Sketches for a Commission




I'm sure that there will be more revisions. I haven;t worked with a detailed sketch in ages. I am enjoying it. And pencils are such a delightful invention

Wow! My Largest Yet.



Oil on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 17" x 55" inches
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Forth layer - but is it complete yet? Hmmmm. I'll sit on it for a few days.

Self Portrait in Gray #2
Oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

Self Portrait in Gray #1

Oil, 70 x 100 cm.

I painted this before and after sunset, on a top floor, next to west facing window. Ouch! The light and shadows danced all over my face, the first half of each session, the sun hitting hard from the left, and then the electric lights hitting softer from the right. But I stuck it out!

I also had a wonderful discovery: I had washed and forgotten my favorite brushes at my studio. So I "made do" with the ignored ones, including an unused soft round one. The lovely brushwork on the neck and chest was a gift that the brush gave me, in appreciation of the opportunity that I offered her, to proove herself. :-) Thanks Brush.

Sampler, Layer Two
Oil over acrylic, 70 x 80 cm
What fun using masking tape!

Olive Tree
עץ הזיתֿֿ

Acrylic, January 2007, 70 x 80 cm.
This was my first canvas this large, and I approached the fabric with awe. Painting it was a real learning experience, and very gratifying. I learned the advantages of the paint, which can be lyered over and over, but has a poor covering quality as compared to gouache, with which you was get nice strong graphic shapes, as I wanted in the leaves, and as I was soon to learn with oil paints, which are so much richer. But only acrylic can allow the wonderful three dimensional work, such as I did in the tree trunk. I used modeling paste. And the pattens on the bottom. In oil, I would have to wait forever for each layer to dry.

An artist from Iowa City commented on this watercolor:
"Wonderfully bright. A happy scene, full of growth." (Thanks Phil)
Anyway, that is what I hoped to express. Growth.

I think that I will ask him to borrow that line, for its name.

I particularly like the accordion effect on the bottom left.

I've been working a lot on self portraits - I'm always available to pose. This one I like a lot.

Excercize. Self portrait in chalk. Working in negative - that is drawing the light instead of the shadow, was innitially a challenge for my brain. I will work more on self protraits (Heh, I'm always available to sit! On the other hand,, the choice of compositions and expressions is limited by the placement of the mirror and by my concentration.)

Pomegranates
Another small canvas. I am happy with the results.

Zig Zag
I used color to create the effects of perspective, even when the preliminary drawing is totally flat. I hope to do this with greater intention and experimentation in another painting. The idea is so appropriate for Jerusalem - a city that can be viewed from so many angles, physically, symbolically and spiritually. The Cubists used multiple points of view, to investigate depicting space. Maybe I will use it to investigate meaning.

I have started working on very small canvases again. Because the can be finished quicker, I feel free to experiment with variations on color palettes, transparencies and 3D pyrotechnics.

Self Portraits

The first, pencil drawing is quite accurate - especially to mey eyes, since I am used to viewing my asymetrical face mirrored left/right. My eyes are somewhat enlarged, as they appeared reflected through the lenses of my eyeglasses.

I enjoyed applying color to the second quick sketch

Self Portrait

Once again, I played with a minimal pallet of, and maximum of pattern, textures, and contrast between matte and reflective surfaces. I used paints containing mica and grains of stainless steel. When photographing the painting, I had to choose between capturing the colors accurately, or capturing the reflections. Oh well. I have a lot to learn about photographing art work.
The oversized figs are surrealistic in dimension, which is by the fact that the background is so broken into little elements and its silvery colors.

Fresh Figs in Baskets II

I started this painting and the previous one, the same Friday. I finished cooking and cleaning early, and went to the studio for an hour and a half before Shabbat. (It usually takes me a long time in the mornings, to begin thinking creatively - and then, all too soon, the day is over. Perhaps a tighter schedule works better for me.) The results were good. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the other fig painting. This one needed lots of reworking.

Fresh Figs in Baskets
תאנים
Once figs were the plebeian fruit. The grow easily, without much water. Even more important, the fruits ripen over a long period. One tree can give fresh fruit over a long period - exactly what makes them so problematic today. You have to send your Thai worker to comb each tree every few days for months.
And you can dry them for the off season. And tie them in rings for desert caravan. (I'm filling space about plebeians again.) Then Haute Cuisine discovered figs.
Anyway, I love them.
Anyway, thanks to Haute Cuisine - or to my talent, this painting was one of the most talked about at my showing at the URJ Convention in San Diego in December.