A Couple of Artworks

Here are two artworks that started in our weekly life drawing sessions.  In both, I got to a certain point, didn't like it, wiped it out, and started over.  Both wound up being muted and quiet, which in these cases is a pretty good quality, I think.

This was the first one, a portrait of Apryl.  I started it in charcoal and let the drawing tell me what it wanted.  From the very first, it wanted to be quiet.  I worked on getting the drawing right, but wasn't successful.  Well, it was kinda close, but not there, so I wiped it out and started over on the same sheet.  This time, I saw some of what was wrong and corrected it.  Then I began working with the pastels.  Here's where the drawing's demands for quiet really showed up.  It didn't want strong reds and yellows in the skin tones, and didn't want strong reddish-browns in the hair.  So I kept the colors barely there.  At the end of the night, it looked pretty good, but the likeness still wasn't quite right.  I took a couple of reference photos and, a few days later (with a fresh viewpoint), I reworked it.  It really didn't take much: the face was very slightly too long and her mouth was a bit too far down.  Two hours of work and this was done.  

This drawing of Emma was started in our most recent life drawing session.  It was another artwork that told me from the get-go that it wanted to be quiet.  I blocked in the figure in charcoal, then developed it to a higher level than what you see now.  It was still relatively un-developed, though - nothing was brought up to what most people consider "finished" except maybe in the face.  Then I brought in the pastels and messed it up.  The colors were too harsh.  So, one hour into a two-hour session, I wiped it out.  This left a lot of marks on the paper that I thought were interesting.  I re-developed only a few areas of the drawing in charcoal, primarily the face and shoulder.  Then I brought in the pastels, only with a very light touch, and gave her some skin tones in the head shoulders, and parts of her arms.  A couple of days later, I did some alterations: scrubbing some areas down, bringing the shapes and darks and colors up in other areas, and adding a touch of color in the background to help set her off.  Sounds simple, but it took all afternoon before it felt like it was really done.

I'm really liking the effect of the muted colors and "incomplete" drawings.  There's less specifics here, which means that you, the viewer, have to bring more of your own ideas to the artwork.  Less "telling" on my part, more "suggesting".  There's a tension between the developed and undeveloped areas that I like.  I might be on to something here.  Or not - check back in a few months!

Social Media

As an artist trying to get my work out into the world, I have to use social media more than I want to.  And as an older guy, every platform is annoying in its own way.  

The first one I was ever on was Facebook.  I've found that to be a good way for me to keep in touch with my real-life friends.  Eventually, I figured out that my personal and art professional pages needed to be separate.  So I created a page for my studio work (https://www.facebook.com/Studio.of.Skip.Rohde).  Later, I added another for my wedding painting work (https://www.facebook.com/Asheville.Event.Paintings/).  Both of those are open to the public.  I keep a wall between my personal and studio pages, though.  If I don't personally know somebody, I don't take their friend request to my personal page.  

I've found Facebook to be a complement to my websites.  It's like an easily-available resume.  Both the studio and wedding painting pages have a huge amount of images.  The studio page has the images arranged into photo albums of related work, while the wedding painting page has all the images on one file.  For those who are interested in my work, it's easy to see what I've done.  Both pages are much more complete than my websites, and they're chattier and more relaxed as well.  Neither gets a whole lot of looks, but that's okay - it's a resume that people can/do reference long after the initial posting.

My Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/skiprohde/) is pretty much strictly for my art business.  It combines both my studio and wedding painting inputs.  Instagram has more of a "church of what's happening now" feel than FB, at least to me.  For younger people (95% of the planet), it's more acceptable and cooler than FB, so my IG page gets more views than my two FB pages combined.  I think of it as another form of my artwork resume: almost all my output is there, it's just not organized into pages like it is on FB.

One thing that irks me about IG is that it seems to have an upper limit on the number of times it shows a post.  My account has a little under 1,000 followers, meaning people (or bots) who have said they want to see my posts, but IG only shows my posts to a small number of them.  I think Meta wants money to show my posts to more people.  Everything I've read from other artists says that's not the way to go.  I'm not alone in this: there are a lot of artists I follow, many of whom are friends of mine, that do great work and still only get 20-30 "likes", if that.  But FB has no problem filling my feed with posts by "name" artists that have thousands of "likes".  "Here", IG says, "you should like this work, too!"  Well, fuck that.  If any post has more than 200 "likes", they don't need mine, and I don't give it.  I support the smaller accounts that have great work but just a few "likes".  Suport your struggling local artist.

Pinterest is a strange beast.  I have a page for my studio work (https://www.pinterest.com/skiprohde/) and another for my wedding painting work (https://www.pinterest.com/skiprohde0389/).  I created the studio page years ago and it didn't seem to do anything at all for me, so I forgot about it.  Last year, I kept hearing that brides used Pinterest to find ideas for their weddings, so I created the wedding painting page and posted more on the studio page.  So the wedding painting page had a huge influx of visitors over the first few weeks.  I thought it was going to be great, but then it quickly tapered off to just a handful a day.  There are many posts that Pinterest has, literally, not shown to anybody.  Most of the other posts have just one or two showings.  The studio side is the same: everything has somewhere between no views to maybe ten views, except for one post that has over 4,300 views and counting.  WTF?  I can't figure it out, and actually, I don't care.

I had an account on Twitter.  Elon totally wrecked the platform, so I don't go there anymore.

As for other platforms, like TikTok, SnapChat, and LinkedIn, I'm not there.  Not going to be there, either.  Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest take up too much time as it is.  Social media is a time suck and I'd rather be in the studio.

A Crack in the Wall

 

A Crack in the Wall

Oil on canvas, 45"x45"

This is a new and very different sort of painting for me.  Rather than just post it and say "new work, here ya go", I think it needs some discussion.

Several years ago, I was doing a photo session with one of my regular models.  We had been having fun, making photos that I could use for artworks, going through a variety of themes for her to play with, when I suggested "how about something defensive?"  She got down on the floor and curled up into this ball.  It hit me like a gut punch: she wasn't imagining what it was like, she was reliving something that had already happened to her.  It was unnerving and I changed the theme to something lighter.  

She didn't explain what had happened to her, but some time later, I learned something about it.  Yes, it was bad.  I couldn't just walk away from this raw experience, though.  I did a charcoal and pastel work from it and it has been in a few exhibitions.  It has always gotten strong responses from women.  And I have wanted to make it a much larger painting ever since.

What held me back?  Maybe the fear of not doing justice to it.  What she showed me was her response to a very personal infliction of violence.  And what the viewers of the pastel artwork who talked to me later showed me was that this was a very wide-spread experience.  Way too many women have been subjected to physical, mental, and sexual violence.  I wanted to honor those experiences in a way that helps others to see that they're not alone.  

Finally, I realized that if this painting was ever going to get made, I had to get off my ass and make it.  So I got busy.  I made a small study in oil on paper and worked out the composition and color scheme, then stretched the canvas and dove in.  It took several weeks, much experiementation, and many layers to get it to where it said what it needed to say.  

The next step is to get it exhibited.  Don't know where that will be yet.  Will let you know.

And the title, "A Crack in the Wall"?  I'm not so sure about that one.  I'm not very good at titles.  Got a better suggestion?

Wedding Painting Equipment

 Every artist develops a unique set of tools to get the job done.  Wedding painters typically go for a minimalist approach - just the basics.  An easel, a light, a canvas, and some paint, and they're ready to go.  This setup is lightweight and easy to get in and out of the venue.

Yeah, not me.

My setup is a direct outgrowth of my studio way of working.  I paint in oils and need a lot of equipment, and it seems to grow a little bit every year.  The photo shows my setup at The Farm at Old Edwards Inn in Highlands, NC, last weekend.  Let's talk about what's there and why.

First, the easel.  It's a wooden full-size French easel.  It's very efficient: it's a box that holds my paint tubes, has three telescoping legs, a support for the canvas, a place to mount my light, and a tray that I can clamp my palette to, and hang my roll of paper towels from.  The drawback?  It's fairly heavy.  I usually don't have to lug it very far, though, so I'll take the weight penalty for the convenience.

See that tall table just to the right of the easel?  That's mine, too.  I take a lot of photos and load them into a laptop.  The laptop needs to be up where I can see it.  Many wedding artists use their phones or iPads for reference photos, then wind up painting with one hand while holding the phone in the other.  No, I need a stable and larger screen so I can see the reference photos.  Having a place to hold my Coke and business cards is a bonus.  When I first started at events, I asked the venue for a tall table, but soon learned that I can't rely on them.  So I don't.

The mat on the floor is part of the setup.  It's there to protect the venue.  I've never actually spilled anything or had a wet painting do a face-plant on the floor, but if that ever happens, we're safe.

I've got a plastic trash can under the easel.  Because trash.  It's something else that I can't rely on the venue to provide, and it looks a lot better than hanging a plastic bag from the grocery store off the easel.

You can't see it here, but I also bring an extension cord to power the light and computer.  Again, something I can't rely on the venue to provide.

You can barely see it here, but under that black cloth between the easel and tall table is a big rolling toolbox from Lowe's.  This is to haul all the stuff that doesn't fit into the easel.  That includes the light, computer, computer power cord, iPad, paint brushes, palette, painting mediums, roll of paper towels, various tools, gaffer tape, extension cord, apron, business cards, granola bars, sketchbook, DSLR camera, straight edges, spare batteries for the camera and computer mouse, and various other bits.  

Does that sound like a lot of stuff?  It does to me, but it's all necessary for my way of working.  It also means that I don't fly to do weddings.  I load my car and drive, and I only go to events that are within one day's drive of Asheville.  Events in Miami or southern California?  Sorry!  But I have done weddings as far off as far western Kentucky, Atlanta, and the Washington, DC area.  

So that's my wedding painting equipment loadout.  It may not work for you, but it does for me.  

Andy

 

This is a portrait of Andy, the brother of a friend.  Andy's a great guy, very smart, very accomplished, and one of the nicest people I've met.  This is a fairly small painting, 16"x12", in oil on panel.  It's one that I'm really glad I did.

Me at 21

There's a challenge going around on Instagram and Facebook to show a selfie from when you were 21.  Most of this is coming from people in their 30's or 40's, and to be honest, their "21" photos don't look that different from their "current age" photos.  Then there's me.  I've got quite a few decades in between the time I was 21 and now.  So here I am, age 21, a very long time ago, doing my best Napoleon Dynamite look, long before there ever was a Napoleon Dynamite.  You may laugh now.  I don't miss that big hair, but I do miss being able to fit into those 30" waist jeans! 

Now and Then

 

"Now and Then" is an older painting of mine, done in about 1995, before many of y'all were born.  It has a very important place in my growth and I thought I'd discuss it here.

In '95, I was still in the Navy and stationed in Maryland.  I was taking a night painting class at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  The teacher gave us a homework assignment of painting a still life.  Since I'd been painting for many years at that point, I didn't think it would be very challenging.  Actually creating the painting wasn't difficult.  I piled a bunch of things onto a table, moved things around, tossed things out, added something every now and then, and kept whittling away until the only things left were my Navy hat and my ancient teddy bear.  The contrast in colors, values, and textures appealed to me: lots of harsh blacks and whites and hard-edge lines in the hat, compared with soft textures and warm colors in the bear.  

At the next class, we set our homework assignments up against the wall and everybody critiqued everybody else's work.  When they got to mine, it got a lot of emotional response.  One of the students said it was about a father who had gone off to war and wasn't coming back and the kid was going to grow up without a father.  I was looking at them thinking "umm ... it's just a still life ...".  I was really taken aback.

However, the big lesson at the time was that I can't control the story the viewers see in my work.  They come to it with their own background, history, mental associations, prejudices, likes, and dislikes, all of which have nothing to do with me.  All I can do is tell my story as best I can.  Maybe suggest a particular line of thought, but that's about it.  They'll see what they're going to see.

There was another lesson quite some time later.  Eventually, I realized that my choice of the hat and teddy bear wasn't random.  Something in me specifically chose those two items.  It's a self-portait done with two of my possessions.

These two lessons have affected every piece of art I look at now, and every piece of art I make.