in the studio - portraits

Case of American frames

Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

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I visited the American Wing at the Met in January. I had not been in that wing since they renovated and reopened in 2012 and I was blown away by it. Needless to say I did not see all of it - as I now accept my 2 hour (okay sometimes 3) limit of museum viewing before my eyes and brain are overwhelmed and I need a break! 

My favorite gallery was the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. 

Wow!

It is a visible-storage facility - that you can wander the aisles of - that displays more than ten thousand works of American fine and decorative art. Objects are arranged by material (paintings, sculpture, furniture and woodwork, glass, ceramics, silver, and metalwork) and within that by chronological order. Amazing.

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I was also taken in by the miniature portraits and the colonial era portraits - both often done by “itinerant” (love that!) artists. Seeing all the portraits told me that I needed get back to the figurative form again and, luckily, after feeling quite stuck it helped me to get back into the studio!

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I wanted to experiment with portraits and play with multiple collage techniques and see where it led. So far I have finished 5 of them and have a new one started. They are not great - but I have learned something from exploring and finishing each one. It is a very interesting journey and I am not sure where this experimentation will take me ... if anywhere. But I am really enjoying it and having fun!!

 

Woman in Market Place
8"x10"
Cut paper collage on Illustration Board

When looking at a lot of the early Colonial portraits many of them showed crackling - I am sure from age as well as the quality of the paints used. I actually liked the texture that gave the faces - kind of like a landscape.  

So for this piece I wanted to try and create a portrait as if it was an aerial view landscape. 

Futurist Man #64
8"x10"
Cut paper collage on Illustration Board

 Sticking with the cut paper theme I wanted to try a portrait of a man in an early colonial pose .... 3/4 view, hands in foreground, head in background. However, I had just read an article about the exhibit at the Guggenheim, "Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe". 

I didn't know anything about the futurists but looked up some of the painters and decided to try this one in that style. Why not?

Pieces of a Woman
4"x6"
Cut paper on clear acetate film

Just an experiment working on acetate.

Map Study #2
5"x7"
Antique maps, thread, pencil on kraft paper

Both of these next ones came out of the same idea - to collage a map in the portrait and to somehow incorporate stitching as well. I actually began #2 first and began by tracing a sketch that I had done a few months ago. Once the sketch was on the brown paper I then laid in the map pieces and stitched them down.
Then I got lost - and was not sure how to proceed......

That's when I took the original line tracing and began to play with it. I actually drew the map lines on the front of the drawing and I used colored pastels on the back of paper.
I sprayed both sides with fixative and then put a coat of acrylic medium over the top. The colors are a bit diffused and it has a parchment quality to it.

I did finally get inspired to return to the original map with the stitching and worked through that.



    

Map Study #1
5"x7"
Graphite, pastel, ink on tracing paper. 

 

Today I began this new one. I wanted to try more with the maps/stitching technique. But wanted to do in on canvas and probably use paint and other elements.
It is about 11"x14".
I didn't have any canvas so I took part of an old black canvas curtain and since I also didn't have any gesso or white acrylic - I used yellow. Remember - its an experiment.
Definitely not sure where this one is headed.

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In the immortal words of Al Swearengen ....
"Every step a f*cking adventure".