Me of all people!

In a recent Dominica on-line press debate  in which I tried to differentiate between pornography and the beauty and profundity of the nude, I have been chastised for denouncing the nude, period.  (http://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/news/culture/winners-of-the-independence-celebrations-art-competition-announced/)

For once I’ll resort to the expression LOL.  Me of all people!

Have we really reached the level where people can no longer differentiate between the two?  Regardless, I will go my own sweet way and continue to passionately extol the beauty and innocence of the nude and denounce any attempt to demote it to mere pornographic lust. 

Somerset Maugham in his book The Razor’s Edge had this to say about passion.

…passion is so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling…no wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so compelling…

This afternoon, for Suzanne, a visiting artist from Brazil, I have passionate pursued the beauty and profundity of the nude by way of demonstrating my method of painting the nude.  The session would have been impossible without the support of my inspirational model Annabelle.  I also thank Suzanne for enabling the session.  Below is the last painting in a series of three.

The drama of darks

In my first notes for art students post I waxed lyrical on the virtues of my first love: charcoal and newsprint. 

Traditional charcoal has given birth to numerous similar materials that give the same effect.  One of which was made by Faber Castell.  I purchased my supply years ago and like many materials that I’ve become accustomed to it is no longer available; at least not in its original stick form.  In those days it came in various shades, from black to light sepia.

Today’s picture dates back to 1994.  It is the drama of the dark passages that enliven the sketch.  They fall from the model’s shoulders and reach down her spine, capturing her ribbon and embracing her right hand along the way.

Notes for Art Students

Notes for Art Students began life three years ago as a supplement for CXC students attending art classes at my studio. Recently, all Dominican secondary and college students have been given tablets for access to the internet. Following this initiative I have re-launched the site in the hope that it will encourage a wider interest in the Visual Arts. It can be found at: notesforartstudents.blogspot.com

      

At the moment art is an unknown quantity for many students. This year, out of 1,800 Dominica State College Students, only 6 expressed an interest in studying art. Anywhere else in the world they would have been queuing up around the block! 

Over the years a number of my followers have become artists in their own right and I look forward to enabling Dominican students to achieve similar success.

Writings on the wall

Community murals seldom turn me on, whereas graffiti often does.  It comes back to my love of passion and spontaneity: my fondness for the sketch as against the finished painting. 

Recently a friend in Jamaica sent me some images of a mural by Taj Francis from a project titled Paint Jamaica https://www.facebook.com/paintjamaica.  The image below shows his mural as a work in progress, set against existing graffiti writings on the wall.

The finished mural is a remarkable piece of work.  But you know what…it is the image of the work in progress that really turns me on!  

Contrasts

Above is the painting that I promised on my last diary page.  It is my impression of the storm that devastated Dominica six weeks ago.  The painting measures 30” x 20”.   It will be sold in aid of the Relief Fund.

It was difficult to keep the memory of the storm alive while painting, for right outside my studio door was the contrasting view shown below.

Notes to myself

I paint from life, whether it be the model or the sea crashing against a cliff face.  However, there are times when fighting for life, there is no time to pull out a sketch book.  A case in point is the day when Tropical Storm Erika devastated Dominica.  I then have to resort to memory and to get that memory indelibly down on paper I make notes to myself.

The above sketch measures only a few inches, but that scrap of paper records the moment when all hell broke loose.  With the help of survivors, I have since re-lived that day and developed the sketch into a painting.  I will post the full painting on next week’s diary page. In the meantime, the detail below corresponds to the scribbled lines in the bottom left hand corner of the sketch. 

From all angles

First and foremost a maquette allows the sculptor to judge his vision, three dimensionally and from all angles.  Secondly, it serves to give those who may one day commission the work and the public at large, an idea of what the sculptor has in mind. 

Today’s pictures show the completed maquette that was the subject of my last post.  And now, rather than glaring white plaster, the maquette has been patinated to give the appearance of bronze. 

The final life size figures are intended to be seen from all angles.  Thus, I have tried to created interest from all angles.  It should be remembered that the maquette is not meant to show detail but rather an impression of how the grouping will work out in reality.  My first reaction is that the girl clutching her father’s leg needs to be a little larger and perhaps the boy also.  I was undecided whether to show the mother breast feeding or holding her baby on her hips, as shown.  I am still undecided!   

For the maquette I make do with which ever models are at hand - in this case my own family.  For the final sculpture my models will be chosen from families who suffered from the storm.  At that stage the models add their own interpretation to the theme.

A reminder that the sculpture is intended to commemorate the devastation wrought on Dominica by Tropical Storm Erika.  The figures depict a family walking away from the past and into the future, the grandmother reluctant to leave but the son urging the family forward.

I welcome your feedback.

In the beginning

If you look back to my entry for the 4^th of September, you will see a preliminary sketch that I made twenty years ago.  My drawing represented the first attempt to put down on paper an idea that was running around in my mind.  Now, after all those years, I need to transform the two dimensional sketch into a three dimensional piece of sculpture.  Therein lays the challenge! 

The first step is to make a 1/10th scale model (in sculptural terms known as the maquette) of what will eventually be a group of life-size figures. 

I build up my maquettes I directly in plaster.  And if there’s one material more difficult to handle than water colour, it surely has to be wet plaster.  I can only apply small amounts at a time as the mix is only workable for a few minutes.  Fortunately, I am not after detail (you know me!) but just an impression of how the grouping will work out in reality. 

Today’s pictures show the work in progress.  

Competition vs Competitions

Nothing spurs me on better than competition.  When I sense that others are catching up on me I pull out all the stops and get down to work.  For those who are way ahead of me, in this world and in the next, I get down on my knees in praise of their incredible ability.

On the other hand, I am wary of competitions.  Creativity doesn’t fare well with rules.  Moreover, throughout the history of art, those who judge competitions have seldom got it right.

By way of a change, my pictures today are from two artists - one from the past and one from the present - that I deeply admire.

First, Egon Schiel (1890 -1918)  Austria.

The second, Phillip Dvorak, USA.  www.phillipdvorak.com

Now or never

For over a month I have been promising Ryta and Mindy a trial modelling session.  But what with the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Erika and one thing after another,we never got around to it.  I know that next week I am going to side tracked again, so this morning it was now or never.

Some years ago Ryta came to one my workshops for those interested in modelling for the arts.  However, since then her modelling has been recorded by the click of a camera shutter, rather than paint on paper.  There is a world of difference between the two.  With today’s cameras the photographer can take sixty images per minute and in terms of definition, every hair and goose bump is recorded. 

When it comes to speed, I can work faster than most but I leave the individual hairs and goose bumps to your imagination.  These paintings are the result of today’s trial session.  The first is Ryta, clocking in at 20mins from start to finish, and the second is Mindy, with a time of 15 minutes.  Or more precisely, each painting took 73 years!

The paintings may look small on your screen but they are quite large in terms of water colours (approximately 18" x 18") and painted with a No.14 brush.  Below are details from each painting.

Lyrical

Today’s picture is of Caneel Bay in the US Virgin Islands.  It dates from 1989 and marks a transition in my work.  Previously I was a painter of scenes whereas this water colour begins to express my feeling for the lyrical.  

From that date onwards my paintings became passionate love affairs.  As with such things of the heart, some stand the test of time better than others.  But this is one that I will never forget!

The Master Class

In the olden days (a term sufficiently vague for my purpose) painters, along with all other artisans, learnt their trade by serving an apprenticeship under an established master.  Sadly this system of teaching has been largely consigned to the history books.

On leaving school at the age of fifteen, I wanted to serve an apprenticeship with a master woodcarver in the next village.   However, in those days a career in woodcarving was not to be encouraged.  I had no option but to follow in my father’s footsteps and served a seven year apprenticeship in engineering.  Be that as it may, the values of an apprenticeship are the same whatever the trade.  I learnt my skill at the workbench and the men in overalls that taught me how to cut a screw thread, also instilled in me a love for poetry and music. 

This leads me to how we go about teaching a new generation of painters and master craftsmen in general.  We no longer have the wealth of masters that we had generations ago.  Degree courses are not the answer: skill comes from practice, not from theory.  I have never attended an art school, but fifty years ago I spent a year painting on the pavements of France and selling work to on-lookers direct from my sketch book.  That practice enabled me to begin earning a living from my art.

At the moment I am being begged to tutor a degree course in the visual arts.  More in my line are the life classes that I occasionally teach from my studio.  Or better still, send aspiring  painters out on the streets with a sketch book as their means of survival.

A hundred years from now

If a hundred years from now curators attempt to catalogue my work, I doubt that they will be able to accurately determine the background to many of my paintings and sketches. 

Today’s picture is a case in point.   It has been hidden away in a sketch book since the day it was created and it took me a while to recollect the following.

Date: February 1991. Place: Aboard my boat, rolling at anchor in the Virgin Islands. Weather Conditions: Blowing a gale. Subject: Gretel sleeping.  

I might add that when Gretel was not sleeping she was winning me hands down at dominoes. 

Body and Soul

For the first time my diary page contains not just one painting, but a video that contains an entire collection of paintings from my series “Daughters of the Caribbean Sun”. 

The contents of “Body and Soul” is both retrospective (as far back as 1992) and up to the minute (as recent as last week) in terms of present work.

With thanks to my daughter Tania for making this technically possible.

My audience

Twenty years ago you would have been hard pressed to familiarize yourself with my work.  You might have caught me out sketching or by visiting my studio.  Every now and then I would put on a one man show.  For the most part my activities were limited to the Caribbean.  I estimate that on average no more than a couple of people a day found me out.

All that changed in 1997 when I began posting diary pages on the internet.  The daily entries followed my work in progress.  My brother, who sat up each night updating the website, tells me that it can lay claim to being the world’s first blog!  Schools, colleges and individuals throughout the world began accessing the site – at one stage it could even claim royal patronage – and soon my daily audience increased immeasurably.

Now, with sophisticated blogger statistics, I can tell who, when and where is keeping an eye on my work.  The record number of visitors in one day is 320, and that’s 318 more than the couple of people who found me out in the old days.  To date “sculpturestudiodominica” has been regularly accessed in the following countries:

USA, UK, Ukraine, Philippines, Spain, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Algeria, India, Chile, Russia, China, Thailand, South Africa, Ghana, Sweden, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Slovenia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nepal, New Caledonia, Guernsey, Bangladesh, Australia, France, Belarus, Latvia, United Arab Emirates, Peru, Brazil, Norway, Vietnam,Turkey,
Belgian, Italy,Turkmenisyan, Japan, French Polynesia, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Honduras, Kenya, Germany, Malaysia, Panama, Bosnia & Herzegovina, ShiLanka, Hungary, Myanmar (Burma), Kazakhstan, Dominica and all of the Caribbean Islands.

By way of a painting I made in Ireland forty-three years ago, I thank each and every one of you for taking an interest in my work. 

Not my cup of tea

The Sunday Times Water Colour Competition is in its 28^th year.  Somewhere in the middle of its lifespan I viewed the exhibits first-hand.  Before and since I’ve had to make do with Google images.  Whichever way, the selected entries are not my cup of tea.

If ever there’s a painting medium that begs to be given freedom, it must surely be water colour. Instead the Sunday Times Water Colour Competition bores me to death with paintings that have been too carefully contrived.  Presumable runs and splashes are frowned upon and paintings of the nude appear to be a definite no-no. 

Having said that, my way of working with water colour is not every ones cup of tea.  As a young lad said when watching me paint, “My dad can do better than that!” 

Today’s picture is one that I painted of Jessica last year.  I apologise for it not being a photographic likeness and for not controlling the washes.  To quote another onlooker: “He’s made a mess of that!”

The relevance of a sketch from twenty years ago

The devastation caused to Dominica by tropical storm Erika, brings to mind the disaster suffered by the people of Montserrat when twenty years ago the Soufriere volcano erupted and destroyed the island’s capital city and left half the island uninhabitable.

Today’s picture is of a sketch I made for a sculpture to commemorate the event.  I cannot find the original but this low resolution copy gives an idea of what I had in mind.  The descriptive notes read as follows:

Father with arm around his wife leading the family to the future.

Mother with babe in arms and head resting on her husband’s shoulder.

Grandmother sat with possessions looking back to what they are leaving behind.

Child (son) tugging father forward.

Child (daughter) clinging to father’s legs.

It is a scene that has been repeated many times over in Dominica since the events of last Thursday.  

Tropical Storm Erika

From hundreds of images that record the devastation caused by tropical storm Erika I’ve chosen just one.  It shows yesterday’s evacuation of what was once the village of Petite Savane.  More than fallen bridges, wrecked cars and demolished houses, it sums up the sheer human tragedy of it all. 

On second thoughts

Before my attention is diverted from painting to storm recovery, let me update my entry, All in a day’s work, dated August 25th. 

From the very beginning of these diary pages, my intention has been to give an insight into the creative process, not so much in terms of how to mix one colour with another or how to fathom out perspective, but rather the successes and failures that are essentially part of creativity.  By its very nature, creativity is different to what has gone before.  Repetitive painting to a formula gets you nowhere.  Every painting must involve risk.  It has been said that a water colour cannot be right until it has gone wrong.  Creativity follows the same pattern.

In the heat of the moment I cannot judge whether I have succeeded or failed.  My last painting of Annabelle, thrown down minutes before the end of the session, satisfied me at the time.  But on second thoughts, I now realise that the painting that came before it ranks as the best of that day’s work.  Thank you Annabelle for bearing with me. 

I find that large paintings reduced to the size of a computer screen lose much of their impact, hence the detail.

Throwing down a thunderous wash

As a water colourist I pride myself on being able to thrown down a thunderous wash.  There’s nothing delicate and finicky about my way of painting.  Onlookers have learnt to stand back, as otherwise they get drenched in the process.

But two nights ago Mother Nature won me hands down.  Up to then, Dominica had experienced the longest drought in living memory.  But tropical storm Erika put an end that with a vengeance.  In six hours we experienced the rainfall that should have been spread over six months.  Every one of the island’s famed 365 rivers burst their banks.  Houses and bridges were swept away and hundreds of vehicles now lie buried beneath landslides.  Many roads remain impassable. To date, is the death toll is twenty. 

On a personal note, our biggest lose is the stretch of river that winds its way around our property.  With its gentle waterfalls, crystal clear bathing pools and lush tropical flora, it came as close to the Garden of Eden as you are likely to get this side of paradise.  Now, all has been swept away and we are left with a featureless boulder strewn watercourse.  I doubt if the river has seen such a change in the last two hundred years, let alone the last two thousand!

Today’s painting - made between rain squalls - shows the aftermath; a roaring torrent of mud.  The second painting shows the river as it was this time last year.

All in a day’s work

Somewhere in the letters to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh writes about an exhaustive day’s labour of balancing one colour against another.  I know the feeling all too well. 

This morning I worked with Marcella.  It was her first modelling session and she did extremely well.  In the afternoon I worked with Annabelle.  I’ve lost count of Annabelle’s sessions.  I first painted her three years ago but each time she visits the studio she brings a fresh approach to my work and dares me to reach new heights. 

Below is my first painting of Marcella and my most recent of Annabelle.  

Once again, these are large water colours, measuring 24" x 15". 

Below is a detail at the approximately actual size.

Awestruck

Shani is a Dominican who has distinguished herself in the field of ballet.  She first visited my studio seven years ago but her time overseas has meant that in recent years we lost touch.  Now she is home again and a week ago she telephoned out of interest in my search for models.  The upshot was that yesterday afternoon Shani came to my studio for her first modelling session. 

I have always envied the good fortune of Degas and Rodin in having ballet dances as models.  Now, from the next world, they must be envying me!

To begin with I suggested a relaxing reclining pose.  But for Shani reclining is out of character and towards the end of the session she suggested stretching exercises.  From that moment I was awestruck and challenged beyond anything in my fifty years of painting the figure.  I am now mentally preparing myself for our next session. 

In the meantime, here is my first five-minute sketch of Shani stretching for all she’s worth. 

Proving my point

Continuing from yesterday’s entry, today’s modelling session proves my point.  The first two paintings didn’t meet my expectations; I had tried too hard and labored too long.  But then, just as I was about to wash my brushes and put away my paints, my model paused to look at some press clippings.  Once again, it was the last five minute sketch that saved the day. 

Today was Tashani’s second modelling session.   She is now totally relaxed.  When my model is relaxed, I relax! 

The naked human form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.  (Auguste Rodin)

From start to finish

I work from the model for no longer than one and a half hours.  By the end of that time I am exhausted and my model has begun to wilt.  Not that I expect my models to hold a rigid pose.  In fact I encourage my models not to pose in the accepted sense of the word. 

The first painting in a session is usually the most formal; the second, seldom meets my expectations, but the third, usually done minutes before the end of a session is sometimes the best.

Here are the three paintings from yesterday’s session with Annabelle.  I tried to do credit to Annabelle in the first painting, especially as her sisters had come along watch.  The second painting didn’t work as well.  Then, just as we about to call it a day, Annabelle twisted herself around to massage her foot.  I yelled, stop…don’t move…hold it there…just give me five more minutes!  

Incidentally, for water colour, these are large paintings: 24" x 16".  Thank you Annabelle for your part in the creative process.

Termites have taste

Today’s picture shows all that remains of my LP: Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins.  On my record shelf there are lesser recordings, but termites have taste!

A P Herbert’s poem about another troublesome creature succinctly sums up my feelings.

Greenfly, it’s difficult to see

Why God, who made the rose, made thee.

Long ago I saw Duke Ellington in concert but alas, never got back-stage to sketch him.  Instead, from the Halifax Symphony Orchestra, here is an oboe player that I sketched from the wings.

A Model Society

There are times when I despair in my endevour to pay homage to the profound beauty of the nude and fear that my paintings and sculptures are in vain.  But this week my spirits were uplifted when I discovered a community of artists, models and photographers that passionately share my objective.   

Just when I thought to be alone in my respect and gratitude to models, I find that they too give credit to the model’s contribution to the creative process.  I quote from the first issue of their magazine:

The images within the pages of Model Society would not be possible without art models.  Art models give our work its soul.  They lend their hearts, their minds, their imaginations and their bodies to our cause.  Without the art models’ courage to be vulnerable, to allow their body and soul to be seen, the Model Society community – along with hundreds of years of art history – would simply not exist. 

You can freely access the magazine on their website: modelsociety.com

Once again I thank my models for enabling my work and I thank Model Society for giving me the courage to continue.

Today’s painting is from the series I made last year of my poetic muse Jessica.

Patron of the Arts

Today’s painting is one a series of thirty-two large (20in x 30in) water colours commissioned by Richard DeVos in the 1990’s.  At the time he was one of the ten wealthiest Americans and the owner of Peter Island, in the British Virgin Islands.  Had I lived two hundred years ago the King of Spain may have been my patron.  In my time it was the manufacturer of toiletries!  

Be that as it may, I was given absolute freedom to paint whatever took my fancy, providing my fancy didn’t stray beyond the bounds of his property. The series contained some of my best Caribbean seascapes. 

The painting shows two people on a remote beach.  Or should I say the suggestion of two people, as shown in the detail.  

Faint heart never won fair lady

Or more to the point, a faint heart would never have found models for my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun.

My search is not for professional models but real people between the age of eighteen and eighty.  I have found them carrying bananas down the steep hillsides of St Vincent, bathing in the rivers, selling mangoes by the roadside or passing me in the street.  I met Denise, my wife and model for twenty-three years, in the queue at Barclay’s Bank.  All I ask of my models – after I have plucked up courage to approach them - is that they do not disguise their natural appearance in preference to a foreign concept of beauty. 

How much easier it was in Paris in the 1880’s.  In those days there was a weekly model market and statistics reveal that a total of 671 models were professionally employed.  At least in Dominica I have the field to myself.

My search continues and I ask my regular readers on Dominica to pass the word. 

Today’s painting is my most recent of Naomi.  She is an inspired model who came to my studio and into modelling, quite by chance. 

On a cloud

Works on paper are often rejected by buyers because of their supposed impermanence. 

Having trusted my life’s work to every type of paper - from cheap news-print to the finest all-rag - I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the most permanent materials known to man.  My water colours have survived storms at sea and hurricanes on land.   After forty years they are still intact, which is more than can be said of my files on celluloid and the contents of my hard-drives.  For safe keeping, my daughter claims to have put the contents of my present hard-drive “on a cloud”.  Sixty years ago, the comedian Bob Newhart would have had a heyday with that one!

Nevertheless, when a painting finds a buyer, the only means by which I can keep a record is by way of the camera.  In my early days it was a 1930’s large format bellows, then a Kodak 35mm and now, a miniature digital Cannon. 

Yesterday, I came across a CD upon which, years ago, I had copied some rapidly deteriorating colour slides.  And lo and behold, upon it were some paintings that I had almost forgotten about. 

Sometimes, after a gap of twenty-odd years, I hardly recognize my own work.  For second it takes me by surprise and I am tempted to say, I wish I’d painted that!   Now it all comes back to me and I remember that I had only a few minutes between tropical downpours to capture this street scene on Grenada.  I trust the original is still intact upon someone’s wall.

With the benefit of hindsight

I have learnt not to labour over a painting once the original intention has been lost.  Better to put it aside and start afresh.  I have also learnt to resist destroying work that, at the time, I perceive to be a failure.   With the benefit of hindsight, a rejected painting is sometimes found to have merit. 

More often than not, the initial dissatisfaction is due to the impossibility of capturing the full force of nature.  That which I put down on paper appears to be but a shadow of the real thing.  It is only when viewed after time and distance have detached it from reality, that some vestige of reality is seen to remain.

From past portfolios I have found two unfinished paintings that illustrate my point.  The first was painted in Bermuda twenty-three years ago.  At the time my dissatisfaction was such that I used it as packing when sending other – and what I now consider to be inferior – paintings to an exhibition.  If you look closely, you will see that I have scribbled across it the words, packing: please destroy.  Luckily, no one did!

The second painting was made on a brief visit to the South of France.  I remember feeling at the time that I was not capturing the colour and vibrancy of the scene before me.  Now, with the benefit of fifteen years of hindsight, I regret that I cast it aside unfinished.  But perhaps it says more in its unfinished state than if I had finished it.