New Painting

A new drawing that served as a foundation for a new oil painting on paper today along with the finished piece.

Under Drawing of a Torso, 2013, Krystal Booth

Graphite on Paper, 18x24"

 

 

 

Condense and Disintegrate, 2013

Oil and graphite on paper, 18x24" 

Krystal Booth

 

Look up!

Beautiful evening sky in Portland on my way home tonight -

Intense orange red behind blues, gray purples, warm gold tones above with peach -

 

 

After I took the photos there was a guy with earphones across the street walking by and watching me.  I looked at him and pointed at the sky.  He looked at the top of a light post.  He glanced over at me again and I pointed again this time saying loudly, "The sky!" with a smile.  Again he looked at the top of the light post and just brushed me off.  He probably thought I was crazy and seeing imaginary leprechans dancing on the top of the post.

 

One who has not learned to see the everyday beauty all around them lives a life of true poverty.  But I guess that depends on your perspective - I was missing out on the music he was listening to afterall. haha

 

I hope you are admiring the beauty in your part of the world as much as possible.  Love to all!

 

 

100 Works: Measuring the Progress

Where am I in the 100 works goal?

Detail of a Painting in progress

Oil on paper 24x18", 2013

Krystal Booth

 

 

Right now I am to start on number 26.  A quarter of the goal has been reached.  This is good since a quarter of the year is over as well, though that doesn't even seem possible.  It was not to my advantage to think of this idea later than the new year on January 20th, but that's okay.  It won't be too much of a hindrance.

 

What has changed?  So far paint handling has loosened up a bit.  I don't feel as though I'm strangling my subject as much.  It will be interesting to compare and contrast the works from the beginning of this year to the end of the year.  It's difficult to predict, but it's an exciting prospect.

 

Have I felt rushed?  I really haven't.  I thought that I would feel a bit stressed out and frantic at times with balancing this goal with work and daily life stuff.  So far this feeling has not been felt, and I'm hoping that I don't feel that upon the finish in December.  That's the last way I would want to end this project.

 

What about materials?  The stash of 18x24" canvases has run dry, but I've solved that for the time being by working on paper.  The paper, being more fragile by its flexibility, seems to run along better with the concept behind the works anyway, so it's not such a loss.  I've had to change from Turpenoid to Turpenoid Natural due to painting more.  It's non-toxic, which is better for the workspace that is not always ventilated that great.  The dizzy spell that occurred one night was the wake up call to change products.  (oops! foolish mistake)

 

The Flake White Replacement is a sticky mess and I hate it.  I'm still using it, as the tube is practically full and I don't want to waste money or material.  It's just not as smooth or solid as the Flake White I had been using.  Maybe I'll get more used to it and change my mind, but for now, it's a disappointment and a source of mental cursing upon the palette.  Any suggestions?

 

All in all, there have been some blunders of some instantly failed works, but there have also been works that have made me even more curious in technique and concept.  This challenge has been a good one that has made me realize that I'm much happier if I've been in the studio.

 

Thank you for supporting me by reading and commenting!  It helps fuel the process, and thank you so much.  Love to all!

 

 



New Original Painting on Canvas

Here is last weekend's oil painting.

 

Ubiquity in Limbo, 2013, Krystal Booth

Oil on canvas, 24x18"

 

 

 

Ubiquity in Limbo (Detail of)

2013, Krystal Booth

 

My cold seems to have become worse over night which gave a good opportunity for taking portrait photos first thing in the morning.  It was a car crash of the face - sinus drainage...my face itself seemed draining.  I will using these as references for today's work on paper.

 

Hope you're having a good week, and thank you for visiting!  Love to all!

 

 

 

 

Spanish, German, Russian, and Being the Fish

Hola!  Que tal?  Donde esta el mark that goes over the 'e' on que en la computadora?

I've been trying to relearn and learn more Spanish now for over two years.  The Spanish for Educator's book was dusted off again last night - it's time to try again.  The problem lies in my confidence in speaking it.  It wasn't always that way.  In the factory, Claudia and I held extensive conversations throughout the day completely in Spanish, though my part of the discussion was never eloquent as the verbs were sometimes not conjugated.  I was great at that caveman Spanish, but that was more than ten years ago.

Italian is another language I have wanted to learn.  I placed it as a reward for learning Spanish - "when I learn Spanish, I will then allow myself to learn Italian" - which of course has been quite the quest.  I'm wondering if I shouldn't just study both of them simultaneously.  They are similar, and it wouldn't hurt in comprehension and getting ideas across in either language.

I have noticed that there have been a large and increasing population of readers in Germany and Russia over the last year.  The numbers are quite surprising.  I hate to confess that I don't speak German or Russian, despite my one semester of German early in college.  Everything at home was labeled with stickers of German vocabulary.  They can still be found randomly at my parent's house, at least last I knew the reusable cheese container said "der Kase" and my mother insisted that it stay on there.  It has become a sentimental artifact.

The Internet is a crazy place where we can translate words with a click of button and presto!  No language barrier (although slang can be a bit difficult).  Borders and distance suddenly seem smaller, and anyone can begin to have a conversation with anyone in the world.  That's amazing!  Something that I usually take for granted, but it is truly amazing!  I don't think that I could have ever seen this as a possibility when I was a child.  I thought ET landing in my backyard would be more of a possibility than this. haha

I am writing this at a time when it seems that North Korea is getting closer to doing something awful.  I am worried for one of my mentor professors who moved back home to South Korea shortly after I graduated.  It was sad seeing her go, but she was excited to go back home in order to teach alongside her mentor.  We have lost touch with each other, and I hope she is doing well.  I miss her terribly to tell you the truth - she was a great professor and friend who was one of the kindest and most peaceful souls I have ever met.  She was particularly compassionate, empathetic and an animal lover.

Upon our last meeting while I was student teaching, we talked with each other about our philosophies of life.  It was not a traditional conversation that one would have about what went wrong or right during the lesson that was taught to a rambunctious group of 7th graders, and I'm so glad that it wasn't.  It was much more meaningful.  At the end of the conversation, she told me that we were like salmon that swim up the stream.  We have to work very hard to hold our ground in trying to make things better.  One cannot give up even if it looks impossible.  The minute we stop, we will lose our progress.  We have to keep trying in the hope that we can make it further and be successful in making life better - making the world better by doing our part.  My mantra became "be the fish" that day, and I utter it to myself often as a reminder to push forward, despite my shortcomings or struggles.

So I will be practicing on a shortcoming yet this evening - practicing the good ol' Spanish.  Love to all, whether you are reading this in English, Russian, German, French or Arabic, and thank you for reading.

Be the fish!

 

Sleeping Man and Cat

Charcoal drawing - a new work from this past weekend.

Sleeping Man and Cat, 2013, Krystal Booth

Charcoal on Paper, 24x18"

For purchase on Etsy:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/128854057/original-charcoal-drawing-18x24-sleeping

 

(Detail)

 

Another painting was finished as well.  It was a good weekend in the studio.  The painting is so wet still that there is sheen that seems to be unavoidable when photographing it for now.  I'll try to post it later this week.

 

I hope your Monday is going well, and that you all have a very good beginning to your week!  Love to all, and thanks for looking!



 

Rothko Over Rembrandt Hair and Estes All Around

I made a new work while planning a new work!

Rothko Over Rembrandt Hair and Estes All Around, 2013

Photographic Print Series, Ink on Ivory Cotton Paper, 11x8.5" 

Krystal Booth

 
 

I printed out a photograph as a reference to hang on the easel for a painting.  My printer is running out of ink, and this is what came out.  Instant love.  I had to print out a series of five of them on good cotton paper while I could, as I couldn't do this again if I tried.  Happy little accident!

 

Due to this print out, I saw visual references to Mark Rothko, Rembrandt (his hair in a particular self portrait), and Richard Estes.  It turned out to be a good reminder of some artists that I have been fascinated with off and on through the years.

 

 

Sit Here for Three Days

"What are you going to do with three days off?"

"I don't know.  Probably paint, paint, and paint."

My boss thinks it's so strange that I could be so completely happy with painting or drawing so much.  He sees it as sitting inside the house in the same spot for a very long time.

I read a little blurb from an artist today that said that she believed that artists were a lot like cats.  We are pleased with being in one place for hours, narcissistic and have a shameless need to be loved and understood.  I would agree with a lot of that...not the narcissistic part of course, for I am lovely. haha

The truth is we have so much going on in our heads in reaction to what we are working on that we have no desire or need to go elsewhere.  We lose track of time.  We do not care that we are wearing two different socks, and our hair looks like a bad version of an Elvira 'do.  We do not realize that our leg is asleep...until we take a break and we finally acknowledge that we are still confined to these bodies of ours.  It is important to take walks inbetween sessions and be active...I haven't been exercising like I should lately.  I'm going to get back into that this weekend as its the perfect time for it.

Tonight I'll be layering gesso onto a couple of sheets of paper in preparation for painting over the next few days.  I may also pull out my last 18x24" canvas that I have on hand.  How fast it can be to go through them!  Because the canvas is ready, I will probably begin a work on that tonight.  I have decided on a composition that would be well suited for it and am curious to see how it will turn out.  It is another train image.

In the last few days, I've done some real flops.  One was a painting with oils and graphite, and the other was a graphite drawing.  Both lacked structure and energy.  I didn't stop when I should have on the painting.  These two will be great for the gallery setting of a dumpster.  Moving on!  :)

I hope you have a wonderful Friday and a fabulous weekend!  What fun things do you have in the works for the weekend?

Thanks for reading, and love to all of you!

Being Prepared and the Making of Flesh

"We'll call you tomorrow morning if you've got the job.  You'll know by around noon."

The principal did not call.  I knew I shouldn't have agreed to meet him for an interview so spare of the moment like that.  I had received a phone call the day before from a principal of an elementary school in the area who was interested in hiring a fine art teacher.  I had not applied.  He found my application for teaching art education from the previous year in the school district pool of applicants.

I was to meet him in an hour.  I rushed around frantically throwing on professional wear that had been tucked away in the back of our cluttered closet, grabbed my teaching portfolio, and was out the door for the forty minute drive.  I did not have time to prepare by researching the school other than printing out directions from Google.  It had been two years since teaching, and there was no time to review my materials.

The interview went okay, but it was no wonder that I didn't get a call that next morning.  I was a bit rusty and it showed as my brain hesitated to remember education terminology, and my confidence was incredibly lacking due to that.  If only I would have had even an hour to refresh, research, and prepare it would have made such a difference.

This happened at the end of last summer and I will not make this mistake again.

It's that time of year when the job postings begin to be posted for teachers and I have decided to re-read my art education textbook Art for Life:  Authentic Instruction in Art by Tom Anderson and Melody K. Milbrandt again, as well as revisit all of my lesson plans and remember particulars from my teaching experience.  I was thinking that it would probably be a good idea to write up a curriculum for the high school level again as an refresher exercise.  I always really enjoy creating them anyway to see how diverse I can stretch the unit while still strengthening the central theme of inquiry.

Another book I've been reading is Man with a Blue Scarf:  On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud by Martin Gayford.

It has been great so far by getting a glimpse behind the scenes of one of my favorite painters.  Thank you, Washington County Library, for giving me the opportunity!  I find it understandable, admirable, and crazy how long Lucian Freud took to create his works.  I believe this particular painting took around 130 hours.  That's an incredibly long time, but by looking at Mr. Freud's amazing works, I can see why it would take that extreme duration in order to get down such remarkable observations.  The flesh, the flesh.  No one does flesh the way Lucian Freud does flesh.

What have you been reading lately?

 

Love is Sharing Headphones in the Back of the Bus

For the last few days I've been working and busy, busy.  This past weekend was absolutely beautiful in Portland - 77 degrees on Easter.  Matthew and I rode the bus to Washington Park to blind others with our paleness.  The bus ride over was so fun as we felt like school kids at the very back of the bus seat dancing when no one was watching.  And yes, the robot was definitely one of our sweet, sweet moves.   

 

I couldn't stop having a cheshire grin the whole way there!  I tried to act "cool" by being normal (aka not smiling and acting completely as if a bus ride was the dullest thing on earth to do), but that just wasn't happening...

So we made it to the Rose Garden.  We layed under a weeping willow tree and watched a crow land and take off above our heads over and over.  You know what we were occasionally worrying about.

After time spent there, we walked down to Waterfront Park and walked down the riverside.  Matthew is the world's worst icecream eater...so that was a special highlight of my day.  He had it dripping down his hand, onto his coat jacket and all we could do was laugh...and then I smugly gave him my spotless napkin when I was finished.  He called me a name and I laughed like a bastard.

I hope you all enjoyed Easter and the beautiful weekend!  Just thought I'd share my fun day with you - it was fantastic.  So fantastic that I would love to do it all over again as soon as possible.  Just maybe not eating icecream right before climbing a vertical mile on the way back.

Thank you for reading and love to all of you!