Paint Better Now

Towpath in Winter, After Wolf Kahn
Pastel
8.5" x 11.75"
Casey Klahn

A new essay series is in the works and I will post very soon. Last year, after returning from Sausalito, I wrote about how to get a juicy prize for yourself. I want all of my readers who are artists to excel, and you will find some inspiration in that series. If you aren't an artist, but want to reach for the brass ring in any field, have a look. How to Paint for the Prize.

The upcoming series is a result of some recent conversations I've been having with artists and patrons. I want to offer you my ideas about creating art that is based on the best common denominator - ideas themselves. The most accessible fine art has some truth to reveal, and if you want to swim in that pool of making art that speaks, you must have ideas.

Meanwhile, I have been busy cleaning my studio and getting ready for the next events. At the same time, I am doing some professional development by taking a course online from the excellent Deborah Paris.

Please stay tuned.

Update - Update

You are owed another update of my studio activities. First, pour yourself a cup of coffee.



The studio is a buzz with framing for my upcoming show in California, the Sausalito Art Festival. I'm a little unsure of the number, but I may have around 35 - 40 originals for my upcoming exhibitions.



Have another cup? Dark roast, I hope. For some unknown reason my statistics at The Colorist have gone ballistic. Almost quadrupled on the best days. Much of this uptick is hits to this page. I cannot figure it out.

Other recent posts include 100 Things I Love About Art, and When Bloggers Meet.



Daily posting of miniature pastels, as well as an occasional medium sized work, is now going on at The Colorist Daily. This is the time to buy a small work under $100.



My search for gallery space and exhibitions may be yielding some fruit soon. I'll keep you posted when dates are firmed up. The Hoquiam River exhibition is penciled in for September 2011.



On the easels, I am developing my voice as a figure artist by studying the masters. Da Vinci and Degas are my current muses. I often post those at Pastel, but you may see some here, soon.

Two books I am reading are: Master Class in Figure Drawing and Degas, By Himself. Hale's classic instruction in Master Class has me drawing various parts of anatomy an area at a time. I am learning more stuff about the rib cage than I ever thought existed. My Nurse Practitioner wife brought home a medical anatomy book as reference material, too.




I continue to thrill at the works of Edgar Degas. His familiarity with proportion and anatomy are only the beginning. I never realized how much he departs from the real before. All because his gestures, forms and movement are so believable. The book - mine is published by Barnes & Noble Books - is richly illustrated, has a woven binding and nice, heavyweight paper. Lovely.

Edgar Degas
Dancer

Finally, in the subject of figures, our blogger friend Astrid Volquardsen, has posted one of her recent figure paintings: Eva in the Bath. Well worth your look.

Trees On The Prairie

Prairie Bush
5.25" x 12.75"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

The Prairie Series is beginning to show a direction. I am starting to be able to enumerate the things that I am trying to say visually with these paintings. It is more about trees on the prairie than it is the open spaces. Perhaps the open spaces will be my next thing, but I feel these have a kinship with my last series, The River Series. It is a visual relationship - not a naturalist or descriptive one.

It could have been a series about abstract land masses, which is a great theme for these open spaces in the American west. But, I kept focusing on eye sumps, like dark masses and colored splashes in foliage. The relationship of the tree to the whole is also key in good landscape paintings.

I wanted to add some words - essays and texts - to this series. Then I realized that I already have a series about trees, called Tree School, at my blog Pastel. Please enjoy these lessons on rendering trees. I think you'll find them unique, and I will be bringing them here interspersed with my new prairie pictures as I get them photographed. I also hope to write new texts to the Tree School, and together we can watch the Prairie unfold.



Originally posted January 15th, 2009.

Tree Study in Turquoise
@ 6" x 5"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

The title "Tree School" sounds like it belongs at an arborist's convention, or maybe a logging camp. But, I want to offer my artist's take on rendering trees with pastel.



Trees can be an awful distraction in a painting. Especially if they are present but not the subject, and if they take up too much of your effort.

We all enjoy graphite drawings in detail of a beautiful tree. Great texture, perfect modeling, and wonderful presence are what please us. But, that is the tree drawing where the tree is center stage; the star of the show. What about when the landscape is about things other than how the trees look? What do you do then?

Additionally, you can face a problem when the trees are the main content, but not the subject. I mean by that the painting where a color composition is the subject of the painting, or maybe something like the motion of one's eye through the woods. Trees have a built-in drama to them, and I propose that too much detail can distract from the message.

Return here to attend my short course on trees in pastel, and I leave you with this hint: don't begin with green.

Trends

News

Curator Jessica Morgan, of the Tate Modern, writes about the big ideas driving art now, and I have to say I concur with her. I, myself, am very interested in Modernism, but worry that it's old stuff. I ask myself if my art is too much like Modern Art, then is it adding anything to the whole? Do I even care?

The economic downturn has me thinking that a grand opportunity is here for artists to retreat and see if there is an art within them that is less market oriented. What kind of art would I make if there were no chance to sell it?

Morgan writes:

In a curatorial sense, I am fascinated that few exhibitions try to take on really big issues. I think there is a certain amount of fear in the idea of taking them on. One result is that people look to the past. There has been a tendency to revert to the early stages of modernism. It was a point of utopian hope, experimentation and bold ideas of political change.

There has also been a type of artwork that allows the audience to create or complete it. I’m thinking of artists such as Carsten Höller, who made the slides at Tate Modern, or Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster [whose current show is in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall]. They take on the role of curator and to some extent allow the curator to be an artist.

The economic shift will affect the art world. One of the things I hope may fall by the wayside is the type of fashionable production created by the market. We’d all be better off without quite so many galleries and useless publications.

Thanks, Katherine, for taking me to this article.

Addendum. Again, indebted to Katherine Tyrrell. I found Edward Winkleman's articles (Part 1, and Part 2) reflecting some of my thoughts about how artists and collectors might proceed in tough times. I have been thinking about the behavior of American artist during the Great Depression. We are very far from the economic realities of the thirties, but some of the templates from that time come to mind. Pre-selling art, long term views about collecting and strategies like that crossed my mind, too.

Commitment

Photo Credit: Lorie Klahn

Finger Crack,
Leavenworth, Washington

Commitment, in the world of mountain climbing...

Commitment, in the world of mountain climbing, is a word used to represent the point in a climbing route where turning back is a worse option than continuing. In other words, going back down the way you came up is either more dangerous, or more arduous than continuing to the summit and then down the originally planned way. The finding of oneself at the point of commitment in a difficult climb, and with just enough energy, food, and (worse yet) protection equipment to go on is a test of one's will that is truly challenging. Rubber meets road. Do or die. That kind of commitment.

Commitment: interaction characterized by obligation.

Parents know all about commitment, too. Getting up at night to feed the little squawker. Putting on those boy scout trousers and heading to the meeting. Commitment is defined as an interaction characterized by obligation.

What are an artist's obligations to himself? Does he have any obligations to society?

Rothko. Let's Talk Inimitable.

Rothko was obliged to his art

Mark Rothko seemed to feel an obligation to his art to the degree that he backed out of his commitment to hang his paintings at the Seagram Building. He didn't wish his art to be the decoration for a restaurant. Rothko became so invested in the "life" of his paintings that he created demands upon the methods for hanging his paintings. The lighting, the position, and so on. Rothko was obliged to his art.

I suppose, in the light of this kind of story, one may ask the question: does society have any obligations to art?

But, enough about "society". This is supposed to be my goal setting task. Stay tuned for the next character trait that an artist wants: Courage.

Characteristics & Goals

Blue Trees in the Middle Distance
7 - 3/8ths" x 5.75"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Since my children are starting school, and my summer art fair season has ended, my goal review and new goal setting exercises happen now. One of the things that I learned from Alyson Stanfield, the Art Biz Coach, has been to think about and state your desired character traits along with your goals. In other words, what are the traits you aspire to along with your career progress?

The artist that I aspire to be has:

Commitment
Courage
Creative Integrity
Decisiveness
Excellence
Generosity
Knowledge
Self Understanding

These are loaded words and "heavy" language, but they have deeper meanings for me. I'll be posting on each one, to expand on what these attributes mean to me.

Need Motivation? Try this renowned article (soon to be a book?) by Gaping Void. Hugh MacLeod is the Gaping Void cartoonist, and a Marketing Strategist. Excerpt:

Ignore everybody.

The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours.

Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

Thanks, Katherine Tyrrell, for this link.

Snowed In - Winter Wonderland at the Klahn Studio

The Well-Known Barn

The Cedar Shed

North Yard

House Snowed-In
Photos Lorie Klahn

If I hadn't gone to the grocery store the day before yesterday, I would not have known how really snowed in we are here in Lincoln County. The east-west legs of most roads are so wind-blown with snow drifts that they are just barely plowed. The experience is one of fitting your truck through a tunnel ( or scoop) with head high side walls.

As a matter of fact, as my wife drives away this AM, I wonder if she'll get out, because it doesn't take a lot of drifting to close our road. And four wheel drive doesn't do much against high-center drifting!

My hope is to get some studio time in the pre-dawn hours tomorrow, and then to get my kids off to school. But, the (evil) weatherman is calling for more snow!

On the subject of studio, let me spot light an enjoyable blog by an artist in Iowa, Bruce Morrison, who is remodeling an outbuilding into a great studio space. Enjoy.

Also of great interest is the retreat that artist Tracy Helgeson is making to the famous Vermont Studio Center. I am thinking of how she has determined to open up a new direction with her art, and is doing it the right way by taking a complete retreat from all distractions and giving it the college try. I can't wait to see the results.

I tried to push a change in my own studio work, and fell flat on my face because of distraction. I am also planning to return to the figure, as Tracy is doing. But, I see the challenge ahead for me if I do!