Article -"Paint Evocative Nocturnes", by Michael Chesley Johnson

'Palmetto Island by Night' - oil - 16x20 © Marc R. Hanson '08

I want to tell you about an online article in The Artist Magazine, 'Painting Evocative Nocturnes' written by artist/writer, Michael Chesley Johnson. The feature is only in the online magazine, the title above links to it. He interviewed four of us who paint nocturnes fairly often, Douglas Morgan of California, Cody DeLong of Arizona, Yours truly and Brian Stewart, also of Minnesota.

It's a very good article and worth the jog over there to see what we all talked about. Thank you Michael.

The sun did come out...briefly... today.

'November Coming' - gouache on paper - 4.5x6.5 © Marc R. Hanson '08

So I grabbed the gouache bag and truck and painted one little study. It became too dark to try for two, too bad. I used this medium because I am just not ready to put on the cold weather clothes just yet. Sitting in the truck with a radio, coffee and heat on the feet, is where I was today.
I started doing this in the car last winter and then didn't keep it up. It's a method of last resort, a way to keep painting when you don't feel like being in the elements. I need to remind myself to stay with this... because it's fun! ;)

Where's the sun!?

'Sun Block' - oil on linen - 8x10

We haven't seen it for awhile now. That's just an excuse to post a little painting that I did a few years ago called 'Sun Block'. Wish I needed some right now.

This was a painting that was a bit of an experiment for me. I had been on the Upper Mississippi River painting a 24x30 plein air piece for an upcoming show that was opened in 2005. I had some new lead white paint and some of a very nice double lead primed linen called RIX, a Frederix product. My idea was to paint some of the drama I had been witnessing while painting the 24x30 over the period of a couple of long days out. But I wanted that old, turn of the (20th)century look, the 'sublime' idea of the Hudson River school painters. So I limited my palette to Alizarin Crimson, Transparent Oxide Red, Cad Yellow Deep (Rembrandt), Ultramarine Deep (Rembrandt) and Great White Flake White (Studio Products, Cenninni), an absolutely wonderful flake white to work with. The entire painting was kept transparent as long as possible ( photo taken back when my camera and my digital photo taking knowledge was minimal at best so the transparency doesn't show well here) with only the lights, using a heavy application of the flake white, being opaque. It became a very emotional painting for me and led to several other pieces that ended up in the show. They all sold. :) A very sweet lady who worked at the art school where I was doing some teaching and the show was held, purchased this one. She cried, it affected her that way. It is so cool that we are able to bring about that kind of emotion in people. I've made people cry, believe me, but to make them cry because they're affected by what you've done in a positive way, not in a negative way (high school coaches...) cannot be measured on the 'I'm lucky' scales.
So that's my morning mix of 'procrastination' prose. :)

Tagged!

Let's see if I get this 'tagged' thing right...? First, Sharon Wright did the deed, so here she is! First obligation fulfilled.
Second obligation...7 unusual things about myself. Hmmmmmm.... let's try this out. I'll start with the early years.

1- I was born in a place called 'Oxnard', at Port Hueneme (correction....not a Seal base, a Sea Bee station. I was only 0 yrs old then. Can't be expected to remember everything). How's that for a start to life. Following that at six weeks old, I was moved to Fairbanks, AK via ferry and the AlCan highway most of which was gravel at the time...it was cold, I remember that! ;-)

2- I was part of the first Boy Scout troop to achieve the '50 miler' badge on skis while living in Norway. At the same time, our troop leaders (some ex British paratroopers), took us over a mountain range that had not been traversed before... in the middle of a raging blizzard. I don't think that they knew it was there, frankly.

3- While at summer camp in Norway, the camp of Olaf Reed Olsen (a Norwegian undergroud hero from WWll), I sank two miles off shore in a small sailboat during a raging storm. The boat was overloaded with boys and we could not be picked up by boat so had to swim to shore. We also learned to like fish balls, and a combination of sardines/gjeitost (goat cheese)/ and raspberry jam on flatbrød. Hunger will make you do strange things. I'm lucky to be here to write this now!

4- My Little League baseball team from Oslo, Norway took 2nd place in the European Little League Allstar Playoffs. Rota, Spain beat us and got to make the trip to Williamsport, PA to play in the Little League Allstar World Series Championships. We were very, very sad about that. I only regained my love for Spain after discovering J. Sorolla's art. I love Spain now!

5- I went to 3 high schools, college and art school in California and then reverse migrated to Minnesota because I like snow. Now you know I'm 'unusual'. At one point I had to decide, continue to make a life teaching skiing in California ( I had been doing that in the Sierra's since high school), or leave that and go to art school. I am fortunate to have chosen art school. It's become my life.

6- I'm very disciplined. There are many things that could possibly distract me if I'm not careful. I'll list a few of the things that I like but 'don't do' any more very often, in order to stay on track as an artist. I am a licensed private pilot with an instrument rating with a partially built 200 kt aluminum airplane that I'm building (stored in my house), am building a 12 foot wooden flat bottom rowing skiff for painting out of, I sail, shoot a traditional wooden bow ( have started a couple of 'self bows' from hickory) and homemade cedar arrows, like to fly fish and tie flies, hunt, ski of course, build and fly RC aircraft, copper sculpture, silver work and enameling, cooking, and about 50 other distractible activities that I find interesting.

7- I painted birds for 25 years!

I'll list the 7 tagged people when I find them...soon....

Here they are. Fine painters and teachers... my two requirements for the list.

1-Kami Polzin:) Inspirational person, teacher and painter! :)

2-Anne Kullaf Great teaching blog!

3-Michael Chesley JohnsonWriter, painter, teacher!

4-Marc DalessioWow! Just discovered Marc's work. Teaches, paints and knows materials.

5-Frank GardnerYeah I know, everyone already knows Frank! :) But I like his work, he teaches and if I could only get a teeny weeny little bit of his traffic flow (I'd have NO free time left)!

6-Xiangyuan JiePoetic painter, but bold.

7-Jennifer McChristianHer work speaks for itself, and she teaches!

Wabi Sabi-"Nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect."

'Earth, Wind and Fire' - A painting I did a few years back, maybe 6 or 7 years back, that I thought would be a good illustration for this blog post of mine. It's a 30x40 oil on linen.

"Wabi-sabi is an intuitive appreciation of a transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things." (Juniper, Andrew. Wabi-sabi: the Japanese Art of Impermanence. Boston: Tuttle, 2003)

I might be getting off track here in terms of a blog about posting paintings. But is it? I need to get out more because I've only discovered this philosophy now. I've read the The Tao Te Ching (also called "The Tao", by Lao Tzu, have read a little about Buddhism but must not have read enough to know about 'wabi sabi'. But I recognize the universality of it's presence in the other writings and way of life.

To be honest, I was reading an article in the magazine, 'Wooden Boats' ( I'm building a little one and 'nothing is finished' applies here! ) about an artist who paints pretty contemporary looking paintings of old traditional wooden boat structures.

The writer said that the paintings and subject matter acknowledged 'wabi sabi' and went on to say that it referred to the Japanese aesthetic that "nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect".

That really peaked my interest because my interests are most often in things and activities that are made by hand, that are old and have some sort of aesthetic that transends the 'glitzy' part of our society. I am an archer and shoot a wooden flat bow, make my own arrows, am building a wooden boat, tie my own flies for fishing, and in general appreciate those things in our world that look to most people (other than artists in many cases) like they should be torn down and rebuilt. I am typing this on an iMac, not sending smoke signals, so there is compromise of course.

When I'm out painting, I don't stop at the metal pole barns to paint, or the asphalt parking lots and new construction, by choice. I am not a fan of painting industrial things either. They do not make me feel comfortable. I'm a painter who is trying to pass along my deep seeded love and joy in the subjects that I choose to paint to others, and most of those subjects seem to be either a little out of the way corner that usually is overgrown and "unnoticed" by many! It's just my choice. I am not slamming anyone who would rather paint glass and steel skyscapers, or the grand subjects such as mountain peaks and majestic waterfalls. I've done that too, a little bit, but not with the same conviction and interest that I've found along the shore of the local swampy little pond. It's just that I'd rather find a 90 year old shed that is about to fall over in the next 5 mph wind to paint. I've always been like this. Reading about 'wabi sabi' is causing me to reflect on what it is I paint and why in a very positive way.

I'm constantly amazed by the discovery of ideas that have been here for so long that every one, but me, knows about it. I googled 'wabi sabi' and quickly realized that there are wabi sabi blogs, books (here's one that I'm going to get and read-Koren, Leonard. Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1994), art, photographs and on and on. I never did investigate 'feng shue' but probably should have.

"We must teach ourselves to see the beauty of the ugly, to see the beauty of the commonplace. It is so much better to make much out of little than to make little out of much-better to make a big thing out of a little subject than to make a little thing out of a big one. " (Hawthorne, J.C. Hawthorne On Painting. Dover Publications, 1960)

Charles Hawthorne was a painter and teacher who understood this philosophy either consciously or by instinct. Many of us respect what he had to tell us through this book published by his daughter. It's full of the same sort of consciousness for painters and is also worth reading.

As artists we are constantly aware that we are a little different than a lot of the other people around us if simply by the nature of what and how we do what we do. Now it's comforting to know that we have a connection to humanity that the ancient cultures have recognized and practiced for eons.

Am I the only one who didn't get the memo on this? ;-)

"Wabi-sabi, as a tool for contemplation and a philosophy of life, may now have an unforeseen relevance as an antidote to the rampant unraveling of the very social fabric which has held [us] together for so long. Its tenets of modesty and simplicity encourage a disciplined unity while discouraging overindulgence in the physical world. It gently promotes a life of quiet contemplation and a gentle aesthetic principle that underscores a meditative approach. Wabi-sabi demotes the role of the intellect and promotes an intuitive feel for life where relationships between people and their environments should be harmonious. By embodying the spirit to remind itself of its own mortality, it can elevate the quality of human life in a world that is fast losing its spirituality." (Juniper, Andrew. Wabi-sabi: the Japanese Art of Impermanence. Boston: Tuttle, 2003)

Roadside quick study

I stopped this afternoon because of a spectacular overcast light punctuated by little breaks that allowed the sun to penetrate and light up small portions of the landscape. This little clump of birch and willows were glowing like the Everyready Bunny itself had plugged it in... like a fall Christmas tree. The painters out there know that the most beautiful light shows in nature usually disappear right about the time you tear off a paper towel and lift up the first brush full of paint, ready to go. NO exception here. Having all the gear out I painted what was less than the inspiring sight that made me stop. Knowing that we are only going to get colder as each day goes by, I painted. Still good to be out painting. The title refers to a sign that was right in front of me out of the picture plane. Geese were coming in to the fields in the distance and a couple of ringed-neck roosters flew from behind me and right across my field of view. That made staying to paint worth it even more.


"NO HUNTING" - 8x10 - oil - © Marc R. Hanson 08

Better late than never?

I'm trying to find my way around the desktop of my personal confuser and found a folder of images from my camera. Problem with huge gigabyte storage cards is that it's too easy not to be 'efficient' and file things in the present...easier to just keep adding and sort out in the future. That's why I'm just posting some paintings from Coleman FA's "Wet Paint" event, which I took part in last March, now in October! Somewhere I have the titles and sizes but that would require another half day of searching around. These were painted Mon thru Fri of the week and framed, exhibited and sold on Friday night. I wrote the pertinent information down back then but don't remember all of the details. All are oil and about 8x10, the boats being 11x14...I think. :)


© Marc R. Hanson 08


© Marc R. Hanson 08


© Marc R. Hanson 08


© Marc R. Hanson 08