Christmas Nativity

The Adoration of the Kings, 1564

43.7" x 32.68"

Oil on Board

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Click on the image to open full size.

Painting Challenge Group at Facebook

The idea behind the Paint The Barn in Winter group is to render an image with a particular photo as the genesis.  An artist may produce an entirely non-representational piece, or a colorist piece, or what have you.  This past month we have been working on this iPhone photo of my barn in a snowy landscape. In a few days, I will post a second challenge photo.

Not my idea, by the way.  More than one person was interested in having my permission to paint from the barn photo, and so I opened it up to the whole world to participate.  The results have been great, with about 40 artists participating so far.  

Here are some of my favorite images from the Paint The Barn In Winter group.

Arlene Richman

Cindy Crawford Day

David Wang

iPhone Photo - Casey Klahn

Easter Weekend Notes

Self Portrait as The Man of Sorrows

Graphite, 1522

408 x 290 mm

Albrecht Durer

Happy Easter!  


Easter week has been a contemplative time here in my studio.  The Matisse series has been, for me, a great exercise in writing and critique, and my essay on The Conversation will be published here at The Colorist after the holiday.  


As if I needed more things to take my mind off of the highest Christian holiday, and off of my painting, life rolls in and washes my time away.  Doctors appointments, turkey season, spring yard work, and my new iPhone, which Lorie gave me last night.  Still, in all, I did make time for two plein air pieces, which I hope to post here or at Pastel in the next couple of days.  


It was fun to find a new store, yesterday, in Spokane Valley named the Hobby Lobby.  It is like a cavernous Michaels, only cheaper.  I bought a few General pencils, a drawing board of Chinese make (I need drawing boards loaded with current projects and more of them than you'd think) and the best things were small Birch wood boxes and trays.  I currently keep my smallest pastel outdoor set in a cigar box that is tiny, but now have an even smaller one than that.  It makes me want to make some of my own boxes, but that urge will pass, I'm sure.


I am very happy to see Diane Mize posting at COMPOSE again.  Harry Bell has been blogging for 7 years.  Yes, you read that right: seven years.  His cityscapes are a lesson in composition in themselves.

More Notes:

Lots of big images by Durer - very nice collection.

Stephen Bauman Blog

Allow me to introduce a new blogging artist and teacher: Stephen Bauman. If you share my love of Italy and of Classic Realism, you will see his new blog as a treasure trove.

Bauman found my post with cast drawings, and was kind enough to comment there. Compare this with these and you will be in for a treat.



Stephen Bauman. "I was raised in Miami, FL and now live and work in Florence Italy. I teach painting and drawing at the Florence Academy of Art, under the direction of Daniel Graves."

Remembering Forty Years

Neil Armstrong in the Lunar Module After the First Moon Walk, July 20th., 1969.
Photo: NASA

That's why I love history. Apollo 11.

Charley Parker alerts us to the art of Apollo 12 Astronaut Alan Bean.

Daily Posting Month and Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth, Memory & Magic, Knutson, 2008

If you haven't noticed, I am posting daily for a month. Tracy Helgeson did this recently, and I am now up to the challenge. Since May 11th., I have posted about all things that interest me, as well as some of my new River Series works. More of those to follow soon, as I actually have eleven photographed.

I picked up Andrew Wyeth, Memory & Magic, Knutson, 2008, at a bookstore today. I was challenged by Wyeth's recent art (which I saw in a few of his obituary articles), and am interested in his view of things.

Some thoughts from this collection of art and essays are:

• I like Wyeth's very spare take on waterways.
  
• His usage of black and white paint is interesting.
  
• I have much to learn from his subject choices.
  
• Wyeth's vision hangs together well.
  
• Wyeth is an important American painter, in my opinion.
  
• His rendering of the grass and ground is very intriguing - he often has a pathway like a deer trail running through.

My post about Wyeth's recent passing is here.

Bookmark The Colorist to follow my month of daily posts.

Top 20 Art Blogs?

Violet Woods
6.25" x 9.2"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

The Top 20 Art Blogs. I think from the perspective of the subject of contemporary art, rather than art itself, this may be a useful list. Provided originally by The Met, it came to me via All Things Visual (University of Chicago). Although I like to read about the subject of art, art history and criticism, I much prefer to view the real Magilla.

For a great list of top artist blogs, see the list compiled by Kim Barker at Laketrees.blogspot. Find The Colorist at rank # 43, which is calculated by Kim from viewing Technorati authorities. A fun way to peruse art blogs is to open and view a blog's authority, and scroll down the list of who links to that blog.

Emptyeasel.com has their list of the eight must-read art blogs for 2008.

The thing I'm looking for when I'm trying to sift up new artist or art blogs is some eclecticism. The typical blogroll is biased towards the same type of art that the blog author creates. Examples of niche groups include: oil painters, pastelists, daily painters, illustrators, comic art, and crafters. These groups are perfectly fine, but I want to get out and mingle!

As I am searching for these lists, I notice that many lists are for the "top art blogs in Washington DC/New England/Berlin, etc." That gives me the idea of putting together the one for Washington State. Of course, I'd be doing this out of pure self-defense, since the eastern side of our fair state is often not considered in publications generated from the urban corridor centered in Seattle. I'm not complaining, here. Just keeping the word out that rural artists exist.

Which Artist Lives Here? Abstraction vs. Realism vs. Process - A Tag Team Battle - Bump!

Ponte Vecchio - Old City
@7" x 6"
Graphite on 70gr. Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

"Best Of" post with a little bit of navel gazing.

Quote from my post:

I have found that the requirements of good abstract work are more taxing on my brain, and simple compositional mistakes have a greater impact.

Happy Black Friday

Here is a shout out to all of my people in the retail industry on this Black Friday. I toiled in retail, myself, for something over twenty years and it is a memorable piece of my life's history. Please try to be kind to those clerks and managers who shovel goods during the bust Christmas season. Maybe even thank them if you notice good performance - I always do. And when I receive substandard service? Well, at least at Christmas time I try to be a little more gracious than the rest of the year!

On subject, I am warming up to the very popular blog, Lines and Colors, by Charlie Parker. Early in my blogging I found it, but sort of overlooked it as a drawing or illustration blog. Turns out that I am returning to my own drawing roots as part of my own process, and it also turns out that Parker's blog covers a broader, more eclectic set of art subjects than I originally thought. That's a nice discovery.

Speaking of art topics, the magazine Contemporary Art Gallery (CAGZINE) is a fine read and I recommend it for modern art and artists content. I found it through Giselle Borzov, whose blog Art Now is a regular read of mine. Read this article where Cagzine celebrates it's one year anniversary, which I will also do in a couple of weeks here at The Colorist. Read this article to gain an understanding of their content and direction.

Looking forward at The Colorist, I am about to reveal a new tool that I hope will become a meme for art blogs in the broad community. It will be known as the Art Link Letter, and looks to be a great opportunity for artists to gather blog traffic, and admirers to search a list of sites of interest to the artists linked through the "letter".

Art is Invisible - Weblog Awards Still Uncultured

Is art dead? Looks like it is in the minds of the Weblog Awards. Purposely not linked.

Here is what I wrote in the forum section at the Weblog Awards:

Congratulations on the Weblog awards for 2007. It is a shame that my blogs, and the blogs of countless others in my blog community, will not be eligible. Of course, we are talking about the art blogs.
No, not photo blogs! Please, for the love of all that is decent good in this world, we are trying to have a civilization here!
Notice that I stopped short of declaring the blog awards "uncultured"!
Never mind. I can see that art is, as the critics have claimed, dead.
Now that I have, hopefully, made you feel silly, let's get busy and include this category in your awards. By the way, I will inform you (and this is painfully necessary) that "art" is not photography, but does include fine art photography, and is separate from the category of "culture". However, it goes without citation, that culture's greatest asset has been art - at least for a couple of millenia.
Back to the art category: Wikipedia has correctly suggested art as having two broad categories: "Visual Art" and "Arts".
Thanks for your attention to this, Weblog Awards.

This cause is not about me or my friends getting another award. It goes to the perception of art in civilization. Many simply don't see it on their radar screen even in an abstract sense. I have come off snotty, probably, which isn't helping the cause of art in general. Maybe some of you gentle readers can add to my thread at the forum, or even better, add a few threads. Registration required, but painless. Act now, since the nominations have been opened.

BTW, I "cap off" on photography because the category of photography is included, but art has no mention whatsoever that I could find.

Intuitive Choice in Art

Abstract Reds Over Blues
20" x 12"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
Collection the Artist

Things are a little "static" around here, to use the web lingo. Let's revisit a popular post that should grease the skids of creativity;

Intuitive Choices

Under the tutelage of Diane Townsend I painted this abstract work. It has some elements of color field painting, like Mark Rothko, and extensive gestural elements. The gestural nature is in keeping with the drawing roots of the pastel medium. I like the way the paper's surface is evident, and yet the color blending, and heavily worked nature of the piece makes it work as a painting for me.

Let's talk a little bit about intuitive choices in fine art. The choices that a child makes are very intuitive, because their knowledge base is limited. The hands start moving, and the limitations are the length of their little arms, and the characteristics of the tools. They are mostly trying these tools out for the very first time.

A great deal is made of technique in art. The pastel medium is no exception. In fact, technical skill is probably too emphasized in this medium. It's supposed to be hard, you see. And, admittedly, there is much to know (much that I do not know!). Sometimes beginning steps are not rewarded very well by the outcomes.

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."
Edgar Degas said in a quote posted at Expo Degas.

So, intuition! First sketches with bold gestural marks always work better for me than deliberate and measured work. The thing is to have years and years of drawing from memory in one's back pocket, and then the quick marks made on the paper will seem intentional. I don't subscribe to the subtle and tentative working that is often required of detailed realistic work.

The same goes for compositional choices. It is not easy to describe, but I think that studying good composition is necessary, and then ought to be put out of one's mind. If you can internalize compositional knowledge, it will come out naturally as you draw. The best thing I can say is: "try it".

The ability to critique one's own art becomes more important when you want to be an intuition-driven artist. Did this one really turn out to have the best composition? Color Choices? Does it have too much to say for one painting? Ask these questions of yourself.

Wolf Kahn has a chair that he sits in and ruminates over his finished art. Most artists do take some time and distance away from their works to try and get an objective perspective on their own creations. It's challenging.

The pastel medium is "made to order" for the artist who wants to favor intuitive creation. It is a direct, and rewarding tool. It's interesting to consider that in the book, Wolf Kahn's Pastels, the great colorist chose to make the text a collection of essays on artistic process. A natural fit, I think.

New Links for the quoted post:

Diane Townsend.

Schama's take on art is somewhere between pointless and powerless, in my opinion. However, I offer you his link on Mark Rothko, here.

Art World Currents

Jane Kallir, in The Art Newspaper, has given us a well-rounded essay on the four pillars of the art world gone askew. I always read these things very critically, as I am very free market oriented. She does a balanced job of describing some of the ills of over-feeding the art world's money hole. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with capitol, IMHO. Money is indeed the root of all evil, but it is not the evil itself - that requires man's imprinteur.

Given Miss Kallir's authority as a NYC gallery director, I had to yield to her knowledge on the steep drop-off from the super-heated art auction market to the next levels down. I still feel that the value of art overall is improved by the unimaginably high prices spent at auction, but the facts also speak that the middle market and lower market (hello) are "becalmed".

Is it any wonder that I had a whole month on art criticism? The need for knowledge is suffering, and it seems that the general understanding of this is spreading. If I, as an artist, must strive for originality, then the academic and critical strata of the art world must risk a little, too.

Thanks to Katherine Tyrrell for linking us to this great article.

Teri Horton's "$5 Pollock"

There is a pretty hefty backlash that has accompanied the abstract movement. It's just a crock and a hoax - an elaborate promotional "smoke and mirrors" show, if you ask the detractors. What good is art that is about nothing?

The latest installment from the naysayers is the Teri Horton Five Dollar Pollock story. Her story is well covered in the news media, and it's a knee-slapper. Did the retired lady truck driver inadvertantly buy a forgotten Jackson Pollock painting? She found the big canvas at a thrift store, and bought it for her friend as a joke for 5 bucks. An art professor from the local college gave her the clue that it might be a Jackson Pollock, and her retort is classic: "Who the #@*^! is Jackson Pollock?"

So, here is our dear Teri, holding onto this (virtually worthless to her) painting that maybe could fetch up to $140,000,000 if she can just find the right sucker buyer for it. I am doubled over in laughter watching clips of this lady and a host of arts professionals tearing their hair out trying to make up establish a provenance for it.

Was there a fingerprint on the Five Dollar Pollock that corresponds to known Jackson Pollock fingerprints? Evidence from his Long Island studio, and from a JP in the Tate museum apparently match. But, the hard-headed and harder-hearted arts experts disagree. Fingerprints don't mean anything to museum curators or art appraisers that have seen the painting.

This woman is trailer trash, basically, to the snobby snobs of the art world, and the ghost of JP himself could appear to them and say: "It's mine!" and they still wouldn't buy it from the likes of Teri Horton. Take it as an article of faith - you can't trade with the high brows if you don't smell like money already. That's the message of the story Horton is putting forth, anyway.

If a Pollock really could be purchased for $5, then what is the real intrinsic value of a big canvas covered with drips? If he were any good, why couldn't he just paint a figure, a faerie or a piece of fruit, like any other normal artist?

It all comes down to provenance, in my humble opinion. No signature on the work? Then, if the artist Jackson Pollock painted it, and didn't sign it, then he was devaluing it, himself. Then, he failed to destroy it, which is the accepted norm for artists. It seems that our Teri Horton was offered 9 Million dollars for the piece, but refused it as too little. Bad move.

Artists today have powerful tools to establish a paper trail for their work: signature (DUH!), jpeg, date of creation, list of showings, commentary from first and third party sources, receipt of sale with value established, names of owners, etc. All these things are data that helps to tag that artwork down through history.

Teri's Five Dollar Pollock is a byproduct of the Antiques Roadshow era, where any schmuck can fall off a turnip wagon and come up smelling like a rose. Rags to riches, as it were. Don't be angry at the art world, Teri. Brush up on your pitch!

The bigger lesson is the commentary on modern art that this episode reveals. The rank and file don't like the art, don't care for the artists that much and really dislike the highbrow art world that surrounds this whole mess. But, I have found out that there is a similar current in society that doesn't like any art, abstract or real. The artist today, and the army of other people who make their livings from art, have a ways to go before they have the exalted place in society and civilization that they picture for themselves. Maybe one start may be to reach out to the Teri Hortons of the world, somehow. A little proof of value wouldn't hurt the artist any.

I liked what this commenter had to say regarding the Five Dollar Pollock and Horton's problems with it:

"Ultimately, it does not matter if the painting is a Pollock or not. The value of it is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. There is no intrinsic value of any 'Art' piece. There is no MSRP in the art world. She was offered 2 million dollars for it, so that is what it is currently worth (if that offer even still stands). If she rejects that offer and /or it is rescinded, and there is no other offer, the painting is worth 5 dollars. plain (sic) and simple. This is economics 101. 'Art' is no exception."

Posted by pmfaricy on Sun, May 6, 2007 9:17 PM ET

Another Blogger's opinion:

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2006/11/what_teri_horto.html

Current Art Market, Criticisms

Lisa Hunter, over at The Intrepid Art Collector, a while back had this post called Star Power:

... who determines whether art is good. Today, the market itself tends to make stars, giving top dealers and collectors (like Charles Saatchi) the role once reserved for curators and critics.

A museum director confided to me that the market has "pushed museums to the side as arbiters of taste." Nowadays, the public already has an opinion about which new artists are "important" before a museum exhibit can be organized. Only a few museums, like the Whitney, even dare try. It's a fool's errand: If they show artists who aren't the annointed stars, people think the curators are out of touch. If they show the reigning favorites, everyone snipes that the curators are in the pocket of the dealers.

A generation ago, high-brow critics like Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg wrote intelligent criticism that anyone could understand with a bit of effort. They provided a framework for asking questions, so a viewer could learn to evaluate art for himself. Today's scholarly criticism is often obtuse, theoretical, and unhelpful. (I was looking at an art history graduate program recently, and the Art History Department could have changed its name to the Michel Foucault Department without having to alter a single course description.) Newspaper critics may be excellent --especially Jerry Saltz and Tyler Green -- but reviews are case-by-case and don't provide an overall framework, so insecure collectors rely on a thumbs up/thumbs down for each individual show.

Or they rely on dealers, which takes us back to the market creating the stars.

Is there a better way? How should novices learn about contemporary art? Do we leave them, sink-or-swim, to figure it all out for themselves? Or is the art world failing them and, ultimately, itself?
Our previous discussion raised interesting questions about who determines whether art is good. Today, the market itself tends to make stars, giving top dealers and collectors (like Charles Saatchi) the role once reserved for curators and critics.

A museum director confided to me that the market has "pushed museums to the side as arbiters of taste." Nowadays, the public already has an opinion about which new artists are "important" before a museum exhibit can be organized. Only a few museums, like the Whitney, even dare try. It's a fool's errand: If they show artists who aren't the annointed stars, people think the curators are out of touch. If they show the reigning favorites, everyone snipes that the curators are in the pocket of the dealers.

A generation ago, high-brow critics like Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg wrote intelligent criticism that anyone could understand with a bit of effort. They provided a framework for asking questions, so a viewer could learn to evaluate art for himself. Today's scholarly criticism is often obtuse, theoretical, and unhelpful.
(I was looking at an art history graduate program recently, and the Art History Department could have changed its name to the Michel Foucault Department without having to alter a single course description.) Newspaper critics may be excellent --especially Jerry Saltz and Tyler Green -- but reviews are case-by-case and don't provide an overall framework, so insecure collectors rely on a thumbs up/thumbs down for each individual show.

Or they rely on dealers, which takes us back to the market creating the stars.

Is there a better way? How should novices learn about contemporary art? Do we leave them, sink-or-swim, to figure it all out for themselves? Or is the art world failing them and, ultimately, itself?

I like her overall thesis, about the failure of art criticism. If this is true-that the critical career is lacking in potency, then there is a vacuum for advice about art based on a theoretical structure. This set of values, or art critical theory, has been a service to art patronage who look for some sort of rational basis for which art should be considered good, and which should not.

I think, though, that one would have to effectively indict "the market" in order to fully prove this thesis. The free (art) market does respond to the forces of shared "taste". What is wrong with that? Doesn't the art critic serve a master, too? The university, or some periodical or news media, together with it's readership and advertisers, are the constituents of the professional art critic. You'll notice that I didn't say: "artists" there. Where do they fit in? I would say that the artist's interaction with his buying market should be valued as a viable critique of art. There are filters there, too.

What do you think?

Types of Subject

I had another post written for today, but I liked the conversation going on in the comments area for the previous easter posts. They bring up some global art issues that dovetail well with our art crit. conversation. I wrote the following:

Yes, those Renaissance (and Baroque) painters had a good handle on figurative, narrative and spiritual subjects.
When I see the three that I curated for the easter holiday, I wonder if there is anywhere else to go with realistic and figurative art in the present and in the future. Their works were nearly perfect in accomplishing their goals.

I think about Harvey Dinnerstein, who is a stunningly good contemporary figure painter. He uses the self-portrait, and urban scenes with contemporary figures as subjects. They match the quality of the Renaissance greats, although I'm not aware of any works he has done that are as complex as these multi-figured compositions.

What place does spiritual work have in art's present and future? Is it more important, less important or roughly equal to the place of socially and ethnically aware contemporary art?

My bias: I am more likely to either relegate to a lesser status, or just disregard any current art that is social, or political. The reasons are that I value more the formal qualities of art, including subjects that are self-interested (such as color or abstraction).

Which Artist Lives Here? Abstraction vs. Realism vs. Process - A Tag Team Battle

Ponte Vecchio - Old City

@7" x 6"
Graphite on 70gr. Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

In the past, before I had this blog, I worked hard at unifying my work. My Colorist American Landscapes are a nicely coherent body of work, where abstracted landscapes reveal color stories that speak immediately to the viewer.

Now I have started posting both finished and process sketches, realist paintings (usually of Italy), realist farmscapes, and some abstracts. You may be asking yourself, "How many artists live here?"

I am not, as far as I know, Schizophrenic. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here, and assert that I am not. But, I do enjoy expanding my limits. Growing my artistic abilities, if you will. I have had an urge for some time to return to my realist roots. So, I started the 100 Paintings Project which stays focused on the Italian Landscape and realism, with effects of my colorist tilt. Then I put it on another blog, hopefully to reduce confusion between my styles and genres.

It's perfectly okay for Pablo Picasso to inhabit any number of genres. But not an unknown such as myself. BTW, I saw an awesome artist's tagline the other day : "So-and-so, the nation's favorite unknown artist". Anyway, my goal is to stay focused for both artistic and marketing reasons. At the art fairs, I am rigidly focused on one style for just those reasons. You have mere seconds to impress the passerby, and they don't want to be confused about how many artists are showing in that booth. Also, the fair committee takes a dim view of non-coherency.

But, here in blogger-land, I have become motivated by so many of my blogging chums and also by the famous artists that I research and oogle at on the web. So, first came some drawings. Then I fell totally off of the wagon and posted some of my abstracts, too.

Plus, I have gallerists looking in on me. They probably say, "this guy's not focused".

I am happy to be more inspired and ready for growth in my art. I want to return to figurative work, too. But, I am determined to always have a fine art body of work that stays unified. I make sure that I always have at least 40 framed pieces of these, as well. That way I can go to the art fairs and not run out, and I am ready to hang a gallery show at the same time. The probable solution for me is going to be to put up a static website that houses my Colorist American Landscapes, and keep this blog for process and broad subjects.

I am really pleased to have painted a new Colorist American Landscape around the subject of barns and outbuildings. Look for me to post it here at the end of the month.

One thing that I discovered has been the answer to a question I have been pondering for some time. I always felt that the abstracted works (see a page of them here) were harder to do for me than strict realist work where the subject is more centered on the illusions of perspective and the goal is to allow the viewer to "read" the landscape as they expect it to be. That's a forest, leading down the hill to that set of buildings. Stuff like that.

I kept thinking, "If I return to stricter reality, will the requirements of perspective and rendering be harder than these intentionally abstracted ones?" Turns out that the realist ones are easier for me, just like I suspected. They are improving as I go along, but I fail less often, and I can leave them on the easel to change a diaper, put in a movie, make lunch, etc.

On the other hand, the Colorist Landscapes require strict focus, and the finished painting needs to be done in one (or close to one) sitting. More failures happen, even though I have been at it for a number of years, now. I have found that the requirements of good abstract work are more taxing on my brain, and simple compositional mistakes have a greater impact.

Art Links

Sunflowers
Casey Klahn

You are invited to have a look at Rob Chunn's Art Links. Anyone else have a good list of arts and artists links?

Ever wonder what art looks like from the collector's point of view? Enjoy reading Lisa Hunter's blog here.

Seattle seems to be revving up it's art scene. See these links:

http://www.seattleartblog.com/
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/art/
http://www.artguidenw.com/

Intuition and Gesture

Yellow Gesture

18" x 11"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
CTA

The gesture embodies the intuitive approach to art. Sure, color choice looms large. Linear composition, also big.

And I am holding drawing up as the most fundamental pursuit within the big tent that is fine art. No offense, ceramic and glass. No offense print media, and photography. But drawing is the alpha (if not the omega) of artistic expression.

So, consider the gesture. Robert Henri denigrated the gesture in his seminal book: The Art Spirit. His opinion was that the gesture cannot stand without some purpose, or composition to be a part of. However, taken as an element of expression, what else goes so close to the bone of the artist's intention as the curling, bold, climactic gesture?

In keeping with my pastel feature this month, I offer the gesture as a pigmented mark pregnant with feeling. Grab a pastel; scumble it on it's side to tone your paper. Don't think about the next color. Grab the pastel stick and make a gesture with your whole arm - No! Your whole body! How does that look to you? Can it be improved upon? Should you add some definition to it? Or should you just discard it? Another color, perhaps.

Have a seat, now, square in front of you easel, and ruminate. That's it! Get up, choose another pastel stick and gesture along the paper. Now that precious mark has been covered; changed forever.

How does the drawing look, now? Was your intuitive choice of color agony, or ecstasy?

Intuitive Choices

Abstract Reds Over Blues
20" x 12"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
CTA

Under the tutelage of Diane Townsend I painted this abstract work. It has some elements of color field painting, like Mark Rothko, and extensive gestural elements. The gestural nature is in keeping with the drawing roots of the pastel medium. I like the way the paper's surface is evident, and yet the color blending, and heavily worked nature of the piece makes it work as a painting for me.

Let's talk a little bit about intuitive choices in fine art. The choices that a child makes are very intuitive, because their knowledge base is limited. The hands start moving, and the limitations are the length of their little arms, and the characteristics of the tools. They are mostly trying these tools out for the very first time.

A great deal is made of technique in art. The pastel medium is no exception. In fact, technical skill is probably too emphasized in this medium. It's supposed to be hard, you see. And, admittedly, there is much to know (much that I do not know!). Sometimes beginning steps are not rewarded very well by the outcomes.

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."
Edgar Degas said in a quote posted at Expo Degas.

So, intuition! First sketches with bold gestural marks always work better for me than deliberate and measured work. The thing is to have years and years of drawing from memory in one's back pocket, and then the quick marks made on the paper will seem intentional. I don't subscribe to the subtle and tentative working that is often required of detailed realistic work.

The same goes for compositional choices. It is not easy to describe, but I think that studying good composition is necessary, and then ought to be put out of one's mind. If you can internalize compositional knowledge, it will come out naturally as you draw. The best thing I can say is: "try it".

The ability to critique one's own art becomes more important when you want to be an intuition-driven artist. Did this one really turn out to have the best composition? Color Choices? Does it have too much to say for one painting? Ask these questions of yourself.

Wolf Kahn has a chair that he sits in and ruminates over his finished art. Most artists do take some time and distance away from their works to try and get an objective perspective on their own creations. It's challenging.

The pastel medium is "made to order" for the artist who wants to favor intuitive creation. It is a direct, and rewarding tool. It's interesting to consider that in the book, Wolf Kahn's Pastels, the great colorist chose to make the text a collection of essays on artistic process. A natural fit, I think.

Degas Pastel

The Artist's Cousin, 1873
Edgar Degas

This wonderful portrait shows some of Degas' process and technique with pastels. I couldn't resist sharing it with you.