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What would you think if I painted too bland?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your eyes and I’ll paint you something

And I’ll try not to, well, suck

 

As you see, songwriting, even in homage or parody, is not my thing. So….

 

Here, again, is the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany. My first quick little painting of this amazing architecture (see the July '17 blog post "Frauenkirche, a Study") involved two hours, one brush, maybe five colors, and a 9 x 12 panel. The result was, I think, whimsical and fun, but not particularly rich on detail or accuracy. So I wanted to paint another version in which building proportions, depth, and scale would be taken more seriously. I tend go after the “feel” of things in my paintings, and am rarely if ever interested in capturing every detail and nuance, as there are other painters who excel at that approach. But the fact is that this church is majestic, in no small part because it is HUGE, and that’s something the first small “fun” study does not capture. The Frauenkirche has an amazing story, and I refer you again to my July 2017 blog for that summary.

 

This painting is Big – the canvas measures four feet high and three feet wide – and it took over a month of fits and starts to complete. I owe so much to my painting pals with the Wednesday Night Art Group, because their suggestions helped in this painting’s creation. As is our wont, we all request and/or offer to each other thoughts, suggestions, encouragement, pointers, “Wows,” “Oh Dears,” laughter, and the occasional critical dabs of paint in the color we need but don’t have in our box. Sometimes their suggestions help me because the recommendation confirms to me exactly what I don't want to do. More often they solve some challenge I could not figure out, and that is where my painting friends are pure gold. Lend me your eyes and I’ll walk you through the process, and I’ll try not to put you to sleep.

 

The first thing needed was an accurate drawing. If I have unlimited time and plenty of erasers, I can draw accurately; however, my painting time is limited so I prefer to cheat (hey, worked for Vermeer). Included in my big ol' box of painting supplies is an otherwise useless little cheapo projector from Best-Buy which I use to project a photo from my phone onto the canvas for tracing, allowing me to draw accurately in much less time. So, thank you very much Mr. Otherwise Useless Cheapo Projector. As you can see, even with this little bit of cheating I prefer to limit details. Who cares about individual bricks and gargoyles, just get the windows and doors and rooflines more or less close-enough, get going, and see what develops.

 

 

The next several steps involved my blatantly ignoring various comments and suggestions from the gang.  No, I didn’t feel like painting the sky concurrently with the church. No, I don’t want to use a bigger, or smaller brush. Etc.

 

However, Ginger caught my attention using a Marine Gunnery Sergeant chewing out a recruit tone of voice. There is a statue of Martin Luther in the public square in front of the church. In my original study, ol' ML was demarcated with about three slashes of paint. In this one, he was done with numerous carefully applied layers of paint that coalesce to represent an actual statue of an actual, albeit faceless, human being. Ginger admonished me to do absolutely nothing else to Martin Statue. He is finished. Complete. Do not screw it up trying to change it.

I listened. And did not ruin the painting trying to alter the statue.

 

Painting the church itself and the plaza and distant buildings took three sessions, during which I again cheerfully disregarded any and all kibitzing from the WNPG. After that I added the sky. Skies can be tricky. It’s boring to just use Cerulean Blue for skies, but that IS the color of the actual sky we all see every day. In some paintings you can have fun with yellows, reds, purples, pinks, golds, grays and even greens in the sky, but in this painting I did not want the sky to compete with the church, so boring old Cerulean with white clouds was all that I chose to use.

 

This time Janet offered the worthwhile advice. Janet is usually soft-spokenly polite – along the lines of Georgette on the Mary-Tyler-Moore show. In this case, though, she channeled her inner Rhoda: “I don’t like the clouds. They compete with the church. They’re pulling your eye up and out of the painting. You need to soften them.”

 

I listened. And the painting improved. Out came a dry brush for some vigorous declouding. Thanks Rhoda.

 

See what I mean?

 

Once a painting is only seemingly complete in the sense of having all the canvas covered with paint, the real effort begins. It needs to be finessed by adjustments, alterations, embellishments, subtractions, and little dibs and dabs here and there and everywhere to make it come alive. Think of Bob Ross, the PBS afro-haired hippy painter of old. As he so often famously cheered, your trees should be happy trees so the observer can just sense that there’s a friendly little rabbit just behind that rock. My once and always art instructor Christophora Robeers always stresses the push-pull, lost and found edges, lightest lights relative to darkest darks, and many other intangibles necessary to inch a painting towards that magical state when it is time to "put the brush down, sign it, and get out of there."

 

Towards this end, I was gravely distressed about the man in front of the statue. He was there, unnoticeable, in the original photo I worked from. In the painting, unfortunately, he was misplaced and wrong, creating with Martin Luther a vertical line through the bottom middle of the painting that is referred to in technical composition jargon as a “remarkably stupid mistake.” I spent over an hour doing everything I could think of to make him less noticeable. Darkened his clothing. Gave him even less definition. This. That. Nothing worked.

 

Now it was Canan’s and Marcia’s turn. First one, then the other, sometimes it seemed in unison:  “Just Paint over him. Get rid of him. It’s time. Be brave. Just do it!” Not a suggestion. These were when-I-say-jump-you–say-how-high orders. Paint. Him. Out. NOW.

 

I listened. He’s gone. The painting is done. Or, at least, at that frustrating point where any problem solved just creates another problem that might be worse. As Christophora would say, time to get out of there. Whatever remains in this one that may not be “quite right” is entirely my doing. As noted, so much of what is good in this one is directly the result of wise counsel from the Wednesday Night Painting Group. Cheers to you, one and all.

 

I get by with a little help from my friends, with a little help from my frrrrr-iennnnnnnnnnnnnds.