I’ve been trying to get back into art as strongly as I can, especially with my being a guest at VisionCon in January.  It’s been tough, between family life, day job, being out of town for said job, and so on.  But I managed to squeeze in some time this afternoon, and I created an image that’s been stuck in my head for a very long time.

When I was in college, I had a fantastic professor of Asian literature, named Dr. Langois. He mentioned a haiku once that affected him more than any other he’d read, and the visual has been in my head all these years.  I’m not going to mention what it was, since I think that will influence the art, but feel free to ask me on my Twitter or Facebook feeds and I can tell which it is.

I call it “lost forgotten”, and I’ve included some close-ups below as well.  I may try and add it to a store to sell prints too, if anyone’s interested. If you want a larger version, click here.

I don’t often get to art museums, so I make the most of it when a chance comes up (save for the Denver Art Museum, which is only an hour away). I think, though books and the web can certainly show you art you’ve never seen before, that being in the museum in person gives you such a different view of things.

In this case, on the aforementioned trip to Hartford, Connecticut, I was lucky enough to get time to visit the Wadsworth Atheneum, a beautiful art museum with some wonderful works of art.

The building itself is a very imposing, castle-like structure from the front:

Just the exterior design is enough to get your attention, but inside is a beautiful, well designed museum. With wonderful turn-of-the-century architecture (1800′s-1900′s), and wonderful niche carvings throughout.

Within an interior hall you can see a nice ceiling stained glass, and overall you just get a sense of class from the building itself. Even before we get to the works of art inside.

One thing I might add, I always ask the front desk first about photography.  Every museum is different, and each have their own rules with photography.  No flash is almost always the case, but if you have a decent camera that can shoot without one (mine’s a Canon SD880) then you’re set.

I think the museums appreciate the question too, that you are willing to ask about the rules first before trudging ahead.  I’ve had several nice conversations about art with docents and staff as well, even to the point that they will give you tips and pointers on which times are best for the more popular pieces.

Now, there were quite a few unique and beautiful pieces that I could mention, but don’t really have space.  I intend to mention a few in the coming weeks, but for now here are a couple that for their own reasons are even better in person than on the web or in a book.

First up, and just sort of quietly hanging out on a simple wall, is this great Norman Rockwell piece, The Young Lady with the Shiner:

It’s a Rockwell that I’ve seen quite a few times, in quite a few books.  But in person, Rockwell’s mastery is really evident. You get a sense of life from it, and of course the obvious sense of humor.  You can also see far more vividly Rockwell’s techniques, which reproduce smaller in print and are harder to see:

I also came across another piece that I’d been thinking of doing an art blog on in the past.  I could never find a large enough image to show on the site, but now I’ve seen it in person.  This is Frederic Lord Leighton’s Hercules Wrestling With Death for the body of Alcestis:

What you don’t get from a book or the web is the sheer size of this work.  Where the Rockwell isn’t too big at all, this piece is seven or eight feet wide and five feet tall.  It’s a huge canvas, with immense detail, and one that gives you more of an idea of this scene happening in front of you than a small web image can show you.

You can also get a better sense of Leighton’s styles, where he changes them within the same picture to get different effects.  In this case, you have a grizzled old man, with a strong, almost harsh brush:

But just beneath this rougher technique is a softer, more supple approach with the women.  The technique here is soft enough to really contrast with both the old man above and the rough, textured fight to the right:

These are things that are more difficult to see in a book, not just the larger sense of a work but the imtricate details and techniques that really set an artist and their work apart from others.

Aside from the traditional arts, you also often find gems that you don’t expect.  In this case, the images below might end up influencing my work far more than even the paintings above:

What caught me entering the museum was not just a painting by the Hudson River school, but an entire room dedicated to them.  Thomas Cole especially has always been one of my favorites, and to see a whole room alone of just his art was fantastic. Here is Cole’s Mount Etna from Taormina, another painting that is huge:

What you miss, again, are the details.  Cole almost lovingly added the smallest of details to the work. Where the overall composition is often Cole’s strength, it’s the details that show how much he loved his work:

In my own work, I often add things and situations that don’t necessarily add to the work. They are just details that I think are cool, that add something else to a work that others might not bother with.  To stand in front of this 150 year-old painting, to see the individual paintstrokes of Cole’s love for his work, was worth the whole trip.

Opinions?

For my day job (at the nonprofit National Association for Interpretation), we put on a workshop each year for our members.  This year, our workshop was in Hartford, Connecticut, last week.  It included a quick day trip to New York City, which was great.

Here is a quick rundown of the trip, with a handful of images and observations that I have. First up, New York City. Here’s the Hartford train depot as we’re leaving (“we” being myself and my friend and coworker, Jamie King).  The picture actually came out nice, sort of mysterious:

We basically walked from Penn Station, through Times Square to Central Park, back to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Bryant Park, and the Empire State Building, before ending the trip back at the train station. Now, I have lots of pics, but I don’t want to bore you too much (too late!), so here are a few:

This sculpture is at Central Park’s Merchant’s Gate, near Columbus Circle. I think the picture came out nicely, though I might play with it as a duotone later on:

While we were in Central Park, surrounded by green pastures and trees, we found the ice rink. Like many of my pictures of Central Park, it’s a bit at odds with itself.  The beauty of nature contrasted with the harshness (yet often beautiful in its own way) of the city scene, or the cold of winter ice surrounded by the greenery of the trees, sets a nice tone to the picture:

There were lots of examples of art within the city, especially artwork integrated into the architecture.  When we visited Rockefeller Plaza (and the famous “30 Rock”), there were some beautiful murals inside the building. They actually reminded me of Eric Powell’s artwork actually:

As evening approached, we also were lucky to catch the Empire State Building in a beautiful glow, which gave it a different sense altogether:

Hartford was a city of different visions, set between the modern…

and the historical:

There was also a great museum in Hartford, the Wadsworth Atheneum. Much of that will be featured in a future article, but anyplace where I can walk into a “Thomas Cole room” is worth the whole trip.  Not to mention the nice Rockwell.  Outside of the building stands Calder’s Stegosaurus:

The week itself was very long and very tiring, but I was also able to hang out with quite a few folks that I only get to talk to once a year.  That always makes it special (and makes for late nights), and if anything happens soon enough would be the one thing I miss most.

There were a couple of other things that could be labeled “odd”.  The first is a message scrawled/scratched into a concrete column we walked by.  Creepy:

Lastly, and these two photos work together more than separate, a couple of signs on a building we found in downtown Hartford:

and, on the door to this building:

Overall, if this was the last of the big trips, I think it’s going out on a surprisingly good note.  A great time in New York, to which I owe the esteemed Ms. King a big debt, a great time hanging out with friends in Hartford (and making new ones), and a generally easy time with the work side of it.

Continuing on my art posts of really happy, joyous images (reference: sarcasm), here is Vasily Perov’s Found Drowned (1867, Oil on canvas, 27″ x 42″). I’ve had a bookmark for it for awhile, and I think it’s an interesting piece.

I think it’s one of those pieces that has a story behind it, but still lets the viewer decide on their own what they think.  It’s obviously not a happy piece, but it also comes across as taking place after the real event in a way that we are now starting the next journey.

The subtle, midtoned palette, combined with the soft fog and focus of the background, create a quiet work.  Everything about the work says that we’ve missed the woman’s death, and we’re beginning our story in the aftermath of it.

For me, it’s the calmness of the characters that makes it special. The dead woman doesn’t have a horrified look on her face, but more of a tortured serenity. Her face and posture suggest strongly that she was the one who ended her life, resigning a terrible life to the waters.

Despite the horror of a drowned woman, the man seems serene as well.  That gives him a very curious character, and by his posing it would suggest that death isn’t new to him.  It’s almost like he’s leaning over to tell a story, and in his face is seemingly the sadness of having seen this all before. Maybe he’s considering his own fate.  Maybe just considering who she was.  Or maybe he’s just tired of seeing this happen again, lamenting his lot in life.

Unlike many other images of death, this one doesn’t come across as horrifying, or even as final.  Death is portrayed as just another event, as both the dead and the living seem resigned to their fate. It’s neither of hope or even suffering, just another crossing of paths.

After the accident (there’s a thread around here somewhere for that), I’ve had a hard time getting my head back into art.  To help get that moving again, I’m returning to posting some of the sketches I’ve been working on.

As always, they vary quite wildly, even on the same page. They range from sketches based on objects, to cartoons, to horror.  Without further adieu, here are some sketches I was working on of a few things I have in my office here. I’m trying to work on sketching from life and from objects more, I think that’s something that I’m lacking in:

That’s not to say that practicing with cartoon characters won’t be helpful too.  With a couple of comic/cartoon sort of projects in progress, practicing and learning from established characters might help:

I also had a few stronger ideas that I might explore further, either as larger works or as sequential work.  In this case, Poe’s The Raven.

“Perched and sat, and nothing more.”

Among the jumble of other sketches are random horror and comic-type characters: