Journal
Most Recent Entries
1/26/04
Its a new year and a new journal. Its been a year since I last wrote down any thoughts for public viewing. I find myself snuggled in for the winter and fighting the bitter cold along with
the isolation and inertia that winter brings. Its been an exceptionally cold and brutal winter so far. Easy to stay in the warmth and just lay around waiting for spring like a butterfly in a cocoon. So the
battle is on to keep myself going...active and creative. The last year has been sporadic on the creativity front. I have been working on my cobblestone studio and some other projects that involved physical labor.
This had kept me from building up momentum with my art like going on a streak does. The studio is still a season or two away from being useful. Although I have made a significant step forward by acquiring a furnace
for the building its not actually up and running yet so the lack of heat cripples the whole operation. So I must bide my time until the warmer weather befriends me again.
So.....after taking inventory and stock of where my art is and what direction I would like to go with it have I have decided to devote more time to the study of drawing people. Its a challenge that I have flirted with
over the years but for the most time I have focused on simple scenes that expressed quiet solitude that usually lacked the presence of people. So I have committed myself to study. The artist is always a
student...should always be searching and growing. I am still painting my night scenes that I love and identify with but I want to avoid getting into a pattern of painting by formula or process. Its good to try new
things and to explore different mediums and subject matter. I think its key to growth. This brings to my mind a quote by the martial artist Bruce Lee. "Man, he is constantly growing and when he is bound by a set
pattern of ideas or way of doing things, that's when he stops growing." So its good to shake things up and to think outside the box.
My approach to this study of people
is to draw constantly from any source. So I draw people from life, from drawings by other artists and from pics I rip out of magazines. At this point I don't think in terms of doing finished works. Its study. Although I hope to
get a likeness of the subject its not the primary goal. When I am drawing a nose my question is "how do I draw a nose? Getting a likeness is nice but I am more concerned with structure right now. I
often draw in ink which hinders any chance of correcting nuances to help capture the likeness but it does help to strengthen my observation abilities. (see pic) I have done several portraits in pencil and I have gotten a
reasonable resemblance after making many corrections. The most successful one was of a young woman named Gina. (see pic). But I think I learn more from the commitment that drawing in ink requires.
This study approach has made it easier to keep a streak going. I have begun a new streak of doing artwork everyday and I am up to 29 days now. I have done some nice watercolor
nocturnes along with my people drawings. Some of my paintings are over drawings that I did over the summer. The struggle for subject matter has been simplified as I can find pictures of people to do study drawings
of any where...from life or out of a magazine or book. I have been intrigued by the drawings of people done by the pre-Raphaelites and I often copy them for study I often do 3 or 4 a day...sometimes more.
2/9/04
What color is snow? The typical answer of course is white. But true white...like true black is rarely found in nature. What color is snow at night? What color is a white house or a
sheet on a line at dusk...or dawn? I have been almost obsessed with the color of snow lately. I study and observe constantly and I am amazed at the variety of colors I see. I have been surrounded with snow
and my paintings have been mostly snow scenes. Looking back at the paintings I have done I find I have painted snow in so many different colors. Shades of blues and purples mostly.... Of course snow, like water
reflects the color of the sky. The snow also reflects the colors of any lights from streetlights, windows and signs. I have noticed that I have not used green much for snow. But today I picked up a wonderful book
called the "Color of Night" by Nancy K. Anderson. Its a wonderful book about the artist Frederick Remington who was famous for his paintings of the old American west. In his later years he painted over 70 night
paintings. I was very excited to see his use of some marvelous greens to depict snow at night. They have a wonderful glow that seems to project the feeling of moon light on snow. There are many examples of this in the
book and its encouraging me to try some greens myself. Looking at his oils are also inspiring me to get back into those. I have been making plans to get back into pastels again. I am curious as to how the
techniques I have developed in water colors will affect my pastels. Every thing you learn in one medium often effects your work in other mediums.
The book also includes many
quotes from Remington's journals. Often his entries were very brief...maybe even just one short sentence. But they were interesting enough to make me want to do more journals of my own art.
I think my streak of doing art daily is up to 43 days now. I have been doing some nice things I feel. Some things are just studies...but even they are interesting. I have recently gone
through a bunch of old sketch pads and I have found numerous unfinished paintings that I had considered lost battles. Most of them were pictures that did not capture the picture I had in mind...so I abandoned them.
Looking at them with a fresh eye I saw some potential. Last winter I had started a winter scene of an old tire swing hanging from a tree. It was a night scene with the tire and tree silhouetted against an electric
yellow light that was shooting across the yard with a red barn in the back ground. It seemed disjointed and all the elements in the picture seemed to disconnected from each other. I didn't like it. With nothing to lose I
used a technique I have developed with watercolors. I quickly went over the whole painting with a transparent coat of purple paint. It is important that its done quickly enough as to avoid dissolving the underpainting and
ruining it. By doing this it unified the whole picture and brought it all together under a common atmosphere. I reworked the painting adding more intensity to the blue snow and toning down the the red barn. Its is now a
successful painting and I have gotten a very positive response from it. (see pic)
There has been a lovely winter night scene that I have been driving past for a while now.
It's a barn with a street light attached to it and lighting up the front of the barn and all the snow in front of it...including the snow that is partially cover up and old wagon wheel leaning against the barn and an old
car parked in front of it. I finally got around to sketching it yesterday. I parked my van in front of it and I did a delicate drawing in ink using a ball point pen. I arrived at dusk to witness an interesting sky
behind it. Above the horizon was an intense warm blue that gradually turned to a dark blue as it climbed higher. This contrasted nicely with the warm, yellow glow of the barn and the snow in front of it. I may
do some studies in blues to get down the best combination for the sky. Its a nice drawing. Its a shame that nice drawing will be gone in hopes of creating a nice painting. (see pic)
One
of my most popular paintings of late is that of a house and trees on a distant horizon that is almost a silhouette against a colorful sky. The drawing was delicately done in ink last fall. I wetted the paper down
pretty good and went across the wet sky with pinks, yellows, blues and purple. The sky was lovely and encouraged me to continue. I struggled with the shade of the house and the foreground. It was dark but too
black and I wasn't happy with it. I went back and looked at the scene which was then covered with nice shade of blue snow. So I decided to replace the dark gray with blue snow and I replaced the black roof with
blue snow which resolved the issue nicely. (see pic)
There is another scene that has intrigued be of late. A white house on a snow covered hill surrounded by very tall trees. I drive by
it 4 or 5 nights a week. At night it is all kind of fuzzy and cool with the warm glow of red curtains lighting up one window. It begs me to do a pastel of it. When I drive by it at night I look down the road over
the hill for oncoming cars. When I see no one is coming I turn off my headlights for a few seconds as I approach the scene to see it true. Even though its a white house surrounded by white snow it is quite dark and the
red glow of the window looks so pleasant to me....so inviting. It seems quite challenging. What color is a white house when it is enveloped in the darkness off night? I went by it today and did a sketch in ball
point. I used a view finder to help with the composition. I am torn between doing a close up of the house or a more distant scene which would include the tall trees. The scene I have drawn seems to be
something in the middle that I am not happy with. But I will use the drawing as a study as I expect to do several painting of this scene.
2/21/04
I carry a leather bag around with me. Sometimes I refer to it as my magic bag. In it I keep art supplies that take away any excuse for painting. I can't say "If only I had
a sketch pad or paints I would do some art." Lack of materials can never be an excuse. If nothing else a ball point pen and the back of an envelope will suffice. The Spanish painter Goya said confidently,
"Give me a piece of charcoal and I will show you a masterpiece."
As usual, my bag is over full. Old sketchpads...full or almost full. New pads just waiting to be
opened...books I am studying...watercolors...pastels... pencils, pens and ink...a view finder...film..
Since I do some art everyday I thought I would do a daily journal entry. I thought
it would be interesting to see the process of what art I am doing. But it hasn't happened and probably won't. I'm a painter, not a writer. At least not on a daily basis. So I write when I feel like it.
So in trying to recall what I have done since my last entry I thought I would just look through my bag and talk about some of the work in it.
The drawing I did of the house on the hill
was a struggle as a painting. It just wasn't working. So I went over the painting with pastels and it did give it the simplification I was looking for ...and the atmospheric quality I was looking for. I am
still not sure about the composition. I made a color copy of it from an office copier and I am going to cut that down and see if I can resolve the composition issue. (See pic)
In my bag I have 2 paintings of the same scene. The subject matter is an old wood stove with a kettle and an old iron on it. The stove is in the home of my friends Boley and Pin who live on the
reservation. Whenever I visit them I comment that I would like to do a pastel of that stove. But I always seemed to be lacking pastel paper at the time. In both pictures I sketched the subject with a pen whose ink
was water soluble. After drawing I went over the ink with a wet brush which dissolved the ink like paint. An interesting affect, although it was a bit indelicate and hard to control. I discovered that by
waiting until the next day the ink does not dissolve and a colored wash could be washed over the ink without the ink bleeding. So leaving the stove black and white I went over the background with some warm tones which
gave the picture some depth. (see pic).
Last night I finished up a nice little watercolor. One night I went out and did a couple of sketches of houses. The pen was
not a micro point like I prefer but a thicker point that made rather clumsy drawings. I was especially intrigued with a green house with a long porch and a large tree in front of it. A light came in from the left of the
picture and lit up one side of the tree and the snow on the sidewalk. A lamp lit up a window from the dark porch. I managed to paint over and correct the clumsy drawing enough to make a successful picture. I
believe it is what Robert Henri meant when he said "A good picture is a well built structure." (See pic)
2/22/04
Last night I visited my friend Al who lives on the local reservation. Al is a big, handsome and friendly Indian who is very likable...but you wouldn't want him mad at you. He always makes
me feel welcome and over the years I have done quite a few painting from is yard...often by the light of the fire that often burns in in yard. I once did a painting off his fire as it was dying...behind the fire stood
trees that were recently broken by a wind storm. (see pic). One time after doing several paintings from his yard Al spoke to me. "Art", he said. You can draw anything you see in my
yard...except that rock." He pointed to a large rock sitting near his drive way. I didn't understand the reason and I didn't ask why. I have learned to accept and respect the cultural and religious
beliefs of others. So I respectfully assured him that I wouldn't paint that rock. He turned to me and looked me in the eye and said "Just kidding."
Last night Al told me some
interesting stuff about Ely Parker who was from that Reservation. Ely Parker was a cabinet member under president Grant and was present when Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomatox and he actually wrote out the terms
of surrender. Parker's old house on the Rez is now in ruins. Al told me that Parker was a big Indian who liked to drink and fight alot and that was why Grant liked him so much. Parker seemed a lot like Al to
me who in his younger days was a bit of scrapper with several stab wounds to prove it. I asked Al if I could do a drawing of him sitting at his table and he said I could. He is an impressive looking fellow and
I would like to portray him there in his cabin with his wood stove next to him and pots and pans nailed to the walls. This would be quite the challenge to me as I am not all that confident with my abilities at getting a
likeness yet. The expectation of the subject can also be intimidating as they expect a likeness and hopeful a flattering one. So a portrait of Al is on my list of things to draw.
2/23/04
The AlbrightKnoxMuseum in Buffalo is doing their annual search for ne artists in the area. I thought I would give it a try. I am submitting 20 pieces of art on CD. They are all from my recent series of watercolor nocturnes. One of the things that is required is a one page artist statement. I am never really sure what all is required on an artist statement so I just wrote about the art and how and why I do it. This is what I came up with:
Arthur Barnes
Artist Statement
Half of our lives are spent in the absence of daylight. For the most part the beauty and wonder of night goes by unnoticed and unappreciated.
Often, the darkness is written off as black or gray and uninteresting. It’s my hope that my art can help people to SEE…to see that the night is in fact a world of color and beauty. Many of the scenes that I have
created art from would make boring pictures in the daylight. It is the magic of the night…with all its mysterious light and shadows that give the subjects their enchantment.
The pieces I am submitting are from recent
watercolors. I do not consider myself to be a traditional watercolorist. I use watercolors to achieve my goal of creating loose, spontaneous works that have balance and structure.
Hopefully the subject matters
speak for themselves. They are of real places and real things. Quite often they are ordinary things too often over looked.
I draw directly from life…usually in ink without any preliminary pencil work and
almost always in the dark. While drawing, I try my best to remember the colors I see. I then paint over the drawing from memory trying to capture the mood of the image I visually bonded with. In this way I guess I
could be compared with the Impressionists. Some times I paint transparently allowing the lines of the ink drawing to show through. I consider these to be more like colored drawings. Other times I will draw in
pencil or cover the ink lines with several layers of transparent or opaque paint. I consider these to be paintings.
Earlier in my career I developed a process of painting night scenes from life with pastels. Using
dark paper I would paint the lights in first thus utilizing the concept of negative space.
I had my first exhibit of Nocturnes in pastels 1982. After seeing the show a friend of mine told that he began to really look at
street lights and traffic lights. He told me that until then, he had never even noticed them. He began to truly SEE.