Blog Archives - Page 4 of 4 - George Woollard Art

Hot Lips

It’s a chorus, a whole bunch of cut bamboo all piping off on the same note. The idea is to take a theme and run with it so that the whole is amplified by the repetition of the parts. In this case, the color orange painted just on the inside of the openings gives the pieces the sense of an open mouth. They could be singing or making sounds like a pipe organ. There is humor in the simple suggestively of the forms.

Bamboo is a resource close at hand growing in large stands just outside my studio door. It falls down into my garden and I have to cut it anyway. It is a small step to continue the process by dicing the bamboo into short sections. Then I let it sit around for a while and it slowly dries out. To help it along, I lightly toast the surface with my propane torch. This is fun, and it smells good as the fire drives out the sugars in the surface. The pieces are becoming more painterly; they are being discovered in interesting ways. Coloring the insides with Korean cashew lacquer finishes the pieces. The finish is the last step, it makes them whole.

Putting 34 pieces together makes an installation, but also a performance as their voices are amplified. In the right environment, the bamboo comes back to life but with a more human sound. This gradual transformation of the nuisance in my garden into a joyous art experience is why making art is so valuable. It suggests that with enough energy and imagination any problem can be turned around and be made over into something good and worthwhile.

Move Along

How is stone carving like watercolor painting? They are both reductive processes. You can take it away but you cannot put it back. With watercolor, it is the white of the paper that is taken away while with stone carving it is the stone itself that is removed. These media require the same discipline. It is the ability to project a line of development that does not change course. For someone that is ADD and prone to indecision, these media are highly instructive and challenging. We either end up with an obscure and confusing mess or a pile of gravel.

Move Along had a central premise, that is to expand the form from the inside even as the stone is carved away from the outside. It is a process of visualization in which every strike with the chisel and hammer is bringing the hidden form within closer to the surface. It may in fact be removing material, but conceptually it is the inflation of a form. It is similar with a sense of movement. The stone is slowly being put into motion. Stroke by stroke the stone is being told to move along. It is being willed to move. Of course, it is and always will be a static piece of rock, but the consistent application of an intention does make a difference. Try thinking of it as the wind blowing against a stand of trees. Eventually, they will bend and stay bent even though it is only the air that is moving. Art is an expression of will, but the will has to be strong.

Under Construction

Under Construction / 12″x24″ / acrylic and collage on panel

In this case, we have two panels and a theme of houses. The idea is to use each panel as a kind of sounding board for the other. We do something on one side and then jump to the other side to match it with a similar technique but using a different color. The two panels in effect grow up together. First one then the other, back and forth, always looking for a dynamic balance between the two of them. It is a training exercise, learning to balance with compliments. Eventually, the two panels get mounted onto a frame and even then the game can continue until the right proportions of warm and cool, dark and light, figure and ground, line and tone, smooth and rough, image and abstraction, large and small and near and far are achieved. In short, the painting needs to look like it dropped out of the sky in the same way that trees and rocks exist as if they have always been there, which they have.

The critical factor is time. It takes time to assimilate what is really going on here. It could even take years to bring a painting to fruition. And all the while you are working, you are learning about what works and what does not work. This is message and meditation together. It is a journey of putting down first one foot and then the other. Each step must be done with as much authority and conviction as you can muster. You are building relationships, first among the parts, and then with yourself and consequently with all the eyes that might see these paintings.

It is not just painting, it is a point of view. You are forming a philosophy, expressing concepts and showing attitude. So, what does it mean anyway? It means that you were there in body, mind and spirit every step of the way. One could say that you have become the painting and the painting has become you. In the end, the process is the product. You do not need a blueprint, but you are building a house.

Trust the Hands

What if you do not know what to do? It is fine to say the most efficient line between two points is a straight line and that if you know in advance what you are striving for it is much easier to achieve it. But you do not know exactly what you are looking for so how can you draw that straight line? Trust the hands, they will know what to do. The hands find things all the time. They can dig and scratch and rummage around and will always find something. It isn’t finding that is hard, it is accepting what is found that takes wisdom. Our hands are our bodies, there is wisdom in the body, watch and learn.

Some would say that you are working intuitively, feeling your way along. But this is not is not quite the same thing. The hands are sensitive to touch, texture and pressure differences. They provide feedback to the brain in much the same way as the eyes do. The hands are an overlooked resource. We are so adapted to the expectation that reason and logic should govern everything we do. The wonder of art is that it does not need to be either reasonable or logical. Nor does it have to be purely emotional and intuitive. The hands give us a third option. We can literally excavate the truth of art. It is thinking with the hands.

We are talking manual labor. this is a physical process that requires great effort. In effect, we discover our art as a kind of cross breeding of substance, mind and touch. Each element gives equally to the whole. We observe, we engage we trust. What we receive is is a pathway, a story of illumination and insight. The point is not to provide answers but to ponder questions.

Think of all the things that are hand made, not just art. These are enduring things. To be sure, it is not mindless exploration, just looking with all our faculties. If the mind cannot resolve something maybe the hands can.

Large Green Ball

It is the mystery of it that excites. We all know about balls but this one is strange. The facets catch the light in a variety of ways, there is the suggestion of a seat on top, it shows cracks that tell you that it is made of wood and then there is the color which is more like a plant color. It has an undeniable presence but does not fit into a clear definition of known objects. It is a curiosity. Its purpose is to excite and provoke. Art is like that, real but not real. Quantum physics tells us that at a certain level, it is possible to be in two places at once. I like that, art has been doing that for a long time. It is surreal, two things at once. This thing is heavy, more than a hundred pounds. It is no beach ball. It comes from a tree but does not look like a tree. Can there be irony in such a simple thing?

Drawing the Painting

Blue Ginger 2 / 15″x11″ / watercolor on Arches 140 lb. HP watercolor paper

There is a subject you might be able to identify. It starts with a Blue Ginger flower, a familiar sight around my studio. But the subject goes deeper. It is also myself, specifically how my mind works and how my body moves.

There are intentions here that really carry the image. I am looking for light, mood, movement, fluency, clarity and resolution. To achieve this content of subject, I have chosen transparent watercolor and 100% rag wc paper as the medium.

The composition and the technique come next. I allow myself only a single film of paint on the paper, no overpainting to maximize the brilliancy of the colors. There are no pencil lines to guide me.

I start at the top with a little blue and find the first contour that moves down and to the left. The second stroke draws down the color from the first stroke softening the edge and leading the eye to the left. The next color is the grey which is placed in direct contact with the still wet blue. The amount of water in each stroke must be precisely matched so that the edge does not blur. The gray is then drawn down pulling the color to the left and down. This pattern of alternating between the figure and the ground, painting only one color stroke at a time and remixing after every stroke is continued throughout the painting. All movement progresses from left to right in a circular manner until I have come all the way home, which is the same location I started from. Whenever possible I allow the white of the paper to carry the movement forward. A second pass is allowed to paint the stem which serves to reinforce the strength of the drawing.

To make the process even more interesting, the entire painting must be done with my left hand, which is my non-dominate hand. The reasoning is that the hand, like the brush, needs to be told what to do. I do not want mindless virtuosity to enter the work. The composition is linked inexorably with the technique. What and where must be matched with when and how. The painting is spinning, it is pushing outwards. I use dark blue masking tape at the outset to constrain this force with a counterforce that pushes in on the space. The balance of the expanding and contracting forces puts tension into the space and charges it with energy.

The interesting question is what comes first, the drawing or the painting? My answer is that they happen simultaneously. Strokes are gestures, they move us along which is drawing. Strokes are also imbued with feelings, they are colorful so that is painting. The same stroke does both, drawing and painting. And if we can keep an eye on balancing the composition, which is mostly about proportioning the lights and darks, we can have a very involved piece in a short amount of time.

I do not want to leave anything to chance, I must own every aspect of the painting. I want it to be equal parts real and abstract, logical and intuitive as well as medium and technique. The flower itself is a masterpiece. I want to do it justice not copy it.