Oil Painting – Woebegone Art

Last call for paintings

Work in progress: "Tethered," an oil painting featuring a frog balloon and a guinea fowl — Work in progress: “Tethered,” an oil painting featuring a frog balloon and a guinea fowl

I am in the final stretch for finishing paintings to show at the upcoming Festival of the Arts. Although there are still a few weeks until show time, oil painting has its own schedule.

I paint with lots of layers of very thinly-applied color. Each layer requires proper drying time, so that the paint can coalesce and not create gummy or sticky patches. Normally, drying time is not a problem, but up against a deadline I’m counting how many layers I can apply and still make the window. In addition to drying between layers, the finished piece will need to be dry enough to frame, a process which then has its own timeline (two weeks for custom frames).

Luckily, I’ve finished most of the pieces I want to show, including one I just wrapped up yesterday. But the vision that came to me last and strongest I’m still working on. Fingers crossed.

Paintings in progress

Every day, I’m joyfully daubing paint in my studio. So much so, that I have little time to type today. Instead, I’m going to share some paintings I’m currently working on.

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This painting I’m calling “Envy”.” It features the color green, as in green zinnias and a green ladybug. There is some nefarious exchange happening, and I can’t yet tell who is the seducer and who is the seducee, but something is afoot.

13184607_1036764653080025_1574424419_o I just finished this painting, entitled “Promises.” It features a non-plussed monkey in party frock and strewn irises. I keep painting monkeys despite them being a little difficult to portray; the wrong slip of the brush can go silly or cro-magnum. I’m very pleased with how she came out.

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This is the newest painting I’ve undertaken. It’s a long panel, with a semi-abstract background and a guinea fowl with a balloon in the foreground. In the balloon I’m going to depict a blue frog, which in my work has always stood for death/change. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to finish this in time to show at the Festival in June.

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With this piece, I wanted to explore different textures and how they could relate together: depth, the long, sinuous lines of the back leap, the furry continuity of the caterpillar. I like the implied movement happening here. This piece needs a lot of build up to achieve the depths I’m looking for.

13161338_1036765506413273_663393118_o This painting of two very different types of birds communicating had been set aside in favor of commissioned pieces. At some point I had lost the vision for this as a result, but it is coming back to me now. I’m going to be taking it up again this week with renewed fervor. Some of my best pieces have had breaks in the middle, and I’m hoping this results in a strong finish.

Consumption

I had my first solo show in Portland in 2012. It took me a year to prepare for it, and 4 years to be ready to show again.

I think many artists live to show their work, but I am not one of them. For me, it’s an exercise into being excised, showing too much, shrinking from exposure. Which is really too bad, because I do think my dolls have to be seen and handled to be truly experienced; and oil paintings get flattened by photography when in life they change based on the light and one’s perspective, shifting to reflect your view.

The support and encouragement gleaned from showing one’s work is invaluable. I always get such positive interaction and affirmation for my artist’s voice. It’s just me: I’m introverted, and I’m weird, and I’m shy. Sharing my work daily through social media has helped me to stretch, I think. I hope that showing in public won’t be such a trek through the Himalayas for me this time.

I have exactly two months to work it out. Ironically, I do find myself consumed with the notion of showing again. But I am proud of my work, and sit certain I will likewise make myself proud with the showing.

Spring

REFLECTION | 2014 | oil on small canvas — REFLECTION |
2014 |
oil on small canvas

Today is the first day of Spring, but in the Portland area it arrived early: yesterday the weather was comfortably in the 60s with lush sunshine and lazy clouds overhead.

Of course, today we woke up to nothing but rain. It is Portland, after all.

But a week of extended daylight hours and the assurance of warmer weather ahead has seemed to soothe frayed nerves like a miracle tonic, and the world appears filled with flowers and a vulnerable optimism. I’ve been taking advantage of the time by spending even more time in my studio. And by painting flowers.

In Springs past over the last few years, I find myself drawn towards depicting the little, quiet things: insects, birds, flowers. As the world begins to come out of an internal hibernation, they often seem to usher in a more subdued, yet infectious jubilation. I watch them, and enjoy the grace in their unfolding: the quiet elegance of their reveal.

Work in progress: oil painting of poppies (first session), March 2016

(All except mice. Mice and rats skeeve me the hell out.)

I’ve started a new painting of poppies that will grow to encompass a spotted towhee bird, modeled after one who visits me just outside my studio window. And I feel like I may have to revisit caterpillars in my work, as caterpillars seem to me such busy, jolly emissaries of the hope of transformation, and the promise of Spring.

But as I mentioned, it’s raining outside this morning. Luckily, rainy days are perfect days to paint.

Remembrance

STILL | 2004 | oil on canvas, 24" x 20" — STILL |
2004 |
oil on canvas, 24″ x 20″

Enid was the first dog I’ve ever lost.

She was my Boston Terrier, the matriarch: a little General, my love, and my first model. When we had to say goodbye to her (after a great but much, much too short life, age 14) I couldn’t bear to look at her photographs. The pain was too sharp, and would make me catch my breath or dissolve. But her art I was drawn to. I found solace and comfortable release in the more abstract feel of her, and I could recount the little bits that comprised what made her whole: her thick neck, the arch of her back, the exact color brown in her eyes, and her crooked teeth. Her artistic essence was my salvation.

OLIVER | 2014 | oil on canvas, 12' x 12' — OLIVER |
2014 |
oil on canvas, 12′ x 12′

Since then, it’s been my great honor to be called upon to create remembrance portraits for others. I try very hard to understand what made the subject truly them, and endeavor to include tiny sips of their life into their portrait. I hope that I’m successful.

If I could ease someone’s grief the slightest bit, then I’d be happy. If I could paint a safe harbor to grieve more comfortably, and if — eventually — that space could give way to a sigh or even a slight smile of remembrance, then I could ask for nothing more. Art is very powerful, but I think in no way moreso than to relieve suffering. I will always be thankful for the opportunity to act as emissary to the grieving, and attempt to build a bridge between worlds.

Facing the jury

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I am currently under scrutiny.

And the ironic thing is that I asked to be so. I have entered my dolls and oil paintings for consideration of entry into a prestigious local art festival. My application and portfolio is currently under jury review.

Applying for entry to this fine art festival has long been a goal of mine. My family is regularly in attendance, and I’ve always admired the outstanding art on display (and the artists brave enough to ambassador their work). And I would wonder, “Could I ever…?”

I am not a social person. I vastly prefer the sanctity of my insulated art studio to the chaotic world outside my window. And I have a hard time discussing my artwork: because I feel like I communicate honestly and sincerely through my work, it’s a difficult process to translate that in person; it oftentimes leaves me feeling bruised and vulnerable.

Plus I have a great fear of rejection. Perhaps the jury will think my work is not the right fit. Or, if I do get in, maybe no one will like my work. Maybe if I attempt to discuss my inspiration, a hole will open up in the ground and I will gratefully and graciously fall through it into realms unknown.

I mean, who knows. Anything can happen, and it can hurt (or not). But I took the important, brave, first step of putting it out there. I am willing to be scrutinized. I will stand with my art. I can face rejection. I dare to expose my neck.

I told myself I wouldn’t enter until I could accept a “no” without derailment. I’m proud that I was ready. And so I wait. But I hope it’s a “yes.”

Drawing it real

I was a lucky little girl, in that my mom regularly read to us children at night. It was a comforting routine in a largely uncomfortable world. One story that was very special to me resided in a children’s compendium of stories, so I can’t recall the exact title. I’ve come to discover that it’s an oft-told tale, but at the time it was like a rare jewel in its truth and its magnitude. It was the story of a little girl with a magic pencil.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the story, but I remember the basics: a lonely little girl comes to own a pencil that she discovers is magic, because what she draws becomes real. The downside is that every time she draws the pencil becomes less, but in her hands is the ability to create worlds.

When you’re a child and at the mercy of circumstance and institution, such a notion immediately enters the realm of fairy tale. But I recognized the truth of it.

BABY STEER COWBOY | 2016 — BABY STEER COWBOY |
2016

Since that time, I will often attempt to harness my best intent into my art, drawing it real. I’ve had good results, though some scenarios take longer to others to solidify. Still, it’s a fun process.

Currently we are working towards the goal of acquiring some acreage and our own homestead, far and away from the thrum of city life. I know we will get there. In the meantime, this future is being reflected in the art I create, as I try to connect potential and probability.

Devotion

It’s Valentine’s Day as I type this.

On a day when the world-at-large celebrates being in love, I found myself wondering how that translates to my art. But like with other artists and self-portraits, my work tends to veer off more traditional paths.

‘Devotion (2011)’ is a painting in which I tried to explore the notion of loving someone or something that is not — by nature — capable of loving back in a reciprocal fashion.

Five years later, and I’m still exploring alien love.

COSSET | 2016 | oil on canvas, 10" x 8" — COSSET |
2016 |
oil on canvas, 10″ x 8″

This week, I just finished an oil painting that I’ve titled ‘Cosset (2016).’ In it, a fancy goldfish floats on air towards a feathery mum, whose petals attempt to communicate an urgency with the fish. the language of the petals and the fins are mirrored in the soft colors of each. But what they are broadcasting I couldn’t say.

As close as I’ve come to self portrait

Jean Alphonse Roehn - Portrait of an Artist Painting Her Self Portrait — Jean Alphonse Roehn – Portrait of an Artist Painting Her Self Portrait

I understand that the self portrait is of utmost importance to the artist, but I’ve never done one.

I am one of those people who don’t like to go into salons for hair care, due to the imposed position of staring at oneself, transfixed: a captive audience to self criticism. The notion of combining this agony with my love of painting does not sit with me, no matter the constructive objective. I’d much rather daub in a monkey in my place.

But still, one of my paintings comes pretty close.

Original concept sketch for Soothsaying, from my art journal

It started, as many of my paintings do, with an image that wouldn’t leave my mind. I saw a doll holding an oversize fortune-telling fish, which was broadcasting her impending challenges: change, isolation, transformation. It was a distinct but imperceptible vision, almost like how the sun becomes imprinted on the back of your eye for a while if you stare at it for long enough. I captured it in my art journal so I wouldn’t lose it.

When I was able to put it onto canvas, the scene had grown and become more clear. It grew to include cala lillies, a striped bumblebee, and a landscape littered with symbolism. Not unexpected for me: as I paint, sometimes the development takes on a life of its own, seemingly out of my hands. What did seem odd was, upon completion, how many people — even strangers — remarked that the doll looked like me.

SOOTHSAYING | 2011 | oil on canvas, 25" x 25" — SOOTHSAYING |
2011 |
oil on canvas, 25″ x 25″

It’s an interesting process: when you paint honestly, your life can bleed into your work. It wasn’t intentional, but there it is. “Soothsaying” is accidentally the closest I’ve come to a self portrait.

Sineater

I find the concept of the sin-eater to be of great comfort.

A depiction of Tlazoteotl, styled as in the Codex Borgia manuscript.

According to Aztec mythology, Tlazoteotl acted as sin-eater to her people. By consumption of their sins, she absolved one of their mortal misdeeds, allowing them to transcend this mortal coil pure and unblemished into the next realm.

These are the things I think about: at what cost would this be to Tlazoteotl? Would the sin accumulate; would it be a heavy burden? Would it carry a strong distaste? Or would the legacy of the deeds — apart and away from the presumed guilt and purported shame — convey only the delicious taste of unbridled free will?

SINEATER | 2016 | oil on canvas, 7" x 5" — SINEATER |
2016 |
oil on canvas, 7″ x 5″

As part of an exploration of this theme, I painted Tlazoteotl as a corpulent rabbit, gorging on sin portrayed as forget-me-not flowers; her eye shines with an wild intelligence. This is a small canvas, 7″ x 5″, but I think it’s effective in its space.

It’s a theme I look forward to diving into more in the coming year.