Crescent Park Studies

Friday, May 21, 2010

Crescent Park Studies

I've put aside yesterday's painting -- the bottom line is that I need a big enough idea to fill the size of the board I've chosen, and my idea wasn't big enough to fill an 18x24" board. So today we're on to smaller paintings -- which I think are my forte anyways...

Crescent Park Study 1:

A familiar scene -- a small fenced in urban park like a London Square -- that I return to time after time because I like painting it. This is done in more or less my usual style.

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

For my second painting I wanted to de-construct the painting above: make it more elemental, more abstract. What I want to paint is impressionist inspired abstract landscapes that don't look abstract (until you look at them closely and realize I didn't paint anything "real"). Study 1, above, though far from realistic, is fairly literal never the less. For my second study I wanted to be freer.

Crescent Park Study 2

Having the first study before me made it easier to avoid falling into old habits and making things too specific. This is far closer to what I want to paint, and only occasionally do. Painting small paintings helps too: I find it hard to scale the effects I want up to larger sizes, though you would think it would be fairly easy -- perhaps I just need some really large brushes...

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

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What I'm Up To

I think artist’s statements are largely needless. Paintings speak for themselves. And yet, here I am set to rattle on about my approach to painting. Now, if you're of the same opinion as I claim to be, skip this and enjoy the paintings, but if you want a hint as to what I’m trying to do, here’s the words.

I approach painting via two different roads that arrive at the same place. The first is that I paint only “studies” or sketches. Back in the day artists painted quick studies to get the colors and features down to use as a guide to paint a finished studio painting. Funny thing is of the paintings I’ve seen together with their studies, I’ve always preferred the loose and spontaneous studies over the stiff and polished finished painting. For that reason I’ve chosen to paint only studies.

My second approach to painting is inspired by a quote from the writer, Raymond Chandler: “I guess maybe there are two types of writers, writers who write stories and writers who write writing.” He considered himself of one of the latter, as do I which is to say; writers who’s words are entertaining in and of themselves, independent of the story. Perhaps painters could be divided the same way: Painters who paint pictures and painters who paint paintings. While I don’t consider one type superior to the other, I aim to be a painter of paintings. I want to paint paintings that capture a moment, inspire or recall a memory or mood, but which, viewed longer or closer, or with one's glasses on, prove to be clearly paintings: paint brushed into shapes on a surface. That these mere shapes can create an impression they’re something else, for a moment, or at a distance is the independent interest I would like my paintings to possess, not because they realistically reproduce branches, or water or what ever, but because they don’t. What I don't want to paint is places or post card scenes, even though landscape are the medium which I use for my painting.

The Day's Work - Paintings of C. Litka

Friday, May 21, 2010