White and Gold Madonna: The First Four 28 September 2007

Oil on gold mat board.
Here are the first four paintings. Click on the image to see them all. I’m still struggling with certain aspects of the piece.

White and Gold Madonna, study 25 September 2007

Oil on gold mat board.
This is the first real study for the pieces I want to do, a full dress rehearsal, you might say. I normally would just dive in, but I have only so much scrap gold mat board from the shop. This piece was irregularly sized, so it’s my practice board. [...]

Madonna study 3 25 September 2007

Hard pastel, Conte crayon, and pencil on mat board.
This is more along the lines I want to go — the form is in tension between the observed form of the object and the form taken by the expression of the medium. The latter I am still learning to struggle with. The negative form [...]

Madonna study 2 25 September 2007

Oil pastel, Conte crayon, and pencil on mat board.
I do like how broken up the right arm is by the gray, but overall I think this piece became too much about geometric abstraction. It’s too Byzantine. The balance I want to strike between observation and abstraction is on the terms of the medium, [...]

Madonna study 1 25 September 2007

Oil pastel, Conte crayon, and pencil on white mat board.
This is not quite the right green , it’s too olive. After this I went out to buy six sticks, each a different green. The arms I like, as well as the neck. Perpetual trouble spots are the torso and the cap. [...]

The Madonna of Marshalls 19 September 2007

Pencil on Arches cold press.
I’m sorry this image is so terrible. It was photographed behind glass, in bad light, etc. Heavy photoshopping ensued. All of the images here link to the image file, but the resolution on this one is an embarrassment, so it just links to the page. A prep [...]

Facade 3 13 September 2007

Pencil and charcoal on white linen mat board.

Facade 2 13 September 2007

Pencil and charcoal on white linen mat board.
This is the weakest by far, but it was a path paved with good intentions. Let me begin with those intentions. One of my goals for these pieces was to explore how classical themes have entered into modern art. David is a convenient figure for [...]

Facade 1 – for Jacques-Louis David 13 September 2007

Pencil and charcoal on white linen mat board.
These pieces look somewhat unimpressive online; which is too bad, because I’m actually pretty happy with them.
They’re called Facade just because they experiment with some of the tropes of Greco-Roman architecture. I am very interested in the classical (and neo-classical) tradition, particularly in the extent to which [...]

Untitled white 2 13 September 2007

Pencil on white mat board.
An improvement on Untitled white 1. The eccentricity is more regulated — the strength of the script is kept within a disciplined order. Something to try would be to allow the line more freedom, but to weaken it, make it more hesitant, less assured. That might allow me [...]