South Africa / Watercolor

As some readers may know, I am in South Africa visiting family and doing a bit of portrait painting. I'm here with my wife and children--it's a great adventure. I have fond memories of visiting people and places here when I was a child, and though it's rather different to be here as an adult (and a parent), it is still a magical place to be.
Last week, after over 24 hours of travel, including a 17 hour flight originating from Dulles airtport and via Dakar, we arrived in Cape Town; though weary for sure, all in all, we were in good spirits. We caught our breath and caught up with some relatives before quickly making our way to Hermanus, a lovely and peaceful seaside town about an hour and half's drive on the eastern (Indian Ocean side) coast. It didn't take me long to regret not having my oil paints with me so I bought a small travel watercolor kit on our first day here and have been enjoying challenging myself with the medium.  I'd like to think that I'm following in the tradition of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, but truly I've got a long way to go before achieving anything that resembles mastery of the medium. Nonetheless, I'll post a few of my efforts in order to share a glimpse of the stunning scenery:

Updated Expats

Expats

Untitled Triptych, oil on linen 30 x 86 inches

This photo of the painting is from a couple of weeks ago. Things are significantly further along now, and though I swear I took a photo of its current state, I can't seem to locate it.  The depicted frame is a mock-up that I did for my friend and framemaker, Hugh Williams, who is now in the midst of building the actual frame. The working title for the piece is Expatriates. 

Dad

Graeme C. Baker, 1938 - 2011

The last month has been an emotional roller coaster.  In spite of my success in the painting world, my father's rapidly declining health and ultimately his death hovered over most days. When his final day came it was merciful;  nonetheless we are heartbroken and will miss him terribly.  

The high to balance the low was my exhibition at Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland. Jake and Mary did a super job hosting the event. Thank you to good friends Davis and Alyssa Taylor  as well as Mandy Schumaker and Ted O'Meara for making the trip to Mid-Coast and showing support. Some of my favorite pieces are off to excellent collections across the country. I had a chance to meet some of the collectors and was charmed by many, but especially the fabulous photographer Cig Harvey and her husband, filmmaker Doug Stradley; Kaja and Cali Veilleux; and the Barkers from Nashville.

I have posted many of the paintings that were in the exhibition, and though they are on the DW site, this one in particular is a favorite that I hadn't yet posted:

 Summer Selkies,  oil on linen mounted on panel, 24 x 40 inches

And looking ahead: I've been working on another triptych. Though the painting is quite far along, I've struggled to carve out the time to bring it to a close. It totals 8 feet in width and contains some passages that I've very pleased with.  I'll snap an in-progress shot this weekend and post it on Monday.

D

Letting Go

 Here comes a long post:

 As I have been preparing for an exhibition at Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, Maine, there's been a lot of scurrying around finishing paintings and frames. I've been working long hours lately, in part thanks to Hancock County and jury duty, but also, I must admit, because there's nothing like a deadline to get me in a panic. One of the more frustrating moments came at 10:00PM the other night when the motor on my HVLP spray system for painting frames started spewing smoke. It has done great service for the past 8+ years so I can't really complain. The timing could have been better, but I guess it had to go sometime.  So, I'm now the proud owner of a 20 gallon compressor and a super swwwanky spray gun. I feel as if I've graduated to a new level of tool ownership. (So anyone who needs their car tires topped up in 2 seconds just come on over.)

...and on to Letting Go: 

I am often asked where I come up with the idea for a painting, or what a painting is about. Here is a good illustration of how a painting can change dramatically from one moment to the next and how it's really just a record of my thought processes during the many hours that I spend at the easel with the painting.

I began a painting a few weeks ago whose central element was a figure contemplatively sitting in the corner of our much painted couch. (The sketch can be seen here, above.) As I was looking at the old photos from the session with the model, I noticed that our departed dog, Ceilidh, was also on the couch. Ceilidh was also known as "the insinuator" for his inimitable ability to squeeze himself up against or in between us as we sat on the couch...and he insinuated himself once more.  The painting was well underway, with the figure almost finished, when the Ceilidh part of the painting began to take over.  I then had a moment when I missed him terribly and realized that this painting was becoming more about Ceilidh and less about a contemplative figure. So I taped a piece of paper over the figure and used pastels to quickly draw in the empty couch and a few objects.  Letting go of the almost finished figure was a very difficult decision. My friend, the writer Jo Curry, once advised that in order to make dispassionate decisions about the quality of a piece, one must "murder your darlings" (or something to that effect); essentially saying that the passages that are most precious must be scrutinized with the same critical eye as the rest of the piece. 

I replaced the figure with coffee can phones; and I think the painting is much the better for it. The painting now touches on my deep sadness at the loss of Ceilidh. The coffee can phone comes from lyrics from the beautiful Crooked Still song "You Were Gone". I've been mulling over the song's imagery for a while; the despair of trying to connect using a can to hear more clearly really struck me. 

       Here are two images of the piece--the first taken just after I started to rub out the figure, and the second of the completed piece. (One may also note how the snowflakes on the ground are in different positions. In the early stages, they are indicated with chalk--a common practice of mine as I consider still life elements in a painting such as this.)

"Eleventh Winter", (in progress)

"Eleventh Winter", oil on linen mounted on panel, 17 x 25.5 inches

Out the Door

 Shoulder Season, 18 x 26 inches

Here's a small group of paintings that is heading out the door today to go to Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth, Maine. Along with "Vacationland" and "Frequency", they are my contribution to a group exhibition that also features work by Doug Martenson, David Vickery, Alison Rector and Simon Parkes. The solo artists for this round are Tom Curry and Colin Page. All in all it should be a very strong show of Maine painting. I look forward to catching up with everybody at the opening reception on Wednesday.

Figure Study, 14 x 11 inches

Study of SB for "Vacationland", 15.5 x 17 inches

Field (Hancock, Maine), 9 x 12 inches

Pansies, 6.5 x 7 inches

Finishing up a painting, especially a big one, sometimes drags on for quite a while. Add to my usual difficulty putting a piece to rest, a stint at jury duty and all the business of summer in Maine and....well, you get the idea. I'm just now finishing the piece for which I did that the greenish study of my son from my last post. I did stick to a very limited palette, though I did not paint over a greenish tinted ground color. (Though I do have another painting on the docket that will hopefully explore the gray/greens more fully). There have been times with this limited palette that I've been about to scream; for example, there's no blue pigment, so the best I can do is mix violet with chrome green and bit of white. It's surprising how blue that mixture actually looks, but I've had to be very strict about not just squeezing out a bit of cobalt blue. If I were to open up the blue range of tones within this already tightly controled color arrangement, the whole painting would crash.

This painting has been more of a narrative meander than I usually allow myself. The initial idea was based on the feeling that this winter had been endless.  I had envisioned one of my sons cutting out paper snowflakes and covering the floor and the model?/babysitter?/mother? with them.  Life intervened, and so one afternoon a few weeks ago I was busy making a wizard hat for my younger son, when I knew I just had to put him and the hat in the painting.  Corin can occasionally be a very inspired, obsessive organizer, so when I suggested that he bring some of his toys to sit with him while he posed, he brought all his stuffed animals and a huge pile of other things along. He arranged his animals (aka the Codys) such that they looked like a mini-audience for whatever was going on --which seemed about perfect to me.
The painting is just about done and the frame is in progress. I don't have a title yet, but here's a 98% finished view.....

36 x 48 inches, oil on linen