Lanikai Beach: Moving Targets, Straight Paint

It seems that this time of year I regularly find myself scouting for interesting subject matter in Lanikai, a beach spot not far from home. I begin early and drive the main road past Kailua Beach which then rises to the splendid overlook.  I slow down to glance North, across the bay towards Mokapu, and then bend around to follow the one-way loop into the community of Lanikai.

Lanikai, like most other now-famous beaches, was once an isolated and rather barren spot populated by families of Hawai’ian and Asian descent.  I’ve heard folks who lived here during the 1930’s speak about how farmers raised melons to trade for rice with farmers back in the mountains. Cash money was rare. Fresh water could come from holes dug in the sand, there was no electricity, and people birthed their babies at home.  During the war, barbed wire was stretched along the beach.

Nowadays Lanikai is known, and it’s a different deal. Populated by part-timers and foreign visitors as well as locals, it’s become increasingly affluent and crowded.  Sniffy, expensive California styled residences are on the rise and crowding the view. But there still are tiny slices of the old tucked away in corners and unexpected places, and it’s to these that I’m attracted.

Scouring and squinting, I often think that I must appear suspicious to residents as I slowly creep along in my chang-a-lang Rav 4,  peering into yards and empty lots.  I’m checking my rear view mirror for a view of how things appear behind me.  I climb out of my car at odd intervals to study combinations of buildings and flora, dark and light patterns, or spots of color…anything that might hold some promise of becoming an interesting composition.

And so as I went ’round the loop (it’s a single lane, one road in and one road out), I was able gradually to narrow my search to a few possibilities.  Though it was early in the day yet, the sunlight was strong and the sky clear. Streets were already filling with people hitting the beach or doing the holiday yard sales.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something good.  Dark and light foliage, a flash of  white wall/blue sea on the Makai (ocean) side of the street.  It was a small beachfront property I’d somehow never noticed before. Big modern places had been built closely on either side. Yellow sunlight cut across the darkened entry road  and there were hints of ’20’s-era architecture silhouetted in the dark overgrowth of palms and hedges.

 A Friend Indeed

“No way I am going to get to do this”,  I told myself as I skeptically considered the odds of obtaining permission to paint here. It’s no fun knocking on doors and explaining to people you’re a painter. Try it if you haven’t. And Lanikai has it’s guard up these days… understandably so.  The normally friendly residents have already been tested by the abundant supply of tourists errantly drifting through their yards, as well as out-and-out thieves.

But I was about to be surprised.  As I poked around across the street looking for a vantage point that might allow a shot at this, I saw a big contractor’s truck parked where I hadn’t noticed it on the lot.  And the name on the truck was the company that my pal Brian builds for.

What do you know about that?

And as I’m taking all this in, my feet have me automatically walking across the street.  Hope is like that, I’ve noticed.  Your body just responds to it before your brain has weighed the matter entirely.  But no matter, because at that moment my friend Brian has emerged from a dark doorway, his mind on 20 different things to do with his project.  He then sees me, looking dumbfounded at him.  What are the odds of this? We greet each other.

Yes, Mark, you can have the run of the place if you stay safely out of the way.

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Well, I’ve gone from mild despair to elation in a few minutes.  I thank Brian ( I’m STILL thanking him!), grab my trusty & rusty Julian 1/2 box, and after some deliberation regarding what to paint ( so many choices and so little time) I decide to jump on a rare opportunity to paint the beach from about 15 feet above it.  Looking East, from this incredibly well shaded perch,  Molokai is beautifully silhouetted and the sky and sea are dazzling. Visitors are walking the beach and the colors are beautiful.  Everything is moving, and it is as strikingly clear as one could ever ask for.

Straight Paint  

Unlike many oil painters, I received a lot of practice working with oil paint that is straight from the tube.  This is a hard sell to some painters because we mostly receive the idea that things have to be done to oil paint, added to it,  to make it manageable .  While this is desirable in some instances, it’s not necessary in many cases…and certainly not in this case.  I’d been working with an addition of some linseed oil lately, and also using a traditional 3 part medium for a change after years of straight paint.  On this occasion I left the turpentine (Gamsol actually) at home,  and worked with straight paint on a white oil primed linen panel. I’m happy I did.

It was delicious. Starting with the large masses of sand, sea, and sky I dropped in the large blocks of color with “tiles”, brush strokes of pure paint laid side to side, each mixed to directly capture the color and value needed.  They can be fused and modeled later. This was referred to as “Bunkering” for  the 19th century American painter Dennis Bunker by one of my teachers, James Childs. It’s work at the beginning, especially if one is accustomed to beginning with a thin wash of color that hides the white of the canvas.  But the pay off comes later, because once the painting is covered, the second round of adjusting the shapes and values in this rich lay-in is a real pleasure.  The right amount of paint is in place to model forms and the work almost becomes easier…certainly for me more enjoyable.

And so the morning went….figures briefly appeared that were desirable, though fleeting. The woman with the umbrella was only present for a minute at most…so I have developed the habit of notating the figure on a clean area of my palette, a quick gesture with color, enouch to recall the effect and place it into the painting wet into wet after the general effects of the painting are painted. Her companion was added from a memory sketch the following day.

Lanikai

Making Great Use of Leftover Paint

I’ve got a great way to make use of leftover paint for artists…and it’s something I wish I’d begun doing years ago.

At the end of a session, when it’s time to clean and prep my palette for the next session, I often have leftover pigments that might dry unusably by the time I next get back to work. I’m not one to put fresh paint over dry on my palette; though many painters do this.  Instead, I take the palette down to a clean working surface by removing  piles of unused paint with a palette knife and then rubbing the entire surface with a rag and a bit of solvent. This creates a slight and sympathetic gray (over time) that I enjoy working on.  After that I might rub on a bit of linseed oil if the palette has been left unused for a couple days, and that’s how I like to prepare my palette for the next round.

But in the past I simply (and sadly) wrote off the paint I was removing with the knife…until  I realized this was a lost opportunity.  I saw that I  could use this paint to to create a record of informal experiments.

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There are some elementary principles to applying oil paint…you can’t just pile it on randomly and expect it to remain stable over time without considering such things as the oil content of layers, the adhesion of the paint, or whether a light can go over a dark without cracking or showing through later.

Most all of what I’ve learned about artist’s pigments and mediums comes from two sources …what I’ve been told and what I’ve read. And I’m admittedly careful and conservative in my use/application of oil paint for the long term benefit of my paintings. I generally paint with either straight paint from the tube or with the most basic of two and three parts oil mediums (linseed and turpentine, for example).

But I’ve seen techniques in paintings by artists of the past that I’d like to try…glazes over palette-knife impasto, for instance. I’ve seen some beautiful effects achieved this way more than once.  Or the black glaze rubbed in over some of the landscapes of painters in the 19th century, something that I’ve read about but haven’t actually seen yet.  How about drying times of pigments, or what varnishing prematurely can do?  I’ve used a lead priming from a recipe offered in an old book by Frederic Taubes…how does it dry and adhere?

The Big, Smart Idea

So, I have an 18 x 24″ cradled wooden panel primed with two coats of Gamblin’s white oil primer that receives all the ideas I can throw at it using my leftover paint.  Impastos, glazes, mixtures,…all are noted and dated with a black sharpie, because “long term effects” are a big concern.  I’m not inventing anything, but trying things already out there in the cloud of responsible knowledge in order to learn for myself what’s what.

It’s been about two years now, and it’s really nice to be able to draw my own conclusions from my own personal experience.  There are some nice possibilities for extending the range of what I know how to do. And I throw away much less nice paint.

I wish I’d started ten years ago.

 

Pinterest Piques My Interest

In the last few months, I’ve really discovered the value of Pinterest as a very helpful teaching tool. Considering my mild-to-moderate  aversion to technology as the answer to everything, this is a concession that I happily make.

Students in my Plein Air, Life Drawing and Portraiture classes are constantly encouraged to look at really good examples of the work of accomplished artists.  The difficulty is that they often don’t find the time, recall the names,  or know the best ways to investigate the artist’s I’ve suggested.  So up to this point, it’s  been up to me to bring in examples from books from my personal library or reference files I’ve accumulated. Lot’s of lugging around  (and plenty of wear and tear) on out-of-print art books and catalogs that are pretty precious to me.

Then along comes Pinterest.

Using it as a resource, I’ve created boards for each group I teach. Students are reminded, often, to check the Pinterest boards I have up on my page, especially when I’m involved in a one-to-one critique and see a problem that would benefit from an illustration.

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For example, ” Composition” is  helpful for every student, but especially the Plein Air and Portrait folks.  They are usually fully occupied with making things look like what they’re seeing, and of course need to consider the design of the elements as an important factor.  With the examples I’ve collected on Pinterest they can see some really interesting uses of pattern and placement that might spark their interest and encourage spending more time on design.

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For Life Drawing, there are many beautiful and compelling images of fine drawings available. Beautiful touches, line variety, pieces that reveal construction (The Carravaggio is full of lessons) all to show the tremendous possibilities. Ingres’ drawing of his house cat reminds that there are worthy  subjects everywhere, even to the most sophisticated talent.

The “Portrait” group is equally filled with great things, featuring artist’s that are both famous as well as those often overlooked today.  And finally,  “Technique” is a broadly based collection of interesting and masterful uses of various mediums.

If you are interested in seeing the boards I’ve assembled,  just follow the link.

Norseth on Pinterest

And if I may encourage you, please feel free to grab whatever you like and start your own boards. Great fun and very valuable.

Gems of Wisdom-Painters On Painting

 

“The landscape painter is of necessity, an outdoors man….For vitality and convincing quality only come to the man who serves, not in the studio, but out in the open where even the things he fights against strengthen him, because you see, nature is always vital, even in her implicit moods and never denies a vision to the real lover.”

-Walter Elmer Schofield

 

Nature deals in broken color everywhere, but she never deals in broken values. The color dances but the values stay put.”
-Birge Harrison

You must sacrifice as many details as possible. Keep your masses flat, simple and undisturbed. And it is the impression of the thing you want.”

-William Morris Hunt

My Interview in the Honolulu Museum of Art Blog

I was recently invited to field some questions on art and my teaching philosophy by Clarke Reilly over at the Honolulu Museum of Art for their blog.

Clarke was able to drop by one of our Life Drawing sessions and take some photos, and we had a chance to get reacquainted. We’d first met when I was painting in the Palm Courtyard at the Museum, and she was kind enough to look me up again for this project.  As for the interview, Clarke’s questions were very good, the kind I’d hoped to be asked (!), and I really enjoyed putting together my responses.

You can have a look and read here:

Clarke Reilly/Honolulu Museum of Art Blog

 

Students in Mark Norseth's Life Drawing Studio class sketch a live model.

Walt Disney on Robert Henri

Artist Frank Serrano posted this on Facebook, and I can’t resist putting it up here on my blog.

Walt Disney speaks on Robert Henri’s ” The Art Spirit”.

I vividly recall seeing this short film somewhere in grade school, which for myself was over forty years back. Of course I hadn’t read Robert Henri’s  book “The Art Spirit” at that point, but certainly have since.  I didn’t realize that I’d adopted the notion of painting “ideas, not pictures” from that source, either, but I surely have.

Walt Disney was a giant, and a very good one at that.

 

Considering the Blank Canvas of a New Year

My favorite week of each year is the last week of December.  Between the two towers of Christmas and the New Year the fabric of life seems to hang more casually…schedules are a bit more open and folks are enjoying some margin in their otherwise crowded, overbooked lives.

For myself, it is always a week of reflection.  One of the beliefs that I haven’t yet outgrown or abandoned is the notion that, with the right set of principles and some discipline, one can change the course of life for the better. Despite failures, I also have some proof of this; when I finally managed to overcome my addiction to the smoking of cigarettes some 19 years ago, it was a New Year’s resolution that kept me on track. So, I think I have reason for optimism when at each year’s end I attempt to look both backward and ahead and ask myself the questions that I think I need asking.

-Why am I here? And where am I pointed…on what trajectory? To what end?

-What worked? What should I retain?

-What didn’t work? What can I discard?

-What might be the wisest single change I could make, all things considered?

-What would my family and friends like to see me change? (I’ll ask).

As a person of faith, I can’t exclude God’s influence, and ask myself what He has been showing me or trying to tell me through circumstances and all the ways He speaks. In that regard, I can say that the journal work I try to do throughout the year has been a good investment. It’s revealed  larger movements (or stagnations) in life that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Another lesson this year?  I don’t hold outcomes entirely in my hands, and if I did, we’d all be in trouble. Better to stay patient and steady on my end and allow room for all the possibilities I can’t foresee.

So, I’ll be engaging in some healthy soul-searching in the next 24.  May I wish you clarity in your search and all the best.

 

Happy New Year!

 

 

Diminuendo II

More work on my indoor painting…with much adjusting of values and shapes, trying to build a beautiful surface all the while.  It’s an oil -primed linen mounted on panel that I primed myself, and the linen has a fairly coarse, handmade thing to it.  I think it suits what I’m attempting perfectly.  If I can do more priming like this I will, definitely.

For the duration of the work on this painting it’s:  simplification of masses, values, adjustments of color, maybe a glaze to warm things here and cool things there.

untitled 18 x 24″

It’s also great to be making use of so many of the loose reference sketches scattered about my studio.  They are so much more useful to me  than I could ever imagine photographs being.