Pride Goeth Before the Fall

      I needed some glass for a frame, so I looked through my stack of accumulated glass down at one end of the painting rack and found only one piece large enough. Usually I find one of the right size, but this one needed a good piece taken off one side. No problem. I dug down in my tool kit and found some old glass cutters from way back. They dated from when I had a frame shop in Athens Georgia some 40 years ago. Tool kits are wonderful things and I have tools in there dating to my childhood from my Dad's basement workshop. He was a mathematician but loved working with his hands. 

This kit has followed me all these years through various careers. It was part of my prop kits that I rented to a production whenever I was hired as Propmaster. I've got other kits: one for graphics/drafting; another for calligraphy with all my inks and pens; my Plein Air painting kit usually rides with its dolly in the back of my truck along with easel, stools, & pop-up canopy. Kits always gave me work-- I was hired to work on a film drafting sets and doing scenic painting the third day after I moved out west to Hollywood--All because of my portfolio & my kit allowed me to get immediately to work.

So, I set the glass sheet on the worktable, marked it with a grease pencil, put a little 3-in-1 oil on the cutter and prepared to cut. I know how to do this. I used to do this back in the frameshop before we got a big wall-mounted glass & board cutter. I got that long piece of sliding-door track that I use for making long lines and with a remembered practiced backhand zipped the cut across the glass, hearing that old familiar sound of steel wheel scoring a straight, true and perfect line. It felt good that I knew how to this so well, so professionally, with a fluidity that felt good. Now I slid the sheet so the cut was just over the edge of the table, readying to bend the glass ever so slightly and have it break off clean, sharp, neat. I held the sheet to the table top with one hand and gently bent the rest at the break-line.

 And it shattered in a hundred different pieces.

Pride goeth before the fall.

It was not unlike that day 25 years ago (Cinco De Mayo, 1990), when I fell out of a tree. The Zen Center (ZCLA) maintenance staff wanted to cut down this tree, but I argued that it only needed to be trimmed back, and heck, I could do it myself. They acquiesced and I found myself with a saw high up, one foot on the edge of a garage roof, the other on an extension ladder leaning against the tree trunk. The branch (six-inch round) I was sawing broke off and instead of  falling to the ground jumped out and hit me in the chest, knocking me off the ladder sideways. I fell down to the poolside cement and shattered my right foot. I was a year on crutches, then a cane and could no longer work on my feet as a Propmaster, a job I loved.

Perhaps if I had not worn flimsy canvas topsiders but above-the-ankle workboots not unlike the orthopedics I wear now, the damage may not have been so severe or not occurred at all. Perhaps if I had a safety line attached to the tree like tree trimmers do-- perhaps if I had let the professionals handle it.

Pride Goeth Before the Fall.

But then....

If I had not fallen out of that tree, I might not have returned to teaching, which I still do to this day, and love. I would not have taught that year (on crutches) a pastel portraiture class at Santa Monica College Extension and therefore never had met the woman in that class to whom I've been married for 22 years. We might not have moved to Monterey/Santa Cruz and found a wonderful home in the woods. All because of a fall.

Anatomy of a Painting and the Eye of the Artist

"In the days of my youth 'mid many a caper, 

I drew with my nose a mere inch from the paper;

But now that I am older and of the elite,

I find I can't focus inside of two feet."      John Updike

Recently, I've been painting a self-portrait in the studio and also perusing "The Eye of the Artist" by ophthalmologists Michael Marmor and James Ravin (St. Louis,1997, Mosby-Year Book). They, and the contributors to the book, explore in depth the function of sight in art and the various diseases and problems of the eye  that artists face. The chapters on specific artists are quite illuminating and a surprising number of Impressionists had difficulties with their eyes: Degas, Renoir, Cassatt (who gave up painting entirely due to her lack of vision), Monet, Pissaro. 

Most of these problems occurred as they grew older. I, too have problematic sight and it is of concern to me since art is my life blood. I am glad to say that I do not have the drastic cataracts of Monet, or the gradual blindness of Cassatt. What I do have is presbyopia, which any number of us get as we get older. I was fortunate to get almost to the age of fifty without glasses, even more so since all other members of my family wore glasses from an early age. Now, however, I have at least 4, maybe 5 different focal lengths. I have reading glasses, a work pair of bifocals- the lower part of which is set at arm and brush length, the upper part to see the model on the stand-- and a pair of computer glasses. I have always had great distance vision, but lately, road signs down the highway are blurring.

So, twixt teaching and painting and home, I carry several pairs of glasses with me which is cumbersome,to say the least, including a store-bought pair I use solely for seeing what's on the shelves of the grocery, and a small magnifier in my left pants pocket for the tiny print of product labels, etc..     I also have not one but two lazy eyes. My right drifts downward and my left drifts upward. Usually not a problem, and the optician puts a "crystal" in each lens to correct it. I have always had a physical awkwardness, bumping into things, banging doorknobs with the back of my hand, never real sure on my feet when fast moves are called for. This kept me from most sports (golf was ok), and my solution was just to learn to walk and move slowly, deliberately, all my life. I thought that I had a peripheral vision problem, especially below my eyes, but my doctor said it was my lazy eyes. Whenever I move my head quickly, especially down, my two eyes scramble to align themselves, giving me a moment of unsuredness. She says this is common with folks who have lazy eyes.

I have generally been happy with the bifocals, with which I paint. I have had to make some changes. For instance, I must keep the painting below my eye level  to fall within the lower bifocal lens, and I slant back the easel therefore to keep the canvas at a right angle to my line of sight. I've always taught my students to work as vertically as they could in order to keep the differentiation between what they see (the model or scene) and what they put on the canvas to a minimum. And here I am, often having to take my eyes off the scene/model to look down. 

There's also something else that has been bugging me, especially with this self-portrait. I've always been able to draw the human form, and anything for that matter in proportion. I've always told my students is that if you can master two things, proportion and perspective, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the great mass of other artists. Perhaps I've been inordinately proud of my ability to draw what I see in exacting scale, that you might say that it is karma that I am noticing incremental proportion questions creeping into my art-- and I attribute this to my bifocals. Let me take you through my thought process as I painted. 

This is the first pass-through, where I block in the painting:

At this point, I'm putting in the areas of darks and lights, also drawing out the location and size of shapes. I notice that the arm is not proportional to the rest of the body. The shoulder should be farther over, and the elbow should be off the canvas. I make the correction:

I have moved the elbow off canvas, but the shoulder and hand don't feel right. Also I make the decision to move the hand up to a less lax position, which would, I hoped, offset the awkwardness of the forearm. What I see, both as I paint close to the canvas, and as I step back, is an arm and hand that are out of whack with the rest of the body.

I've made several changes as I added color. I've moved the shoulder and the arm farther to the left, making them much more in proportion. You can see the disembodied floating hand that I've moved up, made more active, holding a brush. The placement of the hand should solve the awkwardness of the angle of the arm once it is painted in. I'll also need to darken the shadows of the hand to match the face. But here is where I am a bit visually perturbed: take a look. Is that hand out of proportion? Isn't it just a bit small? Rarely have I, in my years of drawing/painting the figure had to worry about proportion since it came naturally, but now I must, because  my eyes are getting older and lenses, as well as correcting, can distort, however slightly and fool oneself.

So this is where I'm at. But it is a minor dilemma compared to the cataracts of Monet or the macular degeneration of Georgia O'Keefe. No matter how personally concerned I am about my artist's eyes as I age, my consternation pales in comparison to my sister-in-law who is almost completely blind from glaucoma, or my wife and her other siblings who have or are at risk for glaucoma.

Drawing Trees

DRAWING TREES    

(PART ONE)

Catatonic Ode, from the Fan Free Funnies

Back in art school, I was enamored of artists such as Winsor McKay, Heinrich Kley, and Walt Kelly. One of my earliest art memories was watching my dad draw characters for me from an evening newspaper Pogo strip as I curled up beside in my pajamas. I was especially fond of Kelly’s trees. 

Here’s an example of my work for the Fan Free Funnies back in Richmond, Virginia in the early ’70s. That's me in Little Nemo's bed (Winsor McKay) in the final panel. The tree with a door is heavily influenced by, if not drawn directly from Walt Kelly.

It is highly appropriate that I am dreaming of trees in Nemo's bed. I grew up wandering through Jefferson National Forest which was just over golf course hill by our house. I've lived for a time in cities but always return to the woods. I live now surrounded by a California Coast Oak forest nestled on hills above the beautiful Elkhorn Slough. I've always gotten a straight answer from a tree.

Here's the trees of Pogo's Okefenokee Swamp from Walt Kelly:

 

Mickey's Tree Acrylic and Ink on Bristol Board

In the sixties and seventies there were a number of artists who used cartoon and graphic illustration in their art & as inspiration, centered around the art school of Richmond Professional Institute which became Virginia Commonwealth University. Many have gone on to great things: Phil Trumbo (who won an emmy for Pee Wee's Playhouse), Charlie Vess, who is a renowned fantasy book illustrator (and draws great trees), Michael J. Kaluta who drew The Shadow and Starstruck comics, among others. I worked in a similar vein for a time but moved into a more fine arts/painting direction than graphics. Here's another tree from that period.

Here's a penciled illustration from a couple years later. Don't know why that pencil lady is planting rows of pencils. I recognize the character's pose from a large 1930's era poster that I bought around 1975:

Pencil Lady, graphite on Reeves BFK

Untitled, undated Tree, Ink

In the 80s I went back to school to study Architecture and went to work for the Virginia Department of Parks and Recreation, then Baskervill and Son, the oldest architectural firm in Virginia. But on a weekend gig as an extra on a film being shot in Richmond, I caught the movie bug. I worked a few productions in Virginia, then moved to L.A., working as mainly a Propmaster but also as a Scenic Designer for the better part of the decade following. 
 

Malibu State Park on the set of 50 Simple Things. ink

Most of my creative energy was swallowed up by the industry but occasionally I picked up a pencil for my own art. And unsurprisingly, trees were my subject matter. A few from a sketchbook of that period.

     

Tree, Zen Center of Los Angeles, Ink with white highlights

While trimming a tree (!) at ZCLA, I fell off the edge of a roof and landed on cement, shattering my right foot, effectively ending my Propmaster career. In a way it was good: I was ready to leave propping as a career, but probably would have continued since the money was so good and the job so involving. 

Walter White, Architect, Pastel

Not being able to touch my foot to the ground for eleven months confined me pretty much to my little monk's apartment. But it renewed my art. I mostly worked figures, hiring models or imposing upon friends to sit for me. Drawing the human figure has always been my joy. I have taught and drawn figure drawing and painting for the past 40 years, no matter what other art I was working on or what job I held. Here's examples of what I did while laid up:
  

Pastel Demo

These two were done as demos in a Pastel Portraiture class in the extension of Santa Monica College while I was on crutches. The reason I mention figurative work in a blog about trees is that the drawing and painting of the human body and tree forms have a lot in common. It is not for naught that arms are called limbs and our torso is a trunk. Moreover, the rounding of limbs and branches are the same in tree or human. The lessons of delineation of form through shadow and shading, of proportion and scale are the same for both, and from drawing one, we learn to better draw the other.

Royal Oaks Park, 2013

The rounding of human forms and trees have similarities that are quite apparent. 
Here are some examples from over the years of both:

Ormont Oaks, circa 2009

George's Back, 1989, Pastel

Huntington Gardens, watercolor, 80s

Vase, watercolor, 90s

Sycamore, 1998

Bull and tree, 2005

End of Part One. Next: 

Painting Trees and Using Drawings as Preparation

THE BIG AND THE SMALL

Warning to those who do not like animal posts. This is one:

Here’s to all the animals I have known and loved. Here’s to Maggie and Joe and Henri; to Blackeye and Dali, the twins, Moji and Jack-Jack; to Pumpkin, our orange kitty who was left in a box on our doorstep one soft October night before Halloween. Here’s to foul-smelling Mr. Gray, who was born with a deformity that causes the pads of his feet to slip and burst, sending a noxious odor out wherever he treads, and causing him such pain that he often walks on the backs of his paws (with his paw turned back at the joint). Here’s to Dalai, our first cat in California, who is old and maybe on her last legs-- a seal-point Siamese with an obnoxious meow. And to Tyger, our striped cat, who freeloaded at every house in the neighborhood, but finally settled down with us. (Mr. Gray and Dalai have since passed on...Jack-Jack lost, we assume, to coyotes...)

Dalai

Dalai, named after the Dalai Lama, came to us from Sharon’s house over the hill where, before the coyotes diminished the numbers, many stray cats resided. Mr. Gray was a feral cat who understandably, nobody wanted. Tyger was a stray & Pumpkin arrived unbidden. Blackeye and the twin black cats were born to our Little One, another Seal Point, who was probably purloined by coyotes. She lived out in the bushes and had several litters before we could catch her and get her fixed. Blackeye is the older brother and was born in the same litter with Bob-Bob, who disappeared one day and whom we still mourn. 

Bob-Bob & Monster

In our little pet graveyard on the side of the hill under the oaks, watched over by a statue of Buddha, are: Brando, the only longhair we every owned; Pretty-Pretty, a feral/stray who was the father of Monster, buried beside him. Monster was my wife’s cat and never grew old or big. He went through and amazingly passed a bout with FIP, but his kidneys were so damaged, he could not go on. Pretty/Pretty was killed by a speeding car on Christmas day on our little farm road. If you know where we reside, you’d know that it’s a narrow pot-marked dusty track through a farmer’s property to get to us. Only someone with mal-intent would have run him down.

Joe

Brando died of cancer as did Joe, our beloved first pit bull who is buried on the other side of the house, on the backyard hillside where he spent most of his day. His passing a year ago left Maggie our Kelpie all alone and an empty spot in our hearts, so we found Henri, our second pit. We introduced Maggie to many possible adoptee dogs at several pounds and the SPCA, but Henri had the most infectious personality. If you are counting, we presently have seven cats (now four) and two dogs, unless Bucket, a feral cat I was enticing to join us, comes back. I've lived with animals all my life and find living with other species a joy.

So here’s to them all, the long and short and tall. To Rufus and Daniel and Buttercup and Gracie, all dogs I lived with on an 1820 farm in Upright, Virginia—along with Apricot Rabbit, Simma the Goat, Morgan the duck and Mud-Slide Slim, a steeplechaser. Here’s to my first dogs as a boy, Laddie and Sparky—and even to my parakeet Pretty Boy. To my cat George, who followed me from hole to hole on the golf course when I was a teenager. Here’s to Sarah, an African barkless Basenji, perhaps the most intelligent dog I have known—she and Maggie and Gracie all had the same gentleness of spirit that especially endeared them to me. I still miss bouncy Abby, a Malamute who was my last dog in Virginia before I moved west. And here’s to all the rest—the ones who were fostered, or boarded for a while; those who I only knew for a short while—all too numerous in my memories. 

In my mind’s eye and in the dreams of my heart, nothing is more wonderful and more wished for than a boundless walk on a crisp, clear day and my dogs, boon companions all, running free through golden fields.

Anton Mauve

Remember Anton Mauve?

I thought of Anton Mauve recently because of a student in my Pastel Figure class at the League. This woman, untrained as she is, is the best artist in the class, indeed one of the best I have taught. I can take little or no credit- she came to me that way. She says I helped her loosen up and be freer.  Perhaps I did—loosening up is a mantra I chant in all my classes. 

I give a demo of whatever method or material we are covering, then the students work on their own art. On this particular day, Crow X was our model and we talked about how to achieve realistic tones of dark-skinned folk. I did my usual quick and easy capture of Crow’s head, showing how to layer the various underhues (see pic). Demo over, the students worked at their boards and I worked on my  piece for a while.

Then I got up and walked around to check everyone’s work-in-progress. What this woman had done in a brief few minutes knocked my socks off. With a few deft, free strokes of vivid color she had knocked down the very essence of Crow and his skin tones. She paid little homage to the layering or blending I so assiduously teach but slapped the colors on in broad strokes.

If truth be told, she worked in a way I have always coveted to obtain, and only seldom achieved. I work in a technically skillful way with a great deal of speed, and no doubt my work is capable, competent. But her work soars while mine sits. Her art is fluid, dynamic, lyrical. And yet she thinks that I, the teacher, am better and she judges her own work to be inept and weak. I try to disabuse her of that notion, praising her art and pointing out to her those treasures that flow through her fingertips.

Anton Mauve was a competent, very good painter in his day and one of the founders of a school art in the Hague. He made a very good living at his art—it was highly sought after—and was considered a fine colorist. However, outside of Museum staffs and the Netherlands, who speaks of Anton Mauve today? If he is cited at all, it is not for his artwork, but the fact that he was Van Gogh’s cousin by marriage and that, for a brief few months, he taught Van Gogh the rudiments and fundamentals of oil painting. Van Gogh considered Mauve a major influence on his art, second only to Millet. Indeed, the one of the few paintings Van Gogh inscribed/dedicated to someone besides his brother Theo was to Mauve. 

Did Mauve know how good Van Gogh was, or at least, did he recognize that his young cousin eclipsed (or would one day eclipse) him in creative wherewithal and artistic power? Did he wonder, as I did when confronted with my student’s art, how almost pedestrian his capable work was next to an artist of force and power?

I’m not fishing for compliments. I am confident enough in my own art and abilities. Yet I cannot help yearn for a bit more power, a bit more oomph, a bit more pizazz in my work. And isn’t that the creative drive calling? You will pardon me, but I need to get to my easel.

Mac's Plein Air Workshops / TREES- July 9 & 10, 2011

 July 9th and 10th, 2011 from 10am to 4pm.

A two-day Plein Air painting intensive with a focus on trees, from the fallen sycamores of old Fort Ord to great masses of Eukes, Oaks & Pine.  

One in a series of five (FOUR LEFT!) summer Plein Air Intensives offered by Mac McWilliams: Rocks & Sea; Trees; Boats & Water; Farms; Cityscapes.  

Each 2 day course: $175;  

all 4 for LESS THAN the cost of three: $475.

Click here for info, maps and directions.

Nearly a year since I first blogged. Nearly a year and 1/2 since I sold my bookstore. Thought that I would continue selling books afterwards (or afterwords, if you prefer). But beyond a few map sold on ebay the first month, I've hardly traded in books a-tall. Its amazing that a decade and a half of bookselling has no more hold on me than that. Even thou' it was mainly a way to make a living-- to support my painting habit, I always say-- I thoroughly enjoyed the biz and I loved, was passionate about old and rare books. The treasures that passed across the store counter were a joy to hold, to smell, to touch.

And yet, I've been a painter, an artist all my life. Always making, showing and selling my art in galleries across the US of A. I've always manged to teach an art course or two while still making a living doing something else. Now, to my pleasant surprise, I am managing to sell enough art and teach enough to get by. Here's what my artwork looks like:


To view more of my art go to www.maclanda.com and click on the galleries in the sidebar. The above image of Garapata Beach is in the gallery called, appropriately enough, the Garapata Series. Garapata is a state park with magnificent coast line, south of Carmel California ( on the way south to Big Sur).