PAINTING OF THE MONTH

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.

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.....

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.....

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

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.

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.....

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.....

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.....

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.....

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

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.

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.....

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.....

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.....

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

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.

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.....

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.....

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.....

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.....

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

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.

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.....

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.....