Discussions with Mark Norseth

Aloha, and thanks for visiting my blog. I’m a painter living and working on the island of Oahu, Hawai’i. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, I moved to New York City for over a decade to pursue an in-depth study of painting, supporting myself as a freelancer. I’ve been what people like to call a full-time painter for a dozen years, but it seems like about four.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.” — Howard Thurman

I’ve started this blog to keep people up to date on what’s going on with my work, share experiences and ideas, and dream aloud a bit.  More…

– Mark Norseth

Thought I’d post something from last night’s class at the Honolulu Academy School, where I’m happily teaching figure work two nights a week.  Great group of people, and the activity is the perfect counter to all of the outdoor work I do, chiefly because I do need  to return to a stationary subject and focus on all that drawing and painting the figure requires me to focus on.

This is the first three hours of six I have to devote to the drawing. So far, this drawing reflects getting things into place, I’ll be slowly refining and simplifying from here on out.

While I’m not necessarily an big advocate of red chalk, I have somehow acquired a good supply, including some from Zecchi’s in Florence that my friend Mike Curry brought back from Italy for me years ago.  So, I’m experimenting with using it these days along with red Conte and some other things.  Like so many other things brought into our time from the past, it never seems to quite satisfy my ambitions. Of course, it’s not the materials that create this disparity I sense, it’s myself, and us. It’s the time and the place we are in. Our times and how we view life are different. We’re not  in that world, and  we’re infinitely better off in the one world we have today than the one Pontormo  and Annabale Carracci  ( two great red chalk men) worked in.  But there is a magic to their drawings, a sympathy and  intention that I simply admire and always will.

Quick posting here.

I was out  just after sunup with major winds and overcast conditions.  The canvas was bouncing around like crazy, which only added to the pleasure I took in spending about two more hours carving away at this.  Kept me from getting fussy on the second day.

I should be using my old Anderson easel, but the half-box is (unbelievably) holding it’s own just fine. Wore me out, fighting the wind for that long. The sunlight arrived, giving me a chance to study the greens more closely, along with everything else. I love paint without a medium…it’s harder work, but it’s a solid underpinning, no glare or stickiness.  Big bristle brushes, a Raphael size 22 was one I noticed I used a lot. I want an exciting, developed surface quality, and the canvas seems perfect for what I’m intending.

One newish thing ( it seems new but I’ve been doing it a couple years) is the mixing of all my greens from blues, reds, and yellows.   I think the one and only place outdoors where I still use Viridian is in the ocean.

Just back from tilting at my windmills this morning at Kailua beach, and it was unbelievably good.

The 22 x 28″ canvas managed to stay planted on the French easel, perhaps not the  optimum choice for such a windy morning.  But I’d scouted a protected position when I did the pencil sketches, and was pretty confident that I’d be okay.

There’s nothing like a lay-in that goes well. It’s like that great date with your spouse- to-be, where you foresee all the great things that are going to happen, and everything seems fresh and clear and possible.  Painterly optimism can soar in this first stage, as it did for me this morning.

The setup was perfect because I like to lay-in a significant painting on an overcast day. Everything is reduced to midtones and nicely flattened, and since lay-in time can be one of the longest of my recurring sessions, an overcast day is good. And I got what I wanted, a cool morning with a smart breeze. After getting in the major preliminary tones, the sun broke through.  Everything lit up, the proverbial scales fell from my eyes, and I could see the path before me, much as I’d  experienced when I selected this spot a week ago. Shadows intensified, colors emerged, people began milling about in the trees in brightly colored beachwear as if they’d risen out of the sand.

untitled,  oil on linen  22 x 28″

So, this is now a complete go, and I look forward to tackling it.  I have great hopes, but also enough experience to recognize that in the hours and days to come, that optimism will be tested by disappointments and shortcomings yet to be revealed.

I’ll probably reach a point of  disillusionment where I’ll ask ” What did I see in this place? What am I after?”  (That’s what the pencil sketch helps with).  I’m already skittish about the centrality of those canoes in the painting, but my hope is that, since they aren’t the central subject but merely an incidental shape-part of the whole, I can be forgiven.  In order to get the tree mass on the left where I needed it, something had to give.

I’m hopeful!

I’ve finally gotten two compositional sketches for my next potential painting together.  That business with the tsunami put a hold on things; we who dwell near the sea were directly confronted with how uncertain a place that this world (even in the best and most beautiful of places ) can be at times.  A sobering experience, from which I hope I’ve gained an appreciation of just how blessed we are.

Which is all the more reason to seize the day.  Believe it or not, during those hours when none of us in Hawai’i knew what was going to actually occur, I found myself thinking of the courageous musicians on board the Titanic who, accepting their fate, performed chamber music on deck as she took on water…art revealing it’s significance at a point when mankind’s other devices had failed dramatically.

Of the two rough compositional sketches I’ve completed, I’m showing the one I will pursue.  I’ve learned over the painful years to never commence without the preliminary drawings and groundwork to figure out where I’m heading.  Thanks to all the old painters I’ve been privileged to study…they left behind a pretty clear map of what to do if one is willing to take the time.  That topic gets into a whole “plein air” rant that I’m storing up for a future disgorgement.

Back to the positive:

Kailua beach pencil sketch, 9 x 12″

This painting will be a color piece.  By this, I mean that the delight of the painting is primarily in the color and the subsequent values and shapes.  The color is really exquisite here when the light breaks through, with the dusky orange-greens and strange violet-grays that  the Ironwood trees and their shadows have at this time of day, mid morning. Cool pinks pop about. There’s an aquamarine blue/green in the water that is extraordinary, especially as it’s placed against the warm-colored  light sand.

I’m constantly amazed at the elegance and sophistication of God’s color choices. Combinations of colors reveal themselves that would never occur to me if I hadn’t pursued them through direct observation. Lately (meaning the last couple years!) a blue/violet/orange thing has been happening…who would have thought of it?

But perhaps most exciting to me are that there are also wonderful opportunities for dramatic paint handling and a staccato impressionist light/shade treatment that will reveal forms and movement.  As a composition, it is very rich in that regard, and I hope that I can avoid  allowing the freshness of the vision to get bogged down in “issues”,  other than capturing a joyous and dramatic slice of life.  That’s the point, entirely.

If the weather and light are cooperative, I plan to start tomorrow morning and see if I can lay the painting in.  I have my eye on  an oil-primed linen 22 x 28″ canvas that’s been “aging”  in the studio for many months.  It’s on heavy stretcher bars, which I may replace later…they’re a bit much for that size.

We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

I am finally on to the next painting, and have been so caught up in various projects (watercolor exhibition upcoming, gallery renovation, teaching commitments) that I am only now posting this, the final version of Konahua’nui.

The first thought that comes into my head is that, yes indeed, I will be painting this again.  In the evening light perhaps, but it will happen again.  It’s too rich a subject ( and convenient, I might add)  not to take up again… I saw too many possibilities in treatment of this subject as I brought this particular version to a close.

Konahua’nui 20 x 24″ oil on linen

But it will be a while… I have new beach subjects in mind. Something stirred me up  as I walked Kailua Beach this morning with my parents; beautiful colors in the shadows, figures peering out from the shade of the Ironwood groves into the glare of the morning sand.   Aquamarine and Lavender everywhere.  I have a nice 20 x 24″ (or so) hand  primed linen that is dry and waiting.  Perfect for something I saw today, and so hopefully tomorrow AM I’ll have some pencil work done.

The “hopefully” part brings up an issue I will have to comment on some time.  Artists and time/life management.  You simply must protect your painting hours, almost religiously.  The world is constantly pressing you not to paint, to give your time over to it,  and it’s often for good reasons. A big part of this is learning to walk away from the world and the bait it waves under our noses. Artists can’t have it all, I don’t think.  We have to choose between the culture and it’s trappings, and the austerity of the artist’s life.  Whenever someone asks me what’s selling, I never really know. I’m not thinking of it much, but I’m usually disappointed a bit in the question.  I’d rather be asked what I’m seeing, I suppose.