Craftsmanship and Art

 

Whimbrel at 2-Mile Landing. Original Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021.

I've spent a lot of time over at least the last five years listening to, reading about, and listening to audiobooks about music, particularly classical music. One of  the things that I've particularly noticed is that, at least in the past and I'd guess today as well, musicians learn some basics, for example harmony, sonata form and other forms, etc. The vocabulary for musical notation is astounding. I say all this as a non-musician so I realize that I'd have a slightly different take on this  if  I were a musician. But on the whole I think I'm correct.

Still it stands in stark contrast to my artistic  education and I'd guess the artistic education of  many. I have a lot of art education. 80% I'd guess is  in studio  art, two years at a community college, a year plus as an undergraduate at a very good school on west coast, and graduate studies at the same west coast school and at an Ivy League school on the east coast.  And two graduate degrees in  art. Big Deal! No, not at all. All that education doesn't  necessarily translate  into good art. I only mention it because there was a common theme to those many years of art education as a studio artist: be enthusiastic about what you do and  have at it! That was it, though  it wasn't put in such blunt  terms.

Was I unhappy with this?  No. It's just what I wanted. Particularly I wanted to PAINT, and paint I did, mostly on my own, but also with a few regular studio mates, especially on the west coast.  I don't think either we the students or our teachers expected we'd get a much out of the formal classes. We'd  learn and improve  through  studio practice.

It's only in retrospect, realizing how much theory that there is in music and musical education, that I  wonder about art education. Is there something similar in art? Is it just taught at schools other than the ones I went to? Would I have wanted a different education, one more structured and with a distinct syllabus, if I actually had the opportunity? My guess  is  that no I would not.

There of course is  the old nostrum about reinventing the wheel. Generally it is a very good nostrum. I'm just not sure how well it works  in art. Since I live in Philadelphia I do have to  wonder  about the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. I never took any courses there though I have known people who studied there. But I never talked to them about their training. But  I do have the impression  that at least the painters get a fairly classical education. And at least one  of my old  friends who shared a studio  above mine  and who studied there went on to fame and fortune as a  more or  less contemporary classical  painter. I could tell that we looked at painting quite differently, though I don't think he ever looked down on my own work. And I admired  the technique and ambition of his own work. But we did  seem to come from different worlds.

In any case it just reminds me that people do get different training in the arts and often that training stays with them.

Before I started classes at the west coast school I arrived on campus a few months  early and took  some printmaking courses in the student union.  They were pretty much one on one  and I loved them. I learned enough to do some lithography, etching and a bit of  aquatint, just enough  for me to start experimenting on my own. I loved it. But in a  few months my classes started, I had almost 24 hour access to a painting studio  and I jumped back into painting. The person who  taught  me printmaking at the student union was also a student in printmaking. So I was introduced to both the faculty and her fellow students in printmaking. But there was just something that put me off about taking a course in it. There seemed to be some odor of technique, of tradition, of something or other that just seemed  foreign to the freewheeling  attitude  I had toward art. I never had any subsequent training in printmaking.

So here we are today, where I have been doing more  printmaking  than painting over the last 10 years or more. I started with linoleum block printing, then added some shina wood blocks  in conjunction with lino, then did just western style printing with one or more  shina wood blocks. And now I'm finishing  my fourth year of moku  hanga. My most recent print, about 6x8  inches  is at the top of this post.

This very lengthy introduction  to my newest print stems from the fact that it could look to many like  I have neither general printmaking technique, nor more  specific moku hanga technique. Additionally I realize that almost all of  my moku hanga prints probably seem quite foreign to the spirit of traditional  moku hanga. I have to say I can't  really deny that.

And this I think gets to the title of this post:  Craftsmanship  and Art. When I was getting my education in art crafts, at least as far as I could tell, were starting to be considered by many  in the art world if not as exactly equals then at least on the same fluid, sliding scale. But that's not what I'm talking about. I have no argument with the idea  of  traditional crafts as art. (I don't know enough about non-traditional crafts to have an opinion on them). But some art media I believe have more of a craftsmanship tradition than others, at least today. Printmaking seems to value craft more  than painting.

One of the first things I realized once I started using more  than one block in any type of relief print was that registration was a big consideration. If you use more than one block it generally is with the purpose of  using a different color and you want the second color to register(match up)  with what you've already printed on your printmaking paper from printing the first block. As I didn't have a printing press I used various handmade jigs and devices to help with registration. They helped but there were still problems.

The thing is I didn't really consider them serious problems. For myself I didn't care all that much if things lined up properly. My guess is that if  I went through all of my multiple block prints of any type I'd find that areas of color rarely match up perfectly. It's not a goal of  mine.

Now I have to say, as I'm sure most printmakers will say,  that sounds a lot like sour grapes or something similar. You choose to be happy with less than perfect registration in printing because you're technically incapable  of getting perfect registration! I'd have to agree that I'm technically incapable of  getting perfect registration. But  I also don't believe it's worth the time and effort, at least for me. Just what is gained  and what is lost by perfect registration? For me not much is gained, but a lot might be lost, including the ability for the print to breathe.

But it's very easy to see where at least in printmaking  good registration is just considered part of the craft of printmaking. Since I  didn't have an education in printmaking I'm only guessing that this  is the case. But I'm pretty sure that I'm right.

This is only one element of  what I consider, from an outsider's perspective, to be the craft of printmaking. Another element is consistency in prints in an edition. Especially with  a complicated print involving many colors, many blocks, perhaps intricate carving there are more and more areas where the smallest little slip or lack of concentration will make one print slightly different than another. Printmakers have to decide whether or not  to include small anomalies in an edition,  My guess is that much of the final decision depends on how you've  been trained.

For me this  is  particularly difficult where I've spent a lot of time and effort in the printing, mainly due to it being a complicated print. After all that effort do I really want to toss out more  than 50% of  what I've printed? Of course not and yet expectations are that there be at least some basic similarity between prints in an edition. My guess is that I'm more lenient than many but still I cull a lot from editions.

It's easy to understand this desire to have a consistent edition. And yet here too I find  that the craftsmanship of  printing is perhaps getting in the way a bit of the art of printing.

Moku hanga has a much better method of registration than western hand-printed prints. And yet I suspect that because of this there is a greater expectation of excellent registration in moku  hanga prints. By those standards I fail pretty badly. I suspect moku hanga also has particularly high standards of paint application, even surface, etc., etc. mainly due to the incredible craftsmanship  of  traditional moku hanga. Though I strive for these and don't usually have deliberately uneven surfaces it's not something  I care about all that much. It undoubtedly is part of traditional moku hanga. It's just not something I can bring myself to consider the most important part of the print. I usually won't cull a print because the color application isn't the best.

For me it is the overall experience of the print that is most important. What is it like visually, not technically? For me that means that I'm often quite happy with my prints, especially my moku hanga, even though I'm also disappointed that the registration isn't a bit better, the paint coverage a bit better, etc., etc. For many I imagine  it looks as though I've failed at the craft of printing and it's hard to see beyond that. I can only guess but I expect that this is true. I can understand it. But I'm still quite happy with my prints.

It may be pushing this to suggest something similar in painting and drawing but I'm going to anyway. I love drawing, and painting as well. But I don't at all like drawings that enclose shapes in non-stop, continuous, undifferentiated lines. That may be a technique that was taught in classical academies hundreds of years ago but it is largely lifeless. The varying and incomplete lines of someone like  Rembrandt are far more impressive. They go beyond technique into art, into something that is moving. The art of Rembrandt breathes.

I've gone on at such great length that I'm reluctant to say much more. In some ways I'm just thinking out loud. In the end I guess  I'd use Winslow Homer as an example. He did quality wood engravings in his younger years. He was a master of line. But as he matured he didn't let himself be constrained by line. Instead it became an often invisible structure in his wonderfully free watercolors. Technique has its uses but it can also be the kiss of death for  an artist. My guess is that many artists would be better off knowing when to forget about technique. On the other hand I can't help but think of Odubel Herrera, Pat Burrell and Hunter Pence, all players at one time or another for the local Philadelphia Phillies. I used to scream every time I saw one of them at the plate with their idiosyncratic wild swings. But they still got hits. I hope my prints don't remind anyone of them, especially Pence or Herrera!

  

  

WIP - 2021

Working proof on moku hanga of Whimbrel at 2-Mile Landing. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski.

 Very sloppy printing I know. This is the best of four proofs I've done on a new moku hanga. It might look familiar as it's based on the acrylic painting I showed in the last post. So far I've used seven 6x8 inch blocks. I need at least one and perhaps two more. As I got further along in proofing I started losing patience in my printing because I was eager to see if the print was starting to come together. So what had been a fairly nicely printed proof got sloppy at the end.

When I started I just grabbed some paper that was lying around, not even sure if it was printmaking paper. Only as I was printing did I happen to see an Arches watermark. Eventually I'll print on a different paper but this one has been fine for proofing.

After I'd done block six I believe, the dark green block I still had only areas of flat color. Something inme wanted to scream. Though flat color, with possible grading through bokashi, and with some complex but regular pattern are part of traditional moku hanga I needed something different. That's been true in most of my moku hanga. I just am not comfortable with all that flat color. So I carved into much of that green block, creating quite a lot of pattern, movement, etc. I think it  was just what the print needed. I did the same to a lesser extent with the last block, the brown one, though that one I had planned at least a little variation on.

So there you have it: a work in progress.  As with most of my work it is an ongoing dance between simple and complex. Stayed tuned to see where the dance ends.

Is That What I Want?

Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

I have had a number of "successes" and a number of "failures" in my artistic career. I put quotes around the terms to indicate that there is a bit of artificiality in them. For instance I have been in a number of competitive art shows in my career and I have been rejected from quite a few as well. I have gotten some likes on Facebook, a very low standard of appreciation I know, and I think a much greater number of non-responses. I have sold some work, often looking quite different from one another, but I haven't sold anywhere near as much work as I'd like.

Sometimes these are more meaningful to me than others, for instance I'm always quite happy to have my work accepted into the annual exhibit of The Society of Wildlife Artists because I think so much of the work that I'm showing with. I've been excited to get into some competitive shows when I was an abstract artist often to find that I wasn't at all happy with the work that hung beside mine. But I also realized early on that competitive shows are often the end result of competing tastes on the part of judges or other 'stakeholders'  and that the show reflects it. Often they are odd hodgepodges. Again I think that this is not the case with 'The Natural Eye,' and that's why I'm always happy to be in it. I used to be somewhat depressed not to get into another competitive show that I applied to frequently. But I always got the catalog of the show. And finally, after quite a few years, I finally said to myself:  "This is silly. I don't LIKE most of  the art in the show." And a year or  two after that I stopped submitting work.

My end of submissions isn't necessarily a critique of  the show but it is an understanding of myself by myself. I'm far better off creating art that I like and only trying to exhibit it at shows I'd be happy to be in. What's the point of  trying to get into a show, even a prestigious one, if you don't like most of the art in it? In the same vein what's the point of trying to gain entry to various galleries or associations if you don't appreciate the work of  most of  the other artists involved?

To make a long story short at some point I decided I really have to make sure I'm the judge who counts most. What do I think of my work?!

And that leads me to my most recent painting at top. I like it!

I have been reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina over the last month or so. In it there is an artist, Mikhailov. I'm not really sure of why he's there but what struck me is a section  where he expects very little from the people who come to look at his paintings, then begins to think much more of them when they say something  that might possibly be interpreted as positive. Tolstoy I think is criticizing him but I think the scene might also ring true for many artists. As soon as someone says they like your work, or purchases it, you tend to see them and your work in a slightly better light.

I'm reminded of that by the watercolor painting I did of two Whimbel pictured below.

Two Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 12x16 watercolor. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

It is one of a number of paintings and drawings I did on the way to the painting at top. It is a bit more realistic. It's also true that I've sold a number of my watercolor paintings. I'm happy with the watercolor paintings and I'm happy that someone likes them well enough to buy them. But I realize that I might disappoint some of  those buyers because I don't too often put those paintings up for sale. That's not because I'm too fond  of them. It's because I don't do that many any more and I'm often not happy when I do most. But when I put them up for sale it's because I do like them.

The thing is I realize that my own watercolor paintings don't do much for me. When I'm done with them I ask, as the title of a well-known blog says: Is That What I Want? I've come to realize that though I admire many who work in watercolor it's not something I really aspire to in my own work. When I do I often feel more like I'm imitating something I like rather than painting what I like.

What I'm getting at is that whether I achieve what I want in a work of art, even if I don't know what that is when I start the art work, is what determines the artistic success. It is meaningful to me. There are times of course when I'm fooled. I  think I've made some sort of breakthrough, then days, months or  maybe years later I decide that the artwork wasn't all that I thought it was. But most times this is not true. If I'm really happy with a work I stay happy with it, even years later when  I might work in a completely different matter.

I've had a number of such moments with the acrylic paintings that I've done over the last 6-9 months. To me they are showing me the path of the future in my work both in paint and print.

Some are more successful than  others. The sumi brush pen and water soluble crayon drawing/painting below is somewhere in between. It seems like a step toward the painting at top. There are things I like about it but it seems a bit derivative. I'm not sure I would have done the painting at top without it. But the painting at top seems like What I Want.

Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 11x14 inch sumi brush  pen and crayon drawing. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

I realize that not all artists can worry about What They Want. They have to worry about what their customers will buy so that they can pay the bills, etc., etc. I've seen no sign in my life that it's easy for an artist to make a living as an artist. Throughout history many of  the most successful artists in any medium have had to keep their customers/patrons happy. I can't criticize that and I don't. What I'm saying is really more personal. I do know when I've done something that I'm happy with, regardless of what others think. That is my idea of artistic success.

Whimbrel Studies. Sumi Brush Pen. Copyright 2019 by Ken Januski

Just to round off these thoughts the drawings above are done with sumi brush pen and are all based on photos that I took. I like them in many ways but I'll probably never really like work that I do that is  based solely on photos.

The sumi brush pen sketch below on the other hand was done from life at 2 Mile Landing in Cape May, NJ in May of 2019. I was looking through a scope at some distant whimbrel and was thrillled with this sketch  that I did over a 5-10 minute period. Later I looked at it and realized how crude it was. But I still loved  it! It captured my reaction to what I saw. It too is an artistic success, far more so than the sketches above or even some theoretical sketch from photos that is far more detailed. Such a sketch wouldn't be successful to me because it's not what I want. It would just be a study

On the other hand I was thrilled with the field sketch below and I think I'm even more thrilled that i've been able to do a painting based on it that still has the same feeling. That to me is true artistic success.
 

Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. Sumi brush pen field sketch. Copyright 2019 by Ken Januski.

Leaping Into and Perhaps Beyond Cliche

Female Black-throated Blue Warbler Feeding on Devil's Walkingstick. Original Moku Hang by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020

Leaping Female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Pencil sketch by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020

With so many years of abstract painting behind me I found that I had a lot of artistic tools that also served me well when I started using subjects from nature. I didn't understand the structure of much of  what I saw in nature. So I had a lot to learn about birds and insects, not to mention mammals, vegetation, etc. But there was one thing in naturalistic art, though also in the figure drawing that I spent a number of early years doing, that really wasn't in my abstract art. In fact off the top of my head I don't think  it's in most abstract art. That is movement and/or weight.

I did a lot of figure drawing in my distant past, about 3 hours a night, 3-4 days a week for a year or more, followed by additional classes in graduate school that often included figure drawing.  I loved figure drawing, though I particularly loved quicker poses. I'm not sure how fond I would have been of  1 hour plus poses. What I loved was trying to capture both movement AND a sense of weight and how it was distributed. No I don't mean how heavy a model might be. I mean an almost physical empathetic  knowledge of whether there is a lot of weight on one leg, very little on another, a great stretch in one area of the body, perhaps with a contraction in another part of the body, etc., etc. I don't think this can be easily explained. You either look at a drawing and get that feeling of where the weight and movement is, or you don't, assuming of course that the artist captured it. Most of all I think it is a matter of physical empathy.

I've noticed this in the drawing  of others, and also sculpture where it seems even more noticeable,  with various subjects, people, horses, hippos, birds, etc. But with birds in particular there is one new element: loft, that physical sense of weight that you can sometimes see and feel when something is moving above the earth, sometimes 100s of feet, sometimes just a few feet as in the female Black-throated Blue Warbler above.

I was reminded a bit of this when I watched part of a  so-so show on Rembrandt on tv last night. One early painting showed a hand that seemed to be lying lightly  on whatever. But there was a definite sense of lightness. It wasn't a dead lobster, heavy as could be. It had the sensation of  lightness. This in turn reminded me of seeing something similar in a hand by Giotto, probably a Madonna and child, seen  at the Uffizi in Florence many years ago. Some of the best artists capture the  weight of  limbs as they portray them. Sometimes they are light but  other times you get the  sense of  real weight bearing down into the ground.

Of course with birds the sense of weight is just different, at least if they're in flight. I have to confess that  I've never flown, at least under my own power. Neither has any human as far as I know. And yet I think we can still feel  the sense of soaring in a soaring hawk. Though humans have no real experience of flying or floating many can still 'feel' what it is like.

I know artists who can capture the sense of flight in birds while drawing them from life. I can't  do that. Perhaps I could  if  I tried harder and had more experience with seeing birds in flight, particularly soaring raptors. But  if  pressed I think I could do a sketch with some  sense of  reality.

That is not the case with birds that leap into the air, mainly to pick off something  to eat. This is a much less seen phenomenon than birds soaring. If it were much more common perhaps I would even try it from life. But the fact is often I don't even know it is happening. I only realize it because I take photos and some of them show the movement. So for instance with this female Black-throated Blue Warbler feeding on the berries of Devil's Walkingstick I really couldn't see what she was doing, even when looking throughout my  high quality binoculars. Only the photos I took showed it.

So I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I want to paint or  print a subject that requires photos? I really don't like art that shows a heavy reliance on photos. I'll admit that this could just be a matter of taste, which can be very personal and change from person to person. Nonetheless I really don't like such art. Too many well delineated ripples in water will drive me screaming from the room! Most often they can only be done by using photos. Humans don't see that way.

So deciding to use a photo of a bird leaping up into the air was hard for me. Not only will any art I do based on it look like it came from  a photo but it might also look quite cliched: Bird In Flight. Nonetheless I decided to go ahead and use this as a subject. I did so because I think it's fascinating to see birds in flight. And I wanted to try to  capture it.

As I was working on some of my recent acrylic paintings I kept noticing the sketch I'd done weeks previously of the Black-throated Blue. I guess you could say it just kept calling to me. Finally I decided to return to moku hanga using it as a subject. At top you see the finished result. There are two slightly different versions, one in a  edition of 9, and the one pictured here in an edition of 8.

 

Painter Watching 'Painters Painting', with Birds

Three Chipping Sparrows  at Houston Meadow. 9x12 Acrylic Painting by Ken Januski. Copyright @2020  by  Ken Januski.

I recently stumbled upon the old documentary film Painters Painting, by Emile de Antonio(1972). I would say that of all the films I've ever watched about art this was the most influential.  Now I'm sure  some readers might say: oh no, those horribly  antiquated old male chauvinists and all their heroic paint-splattered gestures.  Or  perhaps  any number  of other things. And some will respond: oh yes, what a great film about great artists, including Helen Frankenthaler.

I have loved seeing it again but for a different reason than many might think. It reminded me that most  if  not  all people, especially artists, probably have  formative periods where  the influences of  those times stick  with them more  than  any other later influences.  I have no  appreciation at all of  Pop(actually included in this film), Minimalism,  photographic appropriation, and any of the myriad  art fads/movements that have occurred over the last 50 years or more whose names I probably don't even know.

I used to always be puzzled when I  read that some of my favorite  artists didn't  go to museums or more particularly to  galleries as they got  older. They seemed to lose interest in newer art. Now  that I'm older  I understand this  better. Though there may be new art, that does not necessarily make it compelling new art. It may seem to an older artist not all that much different than various types of art he has seen in his lifetime. I  recently read Matisse's take on this  in the second volume I believe of Hilary Spurling's biography. He didn't  criticize newer art, as I'm much more  likely to do,  but  just said  that was the nature of the world, that youth always needed to  find its own 'new'  way. That makes sense to me. He didn't criticize newer art. He just wasn't particularly interested in it.

All of which means I think that many artists still seem anchored  by  their  formative period,  just as supposedly James Joyce was by his  Christianity. He might reject  it  but it remained influential even as he got older. That's what I've realized as I have re-watched Painters Painting.

The things I thought about, or maybe just felt, when I was a young artist still are with me in one way or another. So when Frank Stella, probably the  fastest talking artist I've ever heard, talks about his desire to remove any sense of  space, of depth, of reference to the real world in his paintings of  the the time of the film it rings  a bell. That's what I wanted to do in the late 70s. There just seemed to  be something too quaint,  cute, sentimental about including any  type  of  subject matter. Eventually, quite  obviously to anyone who knows my work, I changed my mind. But it was a goal that affected me and hundreds  if not thousands or  hundreds of thousands of  artists at one time.

So that is what is so fascinating about this film. It's not spin. And though there are  segments with art critics and gallery owners and even some collectors the film is  primarily the artists, mainly painters, talking. And you feel that they are absolutely sincere. This is  what they thought and felt  deeply as they made their art. It's not often you  get to see something like this. Even if you hate their art, and I definitely don't,  I think many people who  see the film will be taken by their  passion and perhaps begin to see their art freshly.

On the other hand, even if they're impressed by their sincerity, they might still wonder why  in the world  anyone would  want to remove any  reference  to the visible  world from their work. And I  can't  explain it myself. But it was something that I definitely felt. And I don't believe it  was because I learned  this  in school or  in any other way. I just seem to  have absorbed it from somewhere, just like many people  just seem  incapable  of listening to classical music  right now. It 'seems' irrelevant, though of course  it's not.

I really didn't  know much about de Antonio, the director. But I just learned that he was fairly leftist and mainly did political  films. Supposedly the FBI had  a large file on him. But in my recent viewing  I  happened to notice a couple of things I hadn't before. Like when one of the artists, I think Kenneth Noland or maybe Morris Louis, says that he realizes his  work is only for  very rich  people  with sophisticated taste. Of when de Antonio quizzes Leo Castelli about how much he makes, about the whole monetary aspect  of the art business. It's just something I noticed in passing. But it made me wonder if underneath it the director didn't  have some questions  about who was actually buying and appreciating the  work. At one point someone, perhaps Castelli, talks  about  the competitive  aspect of collecting, where  one rich person wants to keep up with another rich collector. And thus art stars are born. Though they are talented, perhaps  even great artists, they're also part of something that is driven by the egos of  certain rich collectors.

So I've thoroughly enjoyed  the film. But it also  makes me think about how  hard  it  was for me to go into  'wildlife art.' It  must represent everything that Stella was trying  to  get rid of  at the time. It's still pretty much not  taken seriously by  galleries  other than those  that specialize  in  it.

But  one thing I've realized  over  the years and that this  film inadvertently affirms  is that the art world  is  thoroughly affected by fashion.  What is  popular, what is new, what  is  obviously the next step  in the development of  art, really isn't. Fads and trends come and go. You might have a harder time selling something  that isn't currently fashionable, or  you might not get it  into  the most prestigious galleries but it  is still art and it might very well be  far better art than that that is in the galleries. There is  a lot  of  fiction in the art world, especially the art world of rich collectors.

In revisiting my theoretical past as an artist, so to speak, it's been enlightening. It was a hard decision to  go from large abstract paintings to much smaller art based on nature and wildlife. But  I've never regretted it. It seems foolish to  me now to want to exclude the outside  world, especially the natural  world, from  my art. But I'm still affected by the tastes I had so many years ago. It's still hard for me to allow much  if any atmospheric space in my work. I  still like it to be somewhat flat, somewhat like the work of  Stuart Davis in coming out  at the viewer rather than receding into space. I won't go on about this. But it has been interesting to revisit the art that was so important to me at one time.

And I'm sure it still has had some affect on my newest painting, the three chipping sparrows at top.

 

Some Thoughts on Art and Birds

Pencil Sketches of Blue-headed Vireo. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Great Blue Heron. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Great Blue Heron. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski

Pencil Sketches of Yellow-rumped Warblers. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

I've been thinking about writing about the annual exhibit of  The Society of Wildlife Artist's, 'The Natural  Eye,' for some time now. Since I've participated in it many times but am not a member I don't feel right about writing about  it. On the other hand it's the one exhibit I spend a lot of effort trying to get into each year because I like the work so much. As I've said many times it's thrilling to see my work with the work of so many artists whom I admire. Though I have to say, until I and Jerene actually went to the show in London the excitement was still somewhat tempered. It's one thing to admire work online. It's  quite another to be standing in front of, and surrounded  by it.

I've been in a lot of shows, both group and solo, though far fewer of the latter than the former. These were almost all when I did abstract work. Once I switched to representational art, I think  about 2006, I didn't really try to  get into many group shows, and with the exception of  'The Natural Eye'  and group shows at a local art center I belonged to  I didn't get into any  competitive juried shows I did apply for. I'm pretty sure  why. Wildlife art is not  considered serious art in the US. I feel confident saying  that. Though I'm not Robert Bateman's biggest fan, the fact that, unless things have changed recently, he's never been shown in a major Canadian museum says a lot. With the possible exception of Carl Rungius I'm not sure how many major American museums  have ever shown any wildlife art. I suppose some fishing scenes from Winslow  Homer, a John Singer Sargent alligator and a few others. But in the 20th century and later it's just not considered real art. ( I'm ignoring any possible contemporary artists who use an ironic  take on wildlife art and therefore might possibly be shown, because irony in itself discounts the subject it portrays).

I know I'm taking a while  to  get to the point..... The recent sketches above, some from life, others based on looking into the viewfinder of my camera to sketch from the small images of photos there show  I think how far I've come in actually being able to  draw birds. Though  I'm sure most people will say that they agree with that much more with the pencil sketches from photos than with the sumi brush pen sketches from life. But trust me they are much better than when I started about 15 years ago.

But even if  they showed twice or maybe even 10 times as much improvement as they do  there would still be a big problem. How do you make a finished work of art out of a sketch?  How do you make a painting? How do you make a print? How do you  make either a painting or a print as ambitious as the old abstract paintings I used to do? How  do you, based on these sketches, do something that both galleries and museums would be willing to show? How do you make art that is taken seriously  and not just  considered cute?

Just about the first thing I realized when I started drawing and painting birds, outside of how little I actually knew about what they looked like even though I'd birded for at least 20 years at that point, was  that they just can't sit by themselves in the middle of  a canvas. I could make a portrait like that, and did try to  do so, but what was I supposed to put around the bird? Impressionistic marks that might hopefully make it look like  they fit in perfectly with the bird to make a final composition?  A vignette like fading into nothingness around the bird? Sad to say, I realized that I had to contend with the environment in which they lived. Sad, I say because that meant not only did  I have  to learn more about drawing and painting birds but I also had to learn more about drawing and painting the various environments in which they  lived.

But at the same time I didn't want a lot of stultifying detail, especially something reminiscent of that based on a faithful detailed rendering of  a photo. That work did  and still does make me very nervous. Though some people can breathe a sense of life into it, perhaps because they actually are familiar with birds and their environment, most artists do not. One of  the other things I learned very on is that I didn't  at all want my work to look like that! Stultifying! After all the subject was alive, very alive and that was part of the point of even using them as a subject.

So................. that finally brings me to one of  my main points. What a complete revelation it was to discover The Society of Wildlife Artists! What exciting art, all based on wildlife! This is a link to the current show, which will open on 10.28.20: https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2020. In case it's not evident, I'm fortunate  enough to be in it, and have actually pre-sold one of  the unframed prints.

I'm a bit used to seeing the show now, having exhibited 7-8 times over  the last 10 years or so, but it is  still very exciting. The link I posted shows much of the work, though of course it is without the context of a gallery so you can't  see the size, texture, etc., etc. That just adds to the excitement of the show.

I'm not going to say a whole lot about it. But I mention the problems I had when I started  making bird/wildlife art because this show I think is often the answer to those  problems. It shows lively art, lively both in terms of the subjects and environment portrayed, but also lively artistically. All of  this art could easily be  shown in a museum if museums were alert enough to realize its vitality and power.

If you look at my sketches above you can see what a far cry they are  from most  of the work in the show, though some  have a similar simplicity. But many artists want to be able to make something more finished or perhaps more ambitous and yet also want to keep it  from becoming stultified. I think most people who read this and  who  also look at the show  will see that's there is very little that is stultifying. Particularly  as a whole the show is vital, the exact opposite of  stultifying.

And yet it  is also not  at all monolithic. There is  a great variety of subject matter, media, formal methods and imagination. The name of this blog, actually named  before  it  even was a blog if I recall correctly, is  ArtBirdsNature. My idea was that all are equally important and that they can reinforce and bring out  the best in each other. That I think is what 'The Natural Eye' does. I wish there was a similar  show in the US. I also hope you'll enjoy looking at the work, and perhaps  even buying some, in the online  gallery.
 

Painting and Finishing, Painting and Finishing

Blackburnian, Canada and Black-throated GreenWarblers. 9x12 inch  acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski.

Savannah Sparrow at Dixon Meadow  Preserve. 9x12 inch acrylic painting. Copyright 2020  by Ken Januski.

 

Though I had thought I might  have returned to printmaking by now I obviously have not. I think I know why. September  and October so far  have both been very active with migrating birds. I see them,  am stimulated to  portray them  and/or  the experience of  seeing them  and  I have to choose a medium. Which medium seems to offer the most flexibility? Not printmaking, not watercolor, at least for  me, but acrylic.

Most of my artistic background  is in painting, either acrylic  or oil, where I  can make a major change in a nanosecond. It turns out that this is  the way I feel like working right  now. I want a  direct way to make some sort of portrayal of  what I've seen.

But  I almost never want a portrait. I realized after almost my first or second bird painting that I didn't  like the idea of  bird portraits. Yes, there are many  handsome, beautiful birds, including all of the ones above. But to  portray them to me seems wrong. Too often it makes them seem cute. Nicely posed, painted in understated colors, etc., etc. I occasionally do something like this in a watercolor study, though I wouldn't argue that I do so with any great skill. But they are just  studies. They aren't finished  paintings and for me aren't even studies for  finished  paintings. Why? Because they would just look like portraits, like photos from  the 19th century of  your distant ancestors in photographic studios. Very stiff and unnatural!

I've never know how to portray them in a way that looks more natural, though this is a lack of both imagination  and skill with particular media, e.g. oil, watercolor, printmaking, et al. Acrylic painting allows my imagination to run free. I can keep experimenting and changing until the composition seems right. It's a very direct way to work.

So that is more  or less what the "painting" refers to in the title. I just keep painting trying to find the right way to  make a picture of something,  in this case birds that I've recently seen.

There's also the question of "finishing." I've always, and I do  think always is correct, disliked paintings with high finish, particularly paintings  where you  can't  even see any  brushstrokes. This  has been an ideal for  some painters for many centuries.  And I'm sure I can find some painters, Raphael perhaps, where the high finish doesn't bother me. But often it  just is very irritating. Ingres is somewhere in between. I have to  admire his work but  it does leave me pretty cold. Unfortunately in wildlife art it has been de rigeur for 100s years or more as far as I can tell. And it is wildlife  art that it seems most misplaced. For still life, nature morte,  it might make more sense. Most of  the subjects are no longer alive. Even the fruit has  been plucked. But wildlife IS alive. Why paint wildlife that looks like a still life? As I've written about this  many times  before I won't go  on. I'll just say that it is not a type of  "finish" I want in my  paintings.

My idea of  "finish," is much closer to Matisse's, at least the Matisse who wrote early in his career that in his paintings he wanted everything in its place, where there was nothing extra and everything worked  together. I think that idea has probably been prominent in my work for 40-50 years. I wouldn't argue that  it's the only way to make art. And  I'm sure that for  some viewers it can be just as offputting as the high finish of  more photographically-minded painters is  to  me.

So the other thing I like  about painting is  that also allows me to get to the type of  formal finish much more quickly than any other medium. Both printmaking  and watercolor generally require some planning and exclude much change and modification. It's  just the  nature of those  media. If you have a good  idea what you want to start with then they can be ideal media. And I do  love to the work of  others in  them. I even like some of my own.

But right now I'm more interested in both formal finish, ala Matisse, and wildlife art that seems alive and not a portrait, sometimes a stultified portrait. So  I continue to work in acrylic, painting and finishing.

I'm sure there will come a time when I want to translate some of  that into prints.

I had hoped to write more  about the upcoming Society of Wildlife Artist's 'The Natural  Eye ' show  in London. But I think that should  be another post. For now you can see, and  buy, much  of the work at The Natural Eye 2020.

(I'm starting to hate the new Blogger. My html may indeed be invalid as Blogger tells me but I didn't  create  it, Blogger did. I'm sure that this is of no interest to readers to I'm just going to ignore it. I don't have time to babysit Blogger.)

Off to London and The Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Show

Two Moku Hanga Prints and One Acrylic Painting About  To Be Shipped to the Mall Galleries

With the pandemic I assumed that the Mall Galleries in London and the Society of Wildlife Artists would have to call off their annual show. So it was a pleasant surprise to get an email in the summer indicating  that the show was on and entries could be submitted.

I always love this show, though I've only seen it in person once, two years ago. I think my work has been in it  between 6 and 8  times. As I'm somewhat rushed today, mainly with trying to get the entries shipped, I'm not going to write much  more at the moment. Suffice it  to say  that it is the one show I am excited about applying  for and  getting into. Even when I  don't get in it's both thrilling and inspiring to see much of  the show online.

But this  year three of my works  will be in: two moku hanga prints, A Frenzy of Golden-crowned Kinglets and Three Shorebirds; along with an acrylic  painting, Common Buckeye  and American Lady. The photo shows them just before I  get ready to pack them up and send  them off.

More later..................

 

Finishing Damselflies, Returning to Warblers

I've finally finished the Stream Bluets acrylic painting, having let it sit for between 4 and 8 weeks. For me one of my great artistic fears is overworking a painting to the point that it seems lifeless. Sometimes it  can take years to sense the lifelessness, possibly because after all the work of the overworking I, and probably many others, hate to admit that it didn't work. So when I started up acrylic painting again early this spring I often left paintings temporarily finished in very early states. I didn't want to overwork them.

Finally I decided that I was willing to take the chance of overworking on this painting. It's always hard to say when a work of art is done, particularly ones done in such fluid media as oil or acrylic. It's just so easy to make a few more changes. Of course it's never quite that simple. One change leads to another, etc., etc. But in this  case I think I've frozen the fluidity at the best place.

To me it still looks like a painting, one concerned with shape, color, composition, etc. But it also looks like a plausible representation of a real event, damselflies in a frenzy over a stream, with many of them mating and  ovipositing. To me it is more realistic than many illustrations  that show much more detail. It's a very old debate between painting and illustration. But for me I think it's fairly simple. Illustration always values some sort of representational  detail over something both truer to experience and more satisfying artistically, not that there isn't artistically satisfying illustration. I'm going to leave it at that since I've written about this before. The last thing I'd say is that when most people actually see such a scene in front of them I think that they experience it more the way my painting portrays it than the way most illustrations do.

Stream Bluets at Papermill Run. Acrylic Painting. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

Due to Covid and lockdowns we missed much of spring migration. But now that fall migration has begin and now that I've figured out where I can bird with a fair amount of safety and few crowds I've been doing a fair amount of birding. Fortunately that has resulted in my seeing many migrants including the colorful warblers, even if some of them are not as colorful as in spring.

As usual it is often quite hard to even SEE them long enough and well enough to identify them, let alone photograph them and in particular sketch  them. I think that probably the only way to successfully sketch migrating warblers from life is to find an area where you think that they might remain for more than a few minutes and then concentrate on just one or  two species. If you continually are trying to identify each little flurry of movement you see you'll never get any sketching done.

But for me, especially having missed most of spring migration, it's hard to make that sacrifice. And so I've tried to both identify and photograph them but not sketch them. BUT I don't at all like trying to make art from the photographs I've made of them. I've written about  this for years and so I hope  I won't  rehash too much of what I've already written.

But I think it is similar to what I just wrote about illustration and damselflies. There is a real danger  of  too much  information. When you know a great deal about insects, birds or whatever you may feel a great need to show all of this knowledge in each piece of  art that you make. Perhaps you feel that someone might say, oh he doesn't understand that bird because  he left out the dark at the base of the primaries. Many years ago there was an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about such art and its audience. Unfortunately it was in praise of it!!!

Art is a lively, fluid medium that I don't believe should be beholden to reality, not that anyone agrees on just what reality is. But art is one thing, science is  another, knowledge is another, etc., etc. To me it is a bit like the male athletes I used to see at the outdoor swimming pool when I was a student at Berkeley. Smaller females would fly by the young male athletes in the swimming lanes, seemingly without effort. The males were all effort, all that strength, but strength directed in the wrong direction, down rather than forward. It was a sight to  see. But it's also I think an example of  being not using your abilities in the best manner. The males had strength but they used it wrongly. They would have been better off, at least in the pool, forgetting all about it, or at least directing it forward. The  same thing happens I think with knowledge in art. It can weigh you down just as much as the strength of  those male floppers, I  mean swimmers.

So with all that in mind I wanted to somehow use the warblers I've seen recently as the subject of prints and/or paintings. But  I just didn't want to deal with the excess information of a photo. That's when I decided that if I just looked through the small viewfinder  of my camera at the photos I took the view would be small enough that I'd have to ignore details and just stick to the basics. So  that's what the next four photos are. After I'd sketched them in pencil I added a small bit  of watercolor. I particularly chose photos that had the birds in what to me were fairly active positions, i.e. not just sitting there as though posing.

Pencil and watercolor sketch of Blackburnian Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

Pencil and watercolor sketch of Black-throated Green Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

Pencil and watercolor sketch of Tennessee Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

 

Pencil and watercolor sketch of Chestnut-sided Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

After I'd done those sketches I started making compositional studies where I combined one, two or more of the warblers. At one point I decided I needed a larger warbler in the foreground. For some reason I decided to add a Canada Warbler. But since I haven't seen one recently I used a photo that is more than 10 years old, and one that also served as an early unsuccessful watercolor. After I'd done a few pencil and collage studies I added watercolor  to one.

Pencil compositional study for warblers. Copyright 2020  Ken Januski

Pencil and watercolor compositional study for warblers. Copyright 2020  Ken Januski

I will probably use the color study as the basis of a painting or print. But in the meantime I've continued to bird and so see birds. Yesterday I saw both male and female Black-throated Blue Warblers. After I'd been home for awhile I decided that I'd like to do a small study of the female. This is something I used to do with much more frequency. It's both a celebration of the bird and an educational exercise, trying to get me to look closer and imprint on my memory some of the details of the bird. I'm not sure if the educational goal ever gets achieved. I'm sure I forget much of what I think I'm learning as I make the sketch. Still there is always something rewarding in doing them, assuming that I can stand to look at them once I've done(i.e., they don't always work  out).

Ballpoint pen and watercolor study of  female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

(Well the new Blogger continues to create more expletives than blogs. But at this point I can't worry about it and I'm sure my readers don't care either. But I have to say it reminds me of Facebook and its recent changes, made by people who seem to have never used the product.)

Those Insects, That Paintbrush

American Lady and Common Buckeye. 9x12 inch acrylic painting by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski

I'm not sure how many months it's been since I stopped printing and started acrylic painting. If I weren't in the middle of using the Blogger interface to write this I'd check.  And I actually am a bit curious myself since  I think that change occurred some time after Covid-19 stay at home orders.

In any case I keep being tempted to return to print but that temptation  is overwritten by the desire to keep painting. At top is  a newly finished painting  of an American Lady and Common Buckeye. It is based on photographs I took. But as you can probably see I wasn't too limited by that. At least I hope that's the case. Between covid, hot and humid, or just plain rainy weather I've spent little time in 2020  working outside. When I bought a number of pre-stretched canvases to paint  on I actually envisioned working on some in our backyard. It's almost September and no  such luck so far.

Because I've felt a great degree of freedom in returning to paint, and painting in acrylic I've been very tempted to move from birds to insects, just to see if a bit of freedom with them might also make for results I like. That is certainly true with the American Lady painting. I'm quite happy with  it.

The Stream Blue painting was begun over and month ago, and stopped soon after, as I mentioned  in my last post. I had some freshness in it and I wanted to keep it, regardless of what detail I might be losing. One thing about damselflies is that they are very small, and their primary shape, that of a toothpick, is hard to get all that excited about. It's  also hard to get very painterly with. 'Hmm, which way shall I  flourish  the  brush on this  toothpick?' But  after finishing the American Lady painting  I decided that I  wanted to see what I could do with adding some detail(which is about the only way to identify  dragonflies, especially damselflies) while still keeping it a painting, not an illustration.

Below are the results so far. I should add that there was a flurry of damselflies here when I saw them, mainly a large collection of  males pouncing on the few females who arrived at Papermill Run. You almost need binoculars to even notice the frenzied behavior. Without them you might think that you're just looking  a  calm, almost bucolic stream. I wanted to get that sense of frenzied activity in as well. For me that means that there is just going to have to be some abbreviation in the painting. Painting every single pair along with all the solo males in detail might show a lot of detail but it  certainly wasn't going to represent the experience of seeing this.

So this is my attempt so  far. I'm not sure how much further I'll go. I have added more detail on the two primary damselflies but I'm reluctant to do much more.

Stream Bluets at Papermill Run. 9x12 inch acrylic painting in progress by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski.

One additional thing I've been thinking about as I look at my old prints and think about new ones is that printmaking  is mainly about lines and edges. Not being a printmaker or  having much training in it I'm sure more experienced printmakers will say: what about lithography, what about this or  that? I think  it is true that lithography  comes close to painting  and certainly gets away from line. If I had a printmaking studio with all the equipment for printing lithos I'd  probably give it a try. I don't. The fact is that most of my printmaking, especially moku hanga, is primarily linear.

There's nothing wrong with  that. And I'm certainly happy with what  I've done. But as I go  along painting insects and birds as I'm currently doing I can't begin to see how I can translate them into prints or moku hanga in particular.

But  I've never worried about such things. Go with the artistic flow, and be thankful if  you have one! For now it's Those Insects and That Paintbrush.

I just looked at this outside of Blogger. It looks like crap. Thank you Google and Blogger. I'm sorry but I don't have time at the moment to go back and try to fix all the bad HTML that the new Blogger  interface so kindly forced me into using.