Update & museum visits
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006Well, it’s been awhile. Since finishing up the drawing of my eyes and setting up my display in the library (which, by the way: SO COOL to walk through the lobby and see it in the display case all official-like), I’ve done basically nothing arty, other than some sketches at the beach, which barely count. This was beginning to depress me, because no matter how much I tell myself that my bursts of creativity have always been cyclical in nature, I never quite believe it when I’m in an “off” period. That, and I’m always afraid that I’ll do to myself in art what I did to myself in writing: burn myself out so thoroughly that two years later, I still haven’t recovered the will to write. I’m terrified of the same thing happening in my art, and every time I go through more than, say, a week without doing something creative, I’m afraid that I’ve lost it altogether. Well, maybe that will happen someday, but it’s not now.
I went down to DC yesterday to see two exhibits at the Phillips Collection (more on that later) and then stopped at the Utrecht store near Metro Center and bought a couple of canvases. I’d like to do the fourth and final painting in my Lucy series (Blue Lucy) before I go back to school. It needs to be landscape orientation, but I’m not sure what photo I’ll use yet, since I have several with potential.
Right now, I’m just beginning work on a square painting of a dachshund. I got it from WetCanvas’s Reference Image library, and while I’m normally reluctant to work from other people’s photos (even when I have their permission, as I do in this case), I just couldn’t resist the combination of the breed (I love dachshunds), the pose, the expression, and most of all the dog’s very unusual color–a sort of sandy yellow that I’ve never seen in a dachshund before. It should be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it. Pictures shall follow.
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Yesterday’s museum excursion was a lot of fun. As I said, I went down to the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle, which is currently doing an exhibit entitled “Klee and America” as well as winding down its extremely popular “The Renoir Returns” exhibit. The word “the” in the title of that last exhibit is very important, since the exhibit contains only the one Renoir, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, which at this point is almost a cliche. I’ve never been a huge fan of Renoir as compared to the other Impressionists, so I was actually rather pleased that the rest of the exhibit was less him and more the others.
The Paul Klee exhibit was much better. I’ve always been a fan of Klee, but have never been familiar with very much of his work, other than a few paintings like Twittering Machine. After seeing the exhibit, which featured about 80 of his works, I think it’s safe to say that I’m still a fan. I was most impressed by the sheer range of his work–from fairly large canvases to very small drawings. All abstract or at least very stylized, but the colors and techniques he used were really interesting. In particular, I loved a series of small works in which the background was done by spraying on watercolor, over which he added stylized, detailed line drawings. From a distance, all you could see were his luminous watercolor washes, but once you got closer, a whole new aspect to the work revealed itself. Very, very cool. And, as someone who experiments with a variety of media and styles, it’s always encouraging to see well-regarded “art history book” artists who didn’t limit themselves, for whatever reason, to one small niche in the art world. (Pictured above is “Red Waistcoat” by Paul Klee. Image from Olga’s Gallery.)
