Just add water

 

 

Officially into summer now, I'm sticking with the Adirondacks for the next little while.  With the "Empty Frame Series" introduced last time, I'll be exploring little known artists of the 19^th/early 20^th century who painted there – and at the same time, I'll have some summer camp fun by experimenting with different media.

 

This post's subject is Homer Dodge Martin, looking like a successful businessman here.

 

 

He died not only in obscurity, but in poverty, ill heath and blindness – yet his mellow landscape paintings are in the collections of many prominent American museums, including the Met, the Smithsonian and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

 

With a nod to Martin's 4-year sojourn in France, and a nudge from "Portrait Revolution",  I decided to do his portrait in intensely coloured pastel chalks.  It's about time I put a dent in my 35-year-old supply of these legendary art tools, most of them handpicked by me from huge trays at Sennelier Paris.

 

 

An important health protocol has evolved around the use of soft pastels.  Because they're essentially powdered pigment plus water, it can be harmful to work indoors without plenty of ventilation and even to directly contact some colours with bare hands.

 

 

My euphoria about reuniting with my colour trays led to a quick session outdoors in the cool air of morning – and a quick take on the subject, with an irresistible polka-dot tie. Here's "Framed – Homer Dodge Martin."

 

Now, on to his own painting, "Adirondack Landscape."   Was the "some old thing" that my mother discarded from the carved frame something like this?

 

 

From my photo archives, I found a suitable companion piece – the creek below Shannon Falls, just off the Sea to Sky Highway.

 

Thinking about landscape artists I like, I suddenly thought of Canadian artist David Milne, who has his own Adirondack connection.  I'd first fallen for him via a 2^nd-hand book purchase, and my enthusiasm was confirmed by a huge 2017 retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery.  Now I had the idea to try to replicate my mountain stream in his style.  As I browsed his paintings, I found…was it possible, this similar subject? -- "Black Waterfall."

 

What fascinates me about Milne's style is his use of pronounced line and blocks of colour – this looked oh-so-easy and self-evident, but it was not.  It's a very different manner of working, and I felt stumped at almost every turn, constantly asking, "What would David Milne do?"  It took me hours to get to this point, and then I stalled for three weeks. 

 

 

I was about to call it quits and then decided….what the heck, I'll plug in a dark background.  So here's the finale of "Milne Creek" – the Empty Frame Series, copyright 2023.

 

There is so much wrong with this finished piece, and it is so quirky, that I've actually become rather fond of it.  The challenge itself certainly gave me plenty of scope for reflection.

 

 

Summer in the Mountains

 

 

Since I first saw it decades ago, I've loved this painting – "Kindred Spirits" by 19^th century American landscape artist Asher B. Durand.  Without knowing its whole story, I felt that it extended a vast invitation – to explore a beautiful new world, in company with simpatico companions.

 

I've rarely painted landscapes although I regularly sketched outdoors in our old days of hiking, camping, paddling – and I have dozens of old sketchbooks to show for it.  As I begin to weed them out, I find memory fragments like this:

 

The note reads: "Hwy 99 – N. of Horseshoe Bay – waiting for the tow truck – COLD! – Jan 25/97"

 

These old sketches contributed to a convergence that sets my program for Summer 2023.  As I was working on my personal Remembrance of Things Past, I happened to pull out of a cluttered corner the lovely old mirror my mother bought as a framed painting in those olden days.  The mirror that then replaced the painting in the frame has gone ghostly with age so I papered it over for this shot:

 

 

Simultaneously, I'm receiving almost daily promotions for pricey art workshops at popular summer destinations -- sponsored by organizations that are busily reinventing themselves post-COVID.  

 

 

There's a long history to artists working in the Adirondacks – many of them, like Asher B. Durand, were formal or informal members of the Hudson River School.  As I followed internet trails, I came across dozens from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries – some of them well known, some almost forgotten.

 

Reflecting (ahem!) on my mother's mirror, I once asked her what the lovely frame held when she bought it from the antique dealer.  "Oh, some old thing," she said dismissively, "but I saw the frame would be perfect for a mirror."   Even then, as an inexperienced teenager, I wished I might have seen its original state.  Just imagine!

 

Well, this led me to my summer project called Filling the Empty Frame.  Are you ready?  Here's the plan:  Every two weeks, I'll choose a "vintage" artist and one of the paintings he made in the Adirondacks.  (Sorry.  They are all "he/him" – because Georgia O'Keeffe is just too spectacular for my purposes).  First, to continue my fascination with portraits, I'll produce that artist's portrait with a method chosen from this wild and wonderful book.  (You can read here about the book's origin in the author-artist's international project)

 

 

Next, I'll match the artist's painting to a photo or drawing I've previously made of a similar landscape. Then, maybe or maybe not in a similar style, I'll produce a landscape to the frame's size.  Ready?

 

Our first subject is Sanford Robinson Gifford.  "Never heard of him" – but he was an admired artist in his day and was among the group of New York City notables who founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870.

 

 

His connection to The Met suggests a conservative selection from "Portrait Revolution"...nothing too wacky yet.  I tried to loosen up a bit as in this sample from the book (on the right side, the largest of the lot) but otherwise played it pretty straight.

 

Moving right along with the work-in-progress.

 

 

And here's the final, "Framed – Sanford Robinson Gifford, 2023."

 

Now, here's Gifford's painting with a title confirming its connection to our theme, "A Twilight in the Adirondacks."

 

 A photo from Vancouver's nearby Trout Lake has a vague similarity.

 

 

 

But this view faces east – so I decided to borrow a radiant sunrise captured at the end of my block.

 

Here's an early stage.

 

And the grand finale, "A Trout Lake Sunrise" – Empty Frame series, copyright 2023.

 

On the basis of colour alone, I don't think my mother would have described this as "some old thing."  Maybe a better candidate for her description would be my scraped-back palette, awaiting the next go.

 

As I kick off this series, let Georgia O'Keeffe's words be the guide:--

"Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant; there is no such thing.  Making your unknown known is the important thing -- and keeping the unknown always before you."