Orchestral Conductor or Courtroom Artist?

Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover. Moku Hanga. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.

Northern Cardinal on Tomato Cage. Moku Hanga.  Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.

Boy it has been a long time since I've written here. That was not deliberate. The delay was due to the fact that almost as soon as I finished my newest moku hanga, 'Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover' at top I started thinking  about doing another moku hanga, 'Northern Cardinal on Tomato Cage', which is immediately above. It is not so much that they are related visually but that they are related in terms of the contradictions in my artistic motivation.

Sometimes I want to orchestrate my art work, like a conductor, matching this color here with that one there, this shape with that shape, etc., etc. It might sound very formal but I think it is also what gives both joy and delight to so much art. 'Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover' uses the same blocks that created the print below, 'Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island.' It happened almost by accident when I used some overlapping color on the original print and liked what I saw. But I felt it didn't fit in with the general direction of the print so I got rid of it, thinking that I might come back to it in another version. That is how the print at very top, 'Three Brant, Three Black Bellied Plover', started. 

But I didn't want to carve all new blocks, nor did I want to re-carve the old. blocks in case I decided to print another edition of the first print. That meant that I had to set myself some odd formalistic limits in the second print. I wanted to use the same blocks, but with more overlapping color, without modifying the blocks. The answer was to print some of the old blocks upside down and right side up, and to selectively ink them, that is not print everything on the block. Oddly enough I was listening to some Bach fugues at the same time and realized that there was at least some similarity. I speak from the perspective of a non-musician who enjoys music. My understanding of a fugue is that it takes one or more 'subjects', then  modifies them perhaps playing them backwards or in some similar but creative and musical variation I wasn't trying to create a visual fugue. I couldn't even if I wanted to. But I was pursuing a formal method: theme and variation. If it is a fit subject for some of the greatest music in the world then it certainly is a fit subject for my art. 

All of this gets back to at least part of this blog's title "Orchestral Conductor"... This formal playing has been part of almost all art I've done, even as a child. Strict representation was never all that important to me. In fact representing the real world has only become important to me artistically as I've gotten older. Sometime this summer or early fall I did a sketch from life in the garden of a young Cardinal on a tomato trellis(second photo after this text). I loved it! It doesn't look like a photo, something I have almost no interest in. But it does capture at least for me the sense of seeing that young Cardinal. But is is so, so different in terms of artistic motivation than orchestrating visual elements like a conductor.

This motivation I think is a bit more similar to that of a courtroom artist. It's not the best simile in the world since a good deal of accuracy is wanted in a courtroom sketch. But because those sketches are done quickly from life they almost never look like a photo. But they can be exciting. In any case I find my now field sketches quite exciting, though not all are successful. Some are dreadful. That happens with working quickly, especially in ink, with a subject that may disappear at any moment.  But for me there is a tremendous artistic excitement in them.  I had that field sketch of the Cardinal of the tomato cage in my mind as I did the second version of the Brant and Black-bellied Plover. And I didn't want to post anything on that second version until I'd also done a moku hanga based on the young cardinal. That took another 3 months or more. I finished it yesterday.

You could say my work is erratic. Perhaps people do. But to me it is just a continuing synthesis of varied interests and motivations. I'm somewhere between and orchestra conductor and a court sketch artist using moku hanga as my medium.

Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island. Moku Hanga. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski

Young Cardinal on Tomato Cage. Field Sketch with Sumi Brush Pen. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.

 

Ambition in Art

Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island. Moku hanga print by Ken Januski, Copyright 2022.

One of the hazards of writing anything online is that eventually someone will read it. Of course the purpose of a blog, much more than social media I'd say, is to have people read it, not just like it but read it. The problem, at least if you're a person somewhat like me, and have some sense of conscientiousness, is that I may find that I disagree with what I've written, sometimes almost immediately after writing it.

What got me started on this was mentioning "ambition" in my last post. I mean exactly what I said. I missed the ambitiousness of much of my abstract work once I switched to more naturalist work. I also missed it in printmaking, especially moku hanga, at least my own moku hanga. One of the rewards of the International Moku Hanga Conference was seeing ambitious work by others. The same could also be said for the work at the annual exhibitions of the Society of Wildlife Artists, in which I've often been fortunate enough to exhibit.  Both have examples of ambitious art.

So what's the problem? Well the problem is that there is a lot of art that I like and admire that is not particularly ambitious. And there's also the problem, which I'll spare you showing visual examples of from my own work, where ambition just leads to constipation. It can become very stilted!

Leaping Eastern Cottontail at SCEE. Sumi brush pen and water brush painting from memory by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.

The very quickly done(3-5 minutes) drawing from memory above is very exciting to me. It tries to capture, and does I think at least to me, the living leaping rabbit in front of me. I saw this rabbit at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education last week where it was here and gone in less than 30 seconds.  But is this drawingt ambitious as the term is usually used in art? Probably not. But what could be more ambitious than trying to get a feel for the actual encounter with an animal, or a person for that matter? But I didn't consider it ambitious when I did it. It was just something that I wanted to do. And I think that there is a lot of similar art, though probably much more 'realistic' than mine, which couldn't care less about ambition but just wants to capture something of what it sees, and perhaps feels.

On the other hand I think that there is a large audience for art that mainly values the subject, in my case animals most of the time, but has little or no reaction to how it is portrayed except perhaps by a photographic yardstick. "OMG I thought it was a photo!!" Though this is an honest expression of appreciation most times, or so I'd guess since I've never used it myself, it probably is not exactly welcome to the ears of the artist, unless he or she is trying to imitate a photo.

Many artists, and I'm sure also musicians, actors, and also craftsmen of whatever sort, can get bored with the language/tools they've been given to. work with. Almost as soon as they put pen to paper, chisel to stone, tomato sauce in pan, etc., etc. they fear that they're creating a cliche. I'm sure this doesn't affect all artists and craftsmen but I think it does affect a lot. Those artists want to refresh their art. What they do is first disliked my most, even their peers, eventually accepted by their peers, then by the general public, then appears on shopping bags and in commercials, where it is not even truly seen or heard anymore and some new artist will try once again to freshen the medium he uses. This is what I would call the good side of ambition in art. It really is a passion to express something that the language of the art currently doesn't seem to be able to say. (As and aside I most recently read about this in an explanation of Charlie Parker and his music. He wanted to play what he heard in his head but wasn't being played by anyone else). That is ambition born of passion.

There's also ambition I'm afraid born of the academy, and every age has its academy, though it may not know what it is. The Impressionists were the enfant terribles of their day, reacting against salon painters. But every age has an academy and many artists are ambitious within the constraints and goals, spoken or unspoken, of it. This to me is a bad type of ambition because it really is just art that tries to mimic other 'successful' art of its time. I'm sure most artists can think of examples of artists they know, sometimes successful ones, who seem more to be copying more or less someone who is currently successful, rather than developing their own artistic voice.

I haven't been to art school in ages so who knows what is taught today. But I wouldn't be completely surprised to hear at least some teachers suggesting that artists develop their own voice. This is something I'm pretty sympathetic to but I'm not sure every artist will fare well with that goal. "Uh, oh, is this really me? Am I copying someone else? Is it slightly derivative? Etc., etc." I did spend some years in graduate school where such questions seem to turn artists into deer in headlights, sometimes including myself. I don't want to go to far afield but I would say that this can be another example of ambition in art being bad for some artists.

Perhaps some artists should just do what they love and go from there. The Society of Wildlife Artists mentions something about 'encouraging appreciation and delight in the natural world' on their web site. I think this means to highlight nature rather than art, though I could be wrong. And in some ways I think I must be because much of the art shown there is delightful, and that delight I think is created by a collaboration between artist and nature. The artist has to notice what is delightful AND find a way of expressing that. This is another form of ambition in art, but one like ones I mentioned earlier that stems from passion.

And on that SWLA note I should add that I'm quite happy to have had two of my works chosen for the annual show in London in mid-October. My new moku hanga of the Brant and Black-bellied Plover at top of this post is one of the works. The other is my next to last moku hanga: Bobolink at Dixon Meadow shown below. I was tempted to submit my more recent Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter, which I still really, really like! But it doesn't seem to have been particularly popular  and the costs involved with shipping and couriers have made me limit my entries to just two.

Bobolink At Dixon Meadow Preserver. Moku hanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2021.

Free Paintings

Whimbrels and Lauging Gull at Nummy Island. Crayon and wash by Ken Januski



Swamp Sparrow in Papermill Run. Crayon and wash by Ken Januski.

No, I'm not giving away any free paintings. Instead I'm referring to the feeling I have when I've finished a Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayon sketch with wash on Stillman and Birn sketchbook pages. Used the way I'm using them they are actually more like small paintings than anything else. Best of all they allow more working, reworking, overworking than any other medium other than acrylic and/or oil. And I don't need to do it on canvas. I can use these small pieces of paper.

For someone who's not an artist this may make little sense. The main problem is that, especially with watetcolor, you can't do to much experimenting. It's extremely difficult to put a light color over a dark color if you decide that the dark color doesn't work. Continued working turns the painting to mud. There's no brightness left. And you need to use good quality watercolor paper if you're going to keep working and reworking what's there.

This combination of materials gets around that to a large extent because the Stillman and Birn papers are very hardy. And you can always go back into the painting with the crayons to bring back more brilliant color if things have gotten a bit muddy. The only thing that doesn't work is bringing back a brilliant white. For that you really need to resort to white gouache and even it may be a bit darker than I'd like. Still I've never seen a quicker or easier way for working through ideas for paintings. And as I've said before, if the sketch turns out well eough that you'd like to keep, frame or sell it, the quality of the paper allows you to do this without feeling guilty. I have done other sketches that I've always been reluctant to offer for sale because I wasn't sure how long the paper would hold up.

By the way the birds portrayed are numerous Whimbrel and one Laughing Gull from Nummy Island in New Jersey and a Swamp Sparrow, always elegant in gray and chestnut, in Papermill Run at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia. I'm still wating to see my first Swamper of 2013.

Preliminary Show

With two big shows in November it's somewhat surprisng to be in another one in October. This is a smaller one, the Member's Show at the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center, a few blocks from our house. In it members of the art center in general can show not just the members of the Artists Coop. For me it's a good opportunity to show work that I might not put in November shows, e.g. 'Killdeer with Worm' above, a 12x16 watercolor, or works I've just finished and am eager to see hanging, e.g. 'High Tide at Nummy Island', a 9x12 acrylic below.

There is some possiblity that not all works will be hung because you just never know how much work will be submitted. If there's too much then not all work will go up. On the theory that there will be enough room though I'm also submitting the work below, a watercolor titled 'Great Black-backed Gull at Flat Rock Dam.' This work seems to be among my most unpopular recent works, at least judged by certain criteria. It was rejected from the 4th Annual Juried Show at MRAC this summer. It tops the list of least visited works at my Etsy store. Almost no one has bothered to look at it. And yet I like it quite a bit and it was well received when I showed it online when I first did it. In the end popular response is not important. I like it so I'm submitting it. I just realized I also showed it at the recent Manayunk Arts Festival and it got little response. Perhaps it's too dark, with a barely visible bird, and even a dark mat. Who knows? As I said it's something I like and it captures the scene of a huge gull dwarfed but seemingly unfazed by the giant dam behind him.

Line, Mass and Lies

Looking through some old framed artwork recently I realized I'd been telling some lies in writing about my move from abstract to representational art over the last 10-15 years. I was looking for a frame I could use for some upcoming shows. I needed something larger than what I've been using.

That's when I found this large (23x29 inches) drawing I'd done about 30 years ago. It was  one of about 10 I did of musicians I liked, both classical and jazz. Above is one of Thelonious Monk. At that time I was doing abstract drawings that were just about as spare as this one. I'd decided, rightly or wrongly, that you could make a strong work of art using almost entirely lines.

It was a similar method I used for my  first artworks featuring birds about six years ago. The only difference is that I also used mass and erasures so that it was more than just a linear drawing. Still it was a shock to me to realize that birds and insects were not my first attempts at represenational work.

Inside baseball you might say and you're probably right. But it did remind me of how often art, at least for me, is a balance/conflict between line and mass. Almost all of my field sketches focus on lines. There is something so appealing about line, about getting just the right line to capture a shape. Lines of course don't really exist in nature. But they sure do in art.

The other side of line however, as seen at top, is mass. Instead of defining edges of things the artists tries to capture  their mass, often using light to help.  As an artist line is often a real security  belt. Paint gets messy and it's easy to come unmoored, especially when painting with brushes that really are  too large to make lines.

Perhaps this explains why I  change media so often. I feel a bit unmoored and want the security that line brings, in either sketches or linos. But then I miss mass, color, light and I'm back to painting. More inside baseball I think, but something many artists will understand.

The painting at top, based on a simliar drawing of a week or so ago, is not yet done. Hopefully I will get it done in time for the Members Show at the Mayanunk  Roxborough Art Center on Sunday.  If not it should be in my three person show, 'Wild at Art',  also at MRAC in November.

Some More Traditional Watercolors

For some people it may seem illogical to think that abstraction in art can only happen after the artist understands realism. Perhaps it's better to say that you can only simplify after you know the complexity of a subject well enough to simplify it, leaving out inessential parts. Until you're really familiar with the subject it's hard to say what's essential and what's not.
Some abstract/modern/non-objective art of course never understands the subject and isn't really interested in doing so. I'm not going to judge whether this is good, bad or neither. But for myself I've found that I do like to understand a subject before I simplify it.
So often I'll use photos as a basis for a painting if I think it will help me learn the birds better. I'm not sure that this works all that well. But I think that there is a mental process of trying to understand the structure of a bird that you see in a photo that can help in understanding. That's particularly true in the second watercolor which I'll show below. But it's also true in the watercolor at top, 9x12 inches on Arches 300# cold press paper.
This is based on the type of scene that I love, a variety of shorebirds. We rarely see the endangered Red Knot but we saw a number at Cape May this year, mainly on Nummy Island near Stone Harbor. He is at right along with a Short-billed Dowitcher, a Dunlin, and two Black-bellied Plovers in a variety of plumages. I hope that as I paint more shorebirds I'll get comfortable enough with them so that I feel free to simplify and abstract when the notion takes me.

I think that the breeding bird I see most often in summer, if I discount our yardbirds of House Finch, House Sparrow and Robin, as well as the ubiquitous Gray Catbird, is the Acadian Flycatcher. It's not really a common bird, but it is common in some areas that I bird, particularly Wissahickon Creek.
I've done many, many field sketches of it. Today I saw 4-5 and did more field sketches. And yet I feel that I still don't have it down. What is the shape of the head? What is the angle of the bill when seen from below as is so often the case? In an attempt to understand the structure a bit better I did the small 5x7 inch watercolor above. It looks very familiar and I think that's because it's one of the best Acadian Flycatcher photos I've taken so I've used it often. In any case that is the goal of the watercolor above. The new photos I took today of a bird perched just 6 feet away will also be used more than once I'd guess. But soon I think I'll be able to get an accurate field sketch and will no longer need photos.
I think some birders would get bored with the Wissahickon in spring and summer. Just the same old birds. That may be. But until I've mastered sketching them they're always a great opportunity in my eyes. There is always something new to see.

Progress with Birds and Watercolor

I've shown a lot of work at the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center over the last six months. Each month members have one wall on which they can show so there's always the opportunity to show at least one work. I've shown so much bird art recently that I debated doing a new watercolor based on landscape, or perhaps a dragonfly or butterfly.

As I looked through my landscape photos I came across one of the beautiful salt marshes surrounding Nummy Island near Cape May in New Jersey. That reminded me that one of my very first bird watercolors, and certainly the fist one that I thought even marginally successful, was based on three shorebirds at Nummy Island. That prompted me to do a new version of it.

The new version, on 9x12 inch Arches 300# cold press watercolor paper, is a top. The little 5x7 or so watercolor from five or six years ago is beneath it.

The new watercolor is quite different and shows, I hope, that I've learned a little bit about watercolor over that time. But the poses are still pretty much the same. I liked those poses sic years ago and I still like them now. But they seem best small and simplified, an accent in a beautiful landscape.

By the way the next show at MRAC opens this Sunday. Unless I ruin it this watercolor will be on the member's wall. (Well I didn't ruin the watercolor but it's not hanging nonetheless. A mistake at gallery caused it not to be hung. It will go onto my online store instead).

Thoughts on Field Sketching

The small watercolor, about 7x10 inches, above is based on a very quick field sketch I did of a Whimbrel raising its wings on Nummy Island near Stone Harbor, NJ a couple of weeks ago. The field sketch is below.

One of the things about sketching, and not photographing birds, as you see them is that you can convince yourself to try difficult but striking poses. Often in nature you get these surprises that are just there for a split second. As an aside at about the same time I saw this bird I also saw the grisly spectacle of a Great Blue Heron finding and swallowing whole a Clapper Rail youngster. It was too far away for me to see clearly. Grisly as it is I might have been tempted to sketch it if I could have seen it better.

My point though is that I think it allows you the chance to try something that you might think is beyond your abilities. As with many things you often find that you can do better than you expect, if you just try.

Now I have a lengthy history of deep disappointment with my field sketching so I'm not being hopelessly optimistic about this. But time and experience has shown me that the biggest obstacle is just the fear of trying. If you keep at it the results are surprising.

In addition you can come home with the seed of a painting of a striking experience. It's possible that I might have been able to get a photo of this. Unlikely but possible. The problem for me as an artist is that I don't get much artistic inspiration from my photos. Not for all of them but for many. With field sketches though I really recall the entire experience. There's a real desire to put it into a painting.

In fact I also have some photos of whimbrels I saw a year or two ago. I've looked at them many times but never felt enough of a connection to start a painting. But once I decided to do a painting based on the field sketch it was much easier to use the photo as the source for the background birds here. But it took the field sketch for me to decide to do it.

The sketch took about a minute. The bird had its wings up for a split second. I had to trust that I had seen it well enough in that split second to put it down on paper. Over time I've gotten much more trusting about that. And I'm almost always pleased with the results. I think we always underestimate how sentient we are.