Into Great Brook
 

Oil on linen, 24" x 38"

This is another figurative piece I've been working on on and off for a while. You could also say that it's a landscape with figures in it. I'm not really sure whether it's one or the other, and whether it's necessary to draw the line somewhere. For me, the essential thing is whether the people and their action in the composition are saying something or giving a certain meaning to the painting. I'm still working this out, as you can see.

Alex, this is awesome. Your brushwork is so fresh, natural, without pretense and at the same time, so descriptive. This is where many artists stumble, I feel: getting the spontaneous, interesting brushwork going, but failing to make it all mean something, describe something...so that all that "bravura" paint handling exists for its own sake, resulting in a painting that appears...self indulgent. Your paint handling, on the other hand, is exquisite, joyous and it is describing something tangible, real, vivid...what an awesome gift you possess!

As to how to categorize the painting - I don't think it matters. I think it would only matter to you during the painting process, how your characterization of it informs your process....

David

Alex,
I see that you do business in thatching reeds. I did one small one, 30 x 40 cm, last year at the same time of the year. I notice that the reeds have not reached the full height yet, so it must be early summer.
Mine was also intended to be a figurative, but the canoe was so fast , or I was slow, and it went away before I managed to squeeze out the orange for it, might as well be my luck. ;)

I love your variations of the dark in the water, from bluish to olive. It's those, normally unnoticed nuances, that makes the painting live.

Beautiful Alex!
I like the warm luminous athmosphere.
Interresting to see Allan's one, too...

Thank you all!

David--whenever someone says they like my brushwork, I get such a thrill. It may look like it just flows, but I do a lot of rubbing out whole sections and re-painting them. If you only knew how many times I re-worked this! I think you are right about it not being significant whether it is figurative or landscape. It is what it is.

Allan--so those are the reeds you use for thatching? I like how you could tell it was early summer. And I love your landscape! The reeds are done so loosely and delicately, with just the right touches of hard edges, the water is lovely (I especially admire how it interacts with the stems of the reeds), and I love the way you indicated the trees in the background. The few strokes at the pointed tips are just right! Is this near where you live? I am struck by the similarity to Maine, which is the setting of my painting. Have you seen these works (below) by Aapo Pukk, an Estonian artist? He was a finalist this year at the PSoA.

Marina--I am so happy you like the atmosphere. It did have a sparkling, airy quality that I struggled to reproduce.

:)


Peter Doig

Very nice, Alex! I like the way the canoe is in the most appropriate spot on the composition. Everything else leads to it. You have this way of making the spectators

Thank you Ilaria for setting a distant goal! May we all fetch $10 million! I wonder if it was the white canoe that did it? Maybe it was the water or trees. Hmmm...

Carlos, thanks for your vote of confidence in my ventures into figurative painting. For me it is the most difficult. Portraits and landscapes are each challenging in their own ways, and I find that they say something if the artist is true to his/her concept and has the skill to carry it out. But I have to think and evaluate more when it comes to a figurative piece. Am I saying too much, am I hitting the viewer over the head with the message? Or is it not clear enough? Maybe this type of work has a more clearly defined message, or maybe I'm just new to it. You do this so well, Carlos, in a different way, of course.

Plus, there doesn't seem to be a definite point at which portraiture becomes figurative, or landscape becomes figurative. It's more than the size of the figures in the composition. There really are no answers---I just like to ponder these things.

Alex, if i am not mistaken there is a story behind this painting, that there was a poll and the result was that people' s favourite subject for a painting to hang in their home was a stream with a canoe, so he just painted a few. And that is contemporary art!
I'd much rather have yours and Allan's hanging in my home !

What a story! The sad thing is, it's probably not unusual. I can think of better ways to spend the money, if I had it.

Hi Alex, it's been a while since i last posted here, and the first image i'm absolutely captivated by is the serenity of this riverscape you have painted! The brushstrokes lead me into the paintings, and the blue ripples on the lower left creates that mild tension to the almost Zen feel of the painting!

If i were Hilton-filthy rich, your painting will definitely be worth 10 Mil to me!

I'd like to share a childhood scene i've recreated for myself, since we're on the roll with riverscape scenes. Hope you guys like my painting!

24" x 30"

Beautiful painting, Marcus! I like the vantage point. It's as though the viewer is happening upon this secret place where the two children play.

I'm interested in what the figures say. For instance, you painted a child with arms outstretched, while the other is deeply absorbed in the task of fishing. This says something to me, but I don't have to articulate it. Every time I look at the painting, I might imagine something different.

I wanted my three figures to each be doing different things, or reacting differently to the experience. They are going from a sunlit lake into the mouth of a stream, and up ahead is the woods in shadow. Even if you just take it as a scene, it evokes something. And the posture and position of the figures evokes something. But to make this "something" too clear would not leave any room for the viewer.

Anyway, I'm glad you like my painting--thanks so much for your comments.

Thanks Alex! I'm glad you liked it...in fact, the painting has 4 kids instead of two - one head popping up in between the fork of the log, and the other at the extreme right corner with a red shirt.

Perhaps all of you might remember a time when you were kids yourselves, and how you liked to hang out at a "secret base" where you can be totally free with your closest friends.

So what i'm trying to create here along with the two subtle characters, is that secret place just like what you've said.

A secret place that once belonged to you, and one which is beautifully hidden in your heart for the rest of your lives.

Hi Alex -

I really like the feeling you give to this painting. The brushwork is exquisite.

I''ve been in a canoe in the wilds a good bit: this painting evokes those memories beautifully.

Very lovely, Alex. The individual aspects of the piece have a harmony of light which brings everything together almost as if it were sculptural i.e. as if everything were joined together physically creating a oneness with nature on the part of the figures and a welcoming of the figures on the part of nature. A very spiritual piece.

Marcus,

The "secret place" theme that comes out so strongly in your painting was definitely in my mind when I was figuring out how to paint mine. My friend and I canoed up the mouth of this same brook when we were teenagers and hiked the whole way up the stream to its source in the mountains. The painting shows our daughters making the same journey. There's also the feeling of going from the sunlit, familiar lake into the dark woods, the unexplored territory.

Julie, Thomasin--thank you both!

I agree that, once you've been in a canoe in the wilderness (or national park or wherever you can get away from civilization), there is this experience you never forget. There's a feeling of being part of nature and being awed by it, of being in control of where you are going and yet not knowing what you will encounter around the next bend. I wanted the three girls' posture and actions to show all these feelings.

Thanks for your comments about brushwork, unity of parts, etc. I've been really conscious of these things in landscapes as I become more conscious of them in portraits. It seems the puzzle of all the different brushstrokes has to be just right. Thick, thin, wide or narrow, hard- or soft-edged, certain colors next to other colors--all this has to be just right for everything to be part of the same puzzle. The illusion is a result of this abstract problem, but there is a stage of working out the problem in the abstract that happens independently from the illusion. In other words, you have to be able to enlarge a little section of the painting and look at it and be satisfied that it "works."

Love all of these
 

Alex and Marcus and Allan,

I know I don't post here much but I do try to drop in about once a week to check out what is going on - These are really beautiful - I love the colors in yours Marcus and that secret place feeling is definitely coming through. Alexandra - everything you do is just superb - I love your soft approach to this especially and the water reflections are just lovely. Allan's is especially nice with the shadows in the water and the delicate reeds.

I've been painting landscapes between dancers and portraits as well - this keeps me sane during long portrait commissions I think and I have to sometimes drag myself back to the portrait!

Lovely work!

Denise

Denise,

Thanks for logging on and posting. It's really nice to "hear" your voice. I really appreciate your comments. I also find that painting landscapes is a wonderfully relaxing break from painting portraits. Though I encounter the same problems, there's more freedom, no pressure to get the likeness, and a lot of joy in just being out there in nature or re-creating the experience in the studio.

Terrific painting, Alex! I particularly like how you've got a fully developed foreground but it doesn't take away from the center of interest farther back. It takes great value control to accomplish that!

Thanks, Michele! If you only knew how many reworkings it took to get this into its present state!

Alex,
the lake was my daily view from a house that I thatched last summer, I just had to do it. I used the knife a lot in this painting.

I did not knew Aapo Pukk before. I like his paintings very much and I am sure that he could find the same motifs here in Denmark just like the ones you have showed.

Right now I am busy painting pictures for an exhibit on Anholt starting midst July. I went over there two week ago to sketch and collect motifes. The nature of Anholt is preserved area, 9/10 of the Island is untouched by civilization, you should all see it,..... motif's for a lifetime and the best light in the country.

Thank you all for liking my small water scape !

Allan,

Anholt sounds wonderful. Probably just my kind of place. My list of places to see in Scandinavia grows longer and longer. I want to go back to Saaremaa, also to Gotland, where the name "Tyng" originated. We have friends in Norway whom we would love to visit. Northern Finland is another place. I could go on and on.

And if you are ever in the United States you must visit Maine. Lots of places--woods, lakes, farmhouses, lighthouses, rocky shore and islands in the sea.

I think you have the better light, though. Being farther north, you get the more slanted, golden sun rays.

Alex, this is so beautiful! I just love this piece: brava! :)

Thanks, NB! It was really due to you that I posted it here. When you came into my studio and enthused over it, I got a little more confident about it (only re-working parts of it after that) and decided to risk seeing what other people thought of it.

Hi Alex,
Please do come around when you go to Scandinavia, I would love to show you Egon, my famous model, you know.
I just went to Anholt to paint for the exhibition in July. Me and my wife Aud had some nice days in the company of Sys and Egon. It was out of the tourist season and very peaceful. I did some landscape paintings on location and finished some others at home.
You can see them on my homepage now.

Alex, I love your painting. I love the greens. It feels exactly right to me. The color, the composition, the transparency of the water, the mood, everything is superb!

Linda,

Thank you for noticing these things! I'm noticing, as I paint more scenes with figures in them, that I have to hold the scene in my mind for a while until I can distill it to its essence--then I am able to put all these elements together in the way you so generously describe as "exactly right." It certainly feels right when I'm working on it, but there's always that doubt whether other people will think so.