Venice

Home at last, with so much I want to paint. But I'll start by updating this blog, one city a day.

Ten random things I like about Venice
1. Hearing church bells strike the hours.
2. Getting very very very lost, but always able to find my way at last. Getting lost meaning finding things you otherwise would miss. I got lost, ended up near a church, turned left, and walked into a gallery filled with original Tiepolo drawings.
3. Drawing lions, because stone lions, especially winged ones, are everywhere.
4. Having an espresso in the campo San Barnabos, then riding the vaporetto down the Grand Canal to the Rialto, where a fish market has been in continuous business for 1000 years.
5. Eating luscious figs and jam croissant for breakfast.
6. Sitting on a bench in San Polo, and drawing the church façade (badly) for three happy hours.
7. Watching the crowds of tourists come through, wave after wave, like fish in shoals.
8. Having risi & bisi for lunch and then taking a three hour nap.
9. The city smells like an aquarium - not bad exactly, but pungent. The tourists smell worse - lots of hot people sweating perfume.
10. The masks Venice is famous for comes from a day when the city spent six months of the year in revelry under the cover of masks, doing things that they otherwise might not. I thought how the internet offers a similar veil of anonymity today.

Two stories

Nephew William took me for a boat ride. The boat he uses is a loaner and an old wallowing clunker, kind of like rowing our old black Volvo station wagon, if you can imagine. The oar looks like a Yule log. Gondolas are like Ferraris. If you collide or scrape one, the fine is 60,000 euros, so the objective is to never never touch a gondola. Drowning is preferable. William manned the oar, and his fiancée Elsa and I sat perched on the boat’s right side so it would go straight. William assures me it’s all physics. He moves the oar with a motion like stirring turtle soup, or folding in egg whites. We went down canals so narrow we could touch both sides. We pulled over when any other sort of boat came by. We yelled ’oy’ at all the canal intersections, kind of like golfers yell ‘fore’. Gondoliers had no problem maneuvering past us without touching, their dexterity is amazing.. We even went down a stretch of the Grand Canal which seems as big as the Mississippi when you see it from the vantage point of a small boat.

Walked into the famous San Giovanni & Paulo church. Noticed about halfway down the aisle that organ music was playing – ah, I thought, a concert, how lucky. A little farther on I saw a seated group in the pews, and a priest wiping the rim of a chalice. Oh, I thought, a mass. I slipped into a side chapel out of respect. More music, lots of incense and a violin solo of Ave Maria later and the congregation stood. That’s when they rolled the carnation-covered coffin down the aisle and I realized I had crashed a funeral. All the time other tourists in cargo shorts and backpacks and maps had wandered around. It must have been someone important to rate a funeral in the second grandest church in the city, but not powerful enough to stem the tide of tourism.

First place winner

"Venice, Tagliatelli” 12x16” oil

I entered three regional juried shows, for practice in putting my work out there and to get more exposure than is offered by a single yearly gallery show.

I was accepted by the 2008 Southeastern Regional Biennial Exhibition, sponsored by the Dunwoody Fine Art Association.
The show is called SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS, and runs March 1st – April 11th, 2008, with cash awards for the first, second and third place.

I learned yesterday that my "Venice, Tagliatelli” won first place.

They also asked permission to use an image of my work for their show card, which I gladly gave. I'm astounded to win the first show I've ever entered. I'm very grateful and encouraged and inspired.

The show will be hung at the Chastain Arts Center.
Chastain Park, 135 West Wieuca Road N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30342

dunwoodyfineart.org/Exhibits2.html

Make it work

After looking at my works with a critical eye, I decided to hit it hard and finish the Virgin painting and the fish knocker on the green door.
The Virgin needed stars on her gown, a little work on the darkest values, and some subtle candle flame work. The fish needs several more layers, unless I want to suddenly switch to impressionism, but I plunged in all the same. I could be done by Monday, if I persist.
Learning that two parties are taking in place in the gallery over the next two days was very motivating. I used a medium that is supposed to accelerate drying. I'll see how effective it is and
take jpgs of the paintings in the morning. In a perfect world they will be dry, I'll be able to use spray varnish, and I'll drop them off before lunch.
More likely the Virgin - still wet- will go up anyway and I'll come back by with varnish next week, when I bring the finally dry and completed fish. Meanwhile they will have the two paintings I listed yesterday - Othello and the Lion.
It's a familiar pressure, meeting a deadline, and it really works for me.

First Swan House Sale

Just got the email - the Heirloom Tomato painting sold, and they've asked me to send another small work over. The max size is supposed to be 8x8" but I have offered them what I have on hand - a pair of Venetian doorknockers, an Othello and a Lion of St Mark, that are 8x10." Nothing ventured, etc.

painter interruptus

Settled in to work on the fish, spent a hour mixing colors - the hue of the scales required more willingness to look than to think. My mind would say 'green' but the truth was closer to ultramarine and orange with a dot of veridian. I'd worked on the top fins and the golden side scales and the wonderfully odd pale blue that mottles the head, and was adding the verdigris that delineates the edges of the side scales when I had to put down the brush and go to the keyboard to meet a deadline.
One of the unexpected things raising three children has taught me is that I can be interrupted. I will return to my work and it will appear to be seamless, whether it's in words or oil paint. And sometimes the unwanted break results in a better perspective on what the work needs.

A painter's Sunday

It's a glorious day here. Autumn is in session and I am going to work on a small painting of a doorknocker from Venice. It's part of a series I can't keep away from. I took dozens of photos of Venetian doors once I noticed every one was different. There are themes that repeat - variations on the lion of St Mark, Othello, and fish. Each one is different - they didn't run to the hardware store, they visited the local metal smith and placed their order. These small sculptures embody the spirit of the place, so this series is Genus Loci.
The image above one already completed. When the one I'm painting today is further along, I'll post it here.