I would like to celebrate with you the completion of "Lovers Jumping", a pencil drawing 22 x 14". It’s a study for a future life-size painting. The painting will be about 5 x 7'. I finished it yesterday, November 19th.
For the painting the background will include a wood dock and light pastel colors of pink, purple, green and cobalt for the water and sky.
The drawing came from and reflects my deepest emotional and intellectual core. I first had the idea for it while living in Greece some six years ago and I couldn’t find the right models for it to move it forward. I rejected the idea of attempting to do it out of my head, though I had an "ideal" view of it in there, painting like everything else gains more truth when you work with referents from reality, i.e. I am no Platonist.
For those of you with an art history bent or have some art history books you might want to see if you can find anything like it in those books. Throughout college I was told by my teachers, "...that nothing new can be done in representational art its all been done before."
Innovation is a funny thing in art. An artist could easily lose their way by attempting to be innovative in everything they do and lose sight of what their core belief and soul are. On the other hand there are plenty of artists that remain true to themselves and yet use the tools of art that they were simply taught. I view art history more like a palette of colors to tweak, as one of many means to breath freshness into the work; but the end point always comes out of my soul.
The drawing also came about by over 135 hours of working direct with life models, somewhere in the range of $2,000 modeling fees. After I mention that figure to people, often they suggest I should work with photos. Indeed many post-classical artists do. But it would be much like a novelist gleaning their information exclusively from watching CNN on T.V., as to be so far removed from life experience that your left with a generic mush of tone. I also just purchased the frame for it, quite a large charcoal brown/black wood frame with a huge matt, and the greatest glass that is available for art. It cost me about $700. The drawing is available for purchase.
Perhaps I should mention that I have limited my participation on solo because it is more important for me to focus my energy on the great works I am capable of and to move my career forward in New York. Don’t hesitate to contact me privately by email with any queries or comments.
Lovers Jumping
