work in progress

Not a blogger

2009-03-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone out there in blog world. I guess i am just not up to blogging. So consider this blog on indefinite hiatus. Between painting, a bartending job, and a soon to be 3 year boy, something's gotta go. Here's the brief update. Yes, i was in that show in january. I just had the opening to a show with two other nice folks, Peter Roux, a painter, and Rory Burke, a sculptor. This was at the Fetherston Gallery here in Seattle. It went very well. Here are some photos...

And here are some of my favorites, professionally shot.

That's it for now. Hopefully more to come on my website, www.joeshlichta.com, but don't go looking for me to post anything on this blog, for some time. There is enough in my life that pulls me out of my studio.

Latin quote for the day:

Eligo Quod Video.
(I choose what I see.)

January show

2008-11-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

I was just informed by my gallery here in seattle that i am expected to have a piece in the group show opening this january. Those who know me know that i am a slow painter. So i have to really crack the whip on some of these pieces, and get at least one done. I currently have about 20 paintings in progress in my studio, most in the earliest stages. I took a look through them and pulled out the ones most likely to finish within the next month, and will concentrate on those. They are...

These 3 by 4 foot ones. Either could suddenly and miraculously resolve itself. Maybe.

This is a fairly large one, four by five feet. A nice comfortable size. It may take a lot of work, but it shows promise right now, although you may not see that, as the colors do not seem to come out properly in this photo.

This one is small and very strange. I don't know what got into me, but i am rolling with it.

These last two are both painted on some really funky 70's wallboard that was panelling our basement when we bought our house. You can't really make it out in this photo, but it is made of capiz (that sort of shell from the philippines that was very popular in the 70's. They made lots of cute hanging ornaments out of it that tinkled in the breeze. You can find them in thrift stores.),
on plywood. I thought i would use it, just because it is so strange. I had grave doubts i could make it work, and still do, but it is interesting to work on...

There you have it. One or two of these six must be done in a month. It is likely that whatever is finished will bear little resemblance to what you see here. So it goes.

Wish me luck.

The new dog

2008-11-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

In honor of our new president elect, Barack Obama, here is a page from my little boy's favorite book, "Go dog, go!".

long time

2008-10-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, i know it has been a while. It has been difficult lately to juggle parenthood and studio time, and i just have not been able to get on this blog thing much. But there has been some progress...
Remember this guy, Alden Mason, who i wrote about in the last post?

I usually make an underpainting that is some starting ground for the surface color. Well, just the other day when i started a new canvas i thought i would try to do an alden mason style underpainting. And the result was...

Strangely similar, wouldn't you agree? Of course i would never show anything like this. It is way too derivative of him. But fun to do, nevertheless. The finished painting will be nothing like this, i am sure.

Here is something else amusing. A fellow painter, Eero (some of you may know her blog. I would make one of those cool link things here, but i don't know how.) is often going on about one of her favorite motifs she works with, and sees it in lots of other painters' work. She calls it "the shape". I never thought much about it, but i was just drawing this evening and look what came out....

It's a very weird drawing, and i don't know if i would ever show it. I only had an hour in the studio and this just kinda popped out. But you can definitely see Eero's shape in it. Sorry girl, guess i ripped you off. But i see your attraction to it. It is fun to draw.

I try to avoid anything political here, but as this is such an important election...
All you Obama people out there, get out and vote, damn it. I don't know if i can live through four more years of failed republican policy. For you McCain fans.... Sorry, but you all had your turn, and look at the mess you made.

Alden Mason

2008-09-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have recently discovered the work of a painter i am awestruck by. His name is Alden Mason, and he is a local guy, who must be in his eighties now. He shows at a local gallery occasionally. Not so wild about his more recent work, but i discovered some of the paintings he did in the seventies, of which are a few examples here...

You have to see these in person to really appreciate them. They are fairly large, about the size of some of my bigger pieces. They are beautiful. Stunning. He simply and seemingly effortlessly captured some of the exact things i have been struggling to achieve in my own work. And my favorite one is not pictured here. It's very humbling to see something done in your lifetime that can only be described as a masterpiece. I can only hope i could do the same someday.

september

2008-08-31T14:45:00.001-07:00

I got some work done lately. My mother took Jonah away from me for the weekend, and i got some time in the studio. Here we are in the studio with racks full of unfinished paintings...

As you can see, a lot to be done. At this early stage, all these paintings are in their rawest form. Not one has "clicked", as i put it. There is a moment in the making of a painting when it reveals to you what it wants to be, and it "clicks" into place. Then you have to follow it where it wants to go, which can take some time. Right now, not one of these has shown me any direction. I am struggling with all these, and have no idea what they will become.

And this is a monster, eight feet wide. Just the first layer, but it is really daunting...

Showing these at the state they are in right now is a little like going to the corner store in a bathrobe and slippers. You are just not ready to be seen.

And here i am having a drink with two friends who are bad ass sculptors, Matt and Eric.

Cheers!

august

2008-08-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

I have been absent for some time.
It has been my intention to make this blog thing only about the paintings i have in progress, and not about my personal life, but the two are often intertwined. I have had very little studio time lately, largely because i am struggling with finding childcare i can afford. It is very difficult to have a baby, a bartending job, and a fledgling art career. Something has to go, and it looks like jonah plans on staying. Other than that, it's beautiful outside right now, and the last thing i want to do during the best month of the year is hole myself up in a studio on a gorgeous day. I always get very active with the painting in the fall. Summer is a difficult time for me to paint. So not much progress. I will leave you with this image, which is the first day of painting on this very large canvas, 8 feet wide. I know it is only the very first layer, and very little of what you see now will remain in the end, but there are people who would consider this a complete painting. Not me, though.

The end of a sketchbook

2008-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have come to the end of a sketchbook that i have had for the last 3 years. It's kind of fun to look back through it and see the past years ideas and random drawings. Here are some highlights, in chronological order...

Time to throw out the old one and buy a new one. Actually, i said that so my sister would freak out. She always bugs me to keep everything when i tend to just get rid of things. Don't worry, jenny, i keep all my old sketchbooks, even dating back to art school. The high school ones went on a bonfire years ago. Just too embarrassing...

You can see as Jonah get older he gets more difficult to draw, as he doesn't sit still. I plan on doing more drawings from life in the next one. It's something i have neglected for a while, and it shows. I have already bought the next one, and will christen it soon.

early stages

2008-07-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don't know, my painting process is a slow one. It takes me about a year to produce a full show. I work on many paintings simultaneously, letting one layer dry while i work on another. They can often have innumerable layers, bearing absolutely no resemblance to what they started as. It is a bit of a mystery, and not the most effective process, but it seems to work for me. These vary in size, which i will note later, and i will come up with a system of numbering them so you can see them develop. My computer keeps crashing on me, so i have to work quickly before it does so again.

These following pieces are all in their first or second layer. There are about 18 new canvases that i have prepared. Not all of them will become a complete painting. I have no idea what i am doing with any of them. Basically, i just start painting with colors that strike me at the time, and see where it leads.

We will see where it goes from here. Stay tuned.

more drawing

2008-06-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Here is the end result of that last drawing I was working on. I like this one. I think it is a successful piece.

There are several other failed drawings that i will not bother to post here. There is a new strange theme that is popping up, and we will see where it goes. I haven't done as much drawing from life as i wanted to, largely because the weather was so dismal the past week. It's much better now, so i do plan to get outside a bit. This is the only other drawing i think worthwhile, and i don't think of this one as a success. Some interesting things, but too illustrative.

I have enjoyed the drawings. I had forgotten about charcoal and what a fun medium it is. Here is one more that i also consider a failure, but has some good qualities. Again, too literal, too illustrative. I am always trying to shed my background as an illustrator.

I have always been a disaster with watercolor. I think it just goes against my nature. I like to fuss and work on things, change my mind, erase... Watercolor just does not allow that. So this piece i also consider a failure. I went back into it with some gouache, which only put the final nail in the coffin.

I think charcoal works better for me. I may do some more drawings, but I think it is time to start painting. I did some preliminary work the other day. Here is a sneak preview...

More to follow....

stumped

2008-06-05T10:56:00.001-07:00

I have decided to take a couple of weeks to do some work on paper, sketches, and some drawing from life. I dragged this old stump from my backyard into my studio...

And this is what i came up with.

This was like using a muscle that is a little out of shape. You can see how i got a little distracted on that second one. I haven't really done that much drawing from life in years, and i can see i need to do so, and much more often. I think it is important, although i can't exactly tell you why. I remember those years of life drawing back in art school, and i still consider it one of the best parts of my art education. Unfortunately, i don't have all that much time for it now. Which is why i am making some time, before i get all wrapped up in paintings.

And this is just something i was just having fun with on a big piece of paper. I may work on it some more. We'll see...

Tabula Rasa

2008-06-03T19:24:00.001-07:00

At last i am done priming my canvases and panels. This has taken me about a month, but now we are ready to begin painting.

I include this because jonah has discovered the miracle of making marks. And so it begins...

So intent and focused. Although the last thing we need in this family is another painter.

priming

2008-05-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Once the canvas has been sized with the rabbitskin glue, it is time to prime it. I hate to cover up that beautiful linen, but it's kind of fun to do.

After this, there is a little sanding, and then these are ready to paint on. We are almost there.

in production

2008-05-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

So i have begun the next series of paintings. For those of you who don't know, I like to work on a whole series at the same time. It seems to take me about a year. I make all the canvases and panels in the beginning, about a dozen or so. I have lately been preferring panels over canvas, but for works larger than 6 feet, it is just not practical to use panels. This is one of the big canvases i just stretched. It is 8 by 5 feet.

I use the old school traditional renaissance methods with these. It's painstaking, but i just love the results i get with these methods. I seal the canvas with a glue made from rabbit hides...

which makes it tight as a drum, although a few rabbits have died for this cause.

I also make panels out of fine grain plywood, which i prefer for the rigid, smooth surface, although there is a noticeable difference in weight.

This is how the panels are made; with a lot of glue and clamping.

And then these must be sanded repeatedly, primed with gesso (I use the old rabbit skin glue/pigment/marble dust method) and sanded again and again. All in all, to prepare all these painting surfaces should take me several weeks. There are people (myself included) who wonder why i go to such lengths to make my canvases when most people do not bother. And i don't really have a good answer. Perhaps i am a bit obsessive.

Only a few more studio sessions and i will be ready to paint. Let's hope the paintings deserve the canvas.

the red tree

2008-05-06T21:42:00.001-07:00

Allright, I am done in the garden. Here is the result of a lot of work.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Looks very roman to me. But it is done, and all the plants are in the ground, so there is nothing left to do except water occasionally. I have begun making the canvases and panels for the next series of paintings, and by next week should be back in the saddle again.

I don't know why the tree trunk is painted red. It was that way when we bought the house.
Strange, no?

Happy cambodian new year!

2008-04-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

According to my neighbors, the Khmer Buddhist Temple, it is the new year. It is a week of celebrations and bright banners. I went over yesterday and had some BBQ.

They have this cool shrine up on top of the hill with incense and paper prayer flags, that have something to do with the spirits of departed ones, or so it was explained to me.

I have been conspicuously absent from this blog, and from my studio as well. I took a month off of painting to do some garden work. The one month turned into two, as there is soooo much in that backyard that needs to be done...

It's a huge backyard that was wilderness when we bought the house. My wife has taken the front yard as her territory, and left me the backyard as mine. The backyard is mostly all shade, and she likes flowers and bright spaces. I prefer forests and shade plants, so it works out for us in a Jack Sprat kinda way. (I grew up in Los Angeles, and i think that's enough sun and heat to last me for one lifetime.) Spring has come with a wild, hedonistic blast of warm weather. Everything is growing now. My ferns...

And one of my favorite flowers, trillium...

Bit by bit, i have fought back the ivy and the blackberries and carved out some space for my ferns and poplars, which i have just planted. In a way, i am trying to re-forest this hillside. I have a long way to go before i reach my ultimate vision of what it should be, but it's definitely a good start.

Jonah came down to give me a hand. He wasn't much help, though.

Within a couple of weeks i will call it quits in the backyard and get back to the business of painting. I have decided to ease up on the one show a year schedule, as that last one was a bit too much stress for me. I will not be showing for at least another 15 months. Till then, i have some canvases to stretch and some dandelions to weed.

On a last note, i have had several more sales since the show went down, including one from my new Dallas gallery. Good news just in time for taxes.

Wishing you all a happy spring.

Whitewashed

2008-02-21T22:47:00.001-08:00

One of my post-show rituals is to re-paint my studio. It gets pretty dirty as the year goes on, and this is kind of a cleansing for me, a tabula rasa, so to speak.

That's about all i have done in there lately. I have been getting ready to stretch some new canvases and start up all over again, but this is my downtime after all that stress. I have also caught this monster flu that my darling boy brought home with him and left me bedridden for two days. Not pretty, let me tell you.

Whenever people come to my studio for the first time, they are always drawn to my bulletin board, which i have covered with all sorts of inspirational material and ideas over the years. There are ideas for things that i have been meaning to get around to for a long time. It's sort of a cross section of my head at different times....

There is a story behind every picture here. I will select but one and tell you about it. Here is one, a terrible image of it, but you can get the idea....

Pardon the paint splatters on it. It's a photo i took of a lily pond years ago. It's without a doubt the best photo i have ever taken. It has in this simple photo all the qualities that i strive to put into my paintings. One simple photo taken on a cheap disposable camera, and yet it succeeds where so many paintings i have labored over for months fail. One of these days i will get a better image of it up here, and you will see what i mean. By the way, here is a fun trivia game. See if you can name two of the famous painters i have represented on my bulletin board. There are at least six visible ones in the two photos above. No prizes, sorry.

sunshine

2008-02-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been lovely and warm. Very unusual for a seattle winter. I took Jonah out to the park for a stroll. He is a bit sick, hence the cranky expression on his face.

And another sale from the show. This one:

I was quite fond of this one. It's entitled "One thing stands for any other thing". Not too bad so far. We will see how this month goes.

sunday

2008-02-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

So i know i said i would take pictures of the opening, but i forgot. And so did my wife. So you will have to rely on my powers of description. It was fun, and i did get a little tipsy on the cheap wine. Lots of nice comments, but only ONE sale, which is rather disappointing. I suppose i can't expect the show to sell out in one night. I know the size of most of these pieces is out of most people's range, but a few more sales would have been nice. Hopefully more will sell in the month it is up. I did get a write-up in the Seattle PI, which was nice except they compared me to Darren Waterston, who is a great painter. I know we are similar, but i would like to shake that comparison. And i met another great painter who showed up, and is dating a friend of my wife's. Maija Fiebig. Look her up. So it was fun. Now i will devote this month to gardening.

Here is a picture, just to put something up. It is my favorite piece in the show. I think i hit on something that i have been struggling toward for a while. I am happy with it. It's called "Rain Messages".

hung

2008-02-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

The paintings are up on the walls of the gallery.

It's a relief to have them up there. I plan on being drunk for the whole opening.

finished

2008-02-05T18:23:00.001-08:00

Here it is, the final piece for the show, finished but a day before they are hung on the gallery walls. Most of you will not be able to see much difference between what it looked like yesterday and now. But i can tell the difference.

This piece is titled "propped up by ruins". I choose my titles only after the piece is done. It's bad luck for me to do otherwise. My titles are all cribbed from whatever author i happen to be fond of at t he moment. Last year i borrowed heavily from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which if you have not read, you should. I could rave about it for pages, but suffice to say that i believe it is a modern classic, right up there with Moby Dick. This year's titles came from a book of poems called The sleep of four cities, by Jen Currin, a friend of mine. Her poems are beautiful.

So that's it for now. I hang the show tomorrow, and then i take a little time off to get my garden ready for spring. Maybe i will take a break with some watercolors...

I leave you with this image:

This is a photo i cut from an old national geographic. I have it up on my bulletin board in my studio. It was taken by a man who was photographing mount saint helen's erupting. He was too close and was killed by the blast. When they retrieved his body, they developed the film in the camera. This was one of the last pictures on the roll. I have been trying in vain for years to create something this beautiful.

monday

2008-02-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

So here is the painting that looks like it will finish up in time. This is what it was like on Friday:

And this is what it was after a few hour's work on sunday:

I think i can wrap this one up on time. Tomorrow is my last day to work on anything, as we hang the show on Thursday. It takes about a day for the paint to dry with these driers i am using. So one more session in the studio and we can call it done. I have to say, it's not the strongest piece in the show. In fact, none of these smaller ones are nearly as good as the big ones. Perhaps that is something i need to think about. Seems that the larger size works better for me. Here is one more that i worked on (and perhaps worked to death) on Sunday...

This is one i may have to write off. It would take a real act of the gods for it to come together.
We will see tomorrow. And here is my little boy, Jonah, who came all the way down the stairs to visit me in the studio:

Isn't he the cutest ever? So stay tuned and I will let y'all know how things go manana. And we hope to have pictures up on the website of all the new work just as soon as i get them photographed. One thing at a time...

the last week

2008-02-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

I now have one week to finish up these last couple of paintings. The show opens february 8, and todays is the first. I still have hopes of finishing up this one:

It is currently the most likely candidate for finishing. I have been asked how much time i spend in the studio a week. Of course, the answer is not enough. It is very difficult to squeeze the time in with a 16 month old baby boy and a bartending job i do occasionally have to show up for. The only way i ever get time in the studio is when my mom or sister take the little one for the afternoon, which they each do once a week. And we have hired a girl to come watch him two days a week. So that totals four days a week in the studio, two of those days full 8 hours, and two half days. Not nearly enough. So it's especially irritating when i have to waste a full five hours in the studio building this:

It's quite a crate, isn't it? It contains three unsold paintings from the last show that are off to Dallas for a group show. There is a gallery there that called me and wants to start showing my stuff. I don't know much about Dallas, but we will see...

All for now. Gotta go try to finish some paintings.

two weeks to go

2008-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the calendar, and i only have about two weeks left before the show. I don't know if any of these will finish up in time. Here's the update on what they look like after yesterday's work. This one seems to have some potential...

This one is probably the one i am guessing will finish up soon, although you never really know.

And this one i just don't know...

In other news, i was in the salvage store the other day and found a piece of marble that fits perfectly on my painting table. This painting table is one of my finest creations ever. I made it to suit my needs, and i had a piece of black granite to mix my paints on. I have suspected that the black was kind of skewing my colors, as all colors look very bright compared to black. As my colors do lean toward the dark muted side anyway, i thought a lighter shade for a mixing palate would be better. So i found this little beauty for twenty bucks. Fits perfectly. Of course the lovely light color will be stained pretty quickly, so here is a look at it now, before it gets completely stained:

And last, here are two racoons up in the tree in my backyard this morning. Kind of hard to see, but there they are, up against the trunk...

empty nest

2008-01-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here is an odd sight. I delivered all my large paintings to the gallery the other day,
and now there is a big empty spot where they all were on my racks. Weird...

So now we only have three weeks until the opening. I still could use maybe one or two more smaller pieces to round out the show. I have these ones that i just sanded down. I work on wood panels mostly, and this is one of the advantages. You can get the palm sander out and get rid of stuff....

And this is what i had by the end of the day:

and this...

So the odds are pretty damn slim that i will finish even two out of these three in the remaining time. The opening is Feb 8. If just one of these finishes up, i will consider that pretty good. I am a very slow painter. I wish i could just dash them out, but such is my process. I am using a good amount of drier at this stage to speed up the process. Let's hope the magic happens.

The invitations for the show should be out soon. Stay tuned.

more finished work

2008-01-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pieces that i have just finished up. The colors are all a little off, as my studio light tends to yellow everything with this camera. I suppose you will have to wait until i get them professionally photographed. This is one of my favorites:

This one is not quite done. It's almost there, but it needs one more little touch to make it complete. One more day in the studio should do it....

This is another one of the big boys, 5 by 8 feet. Again, i am pretty happy with this one, too. This is a detail of it. Kind of a new direction for me.

These larger pieces make up the bulk of the show. I am still working on two other smaller pieces that i need as "filler". It is pretty important that i finish them, and i have exactly a month to go. Wish me luck. I will be taking most of these larger ones in to my photographer, who will make them look beautiful, and then you can all see them in their proper colors.

the new year

2008-01-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

Greetings to everyone in 2008. I am starting up this blog here so everyone who asks me how my painting is going can get a peek for themselves. I am still figuring out this thing, so please bear with me. Here is the studio, with a finished piece. I am wrapping up a show which will be opening this february. It was a bit close there for a while, and I thought I might not finish, but things seem to be coming to a conclusion just in time. Here is a closer look at a finished piece, a larger one, 5 by 8 feet. It's a bad photo, but you get the idea.

This one is entitled "Traveling from wind to light". I pirate my titles from whatever book I happen to be fond of that year. My titles this year are taken from Jen Currin's book of poems, "The sleep of four cities". I only have three more paintings to complete by next month, the gods willing, and that will make it an even twelve. Stay tuned for more updates.

let's see if this works

2007-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Here is Joe HQ, with all the current work in progress in the racks. I'll show you all that later.