The canvas is 36 by 48 inches. The last one was 30 by 40. Doesn't sound that much bigger but somehow it feels much bigger. Maybe because at this size it barely fits on the easel and in the studio. And it's more noticeably awkward to maneuver around.
About the studio: It was once upon a time (under a previous owner) one large bedroom in what was a four bedroom house. This room at some point got subdivided and a wall put in creating two smaller rooms each about 10 by 14 feet. More or less. (So it's now a five bedroom house for this couple who have no kids living at home.)
How I use the space: I use it messy. Just ask my wife. I am Mister Piggy with a capital P. She is Missus Floor Scrubber. All caps.
The first room has a computer and old printer's case. There are built-into-the-wall bookshelves here on either side of the window which is over the radiator where I assemble many of my seashell still life arrangements. The second of these subdivided smaller rooms is where I paint and store the most recent two or three dozen paintings I've done. The rest are in the basement. (It's an essentially dry basement with a linoleum floor.)
Anyway, there is something appealing to me about painting these little seashells on a scale much larger than life. Reference photo above. And, yes, as a matter of fact I do like the back-lit look of these still life arrangements.
Do I use photography and projection to paint my pictures? Yes. So did Thomas Eakins and if it was good enough for Eakins, it's good enough for me. Actually, the sum total of the degree to which I use any sort of projection is here in charcoal on the canvas, and that does not include the horizontal and vertical lines which I drew in with a straight edge.
But you might be surprised at what a hot button issue this stuff is to traditional painters. Just mention David Hockney's book, "Secret Knowledge" now a number of years old. Mention it to artists who work in traditional representational modes and see what varied reactions you get. Be prepared to hear some long harangues.
Personally, using a photograph and a projection device is no big deal. And this was Hockney's point: it's just a tool.
Almost every artist, if he or she lives long enough, will be using an optical device to aid in rendering a picture anyway. But nobody gets upset that I wear glasses, so why should anyone get upset that I have used a projector to quickly scope out some large-scale proportions.
As Hockney points out, a projector doesn't make the brush strokes.
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2 comments:
Leave it to your math teaching son to to swoop in with reasoning...
Why does 36 x 48 feel much bigger than 30 x 40? Because it is! You've increased the area you're filling by nearly 50%!
How, you say? The calculation is simple, 30x40 = 1200 sq. inches, while 36x48 = 1728. But the numbers just show you that it's bigger, not why.
Here's why: Take the dimension increases one at a time. Frist let's take the 30x40 and increase the length to 48. we've added 8 inches times, the 30 inch width. To keep the numbers managable and perhaps visualizable (is that a word? Who cares, I teach math not english) let's think of it in feet. We added 2/3 of a foot in length times the 2.5 foot width. That's nearly 2 square feet of extra area (one and two thirds swuare feet to be precise).
Now we take the 30x48 intermediate canvas we created and increase the width to 36 inches. We just added a half a foot in width times 4 feet of length for another 2 square feet of area. That's almost 4 square feet of area added to a canvas that was a bit more than 8 square feet to start.
Another way to look at it is with percentages. Both dimensions were increased by 20% (more precisely, they are now 120% of what they used to be). Since area is the product of the 2 dimensions, the new area is 144% of the old area (120% times 120%).
By the way, I love this line: "there is something appealing to me about painting these little seashells". You don't say!
Apologies to the artsy-creative types that I just put to sleep with my mathematics lecture. On the upside, this'll bring in the much coveted logically oriented demographic.
It's ok... I believed you in the first 'graph.
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