Discussions with Mark Norseth

Along with everything else I’m working on, I’ve been on a watercolor jag for the last month.  It’s been great fun and hard work, and I’m planning on more.

Do these work for you?

So much of painting is just about purposefully being in the work-mindset.  Rather than waiting to be inspired,  often times I just have an idea about  design, or an effect of light, and begin with something in my sketchbook;  inspiration or enthusiasm arrives after I begin to work, not generally before.  I know it’s the same for writers and musicians…you begin by taking the first step of working.

Each of these paintings are quarter-sheet, which is watercolorist talk for 11 x 15″, and painted on Saunders #200.  Titles are coming.

Well, I’m taking advantage of every opportunity for creating new work in the New Year, and as our winter weather has improved from pretty messy to awesome, I took a break from the large oil I’ve started  (and which I haven’t discussed yet, it’s too iffy right now) and spent Friday morning at Kailua Beach with my partner-in-watercolor-crime Roger Whitlock to see what  trouble we might do with the raw material of sand, sun, and wind.

I managed a couple of little paintings out of that session (and another session yesterday evening)  but this is the only one worth having a look at.  I might be able tweak some of the others into Salvation, or just re-attack them on another nice evening.

Kailua Beach, Friday, 1/11 11 x15″ Watercolor

We joked around and had a darned good time while working. Roger has great prowess with “the dampened sheet”, and  I value our far-too-rare outings together.

As for me, the watercolor work under such circumstances seems akin to jumping around in a swimming pool, especially working in-the-moment and with the drying times of the washes being so absolutely critical. It’s somewhat like a controlled disaster, I really don’t know how anything good can come of it, but sometimes it does, and it’s nice.

No photos, no images….frankly, we were working so happily and busily that I never took the time to shoot anything.

But the workshop was successful beyond my expecations, the response afterwards has been positive, and I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to help so many people.  And the best part was that what was beyond my expectations was the attitude of the participants!  To a person, they worked as only the inspired do. I’m very proud of each of the 13 who attended.  Hard to quantify such an experience, but we will be repeating this workshop again, so if interested, send me an email and I ‘ll get you on the advance list for next time!

Here’s some of the advice that surfaced:

Be a painter first, a watercolorist second.

Suggest, don’t explain.  The word “Suggest” is printed indelibly on the face of my own watercolor palette.

Draw from models, memory, imagination, and draw in the streets.

Dry in the lights, wet in the shadows (“When you paint light, you paint form, when you paint shadow, you paint stmosphere.”).

Art never will come to you, you must always make the first move. 

So chew on these thoughts, work in your sketchbooks constantly, and  remember to be always looking, always designing, seeking fluency, and willing to work. 

11 x 14″ Practice sheet from the workshop…heads constructed from a skull, and varied for direction, gender, and expression.  Drawn and painted from imagination.  Great way to study, and fun.

Our class “Painting the Model en Plein Air” had the opportunity to do some painting within the grounds of the Honolulu Museum of Art two weeks ago.

The curator and all of the staff were welcoming and as obliging as could be, and about a dozen of us spent over six hours in two sessions in their remarkable Mediterranean Courtyard.

Everyone worked diligently, but I’m just now tweaking-up the two paintings I managed to get done while  teaching.

Tamara in the Sun 9 x 7″ watercolor

Can’t wait to do this again, it was fantastic.                                         

Friends Painting 11 x 15″ watercolor

I’m putting together a workshop on the figure in watercolor for October 6-7.  A powerpoint presentation on watercolor painters and exceptional examples of indicating the figure (my love for Rembrandt’s drawings will be publicly outed!) along with a series of good exercises I’ve developed with and without the live model will round out the weekend. I think it will be very helpful, a game -changer for some, and I’m looking forward to it.

We needed to come up with an image for promoting the workshop, so I spent an afternoon coming up with this little piece out of my head, which I always find to be a great challenge and a practice that I advocate strongly.   There were a lot of options for subjects, but I eventually decided upon representing the artist being publicly critiqued by a passing dilettante.

This  choice gave me a crowd to show simple background figures, a developed central male and female pairing, the man being rather Boho and the other rather stylish, some color,  and physical gestures/body language to work with.  And most painters can identify with the cheerful, helpful novice that happens to drop by and interrupt everything at the worst possible moment.

The artist looks uncomfortably and unintentionally like myself, so I suppose that shapely woman might be my dear wife Iris, except she won’t go near a bicycle.  Anyway, it’s loose, and it’s done.