Distant Hills

I did not paint yesterday. I worked on rebuilding my back porch, did some yard work, and then went to a cook-out at a friends house.

I did find this painting I made a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post in my earlier updates, which apparantly are now archived. I was looking at real estate listings online and found this property about a half hour from my home. It has five acres, a genuine antique cape, and an enormous barn already decked out as an artists studio. Unfortunately it is out of our price range, but it was interesting enough to check out, (with easel of course).

Makin' the Bacon...

As much as I would like to have been painting these past couple of days, duty calls. This is the slow time of year for my frameshop, but alas, slow doesn't mean stopped and a backlog has built up behind the gate. Also, I have been finishing an illustration job I took on a while ago. I created three illustrations and I am finishing a fourth for the Raid on Deerfield web museum.
The bulk of the illustrations were done by the unbelievably talented illustrator Francis Back. My four contributions are in the Founding New Communities section where I am doing all but the Montreal image. It really is a marvelous website and has recently won two web museum awards. I encourage all of you to visit. Anyway, back to the drawing board for now, but back to the easel this weekend.... Thanks again for looking.

Frank

Muggy & Muddy

The past several days have been incredibly muggy, with pockets of torrential rains. It was pouring at the barn where my wife and kids were, but not a drop here, and then vice-versa. So much rain fell yesterday that the Green River was as high as spring snow melt, but brown. In the time that I was looking at it I saw many large branches, two volleyballs, several coffee cups, and a Styrofoam cooler go by. Today the humidity was unbearable and the river had mellowed to greenish ochre. I did this painting in two hours this afternoon. It is about 18" x 24" oil on canvas on birch.

True Magicians

Contemporary Plein-air painting and contemporary Blues music have a lot in common. Both have a wide appeal to a large and diverse audience. Both also have identifiable formats and loose sets of boundaries that are deceptively simple and direct. Yet despite that simplicity, both are extremely difficult to master, and not many do. Like the Blues, Plein-air painting is a very democratic art form. It is not pompous or pretentious, it does not exclude anyone with its form or vocabulary, and there is little if anything preachy about it. And also like a good blues song, when it all comes together a great plein-air painting is nothing short of magic.

A plein-air painting is a conversation of sorts; it is a sharing of an experience in as direct a way as possible. The scene goes in the eye of the artist, rolls around in the head a bit and then goes right out the hand onto the canvas. The magic occurs when the sum of the experience results in a painting that equals more than its parts, and includes a universal truth, an understanding, or genuine emotion.

We've all seen them, those magical paintings. What is it that makes these paintings work? Whether Plein Air landscapes or huge abstract pourings, they all have one thing in common. They have a quality that we recognize, but can't adequately describe in words. They do more than transport us into the head of the artist. These paintings validate our consciousness; they verify our experiences and emotions. For those that are open to the experience, seeing their own personal emotions, or observations on display can sometimes be very unsettling, and even cause some to deny the artwork its magic and the artist his skill. Although truly poignant plein-air paintings will more often than not bring a whispered, "YES" than a disturbed denial, they are no less powerful because of it. Sober cityscapes or desolate industrial views are not often "pretty", but their honesty can still affirm an experience and elicit a profound response.

Although a certain level of realist skill is often admired, it isn't solely the representational qualities that make a painting magical, otherwise only tightly rendered and highly detailed pictures would have it. In fact it can sometimes be as simple as a relationship of colors or values that will move the viewer. The experience can be like catching an elusive and reminiscent scent in the air. Before you know what has happened, you're transported somewhere else. When this happens it is sometimes unnerving, but it's always interesting.

Can there be a formula to create such artwork? There may be, but if so it is not something that can be taught directly or copied honestly, because any formula is the result of the individual artist's hand, an awful lot of paint, canvas, time and very hard work. To make such paintings it is important to be honest with yourself, absolutely fearless, ruthless with your intent, and equally open to both utter joy and intense pain. However hard we try, these are not things anyone is capable of feeling all the time. Still, when it all comes together, it is truly magic, and worth all the effort.

copyright 2005 Frank Gregory. All images and text on this blog are copyright protected. Just ask first , I 'm easy...

...one more thing...

... sitemeter tells me that people are logging on here, some for a significant amount of time, yet to date I have one reply. Please let me know what you are thinking... thanks in advance.

Frank

LOOK OUT!

Here is the updated painting, for the record. OK maybe I was a little harsh this morning, but I slept pretty badly last night. This painting and the subsequent thoughts kept me tossing and turning.






This afternoon I dug out this painting I did over the winter. Although it's done inside I consider it a plein-air painting. Again, there is much I don't like about it, but I found the concept interesting enough to do another...











... there is much I do like about this one... maybe a concept for larger studio work...

Response Ability

That damn studio painting has been irritating me since I painted it. I worked on it some more yesterday, simplified a few passages, reworked the water, and still I feel like it's just too much of a lie. I don't know what I was expecting, like I said, this is the first studio painting I've done in a long while. Responding to the world around me is one thing, then to go ahead and copy to the response just seems dishonest.

Of course, I can always impose myself on the work and make detailed and accurate paintings in the vein of my mural work at the Great Falls Discovery Center. I have done a few since completeing the project. Those are not that difficult because I have developed a formula for making the work, and I know just what the paintings will look like before I even begin them. If painting still has any meaning as ART then it has to happen honestly and without pretense, doesn't it? Otherwise it becomes just another learned craft, like picture framing or upholstery.

It's the height of summer, I've got a good 3 to 4 months left of great plein-air weather, after which it will be a real chore to perform. For the time being I am going to work directly from nature, and then reintroduce myself to the studio easel when it gets too cold. At least I now know that the studio work, if I am truly a passenger along for the ride, has to be something other than copying.

Studio Painting

Today I finished this studio version of the River painting I did onsite last week. This is 28" x 42 ". It is fairly loose, with big brush strokes.

Studio

This is the view I have been painting from the studio window.

That window is the one on the left. The River's Hillside series is from the window on the right.

I have been working on the two studio paintings you see started here. It has been a very long time since I have done larger studio paintings in oils. The mural work I had been working on for the US Fish & Wildlife Service was all done in acrylic. I worked very hard to make the acrylics look like oils. It has been harder to switch back to oils than I thought it would be. There is an immediacy to oils that just isn't there in acrylic. That immediacy is what makes the medium so intuitive and insistant. You need to respect the paint and give it it's due. Only then will it allow you along for the ride and take you somewhere you want to go.

OK, now I am up to date....

This is the view from another studio window, lest you think my studio is in a completely bucolic setting... 12" x 16" oil on ragboard on dibond.








I painted this on a Saturday on the Connecticut River, just north of the French King Bridge in Gill, Massachusetts. It was 95 degrees out, 100 % humidity and buggy. I left there with my head spinning from the heat, sweat pouring into my eyes, a nasty bug bite on my wrist, and potential poison ivy on my ankles from a pit stop in the woods. I had such a good time I went back on the equally oppresive Sunday to finish it. 14" x 28" oil on stretched canvas.


OK now I am up to date. Nothing new to post yet, although I have two larger studio pieces I am working on, one based loosely on this painting. Check back often for updates, or if you would like to be notified of a new post just drop me an email and I'll be glad to put you on the list. Thanks for looking.

A short Bio...

After graduating from college in 1985 with a degree in painting, Frank spent several years painting houses and working as a picture framer, making paintings at nights and on weekends. A native of New England and an avid outdoorsman, Frank spent those years painting outside in all seasons working from the coast to the mountains. For two months in 1986, he backpacked 350 miles of the Appalachian Trail through the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont. Carrying his oil painting equipment and the bare necessities in a fifty pound backpack, he created fifteen paintings en route. A small home-made easel/box that could also store three wet paintings enabled Frank to continue on his way and mail the work home as it dried.

Years later his interest shifted to creating small abstract paintings, which he would work on several at one time. After painting literally hundreds of these small pieces, the work ultimately evolved into being night images of cities and county fairs, depicting artificial light and mysterious silhouettes. These paintings sharpened his sensitivity for color and light and pushed further his ability to portray subtle emotion and atmosphere within the landscape format.

From 2000 through 2003 Frank used all the skills and vision he developed through plein-air landscape painting in combination with the shear scale and physical demands of house painting to create the murals for the Great Falls Discovery Center, a US Fish & Wildlife Nature Center in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Eleven murals totaling 2000 square feet depicting various habitats along the Connecticut River Watershed from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound were created for the space.

In 2002, Frank received a percent-for-art commission from the state of Florida to create a piece of public art for the Palm Beach County Health Department 's new building in West Palm Beach.

There he created two large "puzzle" paintings depicting the city of West Palm Beach and a quiet nearly empty beach, cut into silhouettes of recognizable shapes, surrounded by other paintings shaped like the continents.

Currently, Frank is again focusing on his first love, plein-air painting of the New England landscape. The experience of painting 2000 square feet of highly accurate habitat murals taught him many things about painting the landscape that he is now using in his on site landscape paintings.

Frank lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts with his wife and their two daughters. Frank Gregory Studios occupies two floors of an old mill building on the Green River where he also operates Green River Frameworks, a fully equipped custom frame and woodworking shop. When he is not outside painting the landscape or framing someone elses artwork he is working on his old house, playing guitar, helping with homework or listening to his family's horse riding stories.

...almost up to date

When the sun is close to setting, the light hits my neighborhood in such a way as to make the houses glow. It's a fleeting image and one that intrigues me enough to do it several more times. 10" x 12" oil on ragboard mounted to dibond







I have looked at this view from the side porch of my home for the past fourteen years and have never painted it before this rainy day. 11" x 13" oil on canvas mounted to gator board







When I did this painting it was the first one hour "plein-air" painting I had done in many years. I hated it immediatly. I turned it towards the wall in a corner and thought that someday I might sand it down and salvage the panel. I found it again a few weeks ago, and now it is one of my favorites, I can hardly believe I painted it...





...I liked it so much I just did this one the other day. These are both 11" x 12" oil on birch veneer plywood









This is nearly the same view as Rivers'Hillside. The fact that I like this painting now when I just did it has me a little concerned.... hmmm....18x14 inches oil on ragboard on dibond











...just a few more and this is up to date. I have started two studio pieces that are much bigger: 28" x 42" and 48" x 48" oil on canvases.

More from the Window

Here are several more from the Window Series. This first one was done in April on a very rainy day. I modified the window frame so I can take out the bottom sash quickly and entirely. This makes it more like being outside. My studio is in an old brick mill building, and my frameshop is downstairs. Sometimes I can find a few hours at the end of the day to go upstairs and paint, and this view has intrigued me enough to paint it several times. It will be interesting to see the changes in the seasons as they progress.


I think with the latest one (see last post) I feel I am finally getting away from the scene itself and using the view to play with the composition. That painting is all about arcs.

Anyway, I'll try to post more paintings to get up to date later today.

A Good Place to Start is at the End.

I did this painting yesterday. It is the latest in a series of paintings of a view from my studio window looking south down the Green River in Greenfield, MA. The paintng is 12 " x 16" and is done in oils on a board I make in my frameshop, 4ply ragboard mounted to 1/2" birch veneer plywood.

I hope to post new paintings here as I create them. I do have some catching up to do and will be posting the paintings I have done to date since last January when I started painting again, before I put up the ones I haven't painted yet.