New Books!

A few books arrived today, two inspired by the cloth in my Melendez copy practice, the last by my growing interest in Renaissance artists and materials. A couple of these books have portions online with Google, links provided in case you'd like to take a peek:

• Drawing the Draped Figure
• Drawing Drapery from Head to Toe
• Art in the Making: Rembrandt: New Edition

The drapery books are interesting and inspiring, and I'm already paying more attention to pulls and folds.

And then there is this sweet book I just ran across, most of it online here: The Artistic Anatomy of Trees and for offline use a PDF download.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. 

~ Henry David Thoreau

A New Book

This book recently arrived. Melendez is one of my favorites and it was a real treat to take in the MFA's Melendez exhibit back in March 2010. I'll be checking this out to select a practice painting. (Setting up acrylic panels this evening.)

The exhibition is over and I picked up my paintings. Sales were few and far between. Still, it was a great experience, meeting lots of nice folks and having the opportunity to hang out in a gallery with a bunch of artists. Cool! :-)

Robert Genn

New books came in today, among them The Painter's Keys, A Seminar With Robert Genn, by Robert Genn.

I first found this author from his Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Newsletters. Here's the most recent issue. Even when I am falling behind in my blog reading, that is never the case with his fine blog/web site.

From Hour 1, The Child and the Recipes:

"Something I am going to try to bring to you in this seminar is that as adults we should learn to daily and hourly dig out our wondering child and train ourselves to always look at what we are seeing as if it were "baby-eyes" new. When we develop again this way of seeing, our life and our work become fresher. We don't repeat ourselves so readily, and we don't become jaded. As I have explored my possibilities as a visual artist I found that this attitude became central to my happiness."

The near entirety is available via Google Books.

More Books!

I am a confirmed book junkie. Here are a couple more that arrived today. Koo Schadler has an egg tempera class coming up in June that interests me so I'd like to get up to speed as much as can. Besides, I'm like a sponge with art books. (The Speed book links to Google books.)

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

I'm spending a good deal of time with Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson. It's probably one of the most eye-opening and thought-provoking books in my library.

From Chapter 9. Trees:

"Know your trees, their nature, their growth, their movement; understand that they are conscious, living things, with tribulations and desires not wholly disassociated from your own. Emerson has beautifully named trees, "rooted men." In many ways they excel man."




"Every tree is a "personality," and possesses, within the limits of its species, a tremendous latitude of expression. Its branches do not, could not, and should not, stick into its sides in a brittle way, as though a hole had previously been bored to let them in. A tree is a highly organized entity, which, when functioning within its realm, becomes beautiful."

Odds and Ends

The remaining kernels painted in, some balancing between the ear and husk, a final sanding on the unpainted gesso to clean up spills, and my painting was ready for framing.



My tempera workflow continues to firm up. I like porcelain palettes, until now using mostly various sized and shaped plates from Pier 1 Imports. My new small welled palettes from DickBlick are proving perfect for my egg mixes. A bit of pigment, preferably from my new jars, placed into a well and mixed with egg is the starter. From there, bits of that mix can be dropped into other wells for thinning with water and/or adding Titanium White (held in the large center well) for lightening or opaqueness. The way these wells nestle the mixes leads to increased working time before the mixes coagulate and dry.


A couple of new books just arrived! Click on each image to link to a preview on Google Books.

Daniel V. Thompson

I have so very much appreciation for the works of Daniel Varney Thompson, Jr. (1902-1980) If you're not familiar with him, you may remember some recent posts with quotes from his The Practice of Tempera Painting.

Below are back cover quotes from his other books:

The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting

"Medieval painters built up a tremendous range of technical resources for obtaining brilliance and permanence. In this volume, an internationally know authority on medieval paint technology describes these often jealously guarded recipes, lists of materials, and processes.

"Based upon years of study of medieval manuscripts and enlarged by laboratory analysis of medieval paintings, this book discusses carriers and grounds, binding media, pigments, coloring materials, and metals used in painting."

The Craftsman's Handbook: "Il Libro dell' Arte" by Cennino d'Andrea Cennini

"This is D. V. Thompson's definitive English translation of "Il Libro dell'Arte," an intriguing guide to methods of painting written in 15th century Florence. Embodying the secrets and techniques of the great masters, it served as an art student's introduction to the ways of his craft.

"Anyone who has ever looked at a medieval painting and marveled at a brilliance of color and quality of surface that have endured for 500 years, should find this a fascinating read. It describes such lost arts as gilding stone, making mosaics of crushed eggshell, fashioning saints' diadems, coloring parchment..."

All three are available as inexpensive Dover's. Fun and interesting reads! And of course, my copy of The Practice of Tempera Painting is getting lots of use. :-)

Andrei Rublev Exhibit

On the ride into work I heard an announcement of an upcoming icon exhibition. I was blown away to hear that work from the Andrei Rublev Museum is coming to the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, MA, just an hour up the road! Check it out!

I am only now beginning to explore the world of icons but for an intro see this article on Andrei Rublev.






In celebration, this book is on the way. I suspect there will be more. :-)










This one arrived just today, a lucky find at a good price. And, a lucky delivery as well, as it took two tries to get across the country. More later...

An Excellent Tempera Book

I've just completed my first read of Egg Tempera Painting by Koo Schadler.

A snippet from today's email to her:

"I particularly enjoy your open-minded approach. Perusing the web for information naturally brings up differences in technique and I like how you present what works for you as well as others approaches. Considering various supports, recipes, work styles, climate, etc, all seem to influence results. What I get from you is that each person needs to find what works best for them. Also really enjoy all the web and book references--tremendous resources."

She describes her spiral bound book as always a work in progress. New material not yet incorporated into the general text is added in the back. I think that for anyone getting started her clear instructions provide all the details needed to start from a wood panel and take one to a finished painting. Supports, grounds, pigments, techniques--all covered well.

On another note, Natural Pigments recently offered free shipping on orders over fifty dollars and I simply couldn't resist picking up a few pigments:

• Chromium Oxide Green
• Cobalt Zinc Blue
• Gold Ocher
• Luberon Red Ocher
• Natural Black Oxide
• Titanium Dioxide
• Yellow Ocher Dark

I also picked up a 2' x 4' sheet of 1/4" birch plywood primarily for practice work. It's really too thin for use as a proper support without bracing of some sort unless perhaps I work with small pieces.

More New Books

So many books. So little time. :-) Still, I can't help but pick up every art book that grabs my interest. I find practices and principles, new and old, so fascinating. And isn't it odd how little things have changed? The basic ingredients of watercolor medium have held constant. How many of the minerals giving us color are the very same used 1500 years ago? Lazurite, Green Earth, the iron oxides and charcoals...

Speaking of minerals, as I continue to make my own paints I plan to keep aside a portion. And why not, as with a bit of water and egg, I'll have my very own tempera. The real thing! So, I'm looking into support material and Natural Pigments is right there to help with all the ingredients needed to make gesso. This is another one of my back burner projects (along with paint making) so progress will be slow. More later as supplies and ambition arrive.

These additions to my library arrive tomorrow:

Additions for the Library

Here is my introductory title into oils. I am still teasing about the idea of trying my hand with this medium. In the meantime, I will simply collect a few more fascinating reads. Does anyone have any oils favorites?












A probably long overdue addition, I understand that this is the bible.

Yellow Wood Sorrel

This little one took some research! Peterson's Wildflowers just couldn't get me there but the Field Book of American Wild Flowers (Gretchen's recommendation) tentatively identifies this one as the Yellow Wood Sorrel, Oxalis cymosa. This could possibly be the considerably rarer O. stricta but I don't think we can know for sure until the seed pods develop.

Will the real cinnamon fern please...

Ah well, mistakes do happen. The recent posting on the cinnamon fern has been uncovered as an impostor! Here is the real Cinnamon Fern, Osmunda cinnamomea. The mistaken fern, although still in the genus Osmunda, is really the Royal Fern, O. regalis.

The clearing up of this mix up would not have been possible without Peterson's Ferns of Northeastern and Central North America. A Google Book did the trick and now this book is soon to belong in my library. I always thought I was mixing the two species into one but didn't have the detailed information to prove it. Now I feel better.





I have a few spots around the lake where I like to relax and let the shots come to me. Often times, that'd be grackles, by the way coming up later this week--they like poking around close to water.

Green Updates

Although I am still collecting dried specimens from last year's life cycle, this year's new nature is visibly stirring.

Raspberry is leafing out with vigor.





















Mullein is greening up and throwing off new leaves at a growing pace. The wintered over basal leaves of this biennial will be hosting a tall flower spike and we'll get to see the progress during the coming months.
















I don't yet have an identity for this little one. I'm going to dig into The Field Book of American Wild Flowers. (Thanks to Gretchen for the recommendation!) It's really a whole new world for me--a world of green, that is. Bushes are budding out and little plants are breaking ground and I have much research ahead--just the way I like it!
















These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
~Gilbert Highet

Meadowsweet

Not since the case of the Sweet Pepperbush have I dealt with such mystery as this little creature. For months I have been photographing and taking samples of the Broadleaf Meadowsweet, Spirea latifolia . I repeatedly searched through A Guide to Wildflowers in Winter to no avail. Then yesterday a sudden flash of insight led me to realize that my elusive quarry was not a small wintered over biennial or a perennial but a true bush. Within minutes my trusty The Shrub Identification Book by George W. D. Symonds came to the rescue. The details in the remains of what I imagine to be the fruiting section of the flower are so incredible. How did those tiny little sharpened tips stay just so throughout our severe winter?

The close up shot was new technique experimentation. For shutterbugs, you can read about my adventures with all the technical details over in 24 x 36.

I've been shooting this little one for so long that I feel I must include shots taken over a period of months.

White-throated Sparrow

I nearly missed this little bird nestled within a mass of wisteria covering an old woodpile. I'm surprised that I have never noticed the White-throated Sparrow. (In fact, it is quite humbling as I discover how much of the natural world I have simply glossed over for so long.) That little bit of yellow-orange above and in front of the eye as well as the gray below really helped with the ID. I used The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds. Nice book, lots of good color pictures that work well for me with birds.


















I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.
~ John James Audubon

More Mosses

I have tried to maintain the coloration of these two species--yellowish green vs a rich emerald green. And although these look similar to others posted earlier, I think we're seeing distinct species. So far, I'm unable to identify any!





























Native Ferns Moss and Grasses by William Cullina arrived a while ago and I've taken a few feeble attempts at finding my local mosses. Sadly, as the title clearly states, this book reaches far, leaving only about ten percent of the pages to the mosses.

There are many lovely pictures in this encyclopedic format and offered are guidelines on cultivation. Isn't that a wonderful idea, to nurture in your own yard the flora endemic to your locale?

William Cullina has a series of books on local plants and flowers, with a new book, Understanding Perennials, due out next month.


Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won’t come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.
~Leo Tolstoy

Blowover

Was this blowover still alive when it fell?
Was there a particular combination of wind and saturated soil?

I'm beginning to see mosses everywhere. And why not--there are about twelve thousand species! I have four species to my right in little bowls with plastic wrap. An indoor moss garden may come of all this.

Another book is on its way, one that will hopefully aid with moss identification. Gathering Moss was a great start, delving into details of reproduction and growth habits and implanting a spiritual sense that lingers.

My growing library is somewhat divided: pure identification that gets right to the matter versus details of individual species habits, companions, parasites, medicinal and historical use. Gathering Moss is a different sort of book, leading more on a path of fostering love and appreciation for our natural world. Entertaining, educational, and inspiring, a balanced work.

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Moss in House

The book Gathering Moss has inspired me to look closely at the local mosses. Yesterday, while walking by the stone wall and heading up the stairs to my house, I stopped to cut loose this little patch of bryophyte.















The photo below is about 3x life size, while the one above is something like 10x and kind of reminds me of a jungle scene...
















To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare.
~Kenko Yoshida

Swamp Maple

Here is the Red, or Swamp, Maple in a common clumping habit. A sign of forest history can be had from clumping trees--those that grow up in place of a downed (whether by harvest, fire, disease, or pest) solitary tree. This insight courtesy of Reading the Forested Landscape (mentioned in the Catalpa post).

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

~Groucho Marx