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Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Beauty

“Through the pursuit of beauty,” suggests Scruton, “we shape the world as our own and come to understand our nature as spiritual beings. But art has turned its back on beauty and now we are surrounded by ugliness.”

Roger Scruton presents a provoking essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives. There is so much food for thought in this documentary, who is to say, after all, what constitutes beauty? And by what standards do we judge that is which is beautiful in this fast pace fast food disposable world?

We cannot reach a consensus on the definition of beauty, any more than on the definition of other such volatile terms. But we can reach a consensus on the importance of beauty, and its place in our lives

.-Roger Scruton

Every artist interested in the place and importance of art in society should take look at this documentary.  Scruton argues that art is something that should elevate the human spirit, that beauty is critical to art and human happiness. Great art should speak to both the intellect and emotions. Maybe Keats said it best when he wrote the line, "beauty is truth, truth beauty".   

Roger Scruton writer and philosopher

John Keats. 1795–1821
“BEAUTY IS TRUTH, TRUTH BEAUTY”

Truth speaks to the intellect, beauty to the emotions.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Inspiration from Harold Speed and Father Guido Sarducci

I have been re-reading, The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed.
True inspiration to me; with great insight, the following quote struck home.

I would highly recommend this book to any artist, still in print and very reasonably priced but you can also find it online free at Open Library.
Harold Speed
The Practice and Science of Drawing
Dover Publications, Inc new York
Originally published by Seeley Service Ltd. 1927

And if by chance Speed's quote is too deep there is always this inspiration from Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live extolling the virtues of being an artist ("Become an Artist")

Links:

Harold Speed - (1872-1957)                                                  

Dover Publications

Open Library .Org
Saturday Night Live NBC

The SNL Archive
Father Guido Sarducci

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Conch Shell and Choosing Subject Matter

Conch Shell

Conch (pron.: konk)

When I choose a subject I look for two things, first it must present a set of visual challenges and second I must have some connection to it. It must “say” something to me, that can be either a pure aesthetic experience or a emotional link. This is where the concept of any painting starts, no matter how elaborate the idea or simple the subject matter may be, without these two essentials you can not communicate anything beyond the literal.

However, as I work I pay little attention to the subject matter, I concentrate on the abstract pictorial qualities that make up an image, this is what intrigues and excites me when I paint; that painters zone, to transcend the subject through a honest emotional response to those abstract qualities of shapes, colors, values, light, space, and attempt to translate that into some poetic image.

Thinking of it in this way -  you realize the subject chooses the artist.

We have had a gutful of fast art and food.

What we need more of is slow art: art that holds time as a vase holds water: art that grows out of modes of perception and making whose skill and doggedness make you think and feel; art that isn’t merely sensational that doesn’t get its message across in 10 seconds, that isn’t falsely iconic, that hooks onto something deep-running in our natures.

Robert Hughes

Art Critic and Historian - 1938 - 2012

From a speech given at the London Royal Academy, June 2004

Link to article and video about Robert Hughes

Conch Shell, oil on panel, 5"x 7"
Retrieved from the beach of Cancun, Mexico.
Available in Gallery

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Gallery Update

If this looks to you like a shameless self promotion, well it is. Sometimes the best way to promote yourself is to remind patrons that work is available for purchase.

Jim Serrett Gallery offers access to my portfolio of available original artworks.

You will find larger studio works in oil offered through this site directly, as well as small scale paintings and studies obtainable through my Etsy Store. Easy access to the gallery is through the above page tab or the “Gallery of Available Works” image in the side bar on the right.

Please visit the gallery and thank you for your support of the arts.

Jim

”An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.”

                                                                                           ---  James MacNeill Whistler 

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Japanese Teapot

This little aluminum teapot has been around the studio for awhile now. I had been thinking and toying around with a larger composition for it. But I just seemed to keep coming back to the simple statement of the pot.

The unique shape and great surface gives this little object a lot of character.

That's what influenced me to pick it up at a yard sale in the first place, so I figure I need to go with that first impression.

The only way to evolve as a painter is to recognize those first impressions, that initial inspiration that made you say, this I must paint.

Japanese Teapot - Oil on panel - 8x10 -  Available

"Paint a little less of the facts, and a little more of the spirit." 

                                                                              --Harvey Thomas Dunn (1884-1952)

The Sketch - Lay In

Under-painting

Color pass

The Aftermath

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Thanks for Listening III

As another year closes I want to express, to all of you, my heart felt appreciation. Thank you for your support and encouragement, it's been a great year.

And to my loving wife, Linda there is no words that can express my appreciation and love for you. Happy Anniversary.

So, I'll finish this thought with these fine words...

To laugh often and much;

to win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;

to leave the world a bit better

whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,

or a redeemed social condition;

to know even one life has breathed easier because

you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

                                              ----Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy New Year !

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

                                                                                         Chuck Close

     

This is a fascinating glimpse into a amazing artist with a unique philosophy of life. Well worth the watch. True inspiration. If you don’t know much about Chuck Close’s life you should definitely investigate, as his life and times are as interesting as his works of art.

"Every great idea I've ever had grew out of work itself."

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.”
                                                                                                              ― Chuck Close

Links:
CBS This Morning
Chuck Close's advice to his younger self
Pace Gallery
Chuck Close Website

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim

Primary Color Triads

All colors can be mixed by simply using the three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow, as we know.  However there are a great variety of red, yellow and blue hues available to the artist and to gain an understanding of the diversity and range of those primary triads you really have to mix them. Mixing colors with a limited palette will not only give you great insight into color mixing but produce inherent color harmony.  Select three variations and experiment.

These color wheels are a triad of Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Ivory Black. I have really become fascinated with these three colors. They have become the core primary set on my palette, more often Ultramarine Blue instead of Ivory Black. I wanted to visually see this color wheel with black and the primary triad color harmony, in which..... I immediately saw Anders Zorn, Eugène Delacroix, Winslow Homer and Titian's palette. Amazing that after you familiarize yourself with the mixtures they often show up in master painters work.


A good painter needs only three colours: black, white and red. 
                                                                                                                                -Titian


Draughtsmen may be made, but colourists are born.
                                                                                                          - Eugene Delacroix

Hue -pure color
Tint - hue with white
Tone- hue with gray
Shade - hue with black
Value - the lightness or darkness of a color

Explore - Question - Learn - - Enjoy, Jim

Boxwood and Blue

Buxus sempervirens

From all the small bottles I've collected, somehow this little blue bottle keeps finding its way back into a painting. I just really like the square shape and the way light refracts through it almost like a small piece of stain glass or a mosaic with many facets of color.



I started this piece with a very loose grisaille ("griz-eye") to establish my basic structure and design. The underpainting suggests form without being too committed. I knew the only way to get the transparency of the bottle was to glaze with transparent and semi-transparent passages of color. The color stage of this painting went very fast requiring just the slightest use of color to create form and dimension.

Boxwood in Blue Bottle Oil on Panel 8x10

You can find more demonstrations and videos on underpainting techniques by looking under "labels" in the side bar or following the links below. You can find all of my instructional demos on my You Tube Channel, don’t forget to subscribe.

Links:

 Underpainting Techniques

http://jimserrettstudio.blogspot.com/search/label/under%20painting

 Grisaille Demonstration

http://jimserrettstudio.blogspot.com/2010/11/underpainting-techniques-grisaille.html

 Video Demonstrations on my YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/jimserrettstudio?feature=results_main

Boxwood - Buxus sempervirens

The American Boxwood Society 

Explore - Question - Learn - - Enjoy, Jim