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The magic of juxtaposition. Do you see it?

It has happened before. Those moments of empty minded clarity, when not much is happening, lounging on the obligatory comfy studio sofa, looking at the artwork. While to some, it may not look like much is being done, sometimes this meditative space is absolutely required for the successful completion of an artwork.

And then it happens. As you gaze on the work in progress, your eye wanders and suddenly where once it was never apparent before, the painting behind or near that in focus, also comes into focus, and a synergy springs into life.

It maybe the forms, sometimes one painting literally flows into the other. Other times, it is colour combination sets one off on a new crescendo of colour.

And so it was recently here in my Vienna studio. Two unrelated paintings suddenly took on a new meaning together. I won’t say how or what the outcome will be. I know what that is in my mind’s eye.

It never ceases to amaze me from what unexpected corners inspiration is waiting to be found. Only if you look. And look with an open uncritical mind. Then the Muse speaks, and you follow her command.

Tim Roosen and Isabelle Hackars

This past Easter weekend artist and gallery owner Tim Roosen paid me a visit in my studio while he was here on business in Berlin. It was very fortuitous as it meant that I could give Tim at least one of my paintings for the forthcoming “Light Fantastic” exhibition at his NovaBelgica Gallery in Belgium.

The second painting that I intend to send is still in production and the clock is ticking. There are a few more layers to add yet.

I will be exhibiting alongside the following artists.

Christine Morren, Claus Brusen, Jacek Lipowczan, Krzysztof Izdebski-Cruz, Magda Francot,Marcin Kolpanowicz, Olga Gouskova, Peter van Oostzanen, Raoul Chanet, Sigrid Nepelius, Tommas Jorgensen, Jef Bertels, Christien Dutoit, Dirk Bosschaert, Els Wenselaers, Roland Menten, Steve Kirkham, Jo Pirard and Tim Roosen.

The details for the exhibition are as follows.

The Light Fantastic

Opening: 13th May 2011
Closes: 19th June 2011

NovaBelgica Gallery
Wildebamp 19
B-3800 Sint-Truiden
Belgium

Tel: +32 (0)495 689485

www.novabelgica.com

Work in progress - 90 x 120 cm, oil on canvas

I can’t say definitely that I’m there yet. As I sit on my comfy studio sofa (many thanks Lia!), I contemplate the day’s work. There is something starting to take shape, a tantalising more complete definition. Extend this here, darken that there, bring this colour in there and viola, there is the final painting. Ah, but some hours, perhaps days or even a week or two to go yet.

“When do I know when a painting is finished?”, I’ve often been asked. It might seem like a silly question, but often the way I work, there is no preliminary sketch or reference materials that I’m working from. It all comes out of my imagination and what is already there on the canvas waiting to be discovered. It is certainly not a new way to work. Even many non artists have laid on the grass and gazed at the clouds in the sky and imagined animals, faces or whatever. As a boy, I used to do it a lot with friends. We all took delight in trying to identify the visual fantasy of the other. It was sometimes very surprising how differently some one else saw the same thing. I still take pleasure in this when people discover something in my own work that I haven’t seen.

Artistically, I’m not alone in this method of visual inspiration.  Everybody is familiar with the results of Dalí’s paranoic critical method, whereby one thing becomes another if you look at it in a different way. Even Leonardo Da Vinci was fond of the day dreamer’s gaze, or the thousand mile stare.

“It is in my opinion not useless if you pause in the realisation of pictorial forms and look at the spots on the wall, at the ashes of the hearth, at the clouds, or in the gutter: on careful observation, you will make wonderful discoveries there, which the genius of the painter can turn to good account in the composition of human and animal battles, landscapes, monsters, devils and other fantastic things which you can use to your advantage. These confused things awaken the genius to new inventions, although one must have learnt well how to do all the parts, especially the limbs of the animals and the forms of the landscape, its plants, and its stones.”
From Leonardo Da Vinci’s treatise on painting.

So here I am staring at my painting, filling in the gaps, or rather, it is filling in the gaps for me. But then I come back to myself, sitting on the couch, taking a deep breath I quit my repose and walk to the palette and brushes. Now its time to fill the gaps with a brush and paint.

In this painting of the Pieta by William Bouguereau (1876), the artist uses the full range of value at his disposal. Even on the figure of Christ, Bouguereau used a broad range of tone. The brightest lights on the skin are a 9; the deepest shadow on His body, a 2. Christ's loin cloth contains pure white (10), and Mary's robe, which surrounds Christ's outline and separates the Two from the background, is black (0).

Via Chet Zar on Twitter I read a very illuminating and insightful article, “Grey Matter” by Matthew Innis, on managing tonal values in your paintings.

Matthew goes on to explain a couple of tonal scales that can be used to bring extra visual and emotional impact to your images by working with the balance of light and dark. He provides a number of step by step examples. Once you can master tonal value adjustment in your head, you are then freed from the constraints your source material may have on your final work.

For us with the access to image manipulation software such as Gimp or Photoshop he shows us how we can process the images and play about with the tonal ranges in a more must have it now digital fashion.  Can you imagine doing this with manually painting your own examples and the time it would take? But perhaps then we’d learn it more thoroughly.

Even if you are short on time to paint your own example exercises, it is well worth the time to read the article.

Last week I made my way to Hamburg to have a number of my paintings scanned and spend some time with friend and colleague in artistic crimes, Dennis Konstantin. Dennis uses a company called Scan Discounter to have his paintings scanned at full size in 300 DPI. The same company also does excellent paper and canvas prints from these scans.

Earlier that week I managed to persuade Norman Dziegel, the proud owner of my Gelbe Spiral painting to loan it to me, so I could take it to Hamburg for scanning. I packaged it up for the journey along with two other paintings. Meeting up with Dennis we drove out to Scan Discounter. Hidden on the ground floor of a house in the suburbs is the largest scanner I’ve ever seen. They tell me that they can scan up to 2 and half meters in length at 300 DPI. That makes for very large files, and you’d better have enough RAM on your computer to open and modify them. (drooling while dreaming…)

With the scans done in no time, we were off to Dennis’ apartment in the Caroline Quarter of Hamburg, the not so famous sister of the Schanzen Quater. Both are like a mini versions of Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln in Berlin. But it wasn’t the distractions of Hamburg street life that interested us. There was painting to be done!

Dennis and I have on a number of occasions have had joint painting sessions, over the internet. While it is interesting to have a bit of virtual company, to share the same space is far more productive. I am always curious to look over other’s shoulders and to see how they work. Its a great chance to trade tips on technique and talk paint.

Along with my paintings that I’d brought to Hamburg to scan, were two small collaboration pieces that we had started on, last January when Dennis was in Berlin for our Fantastic Visions exhibition. We set about finishing the two off. However, Dennis is much quicker than I and finished his, while I have not yet. I’ve included some photos below.

[View with PicLens]