I did this painting as soon as we had moved to our home. Everything was in boxes, the house was bare and I had an empty room to just look at this view undisturbed.
It was summer, the colour of the sky was powdery blue, the farmer had just cut off the grass and there was this fresh smell of cut grass in the air so I parked my easel, took out my paint tubes, pallete and brushes and started to paint, I also wished everything stayed in its boxes forever so that my mind wouldn't be cluttered with other stuff in the room.
If I had to choose a few items in my life, it would be my painting gear that is the only thing that really makes me happy. The photos I have taken of this painting are not good. So I posted two to give you a better idea how the view looked in that lovely summer's day.
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34 comments:
Maria, yes, it's so much better when you can do something without worrying about other things. Sometimes, one can have a "magic" few minutes or hours where everything, literally everything goes just right. It's a wonderful feeling.
Re your message on the previous thread : they're yew trees. I suppose you said jew trees for the same reason that Julio Iglesias once prouounced his record "Yours" as "Jaws."
Robert, you have a very elegant way of correcting my spelling. Its Yew trees. Julio Iglesias has the worst English pronunciation I have ever heard. It is a mystery how he triumphed with the English songs.
I hate clutter and I love empty rooms. At the moment we have such an accumulation of objects that I feel overcrowded and it is easy to lose things.
As a child, I used to think that painting must be an incredibly tense process. I'd look at a painting and think, "the artist must have been really anxious as he got towards the end. One wrong brushstroke and the whole picture is ruined." Since then I've found out that artists can easily change things and put right any small mistakes.
That said, though, do you find that when you start a painting your hand moves freely, but that as you get into it you start to slow up?
I'm like that with books. When I start reading a book, I go along quite fast, but as I get to the middle and then the end, I noticeably slow up because I'm determined to take everything in and relate what I'm reading to the earlier parts of the book.
Hi Robert,
No it is not a tense process on the contrary, it is rather pleasant but it requires a lot of concentration though, it is nearly a magical feeling to work with colours and different shapes plus you let your imagination free.
Mentally, the tendency while painting is to create a mood and you decide what mood you want to create, maybe a diffused light, or an overcast sky or whatever takes your fancy.
The important thing is to decide what you wish to accomplish before hand.
Maria, have you ever had the experience of starting a painting to do one thing, but then the painting decides that it wants to be something else, and in the end you're forced to admit that the painting knows best and you must let it be what it wants to be? I've had that experience writing poetry.
Hello Maria and Robert,
What a lovely conversation that you have happening here, it is a shame to interupt!
Yew trees are so beautiful, and the wood in furniture is wonderful.
Nice to hear how Maria and other artists work 'mentally'.. it will be good to hear what Maria has to say on your last question Robert, I know exactly what you mean.
It doesn't even have to be some artistic thing either, it can just be a situation in life, if you can follow my reasoning here.
Maria, the paintings are great .. a view to die for, imagine looking out every day onto a scene like that. People, especially in Australia love water views, I love landscape and country, rolling hills and green. Maybe it comes from my childhood and visiting my grandparents in the country, such nice memories .. yes I think I could live in the country in the right spot and the right house, would be very peaceful.
Robert and Victoria,
I have been giving a great deal of thought to this last interesting question that Robert has posed. I had one difficult painting like that, where I had in my mind, sketched through thoroughly all the elements of the composition in what I considered was a finished sketch; it was my first vase of flowers which I have not shown here. Anyway... When I had finished painting all the flowers, the painting looked too plain and uninteresting so I added different colours of flowers in an attempt to bring it to life. In the end, I had added so many flowers to the thin vase that it was completely unrealistic for such a small, thin, vase to contain so many long stalk flowers ! So I had to change the vertical vase for a round bigger ceramic pot by painting over it. Then I thought the stalks looked too severe and added circular branches of flowers to tease the eye to see something less severe and also the round shape of the branches would help echo the new round ceramic pot but the more I added to the painting, the more it seemed to need. Then I decided that the colours were too similar ( mauves and blues ) and that the painting would benefit with warmer colours to visually give it more variety and jazz it up. Sometimes a painting just flows and intuitively you pick up the right colours and shapes because you are in the right mood or frame of mind when you do it. It is a bit like a trance and where you cannot be interrupted because if you do interrupt the flow and later you come back to it, the feeling, the inspiration, or whatever you want to call it, will be gone and not return again ever. The experience is similar to when you are having a dream and once you wake up, you cannot continue the same dream again. Its gone.
Victoria, ah yes, in life I guess there have been times when I should have just let things take their course instead of trying to fit them into the pattern that I wanted them to be in.
Also, the same sort of thing can occur in, say, science. In the end so many special allowances have to be made for an old theory, that it's necessary to sweep the old theory away and construct a new one.
Maria, it sounds as if your paintings are talking to you : "No, I don't like that. It doesn't suit me....That's right, give me some more of that....and now some of that...."
A bit like a dream, but one of those strange dreams where you're awake and dreaming at the same time.
Maybe that's how Van Gogh painted.
Robert, that painting was a nightmare to do. It was a complete failure on the planning stage because I had never done a flower painting before. It was a learning experience. Unlike writing... painting is not supposed to start out to be something, but then the painting decides that it wants to be something else. If that ever happens it only means it is a failure in the preparatory stages. It would be like saying I wanted to do a cathedral but ended up with a cottage ! Usually, when a painting is not doing what you want, then you tear it up and start all over again. This is why it is very important to do concientious preparatory sketches to get a clear idea of what it is ultimately going to be like; this way you are avoiding disaster. A painting works more like a theater: everything is staged. Where the light source is coming from, what is going to be the focal point, you have to know the exact composition including the shape of the canvas has to be right in order to convey the right visual effect that you want. You also have to think about the colour harmony, nothing is left to chance. If you leave it to chance it will be a head-ache later.
Having said that. I did not do any preparatory sketches for this painting from the back of my house. It just came out like this in one go. When that happens, its very pleasant. Spontaneity it is wonderful when you pick up exactly what you are feeling, when you are feeling it, and not at a later date when its only a faded memory. It best works with landscapes because you are directly stimulated by the scene in front of you.
Van Gogh used to say that painting was like panning for gold; some days you get nothing out of it whilst others, you strike gold.
Hello Maria and Robert,
this is all very interesting .. seems like two ways to paint. One involves an idea in the artists mind and is then carefully planned and executed by the known techniques.
The other is by 'inspiration' .. something is seen and just 'happens', still using the physical artistry skills that have been learned, but just flows through more naturally without interference from the 'doer' (artist). Maybe coming from beyond, a bit like how it is said that Mozart used to write music. He said something along the lines of, "I am just writing down what is already there, it is not 'mine' ".
Hence no changes on his manuscript.
Do you see it like this, Maria?
Dear Victoria,
I could not have said it better. That is exactly how it is, I did not have to invent anything I was merely painting something that was already there, it is not " mine "
The only thing is... I did not paint the ugly electricity pylon. It would have ruined the composition. I tend to take out the ugly bits from a pretty scene, leaving in just the atractive elements in the landscape and maybe that is the difference between painting and using a camera, that an artist is never objective, I leave out the ugly bits. Just like Holbein did with Anne of Cleeves ! When Henry the VIII saw her portrait, he was so struck by her beautiful image that he immediately agreed to marry her but once he saw the real Anne in the flesh, he sent her packing back to Flanders and the wedding was cancelled !
Also, when you paint a landscape in a matter of seconds, the fluffy white clouds move away, so the shadows on the landscape also change and move away too; and the longer you take to paint it, the original picture you saw won't be the same as the light changes, so in the end, you paint from memory the image that first struck you to paint it. You make a mental snap in your mind before it decides to pour with rain ! This was the reason why Monet used to take several canvases and change them each time the light was getting different.
And yes, the traditional method is careful planning by sketching it first in a smaller scale, to do the appropriate changes before committing the work to a large canvas.
Hi Maria and Victoria
Yes, I can see how a failure to plan could lead to all sorts of trouble. I have a very faint memory of doing a jigsaw puzzle when the lid with the picture had got lost. By the time I gave it up as a bad job, it looked like something from Picasso.
Robert that's so cute and very funny !
Yes Robert, that is funny .. also maybe an indication of what you think of Picasso's work!
Maria I can see what you mean about leaving the electricity pylon out or ugly bits in a painting. I have just been sorting out my photos and there is a shot of a really beautiful old building in Buenos Aires .. but all I can see in the photo is this ugly bent traffic sign, spoiling the shot. If I was clever on the computer .. which I am not, I would be able to remove it.
Monet's idea of taking several canvases seems a good one .. you could get multiple paintings done at once .. a bit like multi-tasking?
I think I may have said this before here, but could you not photograph a scene .. so it is 'captured' at that moment and then the fluffy cloud or stormy sky could not escape? And then, paint at your leisure.
Your story on Holbein's painting of Anne of Cleeves, making her more beautiful than she really was, reminds me (in a strange/opposite way) of when women say their age is younger than they really are, for vanity.
I prefer to put my age up (make myself older), so then they say how wonderful you look ...
Just a quick note about Anne of Cleves. She actually stayed in England after the divorce and was given various fine homes including Hever Castle - but this may have been in the hope that she'd get lost in the maze.
Oops ! Sorry, I got that bit of history slightly muddled up then ! So Henry DID marry Anne and after the divorce, Anne of Cleeves was given all those properties as compensation. All I can say is that she did very well out of the deal without having her head chopped off. Maybe there is an advantage in being ugly after all.
Victoria, it is a funny thing but when you work from photographs the result looks like a painting being taken out from a photograph, it does not have that painterly feeling. I know I will have to do something in between as it is practically impossible with this weather to go out and not be drenched with rain in the middle of a session. Also, the most beautiful views are usually where the traffic does not allow you to stop for too long or the opposite, the place is too isolated to feel safe. So somewhere along the line, I know a photograph has to be used as a reference. Although every time I see one of these photos I could use... I start to jawn. It does not excite me as when I first saw the original view. In fact, it does not look anything like I remember it.
A human mind is not objective as a camera is. I know I see colours that are not there, or at least the photos do not show them.
When I lived in England I used to do pastel paintings on the spot. All of those were sold and I do not not where they are now. England lends itself to pastels specially in the summer. Here in Wales the colours are not pastel, they are deep and strong it is another kind of beauty.
Maria, I follow your reasoning in regard to photos and paintings.
I know often when I see a scene with my eyes ... that there is no point to take a photo, the colours or effect that I can see will not be reproduced by the camera. I have never really stopped and thought why this should be, when a camera should just record what is there. I only know from experience what it will or will not look right in a photo.
Robert, thank you for the correct spelling of Anne of Cleves .. Maria has an excuse, I do not!
Alright, Anne of Cleves ! I can now see how I got that bit of the story muddled. It was because when Anne wrote home to her parents she wrote: ' The King's highness WHOM I CANNOT HAVE AS A HUSBAND is nevertheless a most kind, loving and friendly father and brother '
Well, that is a clear indication that the marriage was not consumated. Besides that, to say that Henry was disappointed on Anne's arrival would be a gross understatement. He was livid. He roared his displeasure to Cromwell who had been responsible to arrange the nupcials by saying to him: ' I WOULD NOT BE HUSBAND TO THAT DUTCH COW ! ' Cromwell trembled for his life and he was duly executed a few months later.
A King like Henry was used to get his own way. I forgot that monastic marriages are arranged in careful negociations, months in advance. Its all done through courtiers like a business transaction. So the ' marriage ' took place but ' divorced ' shortly afterwards.
I meant to say: Monarchic marriages instead of monastic. These sleepless nights are taking their toll on me.
Victoria yes, a camera records what its there. Whilst we as human beings are interested in a particular object more than another one in a scene. Like the beautiful building and the ugly sign a camera gives them both the same importance. We could easily agree to get rid of the ugly sign which is ruining the view of the building !
Robert, are you sure about Haver Castle ? Wasn't that Anne Bolyne's family seat ?
By God Robert what would I do without you ? You are unbeatable ! So it was... Even though Hever Castle was originally the family seat of Anne Boleyn, once her father died, the house went to Henry VIII who in turn bequeathed it to Anne of Cleves as part of the divorce settlement. She never lived in it though, or maybe she did get lost in the maze !
Maria, there was probably no maze at that time - that was just my joke.
On photographs, don't they change with the times, e.g. if you look at photographs from old National Geographic magazines, the colours seem much too vivid to be accurate. So if photographs change with the times and also with the equipment used, then they're not objective either.
In fact, to be strictly objective : the colours aren't in things at all. Colours are just a function of the kind of light which enters the eye.
That is true Robert,
when you look at old photos, the style of the photography, colour, contrast, lots of things seem to make them fit an era .. without even looking at the subject matter.
Some of my photos of Antarctica, just look too blue (it really was that blue) but they look like old 1960's type, there seems to be not much contrast. My eyes didn't see it like that .. ah, but just writing that I realise my eyes are not objective either, what I see (in all ways) is coloured by the mind. The same as you can go to the same place twice, the first time you absolutely love the place, and when you re-visit you wonder why you thought that at all. It all depends on your state of mind at the time. And 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' type of thing.
And yes, I have heard that about colour, but as it is too early in the morning here and I do not possess a scientific mind .. I shall leave it there!
It seems to me that nothing in this world is totally objective, always some intervention, however slight.
Victoria & Robert,
This is true. It reminds me of the time I had a commission to paint lake Vyrnwy. I learned that the person who wanted this painting.. was colour blind ! He could not see reds, his vision was only in blues. So... with that bit of information I set out to paint Vyrnwy just in hues of blue. It was a success ! He absolutely loved the painting and he invited me to his home so that I could see it framed over his fire-place. At the time, I thought I was cheating, since I ignored all the browns of the vegetation in the foreground. But then, you are quite right. What is objective ? if he could not see the browns what was the point in putting them ? As you say Victoria, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that if had painted the browns in the foreground which were clearly there, he would have hated it. As it was, he loved it.
What I meant to say before, had nothing to do with colours. For example, when they try to reconstruct the Kennedy assassination witnesses versions differ, but someone filmed the moment his head was blown up and even with this " objective " and unbiased film, people still now argue endlessly where the shots came from. We can see the film over and over again, at slow motion; backwards and forwards, no matter how they look at it, there are still different theories but the machine does not lie. It recorded exactly what was there.
Hallo Maria and Victoria
It's interesting how people do perceive things, and the way their perceptions change. For instance, I believe that up to a certain age, children will draw things that are not strictly correct, e.g. if a very young child wants to draw a wolf behind a fence, then the child will draw a transparent fence so that you can see the wolf through it. It's only later that they would draw the fence with the wolf's head sticking up over the top.
Yes, umm... psychological research in children's drawings has found that children draw the most important things to their heart very large in comparison with other things that may actually be larger in size. e.g. a picture of mummy takes up most of the space, whilst the house is drawn in a tiny corner of the paper; when it should have been the other way round. But this is how they see it. It is in order of importance rather than actual size. For a small child, mummy is more important than anything else. There are children who draw their daddy as the sun of their lives. It is very interesting to see children's drawings. A drawing tells you what is going through their minds and often when children have been abused an experienced psychologist can see what is happening. Children who live in war zones draw blood, nasty men with guns, dead people etc. Its easier for them to express their feelings in drawings than it is to express them in words.
All the pictures I drew as a kid are long gone - but I must have drawn some pretty huge bars of chocolate!
Mmm Chocolates ! I love chocolates too. On the latest art exhibition they had over here, all it consisted of, was a film where children were sitting in front of a table dabbing chocolate all over it; then they put it over their faces, their clothes, then they threw it at each other and I was so disgusted with this " art " that I walked away from the " exibition " luckily I did not have to pay a dime to see that. What a waste !
Talking about wolves, when my son was a small child, he drew a round black circle with fine lines and he explained that this was a black thick forest where deep inside it lived a wolf ! A friend said: You have an abstract painting there.
Maria, that's not an art exhibit, that's a normal children's birthday party.
On the wolf, speaking as a total amateur psychologist. i'd suggest it expresses confidence, because the wolf is controlled within the circle.
Mmm How interesting ! I never thought it like that and Yes, I can follow your reasoning. Hector had encircled the bad wolf and so he had control over it. When I asked Hector where was this wolf he was talking about he said you cannot see it because he is trapped right inside the middle of this thick forest.
When I was in Central America, I saw a landscape painting of a lake with mountains and right at the edge of the cliff I noticed a small cage. Inside the cage, there was a bride and a groom dressed in their wedding clothes. It is funny how the painter was letting us know that he thought marriage was akin to living in a cage, even though I do not share his feelings but nevertheless, I thought it was interesting. That seems to be the trend at the momement over there, that you see something but it could be something else instead.
There was also a clown, and as you got closer to the painting, you would discover that the eyes and the nose were balls suspended in mid air. It sort of has remided me of what you asked earlier if a painting could decide that it wants to be something else. That second painting of the clown was curious, because from far away, it was just a clown but as you got closer to it, the mouth looked like one of those Miro paintings were objects are hanging from the air and the rest, was just shadows. The painter was Roberto Huezo who I knew a long time ago.
Maria, was this all one painting - the bride and groom and the clown, or two different paintings?
Robert, it was two paintings. One was a landscape and the other one was a clown, which had a blue background, so the nose was red but if you looked closely, the nose was like one of those snooker balls.
Well, of course that is my interpretation of this painting with the newly married couple inside the cage. The fact that the cage was hanging from a thread down the precipice, maybe meant that the marriage was doomed, or possibly the institution of marriage is doomed and is going down the cliff. The rest of the painting with the mountains and the lake, seemed otherwise serene.
Robert, I would like to see those poems that you wrote, where you intended it to be something and ended up being something other than what you intended it to be.
Victoria, please do not feel you are intruding in this conversation your comments are very welcomed too.
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