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.....

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.....

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

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.

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.....

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

I painted these peonies from my garden on a Monday, early the next morning Frank passed away. I think it would have made him happy to know that a few hours later the landscape class was out for a sunrise crit. The tradition continues. Elizabeth and I attended his funeral service in New York on Saturday. Colleagues, clients and friends filled the pews of the beautiful Grace Church in lower Manhattan. Many of his former students were there, arriving from Pittsburg, Nashville, New Orleans, even Venice, as well as neighboring states. There was a large number from Vermont where Frank and Anne owned a house for many years and where Frank taught his landscape class. We all said farewell to our old mentor then met at the Salmagundi Club to share our memories. After the reception 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.....

En Plein Air
48 x 48 Oil on Linen

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

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

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Low Tide, Cape Cod

Oil on Panel

Image 10 x 12 - Framed 15 x 17

$900

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

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

Peanut Butter and Jelly

20 x 30 Oil on Linen

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

Yellow Variations

24 x 20 Oil on Linen

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

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

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

Silver and Gold

23 x 36 Oil on Linen

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

Roses and Apples

18 x 16 Oil on Linen

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

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Spring Runoff

Oil on Linen

Image 16 x 14 - Framed 22 x 20

$1400

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

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

Winter Scene

14 x 16 Oil on Linen

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

Daffodils

20 x 18 Oil on Linen

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

Daffodils and Bartlett Pears

20 x 18 Oil on Linen

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

PAINTING OF THE MONTH

Untitled Landscape

Oil on Panel

Image 16 x 16 - Framed 21 x 21

$1600

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

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

Sailing near Brooklyn
14 x 16 Oil on Linen

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

Onions

24 x 36 Oil on Linen

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

The Morning Newspaper

18 x 20 Oil on Linen

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

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