A Limbo Room for Artwork

Do you ever wonder where your paintings go when you are stumped about what to do next with them and they're not quite ready for exhibition or sale? They sneak out of your room at night and start living under the radar in my Limbo Room.

You'll never guess what I found Googling for "Limbo", a painting by a follower of my old friend, Hieronymous Bosch :

"Christ in Limbo" by Follower of Hieronymous Bosch, image taken from this Wikipedia source.

"Limbo" is a term used in the Roman Catholic Church for a place where one's soul goes if it isn't quite qualified for Heaven but isn't quite disqualified, either. You'll need to search around the internet for more information on the Church's position since frankly, I don't know it, and besides, I've already been told that my posts are too long and boring and all artists actually want to know is this: how did you mix that color? closely followed by the question,  how can I get into a good gallery?

By the way, getting into a good gallery is not actually the equivalent of your painting getting into Heaven. Getting your painting sold is the equivalent of getting your painting into Heaven.

Anyway, so there's your painting with something that makes it not quite ready for sale. Take a good hard look at your work in Limbo for a minute. What, in general, is going wrong there? Is the drawing off, the color garish, are there hopeless technical issues, is the concept too boring, or is the design weak or uninteresting? A lot of my own problem paintings are the result of insufficient planning before I start working on a painting. Sometimes parts of a painting can be salvaged, a portion isolated and restretched and saved.

 If you're a professional artist, you have to keep up your quality in a competitive economy, but you cannot afford to have too many paintings end up in Limbo. You'll run out of room, for one thing, and you'll go broke.

I was going to include a photo of my Limbo area but I've decided not to, it's too embarrassing. Meanwhile, I go into Limbo every few months and throw my weight around, throwing out hopeless paintings by pushing them into a funnel and making them swim in a foul black liquid (see above). It's a bad feeling to do that, especially if you've worked a long time on a piece, but it's necessary.

You might enjoy the version of Limbo Rock below, with a still-spry 72-yr. old Chubby Checker. (I couldn't find a decent video of him performing this song from the 60s.) You could play it as upbeat background music while you go and throw out a few paintings.

A Project Board for Your Studio

Hope you can read the little signs above, it's a section of my Project Board. You're supposed to read the captions from left to right and then drop down a line, that's the sequencing of any given project, reading like a cartoon strip.

An artist is a business owner in the business of making some art. Unless you have a dedicated team or devoted supporters, you'll have to be the one to manage your paperwork and business matters. Things can easily get out of hand and you can quickly be swamped and disorganized, or you can do forgetful things like send out a painting before you photograph it. Worse, good ideas can get lost or forgotten.

Never lose track of the financial aspects of these things, you won't keep working full-time in the art world for very long if you do.

I'm a portrait painter as well as a gallery painter and teacher, so at times there are a lot of my different projects all up in the air at once, in various stages of completion. I can forget where I am with any given matter when things get really busy. I have a family that I'm supposed to keep track of, too, so believe me when I say that this project board has really helped me. This project board is a big bulletin board where I can see everything I'm supposed to be doing with my art life at a glance.

Right next to this block of little notes is another block for 'Portrait Projects' so there is a parallel universe taking place there, too. The portrait project board is a little more complicated because there are phone calls, sittings, etc.

On top of the two project boards, along the top of the board, I have a chronological chart with dates, showing the deadlines, guidelines and rules for shows I'm supposed to be in and contests I might want to enter. I also pin up flight information for shows I want to fly out to, or for portrait sittings.

When I write this all out sitting here at 5:00 am it sounds like my life is wildly exciting, doesn't it? That's pretty funny.

So let's say I have an idea about a painting... I give it a working title (or maybe I'll just describe the visual ) and pin it under the "concept" tag.

Projects move from left to right, so from here things go to "sketches, references, sizing" (where I will sketch out my idea, or maybe I might already have a sketch of that idea, it depends) and on down through the categories. Sometimes (that is to say, pretty often) ideas get stalled,  thrown out or derailed altogether. Projects can get stuck here for a long, long time. They also can get stuck in the "Work On Painting" slot.

See the label up there in the top photo titled "Upload Image to Artwork Archive"? I mentioned Artwork Archive a few months ago; it's a great way to check up on prices, sizes of paintings and where your painting is currently located. Don't laugh, if you do this for a long time, you'll need a system.

When my project board system is working properly, my dedicated production staff coordinates seamlessly with the Varnishing Department, the Photography Unit and the Shipping Division, all the way up to the asleep-at-the-switch Marketing Department, so that there is supposed to be a steady flow of paintings from mind to market, so to speak.

Keeping a Still Life Alive - "Gardenia on Her Side"

This is a small tip for you, but it might help. When painting flowers or vegetation, consider tubing up the flower to keep it blooming for an extra day or so. This is especially important if you have a flower sitting on a shelf or otherwise in limbo. Otherwise, you'll watch it die of thirst before your very eyes, often in a matter of hours, especially in the case of a fragile flower like the gardenia, above. It doesn't last very long even in the best of circumstances, though. You can get these tubes at any florists shop, I think.

"Gardenia on Her Side", oil, 6" x 18"


I had a couple of tubes on this painting above and took them off to paint the stems when the rest of the branches were fairly dead. Every so often these gardenias defeat me, though, and I have to finish the paintings off via photos. I had to do the petals on the white flower that way; I can usually replace the flower with others from my gardenia bush, but I was flat out of flowers for a while and was strapped. For about a month, my flowers on my gardenia bush either browned within minutes after picking or fell off before blooming.

The thing I like about working this way, though, is that there was never a moment when the scene in front of me looked exactly like this, using these exact plants. It's a kind of analog - it shares motifs with other similar plants, but never quite looks like what was there at any given point. It's a synthesis of similar stems and flowers at different time periods on my shelf in front of me. Maybe it's a distillation, a condensation, of gardenia-ish-ness.

This painting is on it's way up to Abend Gallery for the 2013 Holiday Miniatures Show.

Alumalite Panels, Option One: Preparing with Gesso and Acrylic

Quality Control Inspector, Alumalite Panel Production Unit (Gesso Division, Desert Sector) of Linda Tracey Brandon, PC, LLC, PLC.

I just completed my second large painting on an Alumalite panel and since I'm starting my third one, I thought I'd share my process of making them, using gesso and acrylic paint. You can always mount linen to Alumalite instead; I'll post later on about how to affix linen.

Alumalite is a product (like Dibond) in which two thin sheets of aluminum are bonded to a plastic core. Both are proprietary names and there are other brands and variations of this (such as Econolite, etc.) Dibond is sturdier, somewhat heavier and somewhat more expensive. Alumalite has a corregated plastic core and comes in various thickness. The sheets I order come in 4' x 8' sizes which I don't cut myself. Alumalite is just like its name, liteweight and can be dented, so watch out. It's not as fragile as something like foamcore but you can still damage it if you kneel on it or bash something against it. It's also hard to cut (so I'm told) so either find yourself somebody who can handle this for you (for all I know, that could be you, showoff) or ask the company that supplies it for you to make the cuts while you are also asking them to deliver it to you. Also, ask them to have their resident finicky neurosurgeon make the cuts so nobody will scratch it or make gouges in it. Don't make a huge order with anybody until you determine they are fussy enough for your taste.

Alumalite is very firm and will not flex, at least in the thickness I've been using, 1/4" (you can get other thicknesses). You won't need to brace it when you frame it. I haven't gone whole-hog and made the 4' x 8' size for a painting, though, so if you do that let me know if it will need bracing.

Alumalite comes with both sides coated with vinyl for delivery purposes. Remove the vinyl by stripping it off, that's pretty obvious.

Rough up the business side of the panel gently with sandpaper. Carefully sand any rough or sharp cut edges of  your panel. You probably don't need a power sander, just use sandpaper and a sanding block. I wipe off the panel afterward with an old wet towel.

Apply the gesso. I use Daniel Smith's stone gray acrylic gesso.

It's nice gesso, but I hate gesso. It's awful stuff, a hostile alien life form which wants to invade every orifice. If you drip it anywhere it will dry almost instantly, especially if you live in a desert environment, ruining everything since it will never wash out....! Wear plastic gloves, headgear, eye, mouth and ear protection too, if you have it!

Don't answer phone texts while working with gesso!

If possible, have one of your many lower-tier employees apply the gesso.

These big sponge brushes are fine for this part of it but they are badly made and always fall apart in the middle of a big job. Let this dry overnight, sand lightly the next day, wipe down with another old towel and repeat.

Man up, artist, because you are going to do the whole thing again but this time, you're going to apply coats of Golden's white acrylic paint. I decided to thin this a little with water and apply with a foam roller. I guess I could have used the foam roller with the gesso coats also, I just don't like to thin down the gesso very much, but you could do it. I'll probably skip the sponge with the gesso and just roll with the roller next time, it's just that my gesso dries so fast I wasn't sure I could do the whole panel, and I thought I might get a soft light spraying of gesso spatter on every possible surface, including me. I bought a super-soft roller so the coat was even with few ridges. After the coat with the foam roller, I sanded again very lightly by hand.

I wrapped up the foam roller in case I wanted to use it again for the next coat... but...

...I ended up using little makeup sponges for the last, final coat.  I wet the sponge with a little bit of water and it goes on nicely, but the sponges end up feeling like wet marshmallows, disintegrate  with use and need to be replaced often, so you'll go through several of them.

By this time your hourly employees have gone on strike and you're having to cross picket lines of angry masked protesters screaming and wielding broken beer bottles, nervously held back by riot police. So, by now you are doing it all by yourself. You should send this whole operation offshore! All this, for one lousy panel! You'll feel like drowning your sorrows with this sponge water by the time it's over, but don't do it.

The final thing to do is a light wet sanding. I used a block wrapped in wet/dry sandpaper for this.

My gesso/acrylic preparation process is basically what David Kassan does with his aluminum panels, unless he's changed his process. The Stone/Gluck team over on Painting Stuff to Look Like Stuff are also painting on aluminum substrates and have recently described their process as well - both links are on the right side of this page, be sure to click over there on both sites for more info.

Paul Foxton on "Learning to See" and "Creative Triggers"

For a few years now, my artist friend Paul Foxton has had a site (and now he has two sites) devoted to helping artists learn to teach themselves traditional representational art techniques. His first site, "Learning to See", (see link below)  is about his own journey; his second site, Creative Triggers is his own web course on drawing, designed to teach and support other artists around the world.

Paul is an excellent, patient, calm and articulate teacher and delivers a ton of useful information, encouragement and guidance. Creative Triggers is a membership website encouraging people to become skilled in traditional drawing techniques by practicing in a lively internet community of artists.

Yesterday, Paul posted a moving commentary on the state of art education, particularly in Great Britian. He shares his journey with us about how he has had to teach himself basic methods, the road to getting where he is now and why he has created Creative Triggers. I have enormous respect for him and what he's doing on the internet.

You can catch up on what he has to say (and wish him a happy belated birthday, too) through this link on "Learning to See".

"Phoenix in the Distance"

"Phoenix in the Distance", 8" x 14"

Painted on site at Echo Canyon, before they closed it off. What is going on there these days, anyway? The trail has gotten too busy, I guess. It's a shame.

One of the extraordinary things about Phoenix is the collection of city mountain trail parks. When I first moved here I hiked the Echo Canyon trail several times a week (yes, to the top, or usually to the top, you scoffers) and developed a massive superhero physique. (Something like that doesn't stand out in Phoenix, though, since there seem to be thousands of people with superhero physiques here, I think they are all drifting over from California or something.) I've had to cut this mountain training stuff out, though and I don't have these superpowers anymore, but I can still make it up to some of these rocky outcroppings with my painting gear.

This painting will be at the Scottsdale Artists' School annual fundraising Beaux Arts Bash, held this year on Nov. 9th, 2013. The bash is a wonderful way to help out the school and purchase work from contributing artists. Many of the artists who teach in Scottsdale donate art to the school for the fundraiser and so you'll have the chance to buy work from many of your favorite workshop and weekly teachers. Information about the sale is at the school website.

The party is fun and the sale is exciting. There's also the kind of friendly glee that can only come from a city populated by Midwesterners from places like Chicago, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan, people who are still dazed with happiness and gratitude over the splendid Valley fall weather and by no longer rolling their cars in midnight icestorms on the I-94.

"The Garden of Earthly Delights"

"The Garden of Earthly Delights," Hieronymous Bosch, triptych on oak panels. Created sometime between 1490 and 1510.

A hi-res version of the above is available on this link to the Prado Museum.

Remember when...
...You were a teenager and you decided to take the Third Class Radiotelegraph Operator's License, which was required by the FCC to turn radio stations on in the mornings and off at night, because you figured this would increase the chances of being hired in broadcasting so you could someday have a job other than being a waitress, so you learned enough math to take the test and - quite incredibly - pass it, and years later you wondered why you ever let the License lapse because it would add a certain panache and possible suggestion of math skills to your current resume, but meanwhile, you had to get to somewhere in inner-city Detroit to take this test, so you got up at three or four o'clock in the achingly bleak cold to be driven there to be at the test on time, and you took the brain-shattering test, one of many such brain-blasting efforts you would make in your lifetime, by the way, only to muse much later that the acidity and quantity of brain-eating tests are probably the reasons you love to write periodic run-on blog sentences even though you know it is not funny to most readers and very wrong in a grammatical sense, not to mention a bad example to other writers, and after the FCC test you decided that, it being around 9:00 a.m. and you were too revved-up to eat anything, you would go and reward yourself by seeing a first-run movie in a big-city theater, so you happily settled into the 8th row center in front of the massive, pre-multiplex cinema movie screen because there was, excitingly, practically nobody else there and, in the dark, freezing, hollow, desolate vastness of the cavernous echoing theater, in a city that was in its own slow slide into despairing, decaying ruin...  you got to see the brand- new movie.... The Exorcist. 



ATTENTION to scary-movie avoiders: you can just skip this. You don't have to watch anything just because it's there.

If you weren't around when this movie first came out, you can't grasp the sensation this movie made on a surprised public. To see a young girl suffering on screen was itself enormously shocking, not to mention all that Hell and demonic possession business.

And by the way, while I'm on the subject of this movie, am I the only one who thought that the little weird orange statue of the creepy bird monster moved around mysteriously in the movie all by itself and nobody noticed or commented on it? Was that a set continuity glitch or was it part of the plot? If you've seen this movie recently let me know what you think, because I'm not watching it again.

To further the line of thought in the above paragraph, the concept that all matter is alive is called Hylozoism.  Tell me you didn't consider this possibility as a child. Now, there's a scary concept to explore! Stop chewing on the end of your pencil, your pencil hates that!

I'm writing all this because I'm trying to set you up psychologically for Heironymous Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights". I first encountered the third panel in an art book in my youth and so for years I thought the whole piece consisted of the single panel, Hell. (This was back when you couldn't get information about anything on the internet and so one would stumble innocently upon something strange and wonder to yourself, what the heck....?) I'm embarrassed to say that it was many years before I figured out there were two other panels to this iconic work.  The first panel depicts Paradise, the center panel represents the Garden of life's pleasures, and the third panel, as I said, is Hell.

Please note that even in Paradise, animals are gleefully eating other animals and tearing them to pieces, so in Bosch's mind, death and eating animals was always part of God's master plan. If I ran the cosmic Zoo, that is not really what I would do, but that's another blog post.

But Hell! That's where Bosch has let his imagination soar, or sink, or however you want to call it.

Detail of right panel, "Hell", of "The Garden of Earthly Delights", taken from this Wikipedia discussion of the painting.  Maybe it's not such a good idea to look at these images too closely right before you go to bed.

One interesting thing about this imagery is that Bosch has kept the scale of the fantastic in proper proportions so that it seems more visually credible. For example, the musical instruments are gigantic in Hell, but they are painted in detailed accuracy and in correct scale with one another.

This is the particular closeup of Hell (again, taken from the Wiki link for the discussion of this painting) that has stayed in my own mind all these years.It may have been that ghastly face that pulled me in,  perhaps that gaze is a magnet that pulls us into the painting, that makes us take a closer look.

There has been lots of analysis by scholars on this haunting painting and of course, modern eyes see this painting very differently than the medieval mind.(If you're interested in medieval theology and Netherlandish art, be sure to read about the subject more fully in online sources, it's interesting.) This work still possesses the power to appeal to our emotions, though, and I'm pretty sure there are an awful lot of people today that don't react to this panel on a purely scholarly level. They are thinking more along the lines of... please God, have mercy, spare me this end.

I don't want to want to delve too deeply about religious belief and the power of fear on this blog, although it's an interesting topic, isn't it? The point that I want to make today is that art can contain the power to shake us up, to make us stop and think about our own lives, to possibly even change our ways. Movies have supplanted the stationary visual image in their power to shape public culture. Where does this leave painting?

I think that painting still has the capacity for being more than a color coordinated decoration for the walls, an object for intellectual examination or an investment that we may someday recoup or leave to our heirs. It can inspire us, or make us quake in fear. There is an intellectual aspect and an aesthetic aspect to artwork but the key is the emotional impact, which resonates differently in each of us.

A great painting is a memorable painting, an tenacious image that gets placed in your brain.  The key to great artwork is that you can revisit it again and again to look and think about it, according to your own personal time frame and desires. It's a synergistic combination of content, technique, and viewer participation and understanding. (By the way, did you know that there is a theological doctrine of synergism? It involves the idea that salvation involves some sort of mutual cooperation between human freedom and the divine. I suppose that's what the concept of "grace" might be about. Perhaps it's as if someone throws you a ladder to salvation but you are the one who climbs up, or not, as you choose. Hmmm.)

A great painting is a silent portal with the thinnest of membranes. It's a portal that you can move in and out of, or not at all, as you wish. You can linger for a moment, for hours, or not at all. Time is yours to control. In this Bosch painting, you are welcomed to get a glimpse of an artist's idea of Hell. The good news is that you don't have to spend eternity there - you can take your eyes away any time you want to. I'll address this concept of imagery and frozen time later on in this blog. I think I need to think this through more fully.