Screensaver

Casey Klahn
Red Veiled Forest,
14" x 19"
Original Pastel
CTA


Here is an image that William Lehman posted for his screensaver project over at Artist Hideout.

It looks like the latest thing is mass co-operative efforts by artists on the web. I'm dying to think up one to start, myself. I think that I'm going to have to copy the Sargent project, which I hope is a compliment to the originators of that.

"Sargent, Post!"

No, I did not misspell the Army rank. The post I'm talking about is a link to Katherine Tyrell's (and cyber chums') new project regarding their efforts to channel some of the famous artist, John Singer Sargent's mojo.
I congratulate this group for a really stellar idea. What's more, they are inviting you to participate. The idea is to study JSS, and by the processes of learning, absorbing, and artistic "seeing", one will then produce work based on this learning. Bravo!

Answer to Quiz

In case you noticed, I lost track of my promise to post the bonus quiz answer!
The question was, "what Oscar-winning actor's late father was a member of the 'New York School'?"
The answer is Robert de Niro, whose father was Robert de Niro, Sr., 1922-1993.
On a personal note, I see that his father's lifespan was concurrent with my own father's.

The Nature of the Art Blog

Liz Tunick at Forbes magazine has some interesting things to say about art blogs. I call it "blowing sunshine", but it is a good critique that describes the art blog as demystifying the experience of looking at fine art. She says that it opens art discussion to anyone, rather than the "old school" one-sided nature of the formal art critic's essay.

To be fair, art critics may be rebutted by another art critic or even an artist, or they may suffer the market forces known as cancelling a subscription.

But, lets face it, the art blog is a keen "Web 2.0" tool for art patrons to interact with artists without the wine glass in one hand, or having to put on the "monkey suit" and go down town.

Bump! Colorist Art

Bump! Please click on the title above to re-visit my "Colorist Art" post, as a good discussion has developed.
Am I following my own goals to make art discussion open, honest, and "without the artspeak"?

Red Barn with Ramp

Red Barn with Ramp
Casey Klahn
12.75" x 9.25"
Original Pastel

If you will allow me, dear reader, I would like to post this image now. I won't add too much text with it, yet. It's an image that I created about three years ago and it kind of grew legs and started walking around on it's own, and so I offer it now for your enjoyment.

Favorite Book of 2006

I'd like to share some of the art books that I've been reading. I bought this gem at the MoMA bookstore when I went through NYC in May-June of this year. It is: Abstract Expressionism, by Barbara Hess. See: TASCHEN.

Abstract Expressionism, or the New York School, has been an influence on my own art, via that of artist Wolf Kahn. Kahn, currently enjoys "rock star" status in the world of art patronage.

Kahn sat under Hans Hoffman, who was a full-fledged member of the movement that first brought Americans to the forefront of the art world. Abstract Expressionism, which was peopled by such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, was unique in a way because the adherents were strung together socially in NYC in the forties and fifties. Kahn is recognized as a member of the latter New York School, since the apex of his fame comes after the "closed" period that produced the original school.

Bonus Question: Which Oscar-winning actor's late father was a member of the "New York School"? See tomorrow's post for the answer.

Daddy Daycare and My Year in Review

No doubt you are looking back at the past year's memories. Accomplishments and unfinished goals, failures and also the accolades...all in a busy year!
I've been having some trouble reviewing my year. I don't know how to judge or rate it. Probably I need to get my goal-setting a little more organized, so that I can know "where I've been" by the end of next year.
I have been searching the Internet in vain for some reports about art "top picks" for the year 2006. Purely by accident I read the Time magazine reports regarding top movies, news stories, music of the year, etc. Nothing on art. I guess we have some work to do as art patrons, professionals and artists to inform our society about the enduring and timely value of our art culture.
Many of you know that I'm a stay-at-home daddy; a "Mr. Mom", to my two pre-schoolers. My son is 5 and my daughter 3. My wife and I joke about having "daddy brain", or "mommy brain" when we get so easily befuddled, flummoxed or confused in our home lives.
Yesterday, the family went to Costco to find replacement glasses for my wife, who has lost her everyday pair. Earlier this year, I lost my wallet! I eventually found it in a jacket pocket hanging in the closet, after replacing my new driver's licence and bank cards, of course. Daddy brain.
Anyway, my little daughter made it all the way to Spokane and back, from our farm in rural Lincoln County, with a dry pair of undies. No pull-ups! She's almost potty trained. Why does daddy have a sentimental feeling about no more diapers? How weird is that?
Now, back to whatever it was that I did this year...

Colorist Art

Blue Branches on Red
Casey Klahn
14" x 10"
Original Pastel

Back to this thing of finding red in the forest. I found that an intense blue, while not the full compliment to red, did "pop" out. Cool in front of warm, intense on top of neutral, splits of compliments that are sort of "triangulated". What I mean is, a red that leans toward yellow, and a blue that leans toward red, are a "split compliment".

How do you make a landscape out of just primary and secondary colors only? Will it turn out upsetting, or harmonious? What about perspective? can I eschew perspectival elements, even contradict them, and still render a believable landscape?

The Fauvists assigned "wrong" colors to local symbols. I want to import meaning and order into symbols (trees, ground, forest, sky), but be free to choose colors for their own sake. "Local" color, where trees are green, and ground is brown, is helpful in illustration, but limiting in the vocabulary of the artist.

I especially like what Wolf Kahn said about art: "the role of information in art is limited".

Casey Klahn

Christmas Art

Gentile da Fabriano
Adoration of the Magi
1423
Tempera, Wood Panel
300 x 282 cm
Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Quote

“Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.”

Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890

From my studio to your home, Merry Christmas!

This blog stuff is getting funner every day. I may be falling down a little on my "multi-tasking", by leaving some other studio projects to the sidelines while I get The Colorist launched. One great thing is researching the field of art blogs out there in cyberspace. And, getting to know other artists and tech. people, as well.

And, don't worry, more of my art will be featured here in the very near future.

The Yellow House (in Arles)

Can you say,
"synergy"?

Quote:

“Oh yes! He loved yellow, did good Vincent... When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion?”

Gauguin (re: Van Gogh)
1848-1903

http://www.amazon.com/

Yellow-House-Gauguin-Turbulent-Weeks/dp/0316769010

Answer : Degas

The question was put yesterday in the "This also made the cut" post, regarding the impressionist who turned to photography late in life.

Edgar Degas, the patron saint of pastel artists, who never married, and lived into his eighties, is the answer.

My favorite thing that he said is something like: I wish I had enough money to buy back all of my previous works.

New Red Corner

It doesn't hurt to sometimes think about what we like in a certain painting.
I chose this work (it's seen at the top of the right column) as a beginning point for this blog on "Colorist Art".
By the way, if you are wondering what a "colorist" is, keep wondering. If you google it, there are typically two results: the lady at the hair salon who dyes hair, or the guy at Disney who paints the cartoon cells. Both cool professions.
In the rare instance when "colorist" is applied to an artist, it sometimes means one who has skill in using color.
I'm becoming aware of a very new definition for colorist, though. I'd like to think of it as using color as a subject, or motive for a painting. Not a tool in support of some illustrative or informational need, but an actual starting point for a painting. What if I take an intense field of red, and explore ways to promote that red? Can I make that overly warm red somehow push to the background, and yet still allow the scene to be believable? How will it come out; too passionate, or re-assuring?
Other artists are doing this, now. Wolf Kahn (google him) totally starts with a new tube of paint, and lets it guide him through a whole series of landscapes. You wind up enthralled by the interesting and pleasing colors, and only later wonder how a guy could make a landscape of a forest out of full intensity magenta, violet and green.
I finally got to see some of his original works in NYC this last June. I chose to look at about seven of his new pastels. The associates at this high-end gallery ( which sits at the center of the known art universe) where trying to conjecture that he was using oil pastel in this one, which is quite absurd...
Anyway, they were off-the-hook awesome. All scribbley and layered to the max. I loved them.
We will get into Kahn some more later. He is certainly the greatest living colorist, in the new sense.
My approach to the New Red Corner was to take a well balanced sketch that I made just down the road from my house, and stuff it with striking colors, good gestural strokes, and stop just short of over-working it.

Another logo idea

This is the third and last header or logo picture that made the cut from this morning's photo session. I like the balance, and it lacks the signature card, which may make it a good choice. Name all of the pastel brands in this photo, with country of origin, and win a link on my web site! (hint: the big squares are home-made and the little violet one stacked on the left is a Sennelier.)

Bump!

Welcome to my new blog. The opening subject will be the image of New Red Corner, seen at the right-hand margin of this page.
A Colorist American Landscape, it's a signature work from that series. Unlike most of my studio works, it actually is based on a plein air drawing of a location about 2 miles from my house in Eastern Washington. Interestingly enough, the place is called "the greasy run", because of the nature of this primitive road.
My hope was to depict the red hue that I always see in trees, which is completely complimentary to the color green. My work in this series never uses brown, or any other color but the primaries and secondaries.

This also made the cut

This one features the signature quite well.
Here's a quiz for you art history buffs out there. Which painter of the impressionist movement, who is best known for his pastel works, in later life explored the new medium of photography?
Dah, dah, dah, dah, dum-dee-dum...
Tune in tomorrow for the answer.

New logo?

My wifey got a new camera as an early Christmas present. It's a Nikon D80, which is one of those new-fangled digitals with @ 10 Mega pixels. We'll be using it a great deal in the studio, where before we needed slide transparencies for various juries or galleries, or what have you.
Now, I don't even know which end of the camera the round comes out of. I'm just the artist, here. But, as a very talented photographer, my spouse can do wonders with these devices.
Here I have posted a picture from the series that I asked her to take this morning. She shot several of a favorite subject for promotional pieces: pastels in my working palette. Here, we're trying to incorporate a signature, which is a logo idea that I've been knocking around. I notice that many fine artists don't incorporate a logo on their websites or stationary, but for those that do, I like them a lot.

Adninistrative Note

We will be staying with Blogger for the near term. I like the layout the best, and have sourced a third party help guru (in India!) and you can see the results as the graphics get better every day. Bookmark me: http://www.thecolorist.blogspot.com. Thanks!