over chaos" -John Cheever. Some describe Art with humor. "Art isn't everything, it's just about everything" -Gertrude Stein. "You will think less of the Art, when you know the artist" -George Bernard Shaw. Others take it quite personally. "I feel strongly that the visual arts are of vast and incalculable importance, of course I could be prejudiced, I am a visual art" -Kermit the Frog. Perhaps my favorite definition is E.H. Gombrich’s non-definition, "There really is no such thing as Art, there are only artists"…..

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-06-27T21:06:00.007-04:00

Serendipity

Oil on Linen

Image 16 x 20 - Framed 22 x 26

$2100

Some artists are so full of ideas about what to paint they could never complete them all in one lifetime. Others, though they may have great skills, are clueless about what to paint and are happiest when someone commissions them to paint something. I fall somewhere in the middle. I have many images that I want to commit to canvas but also like to be available for fresh inspirations. One painting frequently leads into the next one but occasionally the chain of thought is interrupted. At those times I often grab a few simple, familiar objects, take them to my studio and play with light and composition and color. Chopin might have called them études, Beethoven bagatelles, I like to think of them as serendipities....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Serendipity, which retails for $3200, is being made available for $2100 (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.

2010-05-09T12:34:00.014-04:00

Spring Landscape

9 x 13 Oil on Panel

The Metropolitan Museum recently rediscovered a painting by Velazquez. The painting entered the Met collection in 1949 as a Velazquez Self Portrait. The origins of the painting are unknown, it first turned up in the 18th century in a German collection. It was initially thought to be a work by Van Dyck, then Velazquez, possibly Mazo, Velazquez again, then school of, workshop of, and finally Velazquez yet again. The sitter has been unknown, a self portrait and now unknown again. It was never really lost but the attribution was downgraded twice and it was finally hidden in storage for many years. Experts, curators and historians were clueless. It's as if the painting was in the witness protection program. Perhaps it saw a restorer overclean a masterpiece and then testified against him. It was given a new identity and relocated to the Met where it might easily blend into the museum's massive collection. That seems to have worked for quite a long time, it was restored twice without being discovered, but then someone in the museum recognized the piece and handed it over to the head of the restoration department who roughed it up a bit for being a snitch before hanging it back on a wall in the museum. It has now been publicly identified as by Velazquez again but not as a self portrait and, since its recent cleaning, is considered an unfinished portrait.....

2010-05-05T13:02:00.015-04:00

Silver and Pink

20 x 25 Oil on Linen

My students are beginning to think I am the descendant of a cyclops. I am constantly telling them to see with their third eye. Situated on the forehead above and between the two eyes, the third eye is on the meridian between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It is also known as the inner eye or the mind's eye, the eye of enlightenment, wisdom and knowledge. Your two physical eyes are not meant for painting I tell them, they are there for survival, constantly on the lookout for predators, for food, for sexual stimulation. So when we look at the model we see all the details, the eyes, the nose, the shoes, the fingernail polish. We study the gesture and attitude. We take in all these things to tell us if we are in danger or have found food or a mate. But the third eye is not interested in details, it takes in the whole of what is before it. It sees the model, the background, the room, the light and space as one. It is the eye of unity and harmony. Now there is no doubt that we want to know and express the individual characteristics of our sitter, but the sum of those details does not add up to a great painting. It is the oneness, the unity and harmony, the wisdom and enlightenment of the third eye that will turn a well painted head into an unforgettable portrait.....

2010-04-25T20:31:00.011-04:00

Oranges and Eggs

16 x 20 Oil on Linen

While driving my car last week I happened upon an interview with Stephen Sondheim on the radio. At some point he began to talk about his childhood. He grew up on the upper west side of Manhattan and apparently had a rather unhappy childhood. When his parents divorced he was sent away to the New York Military Academy, a college preparatory school with a military structure. The interviewer suggested that must have been difficult for him. No, Sondheim replied, it was a very good experience. The education was good and the military aspect of the school brought order and discipline to his unstructured life. Learning order was a very valuable lesson which has served him well in life, he said, because after all that's what art is, bringing order to chaos.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-04-14T15:08:00.015-04:00

The Red and The Black
Oil on Linen
Image 16 x 19 - Framed 21 x 24
$1800

William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri were two of the finest American painters of the early 20th century. Chase was known as a fairly progressive painter. He embraced the ideas of the impressionists which he incorporated into his classical training. Henri agreed with this artistic philosophy and was invited to teach at Chase's New York School of Art. Soon Henri, 25 years younger, began to experiment with some of the radical new thoughts floating about the art world at that time. Gradually the two friends became rival instructors. Chase wanted to hang on to certain principles he thought were important to good painting, Henri was willing to let things go to look more modern. His compositions became more daring, his colors bolder, his effects intense. My paintings generally tend more to Chase's way of thinking but in The Red and the Black I allowed my palette to play in Henri's ashcan school.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month The Red and The Black, which retails for $3200, is being made available for $1800 (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.

2010-04-08T07:14:00.011-04:00

The Artist at Work

30 x 24 Oil on Linen

Artists say the strangest things.

I have a friend, an artist, who is a devout Mormon. He considers work on Sunday sinful, it is supposed to be a day of rest. So when I saw him painting by the side of the road one Sunday I stopped and asked what he was doing. "I'm doing a watercolor" he said. "Isn't that against your religion?" I asked. "Oh, no" he said "oil painting would be wrong, that's my serious work, watercolors are just a hobby."

A friend who was once married to an artist asked me if I painted every day. "Of course" I said "why do you ask?" "Well, I would often come home from work and find that my husband had done no work all day. Once he went four days without doing anything." She was working to support his art so she finally asked him why he hadn't painted. "I wasn't inspired" he replied "you can't expect me to just paint."

When I was a student the League asked me to deliver something to the studio of one of the instructors. I was a big fan of his work so I was anxious to meet him. When he answered the door he was holding a broom. "I hope I'm not disturbing your work" I said. "Oh no, I was just sweeping up" he replied. Then he added "nothing makes me happier than painting yet I do everything I can think of to avoid getting started".....

2010-03-28T08:46:00.009-04:00

Day's End

10 x 12 Oil on Panel

Each time an artist paints he is born and he dies. The artist that is painting today is not the same one who painted yesterday. Each day he brings something new to his work. Everything he has done and everyone he has met since he stopped painting has an effect on what he will paint next. His painting reflects the sum total of his being on that day, everything he has been, seen and done, everyone he has touched and everyone who has touched him. A new person will work on the painting he started yesterday and someone else will work on it tomorrow.

2010-03-21T20:36:00.017-04:00

Easter Sunday

30 x 34 Oil on Linen

In a recent post I noted Chopin's 200th birthday. Now, 20 days later, it is the 325th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach. I will spare you a list of Bach's extraordinary compositions and his influence in the world of music. He was such an enormous talent, so well known and loved, that I will move right on how his music has affected my painting. When I listen to other composers I often find myself noting a beautiful passage or a lovely melody, but when I listen to Bach I am unaware of any part of the music but rather immersed in the whole piece. The music progresses with such fluidity that to stop, even in appreciation, would ruin the experience. I go into a kind of meditation. Unity. Harmony. Continuity. It would be wonderful if we could go to our local art supply store and pick up a couple of tubes of harmony and unity, but then there's no challenge in that. So how does an artist create the kind of continuity that sends the viewer into a meditative state? By not letting their eye wander about the painting noting a beautiful passage here or a lovely color there. By having control of the palette, moving deftly from light to dark, in and out of color, warm to cool, subtlety to intensity, so that the viewer is given no place to rest. No one part of the painting is more magical than another. No stroke, no color calls attention to itself but serves to enhance the whole. To have such balance in all aspects of the painting, composition, color, massing, light and shade, that the painting can be taken in in a moment. And that one moment becomes a lifetime and contains all the mysteries of the universe.....

2010-03-17T20:44:00.007-04:00

Gourds

20 x 24 Oil on Linen

Sometimes the artist and their gallery see each other as opponents rather than teammates. Tension creeps in and strains the relationship. I've given this a bit of thought over the years so maybe I can help each side to understand how the other is thinking. Let's start by defining why each one exists. The gallery is a for profit business, the artist prizes aesthetics above all else. Galleries are not museums, if the artist does a masterpiece that doesn't match the gallery clientele it is still a masterpiece but of no use to the gallery. Now, if the artist is resricted to painting only what matches the gallery clientele he begins to feel like he is doing factory work and his creativity suffers. The fairest compromise I've seen is that the gallery starts by showing only what the clientele wants, then gradually slips in something different as the clients gain confidence in the artist. I like to use this waiting period to show what the gallery isn't ready for in juried exhibitions. Juried exhibits want to show masterpieces and if your work is really good you might win a prize. Another area of conflict is exclusivity. I understand that a gallery does not want their clients walking down the street to buy the artist's paintings at a rival gallery after they put time and money into promoting his work. The artist, however, feels that he needs to have as many people as possible see and buy his work and wants to hang it everywhere that is available. The solution here is quite simple. If the gallery sells everything the artist gives him there will be no question of exclusivity because the artist will have no work to give to anyone else. Otherwise, more people will see the work if it is spread out over a larger geographic area so the artist should respect the gallery's space and send their work a bit farther away. Both sides get what they want with this arrangement. Many other problems can arise but I'll address them in another post. If galleries and artists can each put themselves in the position of the other, understanding and compassion will have them working on the same team.....

2010-03-13T08:01:00.004-05:00

Evening Stars

16x 16 Oil on Panel

Last week was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin and to my great delight his music has been playing frequently on the radio. Not an hour goes by without a nocturne or an étude, a mazurka or a polonaise. Anyone who plays the piano knows his music well, and many professional pianists have made recordings of their favorite Chopin pieces. I've heard a variety of interpretations of his work over the past two weeks and frankly some were much better than others. The music is so glorious that even the more mundane performances were beautiful. Some musicians seemed to feel that the music speaks for itself and played the notes as precisely as they could while others sought to bring out the meaning of the score. So I began to ask myself why one performance made my heart soar while another did not. Then of course, because I cannot take a breath without thinking about painting, I began to wonder how this applies to good painting. There are schools in painting that agree with the first group of pianists, who feel that the subject matter speaks for itself and the artist should render it as accurately as possible. Others feel they can add to their work by expressing something more than just what they see before them. I belong to the latter group. I happily paint what I see before me but I also paint what I perceive. I cannot see space or weight yet they are important to my interpretation of what I am looking at. I can't see character or personality but they are vital to a good portrait. I might draw a head correctly and copy the color perfectly but that doesn't mean that my portrait will make make my heart soar. Consequently my poor students have had to endure me saying over and over again "Don't just paint the notes, paint the music".....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-02-28T11:55:00.012-05:00

View of Rupert Mountain

Oil on Panel

Image 10 x 12 - Framed 15 x 17
$900

Is there such a thing as masculine or feminine painting? Could you, or should you, be able to tell if a painting was done by a man or woman by simply looking at it? I know some subject matter is usually assumed, correctly or incorrectly, to be by a man (battle scenes, etc.) or a woman (mothers and children, e.g.) but what about generic subjects like still life or landscape. If you can tell does that mean there is little or no commonality in the way each sex describes its experiences? If you can't tell does that mean that neither men nor women have anything unique to express? I'm not trying to be sexist or controversial, I'm only thinking about it because my View of Rupert Mountain seems to have a certain femininity to it. I'm not sure I can explain why, it's just a feeling that I get when looking at it. Perhaps it's because Schumann's music was playing in my head as I was painting it, not Robert but Clara Schumann.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month View of Rupert Mountain, which retails for $1800, 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.

2010-02-23T20:15:00.001-05:00

The Jolly Pumpkin

24 x 36 Oil on Linen

A few years ago I went to see an exhibit by a self taught artist. Now, if you will allow me to be cranky for a moment, it seems to me that a self taught artist is studying with someone who doesn't know anything. That being said the fellow did well enough to have a show at his local art center. He loved Vermeer's paintings and took them as his model. All of the paintings in the show were small interiors with groups of figures going about their daily business, lit by daylight from a single open window. The paintings had a certain charm but they did not have the depth and complexity of a Vermeer. What they did have was a smooth pretty surface with clean, unmuddied colors. I wasn't very impressed with the work but I did come away with something that I think of every time I see an exhibition. As I looked at his work an amusing little play on words came to me. Now when I look at a painting I always ask, is it near Vermeer or mere veneer.....

2010-02-13T20:28:00.021-05:00

Dawn (dramatic version)
24 x 36 Oil on Linen

Dawn (lyrical version)

When I was painting the plein air study for Dawn many years ago I heard it as a piece for solo cello. Later when I decided to do a larger version I wanted it to be bigger and bolder. I wanted to give it a voice, rich and powerful, not just a tenor but a dramatic tenor. The clouds became intensely colored, the sunrise overwhelming. I made it as big and romantic as I could then sent it out to a gallery. After a while it came back and I sent it out again, with a little less confidence this time. Recently it came back again and I sat with it and listened. I still liked the tenor voice but maybe not so dramatic, perhaps a lyric tenor might be more sensitive. So I stripped off the varnish and reworked the painting, this time giving it more of a bel canto feeling. It is the same scene, the same aria, only this time it is sung pianissimo, the clouds sotto voce. I like it better now, it has more breadth and subtlety. It is a difficult scene to paint because it can seem rather trite and cliché, but if it is sung with the right voice it can be stunningly beautiful.....

2010-02-05T20:57:00.015-05:00

Silent Symphony

30 x 40 Oil on Linen

Snow, softly falling, gently blowing, it was the quietest day the world had ever known. It had been snowing all morning. No motors humming, no dogs barking, everyone and everything had stopped what they were doing to listen to the silent symphony. I opened the door to go outside, but hesitated, not wanting to disturb the innocence of the scene before me. Then a few snowflakes landed on my jacket inviting me to come outside. I was afraid I was going to crush the snow but the snowflakes huddled together to carry my weight as I walked around to the side of the house. The landscape that lay before me was breathtakingly beautiful. The trees and fields were magnificent in their white robes. I could feel a quiet, gentle yet palpable energy. The snowflakes felt it too and each one improvised its own dance as it fell from the sky. A few of the performers landed on my face, took a quick bow, and then disappeared forever. The air was as pure as the snow. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply hoping to cleanse my spirit. I was becoming a player in the symphony. Nothing was happening, there wasn't a sound, yet I never felt more alive.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2010-01-23T12:54:00.004-05:00

The Sheep Quartet

Oil on Linen

Image 9 x 12 - Framed 13 x 16

$600

I often talk about music and painting together on this blog so to celebrate my 100th post I want to invite you to a visual concert. It is an original piece called The Sheep Quartet and all you have to do is listen to the painting. The music will, of course, have a pastoral theme. I hear it as a string quartet, 2 violins, a viola and cello. If you prefer you may substitute a flute or recorder, or maybe a piano or harpsichord, for your version. Sheep have been with us for a long time so my piece sounds like something that might be played by members of an early music ensemble, perhaps using original instruments. But sheep are also contemporary so your version may be more modern, played by friends that you have invited to your home to play for you, or with you.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month The Sheep Quartet, which retails for $1600, is being made available for $600 (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.

2010-01-17T21:23:00.007-05:00

After Hale finished his anatomy lecture he would go to the back of the room and critique drawings. Those who wanted to draw would work from the model while the rest of us watched the critique. One day a young man put a drawing of a standing male nude before the instructor. "I see you put a rather prominent bump on the flank of your figure. Why did you do that?" Hale asked. "Well I saw a bump so I copied it" the student replied. "After you've studied that part of the anatomy you will come to realize that the bump you saw is the external oblique. It starts at the rib cage and extends down to the crest of the pelvis" Hale said. "It has a form and a function" he continued "and the more accurately you can draw it the more human your figure will become. But you can't draw something until you know it exists." What a profoundly beautiful way to think about drawing, or life. To discover the existence of things or ideas or characteristics, of healthy food, of philosophy or music, humility and compassion, that, when applied to our lives, make us more human.....

2010-01-09T18:18:00.024-05:00

It always takes a few minutes to get into your rhythm when you start painting, to get your hand and mind working together. Most artists just flail around during this period and hope that they don't ruin what they did the day before. I don't like to leave anything to chance when I paint so this was a problem that had to be solved. I began to look to other disciplines to see if they had a similar situation. A musician would never step out on to the stage to give a performance without first warming up. A singer needs to vocalize. A dancer would not perform without first stretching, a runner would not begin a race without doing the same. So how does an artist warm up, vocalize, stretch? I keep a small sketch pad in the classroom and before I start to paint, or teach, I like to draw. It doesn't take very long, sometimes 5 minutes but never more than 15. Whatever I was thinking about when I entered the classroom begins to melt away, I study the model and the pose, my hand starts to feel the flow. My mind, heart and hand are working as one. I feel confidant, I'm ready to step on to the stage, to teach, to paint, let the performance begin.....

2010-01-05T22:37:00.002-05:00

Peonies and Lace
16 x 24 Oil on Linen

Gemstones and precious metals are the usual way to acknowledge wedding anniversaries. Being an opera lover I prefer to recognize them by composers. Your 1st anniversary, for instance, might be your Donizetti anniversary (I'm thinking here about his lighthearted paean to love L'elisir d'amore not Lucia di Lammermoor, which might be better for your 1st night anniversary, should you survive it). The 10th anniversary would be the Mozart anniversary, glorious and joyous. The 25th would be the Puccini anniversary, undeniably passionate. The 50th is the Verdi anniversary, profound and beautiful. The 75th would be Wagnerian, for longevity. Today Elizabeth and I celebrate our 25th anniversary. We observed the occasion, appropriately enough, by attending last night's performance of Puccini's Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera. It's one of those rare dramatic operas with a happy ending. The final line of the opera has the Princess Turandot announcing that she has discovered the name of the unknown prince, "Il suo nome è Amor!", his name is Love.....

2009-12-27T21:03:00.024-05:00

The Artist's Studio

20 x 18 Oil on Linen

When an artist starts a new painting he stands facing a flat surface. In the art world this is known as the picture plane. An artist who does trompe-l'œil painting endeavors to convince the viewer that the objects in the painting stand in front of the picture plane. Most artists, however, attempt to create an illusion of depth and three dimensionality that could be described as penetrating the picture plane. The viewer stands outside the picture plane and views the objects within as if looking through a window. I prefer to think of my canvas not as a blank surface but as an empty space. The space in my painting is the same space that I am standing in, the objects are lit by the same light and breathe the same air as the artist creating the painting or the viewer encountering the piece. The model or chair or drapery, or apples or grapes, are not objects trapped behind the picture plane, they are on one side of the easel and I am on the other. They are the current inhabitants of the painting, they have entered the space that is my canvas. I like to think that they could leave the space at any time and someone or something else will come to visit me, will enter that space, and become my next painting.....

2009-12-19T09:16:00.017-05:00

Pip Meets the Aged P
12 x 14 Oil on Panel

After I left the classroom (you don't graduate from the League you leave whenever you are ready) I stopped painting figures for awhile. I had painted portraits and nudes week after week for many years and wanted to paint something else. Besides I didn't have enough money to hire models to pose for me privately. So I painted landscapes and still lifes. Still life quickly became my favorite subject because of the endless possibilities in composition . Before long I began to think about painting figures again and figure composition. It didn't go much farther than a few doodles on the subway on a religious or mythological theme. Then a gallery in Connecticut called and asked if I wanted to participate in a Dickens themed exhibition. I quickly batted out a painting of Scrooge counting his miserly fortune. I had done many paintings of single figures so that wasn't so hard. Then decided to do a small composition. I was reading, or more exactly rereading, Great Expectations at the time so I took my theme from there. I always had a great fondness for the Aged P, Wemmick's moniker for his aging parent, so I painted the scene where Wemmick brings Pip home to meet his father.

"You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?" I expressed the readiness I felt and we went in. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. "Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2009-12-08T17:44:00.002-05:00

Bread and Wine
Oil on Linen
Image 12 x 16 - Framed 17 x 21
$1500

Simple or complex. If the viewer sees only bread and wine, that seems simple enough. But if it is the beginning of a great feast the meaning becomes more complex. If it is a representation of the Eucharistic meal it takes on yet another layer of meaning. The colors seem quite natural, quite simple. But if you realize the painting is built on a red, blue, yellow harmony then it is filled with the full complexity of the rainbow. The composition could sit quietly on the tabletop or it could be a complex swirling maze moving in and out of the painting. What is the meaning of this painting, what was the artist's intent, what does the viewer see, is it simple or complex.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Bread and Wine, which retails for $2400, is being made available for $1500 (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.

2009-12-02T18:43:00.003-05:00

The Breakfast Cantata

19 x 24 Oil on Linen

I'm very fond of Bach's cantatas. His church cantatas are like small oratorios. He also wrote secular cantatas which have stories and characters, they might be called operettas by the next generation. One of my favorites is the Coffee Cantata, which concerns a girl whose father will not let her marry until she gives up her addiction to that extremely popular drink. As I worked on this breakfast painting I heard it as a rather comical cantata. There were several characters. The frying pan was a bass of course, the grapes a gossipy chorus, the eggs sopranos, the oranges tenors, and the toaster a big, burly baritone. The broken egg shells sounded a bit like a musical joke. The disappearing toaster, as described in the previous post, only added to the fun. The music was quite lively and jolly, and the story, well I'll let each viewer create their own version.....

2009-11-28T18:11:00.009-05:00

Breakfast day 1

Advice to young artists: Think twice before taking something from the kitchen to put in your still life. I thought we didn't use the toaster very much, so if it was gone for a few days it wouldn't be a big deal and it would free up some kitchen counter space. Not long after I got my still life set up and started painting Elizabeth came to the studio to ask if she could borrow the toaster for a few minutes, she wanted to have toast with her sardines for lunch. "Of course" I replied and the toaster went back to the house and then returned to the studio after she had finished with it. The next morning I wanted toast with my eggs so the toaster made the same trip as the day before. As I worked that day, a rather chilly, gloomy day it was, it occurred to me that a pot of tea and cinnamon toast would be quite comforting. This time I brought a loaf of bread, an extention cord and a serving tray out to the studio.....

2009-11-11T19:44:00.002-05:00

The renaissance and baroque periods, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, are generally considered to be the height of oil painting. Later periods, in attempts to paint better, made rules and formulas, and became more and more rigid. By the 19th century these rules became dogma, inflexible and inviolable. Manet and Van Gogh didn't fit the mold, their paintings were unacceptable. The reaction against this, of course, was the modern era. Now there is a reaction against the modern era and a return to the ways of the 19th century. But why do contemporary artists want to go back to the rigid ways that brought on the modern period in the first place? Yes, Ingres and Bouguereau did magnificent work in the academic tradition, but Monet and Whistler did extraordinary paintings as well. But why stop there, why not look back farther, before formulas and correctness, loosen the screws, allow artists to draw and paint freely? How about Carravagio, Tintoretto and Pontormo, Hals, Leyster and Brouwer.....

2009-11-01T14:33:00.004-05:00

Yellow Nasturtiums

24 x 20 Oil on Linen

Some artists paint in prose, some paint in poetry. Some artists paint facts, some paint metaphor. Some artists paint light and shade, some paint luminosity. Some artists paint space, some paint atmosphere. Some artists design, some compose. Some artists paint tones, some paint color. Some artists paint what they see, some paint what they perceive. Some paintings speak, some sing. Some artists paint to live, some artists live to paint.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2009-10-27T22:26:00.021-04:00

Day's End, Bass Harbor
Oil on Linen
Image 12 x 18 - Framed 17 x 23
$1500

I tried my best, I really did. It was a lovely scene, sun setting, boats resting in the distant harbor, the clouds creating a bit of drama. I started to paint, then wiped it out. A second attempt yielded the same result. Then on the third try I got something, but it was uninspired. I went to a nearby playground and shot some hoops while Elizabeth finished her painting. A few years later I pulled it out of the racks and went at it again. This time it came easily to my hand. I imagined myself back at the scene, I kept painting until the sun set, there was no time for basketball.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Day's end, Bass Harbor, which retails for $2600, is being made available for $1500 (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.

2009-10-13T08:04:00.003-04:00

Everyone in the classroom seemed very anxious when I arrived to teach last Thursday. The model they had been painting for the past three days called in sick. He was about 60 years old and took a pose looking down, reading from a large book. The replacement the office sent up for the day was a young woman in her twenties. “What should I do?” one of them asked, “Should I start a new painting?” “Nonsense” I replied. “You've been looking at that model for three days, you should be able to work without a model. Fortunately you have someone taking the same pose. The light falls the same way on a young woman as it does on an older man. The planes are essentially the same, the underlying structure of the head is the same. Let's use the model we have to finish the painting.” So for the next twenty minutes or so I reworked the head in the painting pointing out the similarities of the two models and creating the original character from memory. I knew the shape of his head, the receding hairline and wavy wisps of hair. I remembered his pouting lower lip and the white whiskers below it. Add the glasses with the peculiar amber colored plastic frame and there he is.....

2009-10-09T18:35:00.004-04:00

A Day at the Quarry

24 x 30 Oil on Linen

Chapter 4. Tom was now ready to put the finishing touches on his painting. One concern that he had had in the back of his mind all along was where the painting was going to hang. Francis and Clare had a wonderful house, but being an old house it had very uneven lighting. The place where the painting was to hang was a rather dark spot over the fireplace. Tom was aware of this problem and painted the painting a bit brighter than he normally would. Now it was his main concern. He brought as much sunlight and sparkle into the trees as he could and picked up the light on the marble and figures wherever possible. He knew, of course, that a painting cannot illuminate a dark space but he worked hard to keep it from looking dark on the wall. Francis and Clare are coming up this weekend, the painting is finished, varnished and in the frame.....

Epilogue. Francis and Clare loved the painting and they all lived happily ever after.....

2009-10-07T10:45:00.011-04:00

Chapter 3. When Tom was at Francis and Clare's house measuring the space for the painting he noticed that one of their children was looking at some photos the family had taken on a day at the quarry. A few days later he asked if they could email him a few of those photos. He was hoping he might find something that would allow him to put the children in the painting. There was a great photo of all 3 children diving off the marble ledge together. Perfect, that would become the focus of the scene. The figures were less than 2 inches high in the painting but that was enough to suggest their characters. At the beginning of the next day's work he went right after this focal point. The figures had been well drawn the first day but now he increased the weight and form and worked on the illusion of them floating in space. Then, of course, he reworked all the other figures and brought more structure and solidity to the marble.

Now the trees and bushes had to be developed. They are not the main focus of the painting but they do occupy more the half of the space. Tom had painted this mass of trees before and knew their general shapes and patterns quite well. The trick here is to paint them fully and beautifully but not distract from the activity of the figures.....

2009-09-20T17:11:00.020-04:00

Chapter 2. Tom awoke early the next morning and was anxious to get started. The canvas was already stretched and prepared with a light umber tone. He had two rules for starting a painting. One was to take your time and decide what you want to do before jumping in, and two, not to wait to paint what you are most excited about. He squared the canvas lightly in pencil and broadly sketched in the composition with vine charcoal to satisfy the first rule. But he had been dreaming about those figures all night and couldn't wait to get going on them. To the casual viewer this looked a bit like starting a portrait by painting the eye first and then building the head around it, but Tom was so well prepared for this painting that he was able to take this bold step with confidence. He had so much to say that it ended up being nearly 30 figures.

Toward the end of the day he finally got around to filling out the rest of the painting. It was all going beautifully, it was the best composition of the quarry he had ever done. Then he suddenly realized how exhausted he was. He was so excited about what he was painting that he hadn't noticed how hard he was working.....

2009-09-19T16:51:00.009-04:00

Chapter 1. Once upon a time Francis and Clare wandered into a gallery and saw a painting of the local marble quarry. While they were deciding whether or not to purchase the piece it was sold to someone else. They knew it was just what they were looking for so they contacted the artist, Tom, and commissioned him to do one for them. Tom had painted the quarry a few times before and was happy to do so again, but this time it was a little different. When he paints something for himself he can take a bit of artistic license. If the trees are shorter or the figures larger than in nature who's going to know or care? But when he is commissioned to paint something he views it as a collaboration. Francis and Clare knew the scene well and wanted the painting to be a fair representation of it. It was, therefore, important to him to find the view that best represented the quarry and to make the proportions reasonably accurate. He had been to their house and measured the space where the painting would hang so he knew the dimensions of the new piece. So one sunny afternoon, when Tom knew there would be lots of activity at the quarry, he made some compositional drawings and sketches of some of the characters on the scene. When he got back to his studio he made another drawing to the exact proportions he wanted for his painting, then squared it to transfer accurately to his canvas.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2009-09-09T18:40:00.009-04:00

Ruby Red and Gold

Oil on Linen

Image 14 x 16 - Framed 20 x 22
$1800

Imagine an exhibition catalog where each painting is described as if it were an entree on the menu of a fine restaurant.
Ruby Red and Gold..... A light and lively treat. Two grapefruits, a pitcher and cloth arranged in a delightful composition, executed with bold confidence and bravura brushwork. A perfectly balanced palette dominated by yellows and golds set off with cool grays and topped with warm red glazes. Finished with a simple American frame accenting its quiet elegance.
That sounds really good. Oh curator, could I get that to go.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Ruby Red and Gold, which retails for $2600, is being made available for $1800 (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.

This offer is currently available to my Facebook friends.

2009-09-03T07:58:00.011-04:00

Fireflies

16 x 16 Oil on Panel

It was late. It was very late. I went outside to study the night. Each step I took away from the the house took me deeper and deeper into the Stygian darkness. Except for the fact that I could feel my feet on the earth I could have been floating in space. Soon my eyes began to adjust and shapes and patterns and colors started to appear. The shapes were massive, the patterns unrecognizable, the colors variations of black. I heard music. Music that I'd never heard before. A piano sonata for the left hand alone. It was deep and lovely. I don't think it ever rose above the lowest octave on the instrument. No composer had ever stayed that low for that long. Or any painter. Even Whistler didn't go that far in his nocturnes. Rothko and a few others did black paintings but they were spiritual journeys, color experiments, abstractions. I was experiencing the landscape. The shapes became familiar. A mass of trees. No details, just a hint of form, a suggestion of color. The pattern was the tree tops against a moonless sky. The color a subtle shift from dark greens and grays and blacks to gentle, but still dark, blues and violets. Then a flash. Then another. Fireflies. Beacons of life. The right hand hovered above the piano occasionally dropping down to find a fluttering eighth note. Then another. Each with its own color. One yellow, one orange, one iridescent green. It was beautiful. I watched and listened. Then I walked back inside and began to plan my painting for the next day.....

2009-08-23T08:08:00.039-04:00

Making your own gesso may not be for everyone. If you can say what you want to say on an acrylic primed canvas board that's fine. For many painters it's hard enough finding to time to paint let alone prepare materials, but if you can work with good commercial panels and canvases so much the better. If your skills, however, are at a level where commercial products are keeping you from fully expressing what you have to say then you may want to look into preparing your own materials. The ground is the foundation of the painting, whatever is painted on that support will be affected by its strength and quality. The story of the three little pigs, as every young artist knows, is really a parable about preparing canvases and panels.
When you come to the final stage of preparation, the final glue and tone, you are starting to create your painting. The color you choose for the tone is the first color choice of your painting.

Earth colors are the most common choice. They are inexpensive and give you a gentle but solid support. Here I used raw umber. It is a warm, quiet color that will not overwhelm whatever I put on top of it. Ivory black works in the same way but is a cooler tone. They are like your best friends. Comforting, supportive but not intrusive.

If raw umber and ivory black are your best friends than terra rosa is more like a spouse. All the good qualities of your best friend but more exciting. It is a very jazzy, sexy, rich tone that wants to be part of the painting. It can drag down light colors if they are applied too thinly, but it can liven up a painting if it is allowed to show through from time to time.

Now if terra rosa is like a spouse then thalo green would be your mistress. It is a daring and dangerous tone, one that should not be used without careful consideration. Thalos are attractive but very strong colors and could easily overpower your painting. You might think you have everything under control only to realize later that the thalo ground has infected every color you put on top and ruined your beautiful painting.

Uh oh, this is starting to sound a bit too much like pygmalion and galatea.....

2009-08-18T22:35:00.020-04:00

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't been painting, I've been preparing materials. A new batch of canvases are in the works, I described that process in an earlier post. I'm also preparing gessoed panels. Most of the commercial panels are prepared with acrylic gesso which I find to be too slippery and insensitive to my artistic touch. There are now some better products starting to appear on the market but I prefer to make my own. It is a lean ground made with chalk and glue water. First I decide on the support to be gessoed. Wood panels, masonite or paper all work well. I do not recommend this gesso for stretched canvas because it is not very flexible and could crack under stress. For this project I am using masonite and had two 4' x 8' sheets cut to size giving me 36 panels to prepare. All you need to make the gesso is a hot plate, a pot, a wooden spoon, rabbit skin glue, water and chalk. I use commercial whiting but gypsum or any other chalk should be fine, feel free to experiment, you may find that you are an inventor as well as an artist. Add 1 oz of rabbit skin glue to 20 oz of water and gently heat them together until the glue is dissolved. Stirring the water while heating will keep the glue from settling to the bottom of the pot. Then slowly add 20 oz of chalk. Like the glue it will settle to the bottom in a clump so continue stirring. When the chalk and glue water have completely combined the gesso is ready. Using a large brush apply the gesso to the panels (I like to keep the gesso warm and stir it ocassionally) and set them aside to dry. Allow them to dry overnight then lighly sand the surface and apply a second coat. Repeat the process adding a third and fourth coat. Finally make a pot of fresh glue water, also 20:1, and apply this with a bit of dry color as the finishing coat.....

2009-07-23T21:04:00.006-04:00

Early Morning

8 x 10 Oil on Panel

In the previous post I noted my dislike of "capturing a moment in time." In freezing time, even to relish the moment, one takes the chance of forgetting the past or losing sight of what is to come. When I went out to paint Early Morning it was misty, very misty, foggy. There was no view to paint. I could barely see what was 50 yards in front of me, but I love mist and fog and atmosphere and mystery so I proceeded to paint a clump of trees on a nearby hillside shrouded in a thick cloud. It was marvelous. Large arboreal ghosts appearing and disappearing, making silent entrances and exits. Then within minutes the sun burned off the fog and revealed the identities of the actors. Now the play was over, my subject changed and a new play had begun. I could save my little misty masterpiece and start a new painting or change what I was working on and make it into a sunny morning sketch. I was not happy with either option. The misty version seemed unresolved and the sunny option too stark. I needed something in between, those few moments when the sun was burning off the fog. Leaving some of the fog reminds us of how the morning started and picking up some of the sunlight points to the day ahead. The painting is not a snapshot of a moment but tells a story with a past and a future. The future however is not fully revealed, the story is not finished, and we can delight in the anticipation of what is to come.....

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

2009-07-14T20:37:00.013-04:00

Summer Storm

Oil on Linen

Image 20 x 30 - Framed 27 x 37

Sold

Beethoven. Symphony No. 6 in F Op 68. The Pastoral. Fourth Movement. Gewitter, Sturm. Thunderstorm. Allegro. The great composer wanted his symphony to be "a matter more of feeling than of painting in sounds." To feel, to engage, to experience. I rather dislike "capturing a moment in time" in my paintings. Instead I would like the viewer to take in the whole of the storm. To feel the first few drops, watch as the sky darkens and the winds push the clouds and drive the rain, hear the thunder and fear the lightning, to know the relief of the sun finally breaking through. To expect a rainbow to appear if they look at the painting long enough.....

The Painting of the Month is a special offer to my blog readers (click on the image for a larger view). This month Summer Storm, which retails for $4800, was offered at a discount and purchased by a reader. Next month a new drawing or painting will be offered.

2009-07-09T06:51:00.008-04:00

Summer Rain

8 x 12 Oil on Panel

When you live in Vermont you are surrounded by snow for a good part of the winter. White is everywhere. One day last February I had an intense desire for color. I pulled a small panel from the racks and decided to paint a landscape, a summer landscape. Storms have always fascinated me but are rather hard to paint from nature. There is the fear of being drenched at any moment as well as the fear of being struck by lightning. So I often watch storms from a safe and dry distance storing up information for just such a moment as this. The painting was there in my head, all I had to do was transfer it to the panel. No reference photo, no pencil drawing, no plein air sketch, just me and my memory and my imagination. It started as a great storm, dark on the horizon, clouds racing through the sky, trees bending in the wind. I worked on it for an hour or so from time to time over the next few weeks while continuing with my larger paintings. As the days passed by and my color anxieties eased so did the storm in my painting. The wind gradually died down, a bit of sun broke through, and the fierce storm turned into refreshing rain. But I still had that great storm in my head so I went back to the racks and out came a larger canvas.....

2009-07-05T20:49:00.012-04:00

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.....

2009-07-01T13:58:00.010-04:00

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 Elizabeth and I 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.....

2009-06-18T06:28:00.018-04:00

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.....

2009-06-12T06:34:00.014-04:00

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

2009-06-01T13:43:00.015-04:00

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.

2009-05-13T08:40:00.010-04:00

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.....

2009-05-06T18:51:00.017-04:00

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.....

2009-05-02T09:42:00.003-04:00

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.....

2009-04-29T16:30:00.002-04:00

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.....

2009-04-24T08:07:00.008-04:00

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.....

2009-04-05T07:52:00.011-04:00

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

2009-03-18T10:57:00.015-04:00

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.

2009-03-08T08:18:00.013-04:00

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.....

2009-02-20T10:45:00.012-05:00

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.....

2009-02-18T08:45:00.019-05:00

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

2009-02-11T06:52:00.017-05:00

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.

2009-02-04T20:13:00.010-05:00

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.....

2009-01-24T12:42:00.015-05:00

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.....

2009-01-14T07:48:00.015-05:00

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.....

2009-01-05T09:28:00.002-05:00

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.....

2008-12-29T22:32:00.010-05:00

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".....

2008-12-25T22:21:00.006-05:00

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

2008-12-17T09:11:00.009-05:00

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.

2008-12-09T15:13:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-29T19:03:00.011-05:00

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.....