A tentative step in the right direction

Backyard I, 4" x 6", watercolor on paper

Something about working on the squares and looking at Dove again just pushed me to do this. This is the second attempt--too much was not right with the first. This is better, but after doing this I realized I was not happy with the brush I was using. So I spent some time trying out brushes. There will be another version, but for now I needed to get something up that pushes me in the right direction. Which this does.

I don't yet know how to get full intensity watercolor on the paper without it being mottled; that's why I think it's a brush problem. When I get rid of the mottling, I think I'll be happy.

The palette for this was Cobalt Turquoise, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, and Cadmium Lemon. There is a tiny bit of Prussian Blue in the deep shadows.

Dove, Marin, and Hopper

I decided to post about well-known artists that make me sit still and look. Three of them are American.

Arthur Dove: Sunrise, 1937

Arthur Dove: Untitled, 1942

How I found out about him is detailed in this earlier post.

Many years ago I saw Hopper's Nighthawks, and like the rest of the world, was stunned and fascinated by it. Since moving back into art I have educated that fascination and find his work mesmerizing.

Edward Hopper: New York Movie, 1939

Edward Hopper: Rooms by the Sea, 1951

And finally, John Marin--again revisited in depth where I discovered his landscapes as opposed to his bridgescapes and cityscapes.

John Marin, Big Wood Island, 1914

With the addition of Cezanne's landscapes and most all of the Canadian Group of Seven, these are images which swirl in whatever part of my brain works with visual things. As much as I still love Nighthawks, I think, as an artist, I am more fascinated by Hopper's Rooms by the Sea: the shape of the light outlined by the shadows is riveting, that shape made even more powerful by what seems a simulacrum on the wall of the next room.

Merging of Blogs

In the interest of "getting it together" I have merged three of my other blogs into this one. If you were one of the few followers of

Vermont Directions (my Art of Action blog)

Vermilion Hue (my painting blog)

Clair Dunn PHOTOGRAPHY (my, duh, photography blog)

Their contents have all been moved to White River (you are here!). I am posting this because I don't know if Google transfers the followers along with the posts. My artist's web site however remains the same at:

clairdunn.com

Underground and Surreal

Two stunning images appeared today on the New York Times site. Both are by Richard Barnes (for the New York Times).

Both are beyond words.

Progress Squared

This is what I'm working on. It's my palette "squared". The squares outlined in dark pencil (hard to see, I know) are the colors straight from the tubes. They run in a diagonal from top left to bottom right. Each of the other squares is a saturated mix of the two colors which meet at that square.

It is taking a lot of time, but it is fascinating and wholly instructive. I put this partial up here, in anticipation of when the paper is full. It should be truly splendid. I consider this my medicine which will make me better. And, to be sure, it is the finest medicine I have ever taken.

Resurrection

I think it time to rejuvenate White River. I would say that approximately two and half years of my life have been framed by the act of selling my house and land and moving. Miserable, nerve-wracking, painful, agonizing, and finally wholly debilitating. Today is the one-year anniversary of the paper signing and moving.

As the process escalated my creative life declined in direct proportion. I cannot remember the last time I had a creative impulse that wasn't "faked" or created artificially while I tried to fool myself into believing I was still an artist.

I realized I needed help. I got it in the form of a morning with Shanley Triggs who gave me a lesson in how to begin a watercolor painting. VALUES VALUES VALUES. That was a week ago Wednesday. She also loaned me a book How To Make Colors Sing by Jeanne Dobie. As I listened to Shanley, I honestly felt something stir inside. After she left I ordered a palette like hers (a Pike's palette) and the Dobie book.

The next day Susan Abbott, on a two-day painting trip through the Champlain Islands, spent the night. We talked far past my bed-time about many things. The next morning I told her about Shanley's lesson and she asked to see my sketch. She got her sketch book and we stood on the back porch for 45 minutes while she talked and I listened. While she sketched and I watched. I felt fire in the belly at last. Onto the fire which Shanley had lit, Susan poured gasoline.

Now I am waiting for the palette, which has not yet arrived, so that I can set it up per Susan's instructions and with the colors on the list she gave me. I will be making a palette chart with saturated colors also per instruction.

I've given you the description of what has happened; for what my soul has felt, there are no words that are not overused, and I refrain from trying to embellish the simple word "grateful".

That black hole inside me is now being filled with colors again.

Virginia Woolf's Birthday

. . . is today. One of the major contributors to the advancement of the British novel. Master of language. Lover of words. Supreme craftsman. Brilliant critic. Born on this day in 1882.

CS101 at udacity.com

Just signed up for Building a Search Engine. It's a 7-week course offered by one of the two Stanford professors who taught last year's AI course. That was a free course and a wildly successful experiment in Open Source Education.

One of them, Sebastian Thrun has since left Stanford to start Udacity. An online, open source university. I mean folks, this is gold on a platter. There are two instructors: Thrun, a Google Fellow, and David Evans, CS prof at University of Virginia and an MIT grad.

I've never used this term before, but two things are happening now to urge me to do it. The NEXT BIG THING. This idea and Raspberry-Pi. Two major efforts to educate those who want to be educated about computers. Doing the job our schools and universities are not. Sure, you can get a CS degree just about anywhere, but how about the youngsters coming down the pike? They show up in my community college classes knowing absolutely nothing about how computers work. Where will they get the spark that might set them on fire to learn, to experiment, to chase, to fiddle, to solve--to create, invent?

I'm not talking about students who pick CS as a major because it's where the jobs might be most available. I'm talking about the students who will dive into the field with passion, wonder, curiosity, and creativity. Those folks don't go after jobs; they go after knowledge and skill simply because they want to.

New Web Site

Starting the New Year with a New web site. I've moved all the contents of what was my personal directory hanging off clairdunn.com to borderlinegeek.com. I cannot believe that I got this domain at this late date! My jaw is still dropping.

Anyway, it's got all the old stuff, plus new stuff as it comes along. Today I added a page for the Raspberry-Pi -- can't wait to get my hands on one. That is one page you need to check out!