About the art: another piece emerging over top of a prior painting. Keeping to a limited palette and using mostly rubber wedge and palette knife and fingers, trying to capture mood and emotion. Resisting the urge to overly define her garment or the background, allowing the paint to move and suggest.
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Art is visual storytelling. Each painting has something to say, or to hide, or to shine a light upon. These stories emerge from within - the stories the painter tells herself. Whoa. I find myself examining those inner stories recently. The brain is a powerful tool, and the thoughts we think are mighty. Artists are notoriously riddled with self doubt, imposter syndrome, criticism and anxiety about their work, their talents, their value and contribution to society. I've got plenty of that. But if I see those thoughts, observe them and then ask myself what if I think THIS (or THAT) instead, they lose a bit of power and free up a space for bold adventuring without hesitation. As this year begins to wane, I find myself asking what if I paint over everything and begin again? What does that story look like? And my brilliant husband, an extraordinary and insightful artist, reminds me there is beauty in destruction, too. So I begin, painting over, building the new on top of the ashes of the old, freeing space for bold adventuring. Oh, oh, oh. Here we go. About the art: a board covered in black gesso, with multiple sketches and value studies on top. None of them were just right. So I grabbed the rubber wedge, the oil paint, the chopsticks and let the cosmos begin to reorder itself right in front of my eyes. My first real grid composition - something I told myself I would not like. And then I did. Oh.
And so, though here in the studio I'm still exploring galaxies and worlds beyond, a momentary dive into portraiture and wistfulness seemed like just the thing. She's a sweet spirit. And she's got her eye on a spaceman emerging on a canvas across the room...:) About the art: beginning with a linen canvas and white gesso. Using an notanized photograph as a jumping off point and gently sketching a portrait with colored pencil. Limiting myself to a color palette from a random floral painting in oils that I found online (turning it upside down to focus on the color inspiration, not the image) I placed light washes of darks with a rubber wedge, leaving lights for last. Blending with brushes, fingers and paper towels. Slowly adding thicker layers, then finishing her garb with a palette knife.
Artists!
A newsletter from Andrew Simonet dropped into my in-box today, just as I was contemplating the business of art. This quote resonated with me, and I thought you might like it, too. "Insufficient branding is not what makes an artist's life hard. Know why it's hard? Because artists do essential, arduous work that fuels everything in our culture, and we are consistently under acknowledged, under respected, and under compensated. That's why it's goddamn hard. Artists are not screwing this up. Artists are doing heroic work under intolerable conditions. This world extracts our creations and insights and abandons us economically." For all of you out there creating, you are DOING HEROIC WORK! I see you. You look mahhhhhvelous. xo
A recent step (leap, plunge) into a SF series by Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, brought to light all the nakedness of emotion and being seen to experience emotion by others. Murderbot (what the bot named itself), is decidedly an antisocial introvert riddled with anxiety. Uncomfortable with eye contact, touch and experiencing emotion. It self-soothes with binge-watching media. But it is well able to navigate space travel and battle and pulse weapons. “I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can't just stop.” ― Martha Wells, Rogue Protocol Murderbot's dry humor is in my head now. And apparently influencing the art. About the art: beginning with a black gesso'd cradled wood panel and roughly sketching a figure. For this piece, I used as inspiration a pose from a classical painting from centuries ago, Using a palette knife, a small rubber wedge and a paper towel, slowly adding layers of oil paint in a limited number of colors. Resisting the urge to overly define. Using a paper towel to soften some areas, and allowing the knife to leave sharp edges in others.
I am now determined to add a space helmet to my wardrobe. :)
In the studio, I am stymied by too much inspiration.
And so I begin in the way that I know best - showing up, letting paint move and following the trail it leaves. Rubber wedge and paper towel, fingers, chopstick and brush. While immersed in the wander of this luscious oil painting, ideas began to take root. A sketch of the next piece appears on the easel. The mind eases back into where my feet are standing now. Home.
And, of course, we will be witnessing and photographing all the beauty we can grab - fodder for future paintings and creative endeavors that haven't yet been imagined.
On the easel, just completed, this selfie-inspired portrait (what to do when you've run out of inspirational models!) in oils. Underneath the portrait is a full failure of a painting, which became a lovely base of texture to keep things from becoming too precious. Beginning with a notanized photograph, I roughed in a sketch in blue oil pastel. Then a liquin-thinned wash of white mixed with ivory, grabbing the blue pastel edges and thinning it all into the beginnings of flesh-tones. The requisite 80 million layers of paint, this time with a very small brush (usually I opt for something large to keep things loose). The small brush allows some natural mottling and texture. The hair was roughed in with a rubber brayer, some chopsticks and the occasional shirt-sleeve (unintended) The last painting of summer. And now....fall!
Have you ever completed an impossible task? Overcome the un-overcomeable? Done the thing you didn't believe you could do? I'll bet you have. I think we all have bone dogs in our lives - a symbol of our own tenacity, resilience and determination. With perhaps a little magic, serendipity and the love, support and encouragement of others. When I think of the things I have done that I didn't believe I could do, I feel a little sparkle. And so this piece - a dog made of bones - a talisman for the impossible. Which we know, you and I, is sometimes very possible, likely, probable and done. About the art: beginning with a thickly gesso'd wood panel and an oil pastel sketch of a dog skeleton. Adding the requisite 80 million layers of oil paint. Coming over the entire skeleton with thick lime green paint, then scraping away, leaving deposits in the bones. Adding back the details, allowing paint thinned with Gamsol to run down the piece. Adding a light pink sky in a thin wash with a rubber brayer.
Somewhere in this odd couple of pandemic years, we began reading aloud each afternoon. A bowl of popcorn, a couple of popcorn-hungry pooches and two humans transported by words to places far, far away. The places, the stories, the juicy descriptions and words - oh the words! Words to look up, savor and roll around the tongue. Words to contemplate and share and deliciously place into sentences. Words to forget as aging brains leak a portion of what we glean every day. And this lovely ritual contains both learning and loving - Clarke's formula for happiness. It also leaves two artists with brains stuffed full of adventure, creatures, planets, people, conundrums and endings. It cannot help but spill over into the art. About the art - using oil paint palettes still wet from prior pieces and inverting them over a wood panel. Sliding, scraping, blotting, moving the palette against the wood until the wet paint has transferred. Finding shapes and worlds within the paint and jumping off from that place using only rubber wedge, soft cloth, fingers and chopsticks.
At first it's difficult to draw a hare that is anything but sweetness. But now I admit to being a wee bit obsessed with the creepiness of these creatures, and find myself sneaking up on this painting after dark, just to be slightly startled and delighted. More to come along this path, I think. Just so we don't encounter him on an actual path. :) About the art: beginning with a wood panel gesso'd thickly and with random texture. Initial sketch in oil crayon over the gesso. Slowly layering thinned oil paint and allowing the underpainting to dry thoroughly. Applying then a thick layer of varying blues over the rabbit and dragging the paint with rubber wedge and squeegee. Allowing liquin and paint-soaked brushes to leave trails through the drying paint, then adding back a few details. Check out a process video at Instagram.com/jenjovanart
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AuthorLola Jovan 
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January 2023
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