‘Vessel With The Television’

Clay Pot sketch study with carbon pencil [2012]

‘Clay Jug’ [2012] sketch study on card paper using carbon pencil. Photograph taken by bending card sketch into a three dimensional curved form.

A poem entitled “Vessel with the Television” wrote with carbon pencil. Gracious inspiration from William Shakespeare for his time honoured playwrite, poetry and acting tradition.

“Vessel with the Television”

“Ask me – I may know

Lie on camera, steal the show

Smile and blink and tell and crow

Where art Romeo, read so well

A trick to bend, shape and mold

From old to new a well swept studio

Yeah I fit so neat inside the box

Just take care your switch turns off.”

Golf – An Untitled Poem

The Autumn Banquet dated 16th Century.

A poem I wrote about Golf circa 2006, untitled:

“He spins, he turns sweet sounding ball against the breeze

Oft times it goes where so he please

The flag is proud and stands for now

An eagle spreads its wings, man takes a bow

A nine, a seven, a three or two

Sunk in hole within shots, a few

The green grass swallows them in curves and rough

One $mil today – Who said Golf’s so tough?”

Beautiful Ladies Playing Chui Wan by Du Jin [dated c1465-1487]

American Art Continues on LP

Asher Durand – ‘Kindred Spirits’ (1849)

Can you see Thomas Cole the painter and William Cullen Bryant the poet admiring the view? Well these are the men extrapolated into this scene following a commission by Jonathan Sturges as a eulogy for Cole having died in 1848. A moving thought.

Frederic Edwin Church – ‘Twilight in the Wilderness’ (1860)

Where can I begin with this glorious painting? It almost defies words for me to describe. ‘Twilight in the Wilderness’ is a masterpiece by Frederic Edwin Church. The use of textures and colours causes me to feel like my mind is humbled into a whirlwind of thoughts. In his like brilliance with Monet and Carlos de Haes I find myself inspired to try to even dream to produce a realist painting of this superlative magnitude.

Colour matching is a skill within professional painting that takes years of practice. Whenever I see greyish blue necked swans my happiness can be likened to the shouting sound of ‘Eureka!’. Artists want to impress. To master what they see. Communicating literally and symbolically.

‘Self Portrait of My Body’ is so important to me as a work that I cannot simply dab colours here and there and hope for the best with colour matching. Non-artists may not realise the technicalities that age and exact colour matching brings to a canvas. Are all lines perfectly straight? Let the imagination wonder why one might hold back from perfection.

Thomas Worthington Whittredge – ‘Birch Trees’ (c.1872)

I’ve chosen Thomas Worthington Whittredge, and in particular ‘Birch Trees’, because it strongly reminds me of artworks by a family relative. Artwork that I will present here in this blog at an appropriate time. My family relative passed away 9 years ago and I have Christmas cards that he sent to my Grandmother each with his artwork beautifully displayed on the cover with warm greetings inside. Amazingly I only knew of his artworks over the past few years.

Whittredge, of course, is a landscape giant of American Art.

Samuel Colman (the American Painter) – ‘Storm King on the Hudson’ (1866)

This painting is quite apt at this present time hence my unusual blog entitlement. Always a jostling, always a struggle to find balance. Competition, contention, livelihoods, sentiment and commercial politics. Samuel Colman was clearly interested in highlighting his then modern world in intellectually sensitive and stunning portrayals. The cascading hues and focal points make for a rewarding viewing experience.

Sincerest apologies for a concise blog. My mind is resting determinedly on other matters this past week.

What is New Under the Sunset?

The Unfathomable Artist is about to go off at a tangent. Please hold onto your chair for my inexplicable thoughts and feelings.

Arty contemplations are with me every day. Analysing. Calculating. Thinking to the height and the depth to know and understand EVERYTHING of use or note.

By my own choice of moniker, ‘Unfathomable’ things that if only this mind could tell but cannot. You think you know how lonely lonely really is, do you?

I tell you, you know of a loneliness, but the loneliness that I am speaking how can you know it? Oh please, how can I be speaking also to a swan and yet not?

Wholeheartedly I sympathise with your times of loneliness, having listened to the likeness of a hundred individual voices calling out to me. Can you understand a little better? Do please look at the heart. See how I keep seeing it and wondering at it.

If you throw a stick as far as you believe it will go, does it fall short? Even this I don’t understand. And yet if I said that I understand it entirely do you then think I’m talking nonsense? Am I indeed proving Unfathomable to you?

Believe me when I say that I’m not even trying to do so! Sacre bleu.

Why at the beginning, and why at the midst of this very writing. Where is my mountain? I’ve waited at a distance even from my youth.

A powerful King himself needs help and a Courtier tells him where he should go. For a surety, a stream of thoughts have originated merely from one.

Modernly, hey lets have some fun 🙂

Petit Pantheon Theatral – 1860, pencil on paper by Monet

Petit Pantheon Theatral 1860 by Monet

Caricature is always strong in popular culture. Humour is a great way to bring people together in an inoffensive way. Living here in the UK I’m well aware of ‘Punch’ magazines historically satirical influence.

In Monet’s style above I clearly see the likeness with a French children’s cartoon and animation of international renown.

The Ball Shaped Tree Argenteuil – 1876

The Ball Shaped Tree Argenteuil 1876 by Monet

I hadn’t seen this composition before. Immediately the sight made me laugh. My brother and I each have elements of this painting composition within one of our paintings without knowledge of this particular Monet artwork. Quite made my day and now amongst my own personal favourites from Monet’s painting works.

The Road To Vetheuil – Snow Effect

The Road To Vetheuil Snow

This composition has inspired at least one prodigy in my opinion. Capable artists will undoubtedly draw inspiration from fellow artists, past and present. For a fact this has already happened with my own work at the professional level. Years ago I might add.

If a composition resonates with me it will be stored up. It resurfaces in a subconscious way. Originality. Creatively.

Impressionist Sunrise by Monet

Sunsets offer a wealth of hues and a oneness with our planet. I myself stored up in my mind sunset photographs I took whilst fishing many years ago. Sitting idyllically with trees and frogs all around, supping beer and quaffing sweet coffee.

Digital technology is useful to help place art on your living room wall. Regrettably I didn’t print my three ducks in a sunset photograph from the early 2000’s!

I really must at some very contemplative time draw those three ducks in the sunset I marvellously captured.

Bouquet of Sunflowers by… Claude Monet:

Bouquet of Sunflowers by Monet

“Gauguin was telling me the other day—that he’d seen a painting by Claude Monet of sunflowers in a large Japanese vase, very fine. But—he likes mine better. I’m not of that opinion.” – a quote from November 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh.

Having developed compositions from my own personal creativity, artists should not be apologetic for the influence of great artists like Monet and Van Gogh even during their lifetime. It is natural. People can decide for themselves whether compositions show their own originality.

The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh

Fruit and fish in bowls and Flowers in Vase compositions strictly excepted.

Such compositions are pretty much the standard by which to judge a painters skill.

I do have a completed flowers composition. For twelve months I grew to love my unusual composition although I haven’t published it openly, yet. It will be a multiple version piece whilst I build upon its existing conceptual ideas. Texture and somewhat starry daisies, by my own admission. Rapturous laughter to myself, unquote.

‘Hey Vincent, I’m chasing after your ambitious nature good sir.’

For me art never dies.

My Personal Art

This photo of ‘An Owl with Orange Red Eyes’ shown immediately below is a pastel pencils drawing I created around 2010 on canvas board. I threw it in the refuse bin some months later as I hated it. Now I realise it was actually very good work. A one-off composition at the time.

There is always a small manner of imperfection in my work according to the level I am capable. Sometimes purposed to make odd what is too square. Sometimes it stares right back at me as I inspect with magnifying glass in hand pouring inch by inch over my work.

Lovers and followers of my art please kindly note just how tireless unique art is to make. By anyone.

In the past I’ve exhausted myself on hands and knees on cold paving slabs with canvas laid flat on bricks just because I want the right effect and feeling in water. I’ve played with ‘oil water’ for a whole month. Changing, shaping and moulding. A perfect occupation.

An entire day can pass from morning to late afternoon with no food if my heart desires a contented days work. Gandhi. Monet. Van Gogh. JK Rowling. People of uncompromising will to succeed. If one succeeds at the greatest thing then the difficulty of the lesser is merely a span of time.

Artists such as Paul Cezanne and Sir Peter Paul Rubens producing art version after art version. My respect for such determination is without measure. Truly a standing ovation in my heart, mind and body.

Presently I’ve a few finishing touches to ‘Self Portrait of My Body’ here:

Regrettably this is not a high resolution photographic studio image to show you, however I wish to share this raw output. It sounds immodest but I’m pleased with this artwork. Delighted. Exhaustive to get right – especially at 36 inches high by 28 inches wide.

60 pushups in 30 seconds and Paratrooper 1.5 mile run time capability at 40 years of age. Yes, I love fitness and a recognisable personality so I chose this well-known composition to form part of my art portfolio.

‘Self Portrait of My Body’ is a reflection of our natural human performance. Personal and shared with the entire world.

An art project is in my mind as mentioned in an earlier blog. It will probably take me two years to complete from study, compositional creation to art completion because I must photograph and visibly view the subject.

Writing this brings me to two further thoughts to share in my Blog. Firstly ‘A Tasteful Nude’ and then my own Self Portrait. Already a photographer is aware of my interest in one of his photographic works. As yet I haven’t seen any nude quite so perfect for a painting.

Perhaps I will produce my own personal composition. Even then I can’t see me changing my mind over the particular tasteful nude photograph of interest. Pure Art.

Can you take hold of the stars in your arms? Well that is how good his nude composition is. Perfect I tell you dear Reader. Green eyes. A rarity.

The Unfathomable Artist

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