Wedding Painting Subjects

Deciding on the subject matter for a wedding painting is one of the key things for a couple.  It's a very personal decision.  I advise my clients on what I think would be a good approach, but they're the ones that live with the painting after it's done.  So it really has to match who they are.

I've found that there are four popular subjects:

• The ceremony, usually just at the end when they're the world's newest married couple. 
• The recessional, walking back down the aisle at the end of the ceremony.
• The first dance.
• The couple away from a formal setting.

Let's look at each of them.  Click on each of the images for a larger version.

The Ceremony

Paintings of the ceremony capture THE moment that they are now a married couple.  It's about them, but it's also about a particular moment where they become one.  Sometimes the couples want members of the family or the wedding party, other times they want it to show just them.  Either way, I try to capture the formality of the moment.  

The Recessional

The recessional is a variation of the ceremony, except now they're moving.  I try to capture their feelings for each other as they are walking and realizing that they've really, finally, done it.  There's a joy in their walk.  Sometimes the wedding party is in the background, but more often the families are.  Either way,  it's a balanced composition: the couple is in the center, bridal party or family to the left, groomsmen or groom's family to the right.  But this is where paintings are different from photos - I can put people in, or take them out, in ways that photographers can't, and so I do!

The First Dance

A First Dance is a more romantic and informal subject than the recessional.  I have a lot more freedom with the composition.  Usually the couple is positioned slightly to the left or right, other figures are offset in some fashion, and I use perspective to help guide the eye around the painting.  There's a lot of adding and subtracting in these artworks to create the feeling of the evening.  These paintings are about the love of the couple for each other, the celebration of the day, and the support for them from all their family and friends.

The Couple

This subject is my favorite.  At it's most basic level, it's about these two people and their love.  By simplifying the composition to just them, I can focus on their connection.  This subject is more timeless than the others.  Friends and family members may come and go, but the two of them are forever.  I can zoom in on them, making their figures larger and bringing them to a higher level of completion.  

So there are the four most common subjects.  There are infinite variations: Indian weddings, for example, usually have the same subjects but bright colors.  Paintings of the couple can have them in a room or walking in a field.  Some want their dogs included - and I like dogs.  Every painting is very different.  That's what keeps it fresh and interesting for me!

What's Your Process?

 "What's your process?  Will you finish it tonight?  Is it done?  Did you watch Bob Ross?"  These are just some of the questions I normally get at a wedding or other event.  (Answers: (a) Got 15 minutes?  (b) No.  (c) No.  (d) No.). No two artists are the same.  We've each developed a way of working that fits our style, standards, and personalities.  Mine is very different from almost all the other event artists that I know of.

Most wedding artists work in acrylic on either canvas or panel.  They want to travel light, finish the painting that night, and give it to the couple at the end of the reception.  So you'll see them bringing just an easel, canvas, and a light, taking pictures on their cell phones, and completing it (or almost) by the end of the evening.  Some work in watercolor and they also have minimal gear, work fast, and finish that night.  

I don't know how they do it.  Some of those artists are phenomenally good and can get beautiful results, including good likenesses and life, in one session.  But there's no way that I can get the level of finish I want in just one evening.  It normally takes me two to four weeks of additional work in the studio to get it to that level.  

I start by talking with the couple about what they want their painting to show.  Most of them want either the recessional as the world's newest married couple, the first dance, or just the two of them.  There are variations: the kiss at the end of the ceremony, including their dogs, a big grouping of both families, or a dance outside, for example.  So I need to get a feel for who they are as people to determine what they really want, which may or may not be what they thought they wanted.

Next, I coordinate with the wedding planner, venue manager, and photographer.  I work closely with all three to ensure that I get the access and support I need while also ensuring they have the information needed to do their jobs.  

On the Big Day, I'll arrive a couple of hours early to start work.  I'll set up my easel, light, table, rolling toolbox, and laptop.  Here's a standard setup:

Then I'll break out my camera (a real camera, not a phone) and start shooting.  I'll take a ton of photos of everything that may conceivably be needed: flowers, the ceremony area (for ceremony and recessionals) or reception area (for First Dances), decorations, and surrounding environment.  I'll tag along with the photographer for the pre-ceremony photos and the post-ceremony photos to ensure I have lots of the couple plus everybody else that may be in the painting.  Usually, I'll take between 200-400 photos.  These are NOT photographer-quality images - they're strictly references that I may or may not use in the painting.  I don't stage my photos - I try to capture the unguarded moments in between, which is a big difference.

First Dances take a bit of planning.  It's usually dark by then and I don't like to rely on a flash.  So I'll coordinate with the photographer to do a faux-first dance during the pre-ceremony photo session so I can at least get an idea of what they're going to do, along with some decent reference shots.  Then I'll still take some shots during the real First Dance.

Once I feel that I have enough photos, I'll load them into my laptop.  I usually have an idea of what the composition will be like, so I'll do a very rough sketch and then a quick look through the photos for some initial references to get started.  Then it's time to start slinging paint.  The first 10-15 minutes are the most important in the whole process.  This sets the general composition, the placement of the figures, and the color scheme.  If I get this wrong, then I'll have to scrub it out and start over.  That happens about once a year.  Everything in this first rough-in will change: the figures will be revised larger or smaller, or moved slightly one way or the other, people will be added or deleted, and I'll do a lot of inventing.  Just because something is there in real life doesn't mean it will be in the painting, and vice versa.  It's a painting, after all, not a photograph!

Then, for the rest of the night, I paint.  I try to get a decent indication of the couple,  including some indication of their connection, but I don't try for a good likeness.  I'll revise the setting, adjust colors, add things in, find photos that offer better images of faces or postures, and just develop as much as I can.  And I talk with people.  Most people have never seen an artist at work before and are very curious.  Lots of them will say "I don't want to bother you!" but I tell them that's why I'm here.  Most of the painting will be done in the studio, but at the event, I'm an art ambassador.  If kids are there, I'll often give them a brush and let them put something in.  It may go away later, but it doesn't matter, they get to contribute.  

The best is when the bride and groom come by to check on things and the bride breaks into tears.  That makes my night.

At the end of the evening, I pack up and take the painting back to the studio for much more work.  That's where the quality comes from.  It may take all afternoon to get a couple of faces, or the likenesses may come together in five minutes.  You just can't predict it.  When it's almost done, I send them a good image and get their feedback.  They'll often have a couple of small things that I managed to miss, which is exactly why I do this.  Then, when they approve it, I deliver it, whether in-person or through UPS/FedEx.

So that's my process.  I'll talk more about what goes into a painting in a future post.  

A Year of Painting Weddings

Photo courtesy of Jill at Realities Photography

Over the past year, I've done a lot of very different weddings and created some very different paintings of them.  "A lot" is relative, of course: I normally limit myself to about nine per year, while other artists may do 50-70 per year.  I just can't do that and produce the quality of work that I want.  

Part of that is due to the fact that I'm slow.  Go on Instagram or YouTube and you'll see videos of artists cranking out a painting in 60 seconds flat.  Okay, they're sped up, but you get the drift.  There's a reason you don't see me doing videos like that - they'd be an hour long and show only a small bit of development.  Another reason is that I want to know the couple in the painting.  I need to know who they are, see them interact with each other, their family, and friends, how they carry themselves, and so on.  The more I know, the more that comes through in the painting.  Don't know how that happens, but it does.  And I can't get to know them if I'm doing a lot of paintings.  They would get lost in the shuffle.

Since my last post of a wedding painting, I've completed 14 paintings, with two more in progress.  Some of those are among the very best to come out of my studio.   No, I won't tell you which ones.  You decide for yourself.  Some of the things I've seen, experienced, and noticed over the past year and a half are:

- More couples want their dogs included.  As a dog lover, I'm happy to include the furry family.  One of the paintings in progress has a beautiful German Shepherd with a floppy ear. 

- The subjects have been equally divided between the first dance, the end of the ceremony, and just the couple.  There's no single style that dominates because every couple is different.  

- One of this year's events wasn't a wedding, but rather a dinner for a business event.  Sounds boring?  No, it wasn't - I had some great conversations with some very interesting people.  And it's going to be presented as a gift to a really great couple who didn't know it was coming.

- Most have been set outside, regardless of whether it was of the ceremony, first dance, or just the couple.  That brings an occasional challenge with weather.  It can be a beautiful day, it can be Noah's flood, it can be hot and muggy, or cold and very, very wet.  Fortunately, most of the outdoors events had good weather.  

- Kids!  They're a lot of fun.  At a recent reception, a 6-year-old girl at the table next to me saw what I was doing and turned her chair, and her brother's, around to watch.  Never mind that speeches were being made, first dances and parent dances were being danced, and cakes were being cut, all of which were the focus of attention for everybody else.  Nope, she wanted to watch me painting.  If she'd been tall enough, I'd have given her a brush and let her "help".  (Yes, she could have stood on a chair; no, I didn't want to go there.)

There's more, but you get the idea.  Weddings are fun.  Wedding paintings are a challenge, but very rewarding for me to do.  The couples trust me to capture one of the most important days in their lives.  The paintings are very meaningful to them from day one - they're a treasure forever, not just entertainment at the reception.  And that floats my boat.

Artificial Intelligence and Art

 Over the past couple of months, I've seen a lot of artists on Twitter experimenting with AI and art.  This is a very fast-developing thing right now.  There have been multiple online software programs launched that do it in a similar fashion: you type in a few words or a phrase and the AI returns two or three images.  One AI image was given an award in the Digital Image category in a recent juried exhibition, which caused a stink among many artists.  So what's it all about?

The primary AI generators, at least the ones that I've seen images from most often, are DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and MidJourney.  There are many many others.  Results can be stunning.  I see a lot that look like sci-fi landscapes or urbanscapes: impossible architecture, cities floating in the sky, barren horizons, Star Wars-like figures, or a single figure silhouetted against an ominous sky.  Others seem like Old Masters paintings that have been bumped up to 11.  Many are extremely realistic, others less so.  Here are a few examples: 

The Exorcist, by Lorenzo

Returnlessness, by Reimers

Busy, by Alex MJ

When I compared AI images to oil paintings, I thought that they had some really interesting aspects.  They made good use of composition.  See how the padre is highlighted by the arch, or how the single figure in Returnlessness is offset to one side and balanced by the light pole.  They can be highly detailed, far more than the typical oil painting is taken (Returnlessness again), or they can suggest details without actually portraying them (Busy).  All the AI images I've seen have been representational - that is, they show recognizable things: people, buildings, light poles, and so on.  None of it has been abstract, although they certainly make use of good abstract principles.  

I tried out a couple of programs, but got really awful results.  And I didn't like the process.  It felt like pulling the lever on a slot machine over and over, only instead of a money, you might get a nice image.  There was nothing of "me" in it.

It seemed to me (and still seems, come to think of it) that AI is good for a "Wow" effect, like great eye candy.  But what keeps bugging me is that it's machine made.  It can't have soul, but it can simulate it, sometimes well.  

Having said that, I have found one artist who is doing really good work with AI.  Francien Krieg, a Dutch artist, is the exception that proves the rule.  She has been doing a series of oil paintings using herself and old women as her subjects.  Earlier this year, she started playing with AI and she seems to have figured out how to get it to do images that are very similar to her oil paintings.  Here's an example:

Heat, by Francien Krieg

Francien is the only one I have seen who is able to give her AI images character, depth, and most importantly, heart.  You really should check out her website and compare her physical paintings to her AI work.  

As for me, I will stick with physical artworks.  But I like seeing what other artists are creating with AI.  Many of the NFTs that I've been collecting are AI-generated.  In fact. all of the ones in this post are NFTs that I've bought.  So, yeah, I think there's a place for AI art.  Just not in my studio.

Solo Exhibition!

My new solo exhibition opened Friday.  The show is titled "What May Be" and consists of twelve paintings that explore the theme of what might be in our future if we don't get our collective acts together.  Doesn't sound like a cheerful romp, does it?  Well, as is typical of my shows, it isn't.  (Previous such collections: "Old Times", about aging; "Bush League", a political satire series about the Bush administration; and "Meditation on War", about the effects of war on people and nations).  

Here's the artist statement: 

"News reports today can be frightening.  Wars rage across the globe.  The world’s population is exploding at the same time that climate change threatens our ability to produce food.  Social media and news sources stoke anger and violence on the local, national, and international scales.  At a time when cooperation is more in need than ever before, it is in very short supply. 

I was asked once whether I was an optimist or a pessimist.  My answer was that I am a short-term optimist and a long-term pessimist.  We have an amazing ability to muddle through in the short term, but the long-term trends are ominous.  That’s what underlies all these paintings.  However, I was surprised  at the hope that came out during the making of some of these paintings.  Maybe I’m more optimistic than I thought.

These paintings are arranged in a rough timeline.  At one end of the gallery is the present and at the other is some possible future.  The future may or may not happen as these creations suggest.  Nobody knows.  But one thing is certain: we all will have a hand in how it develops."

The Mountain XPress, the local Asheville paper, ran an article on it in this week's edition.  They got the general gist of it right even though some of the facts are a bit off.  You can read the article here.  If you want to see the paintings, they're on my website. 

The reception was Friday night and was lots of fun.  Many friends showed up, some of whom I hadn't seen in years.  Met some interesting people as well.  

The show will be up until September 25th.  If you're in Asheville, swing by Pink Dog Creative at 348 Depot Street, in the River Arts District, and go through the show.  And let me know what you think.

Gabe and Lynnea's Painting

 

I just completed a painting for a wonderful couple.  Gabe and Lynnea were married out near Santa Fe, New Mexico.  They chose a rather spectacular location in a state park.  They're both very laid-back and not at all concerned with traditional weddings, as you can probably tell from their outfits.  The ceremony was scheduled for 2 pm, but everybody was having a great time chatting and socializing, so they didn't get around to it until closer to 3.  Did I say they were laid back?  

This was a different process for me.  I didn't take any art supplies out to Santa Fe because I didn't set up and paint there.  I took my camera and worked with their photographer prior to and during the wedding to get several hundred shots.  Then I came home to North Carolina to create the artwork.  And I did something very different from my previous efforts.  Instead of painting the surrounding environment, or friends and family, or both, I stripped it down to just the two of them.  And I think it worked.  To me, it captures their love on that day, which is what it's all about.  No distractions, nothing else, just the two of them.

Congratulations to Gabe and Lynnea!

Blockchains and Crypto and NFTs, Oh My!

I mentioned in my last post that I've been playing in the NFT world and learning lots of new stuff.  Thought I'd share some of what I've learned here.  It's an incredibly complex and ever-changing rabbit-warren of technology, community, written and unwritten rules, and potential.

We'll start with blockchains because that's what underlies all of this.  A blockchain is essentially a system that verifies that something else exists and belongs to somebody.  Think of it like a ledger.  You enter the information that you own some digital asset (a photo, a music file, some crypto currency, whatever).  It's recorded in an encrypted block of data.  If you transfer the digital asset to somebody else, the "ledger" creates another encrypted block of data that records who now has it, what date and time the transfer occurred, and some other information.  The first and second blocks of data are now "chained" together.  Their information is stored in the cloud on computers around the world.  Neither block can ever be altered except by adding additional blocks because altering them would require altering vast amounts of information on vast numbers of dispersed computers simultaneously.  So blockchains are incredibly secure.

The first workable blockchain was Bitcoin, created in 2009.  Since then, there have been something like 3,000 different blockchains created.  Some have taken off, like Ethereum, as they targeted specific niches, while most others haven't.  

One of the major concerns about blockchains is their environmental impact.  Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most others use the "proof of work" (POW) verification system.  I have no idea how that works, but this system requires huge amounts of energy to operate.  To create a single NFT (we'll get into that in a bit) can require as much energy as running a typical American household for over two weeks.  There are, literally, entire coal-fired power plants whose output is used exclusively for blockchain operations.  That sucks.  In response, a newer type of verification system, the "proof of stake" (POS) system, was created.  It uses an tiny fraction of the energy that POW systems do.  The Tezos blockchain uses the POS system and says it uses 1/200,000,000th the energy of Bitcoin.  All this energy has to be paid for by the users and can be expensive.  As a comparison, it can cost about $70 to create an NFT on the Ethereum chain.  It cost me about 15 cents on the Tezos chain.  That reflects a huge reduction in energy useage.

So blockchains give us a way to verify ownership.  Crypto currency gives us a medium of exchange.  Each blockchain has its own crypto currency.  Bitcoin, of course, is the oldest.  For traditional artists, the most common blockchains and crypto are the Ethereum chain (using Ether) and Tezos (using Tez).  They are not interoperable: you can't use Tezos on the Ethereum chain.  They're comparable to existing currencies: you go to Japan, you use yen; you go to France, you use euros, and you can't use euros in Japan.  You can exchange them, though, just like you do with national currencies.  

Lots of attention is being paid to the volatility of crypto currencies, and with good reason.  Just recently, the values of almost all crypto currencies collapsed.  Bitcoin dropped by about 70%, for example.  Why?  Lots of reasons, but primarily it's due to the state of the world economy and the fact that crypto currencies are naturally more susceptible to mood changes.  I think that a lot of people bought crypto as an "investment", like stocks, especially over the last couple of years when everything was going up up up.  Well, they can go down down down, too.  Volatility doesn't necessarily mean the chains are bad, just that it's a new technology and people are still figuring them out.

Okay, now that we have blockchains and crypto currencies, what about NFTs?  NFTs are basically some kind of digital file that is attached to the blockchain.  It can be anything: a jpeg, mpeg, PDF, whatever you want.  You take the file, "mint" it by creating a record of it and attaching it to the blockchain, and now you have an NFT.  You can trade it or sell it as you wish.  If you have some crypto, you can buy somebody else's NFT.  I have taken several of my artworks and made NFTs of them.  The first was Natalie #5.  I took my best-quality digital photo, went on the objkt.com site, minted 15 copies of it, and listed them on my page on the objkt.com website.  Since then, I've minted other artworks, sold some, and bought some.  There's some really good NFT art out there.

So why would you pay good crypto for something that is essentially a jpeg image that you could copy/paste for free?  Because you can be sure that it came directly from the artist and is exactly the way they wanted it to look.  And it has the bonus of being "signed" by the artist.  You can pick up a New York Yankees ballcap for $5, but a Yankees ballcap signed by Derick Jeter may set you back $50.  It's a collectible, which is pretty much the same concept.

Going forward, I think NFTs will be a big part of business operations, but it won't happen for a while.  Right now, there are artists playing around with the concept, and some businesses are buying and selling using crypto currencies, but there's nothing large scale.  A big reason is that the whole system is so difficult to learn, and convoluted, that relatively few people want to spend the time and effort to learn it.  But eventually, the tech geeks will figure out ways to make it as easy and simple as using a credit card.  And when that happens, you'll see NFTs everywhere.  Car titles, concert tickets, receipts for new refrigerators, your Amazon orders, all that and much much more could eventually be done with NFTs.  In the meantime, I'll play around with NFTs of artworks and watch how it all develops.

Catch-Up

 So it's been a bit over 3 months since I posted anything.  My legions of fans (all 1 of you) have requested that I get my butt in gear and spill the beans on what's been going on.  It's been very busy, of course (isn't it always??) and my excuse is ... I'm lazy.

Okay.  Quick rundown:

In March, we went down to Florida to visit some friends.  We liked it so much we decided to move there, especially since a house in our neighborhood had just sold for a ridiculous amount of money.  So we contacted a realtor here to sell and another there to buy, started some fix-up, and really got into it.  When we were finally able to put some reliable numbers down, we didn't like what we saw.  Down there was nice, but it wasn't nice enough to double or triple our mortgage payment.  So we decided we like it right here just fine, thank you very much.  Actually, I was really happy with that decision, since there was absolutely NO art scene down there.

Right after that, we went up to DC.  Our grandson was going there on a school trip.  Since he lives in California, we don't see them very much, so we jumped on the opportunity to see him, even if it was just for short periods in between his museum visits.  When we were two hours out of DC, we got a call from his dad, saying he couldn't go on the trip because they didn't get his covid vaccination done in time.  Well, whose fault was that?  So we continued to DC, saw some friends, visited the National Museum of Art, and had a great time.  It reinforced our intention to never, ever, EVER live in a big city again.

As usual, our allergies kicked in high gear this spring.  Nose running, feeling crappy, must be covid, right?  Well, covid doesn't last THAT long.  Things have settled down now for a while.

I was asked to do a live painting for the Asheville Art Museum fundraising gala.  This was a no-brainer: get in front of the high-rolling art supporters in Asheville and show what I can do.  I brought in Maya White, another live wedding artist, to be my model and focal point for the painting.  We had a great time, talked with a lot of people, gave out some cards, and created a very loose and lively painting to be auctioned off at the end of the night.  All was good until the auction started.  Since this was an art museum, they were auctioning off a lot of stunningly good works that had been donated by top regional art galleries.  It started with a classical portrait that would knock your socks off, continued through beautifully done abstracts, glass sculpture that belonged on display in a museum, rare lithographs by big-name artists, and much more.  I kept looking at those works, then back at my painting, which looked by comparison to be sloppy, unfocused, and unresolved.  I wanted to just crawl under a rock.  However, it was well received and sold for more than I thought it would to a couple that was ecstatic to have it.  Would I do it again?  Yes, but I'd pick a simpler composition that I could bring to a much higher level of finish.

I just finished a wedding painting for a wonderful couple.  Unfortunately, it was pouring on their Big Day and it was supposed to be an outdoor wedding.  But they rolled with the punch, the venue did a great job with Plan B, and the painting shows them on a bright sunny day, like it should have been.  When the bride bursts out in tears every time she comes by the easel to check on progress, you know you're on the right track.

Looking forward, I have a solo show coming up in August at the Pink Dog Collective in Asheville.  I'm really excited about this.  It will have some older paintings, but a lot that have never been shown outside my studio, including two that aren't done yet.  

And I've been looking into NFTs and crypto currency lately.  Lots to say there, so I'll save it for another post.

End of a Local Era

 My barber has closed his shop.  It's the end of a 63-year era here in my little town.  It's an example of what's happening everywhere.

I've been going to Tim's shop for about 20 years.  He ran a one-man barbershop that his father established 63 years ago.  It was very much a Norman Rockwell place.  It was a small storefront in a 100-year-old string of buildings on Main Street in Mars Hill.  There was a barber pole out front, of course, and the "Mars Hill Barbershop" was hand-painted on the front window.  Inside, there were two barber chairs, although one of them hadn't been used in all the time I went there, and looked like it hadn't been used for a few decades prior to that.  His German Shepherd was the welcoming committee and receptionist.  If you got on the dog's good side, you were good forever, and everybody got on the dog's good side as long as you liked dogs.  

Tim knew everybody in a 10-mile radius.  He'd grown up in Mars Hill and worked alongside his father in the shop until the older man retired.  Tim took it over and made no changes whatsoever.  Well, except that might have been when it went from a 2-chair operation to a 1-chair.  Tim is very funny and very personable.  If you want to know what's going on in the neighborhood, you went to get a haircut at Tim's.  You'd sit in the ancient waiting chairs, along with however many other guys were there, and joined in the conversation.  Everybody pitched in.  It might be about the mystery construction project down by the interstate, or Jimmy Smith's herd of cows needing haybales, or Frank's parents in the local nursing home (an X-rated and hilarious discussion if there ever was one).  There was no sitting there and reading magazines, even though there were plenty, all from ten years ago.  

But the number of people going to Tim's has been slowly dropping for years.  Older guys died off and fewer younger ones came.  Almost all the college boys went to styling salons down in Weaverville or Asheville.  Tim got a part-time job at a big-box store to help pay the bills.  As the barber business slowed, he increased his hours at the big-box.  And this year, when the rent went up significantly, he threw in the towel and retired.  And 63 years of barbering in Mars Hill came to an end.

I knew it was coming, but last week I went in to get a haircut and the store wasn't there anymore.  Everything inside was gone, along with the barber pole and bench outside.  A sign on the window announced the closure.  It was so sad to see.  So I made an appointment at a place down in Weaverville.  It's a franchise operation, brightly lit, lots of chairs and ladies cutting hair.  Everybody waiting was staring at their phones and nobody was talking.  Well, I was, anyway, once I got in the chair, and the lady cutting my hair seemed to be glad to have somebody to talk to.  And, of course, it was a decent haircut at a decent price.

So another old neighborly business is gone, replaced by an anonymous franchise operation.  Progress?  No.

Car Stuff

 Now for something completely different ...

Last September, while driving on the interstate, we ran over a piece of metal.  It banged up the passenger door pretty badly and ripped several pieces of trim off the side.  Fortunately, there was no structural damage and we could continue to drive the car with no problems.  Unfortunately, parts and shipping availability meant that it was five months before the shop had everything they needed to do the repairs.  We dropped the car off last week and picked up a rental. I thought we got lucky: they had a Mini Cooper on the lot.  Very cool!  I'd never driven one before.  I signed the papers and off I went.

I hated it.

As it turns out, Minis have the most unintuitive and annoying controls you can imagine.  Things you'd expect to be manual are electrical, and things you'd expect to be electrical are manual.  The shift lever doesn't operate the way any other shift lever does.  The infotainment system requires multiple button punches just to get beyond the "don't operate this while you're driving" alerts.  Brakes are grabby.  The engine shuts down when the car is stopped, then starts up again as soon as you put your foot on the gas, meaning there's a slight delay between your foot and actual movement, which could be critical in squeezing into traffic.  The "fasten your seatbelt" alarm is particularly annoying.  The door has a tinny sound when it's pulled closed.  

This was a Mini Cooper Countryman, which meant it was like a Mini that ballooned in size.  It's way bigger than a Mini should be.  It's much taller than my Mazda 3 and is more like a mid-sized Subaru.  It's a Massive Mini.  It even feels top-heavy in corners.  It just feels ... wrong.  It's not mini at all.

The good points?  It handles like a go kart and is a gas miser.  

I might have liked a real Mini, especially one with a stick shift, and one that didn't shut off the engine at stoplights.  I might've been able to put up with all the other annoyances.  But all together, no.  My Mazda is an infinitely better car.  And the next time I need a rental, I'll go for anything else.

First Wedding Painting of 2022

 

My new year started off with a bang, studio-wise.  I had my first wedding of the year on New Year's Day.  This was an older couple who got married at the Diana venue on the Biltmore Estate.  They're quite a lovely couple.  He is very distinguished and she reminds me of Dolly Parton, in a very good way: small, voluptuous, big blonde hair, and a very definite (and very positive) personality.  They're quite a lot of fun to be around.  

New Year's Day around here is pretty iffy, but we lucked out with temperatures in the upper 60's, of all things.  The bride, though, liked the idea of snow on the ground, and since this is a painting and not a photograph, that's no problem at all.  The most important thing that they wanted me to capture was the connection between them.  And I think I did.  It's hard to see on the small image here, but if you click on it, it will show you a larger version.

One thing that I did NOT do this time was paint at the reception.  There wasn't a "reception" per se, rather a dinner for about 20 people in the Private Dining Room at the Inn on Biltmore.  With the omicron covid variant spreading like wildfire, I did not feel comfortable being in a small room with a lot of unmasked people.  Instead, I offered a small price reduction to the couple since they and their guests wouldn't be able to see the painting get started, to which they readily agreed. 

And it was a good thing, too.  This painting had a couple of false starts.  Getting the sizes and proportions right was, for some reason, difficult.  My first block-in had the couple too small, so I had to rework them the next day.  Then there were a lot of little technical issues, the kind that most people would never see but would bug the hell out of me.  They're fixed now.  Actually, I'm very happy with the way this one turned out.  The couple will be back in town soon to retrieve it personally.

Now I'm working on a large and complicated painting for my upcoming solo exhibition.  I think the painting is pretty well started.  Now I have to go over every square inch and bring it up to a high level of finish.  That'll take a while and will be the subject of my next post.

End of the Year Review

 Well, if you're reading this, you and I managed to survive 2021.  Don't know about you, but I'm more or less intact.  It wasn't all that bad of a year, frankly.  I've had worse.  All four years of the Trump presidency, for example.  

I have several things I do to keep myself busy.  I'm an artist doing both commissioned paintings as well as my own stuff.  I manage the art gallery for Mars Hill University.  And I write proposals for firms seeking federal contracts.  Quick recaps, starting with the last:

This was not a busy year in the proposal-writing field.  It started with a big effort for a company I've worked with off and on, in several different roles, for over ten years.  We submitted an outstanding proposal that I'm proud to have been a part of.  Of course, it's now hung up in protests that may or may not be resolved in the next six months.  Since then, this line of work has been very quiet.  I've done a few very small proposals, some of which have been successful, but it has not taken a significant bit of my time.

The university's art gallery has continued to be a fun sideline.  We've had several really great exhibitions this year.  Covid has meant that we can't have receptions, which is annoying, but the quality of the shows was generally high.  I had an unfortunate experience with one artist who cancelled out of her show TWO DAYS before we were supposed to hang it.  Long story there, but frankly, I was relieved, and we had somebody else who stepped up and mounted a good show in her place.  Right now, I'm planning the schedule for the 2022-23 school year.  I'm watching out for any of the red flags that our problem child this year showed.

The studio has been my primary source of activity this year.  I completed 24 oil paintings, of which nine were weddings, one was another commission, and 14 were my own works.  Some of those were done for an upcoming exhibition, some were experiments, and I have no idea where a few of them came from.  I also did nine charcoal and pastel figurative works, of which two were commissioned portraits.  I really enjoy working in charcoal and pastel, but spent more time in oils this year.  

Speaking of charcoal and pastel figurative works, I have some of them in an art gallery now.  The Mars Landing Galleries is a brand-new fine art gallery here in Mars Hill.  The owner, Miryam Rojas, has created a really good gallery with a lot of very strong work, despite including my pieces.  I'm really happy to be included in this stable of great artists.

One thing I have not been able to do is re-start my life drawing sessions.  I was considering it a couple of times, but both times the covid infection rate suddenly shot up.  No sense taking chances.  

Just over the last few weeks, I've been playing around with photography.  I came across a photographer working in black and white who does really stunning figurative work.  My studio computer has thousands of reference photos taken from model sessions, weddings, landscapes, and lots of other subjects.  So I've been searching through them for those that have some kind of potential, stripping the color out, cropping, and playing with the lighting.  It has been a lot of fun and I've gotten some cool images.  Here's one:

So what's up for the new year?  Well, the wedding painting business is still going strong.  I'm fully booked for 2022 with nine commissions.  The first one is tomorrow: a New Year's Day event at the Biltmore.  It's very small, the ceremony will be outside, and I am not going to be at the reception, so it looks pretty safe.  The next wedding will be in May.  Fingers crossed, covid won't be as rampant as now.  

I have a solo exhibition set for August at the Pink Dog in Asheville.  The theme of the show is a cautionary tale of what might be in our future if we don't get our collective acts together politically, economically, ecologically, and socially.  Yeah, it's a bit of a "Debbie Downer" topic, but so what.  

So at the end of a pretty stressful year, I'm happy to still be here and ready for whatever comes next.  I hope you are, too.

End of the 2021 Wedding Season

 My 2021 wedding season is over.  I've finished three paintings in the past few weeks.  Two have been delivered and the third will go out tomorrow. They weren't finished in the order started, though, due to one start-over and one paint-drying issue.  So here they are in the order started.

A couple of posts ago, I showed an image of a blank canvas.  This was a painting that I started at the event and then scrubbed out the next day in the studio.  That happens occasionally.  So here's how the painting eventually turned out (click on the images to see a larger version):

The couple wanted their first dance and their dogs.  This was a Biltmore wedding and reception, so they were under a huge clear tent.  When I started this one over, I flipped it to a vertical orientation, stripped the tent architecture down to something more visually attractive, eliminated all the distracting furniture and people, and brought in their three dogs.  This turned out very different from most of my paintings.  It was delivered to them last week.

The second painting was one started at The Ridge, which is in the mountains northwest of Asheville.  Heck, it's northwest of Marshall, so it's way out there.  This couple was more specific: they wanted the first dance, with the doors open, looking out at the mountains, under the chandelier.  This one felt good, right from the beginning.  As with the Biltmore painting, I simplified the room's architecture to keep the attention focused on the couple and the things that were important to them.  

Oil paints dry at different rates.  Some, like burnt umber, dry overnight.  Whites are the worst and that was the case here: some of the whites took way over a week to get dry to the touch.  This is the painting that's going out tomorrow.

The final painting of the year was started at the Asheville Country Club.  I'd never been there before and it turned out to be a really nice venue.  On the other hand, I have created a painting for the bride before.  She's a real joy to work with: enthusiastic, great sense of humor, and knows what she wants.  In this case, she wanted the first dance, both families, the fall colors seen through the windows, and the chandelier and twinkle lights.  

This was another painting that was working right from the get-go.  Things fell into place quickly and I was very happy with it by the end of the night.  There was a guest table right next to me and it turns out that one of the ladies was taking and posting photos of the painting development the whole evening.  Before he left, one of the guys said "we had the best seats in the house!".  Love getting comments like that.  This couple came to the studio yesterday to pick up their painting.  I was going to get a photo of them but we got to talking and I totally forgot.

So now there's a break before the next wedding painting.  I'll be working on some paintings for an exhibition at Pink Dog Creative in Asheville in a few months.  I've got a lot of work to do!

What Kinda Deer Is That?

 

We had an unusual visitor to the back yard yesterday.  This is a young male whitetail deer with very unusual coloring.  It's called a piebald - no idea where that name came from, but there ya go.  Very rare, a bit more common (supposedly) than pure albino.  We're hoping the guy keeps coming around.

Not Every Wedding Painting Goes Smoothly

 As the title of this post says, not every wedding painting goes smoothly.  A couple of weeks ago, I started a new painting at a reception.  Lots of people came by and loved the painting, took lots of photos that are presumably posted in Instagram, Facebook, and who knows what other social media platforms.  I had nothing but positive comments.  And the next day in the studio, I wiped it all off.  

The first start just didn't feel right.  It didn't feel balanced and it didn't feel connected to the couple.  Continuing with it is like like trying to make a wrecked car look showroom fresh.  So I started over from scratch.  The requirements: they wanted it to show the first dance, and they wanted their dogs in it.  

After a good bit of work, it's done, and here's what it looks like now:

 This is quite a bit different from both the first try and from almost all the other wedding paintings I've done.  For one, it's in a vertical (portrait) orientation, rather than my usual horizontal (landscape) setup.  The architecture is greatly simplified: in reality, it was a tent with a white support structure covered with clear plastic, while mine has half the number of supports.  I cleared out all the furniture since it didn't add anything, changed the color of the carpet from blue to warm brown, and eliminated other people to keep the focus on the couple.  The hanging flowers were there, I just re-positioned them because that's what painters can do.  The dogs, of course, were not really in the tent, but they're the couple's "children" so they're an important part.

So this one is done.  I started a new painting last night (Saturday).  This one felt pretty good from the very beginning.  This one also is showing just the couple.  Here's how it looked at the end of the reception:

When the bride breaks down in tears when she sees the painting at the end of the reception, it usually means either (a) she loves it, (b) she hates it, or (c) she's drunk.  In this case, she loved it.  I love it when people react so strongly to one of my paintings!  This, of course, has a long way to go and I'll post the completed painting after they approve it.

Upcoming Exhibition

 Six of my small portraits from Iraq will be in an exhibition of art by veterans in a couple of weeks.  "Through Their Eyes" showcases art by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  One of my paintings, "Iraqi Guard" is shown in the ad.  The exhibition will be in the Bridgewater Commons mall, in Bridgewater, NJ, from November 6-13.  They'll have an opening reception on the 6th at 4 pm.  If you're in the area, go see it!

Latest Wedding Painting

 

Morgan and Major

My most recently finished wedding painting is about to go to the clients.  Morgan (the bride) and Major (the groom) were married at the Biltmore and had their reception under a huge tent on the side terrace of the big house.  They wanted their painting to show their first dance and some key family members.  

This painting was a bit of a challenge, primarily due to the size of the painting.  It's the largest wedding painting I've done at 36"x48".  That let me do some things differently and I took advantage of it.  As a result, I wound up doing much more to it than normally, simply because I could, and that was fun.  It also meant that it took two months to finish it up.  Okay, so about two weeks of that time was spent on vacation in Massachusetts, but still ...  So click on the image to see a larger version of it and tell me what you think.

Now I need to get it to the couple, along with their notecards with the image of the painting printed on the front.  I'm looking to do that later this week.  Meanwhile, I've got another commission underway in the studio, another of my own paintings underway, and I need to do another couple of paintings for the upcoming show in the spring.  Oh, and I need to come up with a title for the show.  Oh, and I need to finish up the current round of yardwork to keep my spousal unit happy.  

Vacation

 We've been on vacation for the past couple of weeks.  One of J's friends from way way back came out to visit and we all three went up to Cape Cod.  None of us had ever been there and it was on J's bucket list.  We drove up in two long days in the car.  We'd rented a house in West Yarmouth, which is near Hyannis on the southern side of the Cape.  Mostly, we wandered and let unexpected discoveries guide our actions.  That's how we wound up on a long scenic drive that led us first to Brax Landing (an outstanding restaurant) and then on to Provincetown, out at the northern end of the Cape.  Another day, we discovered Main Street in Hyannis where J and her friend browsed all the shops.  We found another outstanding restaurant there, the Anejo, a Mexican place under a 250-year-old beech tree.  We also went out to Martha's Vineyard for an enjoyable afternoon of wandering around aimlessly.  Then it was two days of driving to get home.  

Now it's time to play catch-up.  I have a wedding painting in process, an art exhibition at Mars Hill University to swap out, a yard to mow, a writeup to get done, and three potential painting clients to talk with.  Time to get busy.

End of an Era

 Yesterday, the last US military plane with the last load of military members and Afghan civilians left Kabul.  Our mission there is officially done after 20 years.  So why am I so down?  I think it's because leaving was the right thing to do, but it was done in the worst possible way.

As I stated in a previous posting, we were propping up a government that was doomed to fail no matter what we did.  The Afghan government was a kleptocracy that did not have much support from its people, who were ambivalent about it at best.  Despite all the assistance, training, and funding that we and the international community provided, we couldn't get it to do the right thing.  

Individual people, both within and outside the government, were wonderful.  Brave women stood up to advance the cause of women.  The Afghan Army and police forces took unbelievable losses in their fight against the Taliban and individual soldiers were as brave and effective as any US soldier.  I saw that myself in Kandahar.  There were people inside the government doing their best to do what was right: provide services, root out corruption, and make Afghanistan a better place.  Local leaders, despite being uneducated, could negotiate contracts as well as any Fortune 500 executive.  

But there was no leadership glue to hold the country together.  The Taliban, however, had a mission and thousands of loyal adherents. After Trump signed the withdrawal agreement, it was only a matter of time.  Everybody knew it.  The speed of the government's collapse, though, took everybody by surprise.  In my last post on this topic, the "experts" were thinking it would take 90 days.  I said it would be less than 30.  In reality, it was about 48 hours.  

The US military response was truly amazing.  From nothing, our military created a humanitarian airlift that pulled over 123,000 people out of the country in just over two weeks.  It was ugly in the beginning, but our troops quickly stood up an efficient, effective, multi-national effort.  

Parts of the State Department did a fantastic job as well.  All those Afghan evacuees had to go somewhere, and the State Department found nations in the region and elsewhere that agreed to take them.  That's not a small accomplishment.  

Other parts of this story are really ugly.  The ISIS-K attack on the airport that killed 13 of our troops and 170 Afghans, as well as wounding over 200 more, was the low point.  Another low point is the State Department's handling of the Special Immigrant Visas for those Afghans who worked with us over the past 20 years.  As I've said for years, the State Department never wanted to do SIVs and slow-rolled them from the outset.  The rationale was that rewarding capable Afghans for their service by bringing them out of Afghanistan undermined the mission.  Essentially, we were showing that we had no faith that the Afghan government would succeed.  I understand that rationale, but don't like it.  And by continuing to slow-roll visa processing even after Trump signed the withdrawal agreement, the State Department consular service left thousands of people to fend for themselves.  I'd like to take the whole State Department Consular Service, dump them in Kandahar, and let them find their own way home.

Today there's a photo making the rounds on Facebook of a bunch of military working dogs who were left in their cages at the Kabul airport.  Leaving our dogs in the airport is horrifying.  But I wouldn't want to be the individual who had to make that decision.  You've got one last plane, so do you take a bunch of Afghan women and children, or dogs?  There's no room for both.  It's a bad decision, either way.

So now we're out.  The Taliban has what they wanted: control of the country.  Now it's their turn to run it.  I don't think the Taliban will be quite as brutal as before.  Afghanistan is a "Go Fund Me" country that survives on international donations, which will be hard to come by if they don't pay at least some attention to international norms.  Well, that's the hope, anyway.  The Taliban will do what they damn well please.  And one of the things they'll have to deal with is ISIS-K.  Good luck with that.

Was it worth it?  Was it worth 20 years, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars?  Damned if I know.

Working with Models

I recently completed this portrait of Emma, a wonderful model that I’ve worked with before. 

I sent an image of it to her.  Emma loved it and posted it on Instagram.  One of her friends responded with this note: “Whoever created this portrait hasn’t looked into your kindness and lightness. I hope I get to paint an oil painting of you and show who I know you to be.”

Emma responded: “I'd love for us to art together with paint and canvas, I'd be very interested to see what what part of me you capture. This one comes from a series, where the artist gave me free range to go through different sides of me from harsh to soft, this one was from a tough edgy section of our session :). It’s been fun watching artists witness my many sides and then their interpreting of that through their art medium, so beautiful.”

The first note was not wrong.  She only saw one artwork and Emma has an infinite range of sides that I would like to try to capture.  Not only that, but Emma would probably show the commenter some different sides that she didn’t show me.  So I would love to see what this commenter would come up with.  

Emma’s response shows that she totally understands the relationship between model and artist.  It’s a collaboration.  She does her thing, I run with it, and maybe something really cool comes out of our efforts.  Very much like two musicians getting together, feeding off each other, and trying to make some new music.

These two notes - the initial comment and Emma’s response - actually get to the very essence of my work with all the various models I’ve had in my studio.  Basically, I’m a figurative artist.  I draw and paint real people.  

Some artists - most, actually - use images of people to tell stories or to convey thoughts, ideas, or emotions through figurative images.  In these artworks, the figures are really actors in a visual play.  Their real-life personal identity is immaterial.  Take Norman Rockwell’s paintings, for example.  He used his friends and neighbors to tell stories for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.  The mailman in a painting wasn’t really a mailman, he was chosen because he looked like the right character for Rockwell’s idea.  

I do this sort of thing, too, when I want to tell a story.  But a lot of the time, I’m doing an artwork to try to capture something of the specific individual in front of me.  He or she is not a generic figure, or just a slab of meat to draw, it’s Troy or Amy or Emma or James, a specific individual with a thousand different aspects to their personhood.  

I’ve had a lot of models come to my studio for photo sessions.  My guidance to them is very minimal.  Really, I just want them to be themselves.  Almost all of them quickly turned it into a play session: dancing, moving, lounging, “Vogue”ing, picking up props, changing clothes, removing clothes, putting clothes back on, talking with their hands, crawling over furniture, cranking up the music, whatever came naturally to them.  I encourage them and keep my camera going.  My goal is to let them be free to show me whatever side of their personalities they feel comfortable showing.  

These sessions typically reveal a lot about the model’s personality, often aspects that I hadn’t anticipated.  In one session, the model took a lot of poses that expressed both physical and mental strength.  A different model showed a very calm, grounded, earthy character.  A third showed her vulnerable and awkward side.  And one male was a combination of George Carlin and Robin Williams.  If I had them back for a second time, would they show me the same aspects again?  Maybe.  If they had a session with a different artist, would they show different aspects?  Almost certainly.  

So back to that initial comment about seeing Emma’s “kindness and lightness”.  I have actually seen that in her and thought it would come out in the session.  I went back over the photos and, surprisingly, it rarely did.  She was in a different mindset that day, a bit of a Vogue model, medieval witch-spirit, lawyer ballerina (now there’s a combination for you), and a variety of other characters.  It was lots of fun and I have a tremendous amount of material to work with.  But she was mostly edgy that day.  Might have to get her back for another session specifically for the kindness and loving aspects.  

One final note.  I really love my models.  All of them, male and female.  They let me see a bit of who they are, knowing that I’m going to make artworks that show other people what I see.  To them, I say thank you for your trust and openness.