Cave Paintings

I’ve been working on a painting for a while now and I’ve arrived at one of those perplexing moments when I’m not finished with it but I like the way it looks in it’s current form.

Sometimes I have trouble finding inspiration to paint. So what I’ve decided to do is to go through some books on art history and use those images to jog my brain into action. The first section in the book I have is on cave paintings. So up to this point I’ve just been trying to recreate the cave part of the painting. It’s been an interesting experience is paint layering and textures. I confess I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and it’s taken far too long. But it’s been educational for sure.

Next, I want to actually add some pre-historic looking cave art. But instead of just recreating what the picture in the book looks like, I want to reinterpret it for the situation I find myself in here. I can’t finish it yet, however, because I want to ask one of my profs a question about something when classes start up again.

Here’s the current state of the project. I had to fiddle with the colors a bit after the picture was taken to try to get it to look like the painting. I’m not sure what the best way is to get that correct except to eyeball it.

Abstract Art

Last Friday night we had a lecture here on campus titled, “Reflections on the Nature and Value of Abstract Art,” by one of the professors here, Dr. Steve Halla. I was going to post my notes on it, but I just found this page of notes that does a much better job. So I’m going to leave it at that.

I thought the lecture was worthwhile. At the very least, it helped me to understand the broad category of abstract art and how it’s different from representational art. I had never thought of art in these terms before.

I’m going to have to start looking at abstract art with new eyes. I’m still not sure I appreciate it as much as I do more traditional forms. But at least now I have some map to look at when I see it.

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Well, I’m out of town tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be writing anything for the next week or so.

Some Incentive

In my plans for writing I chose Wednesday as a day to talk about art. It was a strange choice. Now that I have to write about it, I realize that I don’t really know anything about art. It’s funny how having to actually say something about a topic will inevitably reveal the depth (or lack thereof) of your knowledge. But maybe this will be some incentive to do some thinking and form some opinions. That’s my hope anyway. (But don’t expect too much.)

So this topic might go in some different directions.

I might think about questions like: “What is art?” ; “What is good art?” ; “Is beauty really just in the eye of the beholder? Or is there some objective standard?”. This would be more like a “philosophy of art” or aesthetics. I’ve never really considered most of these questions before, and I’m not sure really how to go about it. Can anyone suggest a good book on the topic?

I might think about specific artists and their works. This would be more like a history of art. It might be an easier place to start (I’m only saying that out of naïvety, I think). But it might help me get at some of the questions listed above. And it might help me with what follows.

I might think about practical aspects of creating art. (”How do I get that certain effect in a painting?”) I think this was what prompted me to choose this topic in the first place. I’ve been playing around with painting for a while in a non-serious sort of way. I like seeing what I can come up with.

Really, all of those approaches interest me; it’ll probably be a combination of all of them in some way. Hopefully, as I said, trying to write about them will force me to do some thinking and make some plans and keep me accountable for both studying and painting. It might be interesting.

Adventures in Louisville

Each Saturday I’m going to try to find out something different about my new city and share it here. I’m constructing a Google Map of everything I do.

Today that new thing turned out to be the location of a really cool place near my apartment. I typed “art stores” into Google maps to find one near my apartment. I’m trying to learn something about watercolors, and I needed some paper tape with glue on it (gumstrip) to affix watercolor paper to a board. I’d looked in Atlanta but hadn’t been able to find any. So, with the location of an Artist & Craftsman Supply in hand, I headed out. It turned out to be one of those chilly, windy, overcast days where all you’re really supposed to do is stay inside, on the sofa, with a book (and if you’ve got a fireplace and some cocoa, well, all the better).

The store is on Mellwood Ave, but I didn’t know exactly where. I didn’t see it on my first drive down the road. So I drove on and discovered that Mellwood ends up at Zorn. (I love the names of these roads). So I did a u-ey and headed back. After a couple of turns up side streets I finally found the place. It’s the kind of store you just love to go into: racks of stuff piled from floor to ceiling; nooks and crannies; an upstairs loft with even more stuff packed in it. I asked one of the employees if he know where I could find my gumstrip, and he took me right to it. Then I wandered around looking for about ten minutes. It made me wish that I had a ton of money and the talent to use all the interesting supplies I saw. Maybe with some practice, who knows?

Since I don’t really know anything about using watercolors, I asked another employee if they knew where I could find a class in watercolors. She didn’t know, but she referred me to an entity called The Watercolor Society that was located in the next building. (How fortuitous!) When I went in search of said society, I discovered that the next building housed not only this, but a myriad of shops and artists’ studios and exhibits and galleries. The entire place, I discovered is called Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center. I found the booth of one amazing watercolorist named Jim Mahanes. His work is amazing. Unfortunately, however, he wasn’t there. And the lady at The Watercolor Society didn’t know of any classes. So I left. But outside the building are some very interesting sculptures and a coffee shop and restaurant. I’m going to have to go back soon and explore some more. Maybe I can find my class somewhere else.