What does arbitrary color mean?

To answer the question... What does arbitrary color mean?

When the colors an artist uses are not based on what he/she sees but chosen arbitrarily. The term implies that it has no meaning but it may have a symbolic meaning or emotional meaning.

In the painting above Matisse is using arbitrary color. The color does not try to match what is actually seen. The color is being used as a compositional element to balance the composition. The color creates rhythm and balance.

Look at the just the blue areas. The blue is placed in patches as the red and yellow are. If you follow the blue around the canvas it seems to simulate how our eye jumps around a scene stitching together our experience.

What do I need to buy if I want to start learning how to draw?

Here is my answer to What do I need to buy if I want to start learning how to draw?

Get a sketchbook, a pencil and practice all the time. That said I like to use a 2mm lead holder with 4B lead. Staetdler makes one with a point sharpener in the end. I like it because I can carry it with me and I don't have to worry about sharpening. It even works out to be less expensive if you compare the cost of drawing pencils and how much gets wasted in sharpening! A kneaded eraser is pretty great to have. I use the black hard bound sketchbooks 9x12 or sometimes 6x8. You don't need anything special but getting new toys certainly can be inspiring and keep you going.

What are rules and tips for foreshortening an object?

Here is an answer to a question about foreshortening.

You can figure out foreshortening by using the rules of perspective. It would be too complex to describe the rules of perspective here, but in a nutshell...

The basic idea of linear perspective is that objects in space look smaller the farther away they get from the viewer. If you learn to draw a box using linear perspective you will be able to draw boxes that appear to be in a three dimensional space. Anything can be put into a box. The parts of a thing can be broken up into smaller boxes. Even figures and the parts of a figure can be placed in boxes. The more you can master the rules of perspective the easier it will be for you to draw things in a 3D space. You will understand how and why things look foreshortened.

Air

Four paintings from the Air series framed and ready for David Joyce Gallery.

The Mayor's Art Show came down last month and I have two more shows before the end of the year. Four small paintings have been chosen for a group show at the David Joyce Gallery. These four are from a new series called Air. The title of the show is Taking Flight: a Visual Voyage. I had a twist on the concept that I hoped would fit. It did! The Fire Season series dealt with elemental forces. When Henry and I began learning about Robert Boyle's experiments with the vacuum and the bell jar, I began a journey of thought that inspired this new series. It is a fascinating project for me. The more I explore, the more questions emerge. My initial inspiration comes from the idea that Air is a complicated substance but invisible. There are connections to breath and spirit, nature and weather and also environmental issues. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Monotype

I added a couple monotype prints to my web page. Monotypes are much like original paintings. They are one of a kind works but they use a printmaking process of working on a plate and with an etching press. There is an energy to the process that I really like. These are part of the Fire Season series but were done a couple years ago. I haven't shown anyone before now.

Fire's Warmth by John Holdway

Two Rivers Pulsing

I have been working on a new series of abstract paintings that continue to explore elemental conceptions of nature. The series title is Two Rivers Pulsing ( at least the working title) which is from 

Emerson's poem Two Rivers. For me the poem speaks to my long interest in the expression of the internal and external worlds.

Two Rivers
by Ralf Waldo Emerson

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through the Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness taints its equal gleam,
And ages drop in it like rain.

Here is a glimpse of one of the pieces that I am finishing up from the series.

Here Beside the River

Sketchbook Studies

Jean commented on the method of doing thumbnail studies. I bucked this type of preliminary work, wanting to use a more improvisational approach in my work when I was younger. I worked intuitively and reacted to what was happening in the moment. When I began a series of realistic observational still life paintings 14 years ago I started to see the advantage to doing preparatory studies. When I started following the steps. (I actually created my own method somewhat based on classical techniques.) I was having less failed paintings and I was much faster. I could also expand and work in any size I wanted.

In researching classical methods and found that this preliminary work is extremely important. You can go to visit James Gurney's blog to start learning about adopting the old techniques. He is very generous with his knowledge. There is a huge explosion of information on classical painting techniques so you will have no trouble finding information. Other resources you might like are illustrators who work using classical methods such as Donato Giancola and Dan Dos Santos also there are atielier trained artists like Stan Prokopenko.

I have always been interested in intuition and improvisation. I have developed a synthesized technique for myself. I create dozens if not hundreds of thumbnail compositional studies. These play a different role than they do to classical or imaginative realism. I don't want to create a roadmap or plan for a painting. I want to focus on intuition and improvisation while I am painting even when it comes to composition elements. These studies serve as a method of developing the abstract visual language and mark making language. I find it extremely important in my work. 

Sketchbook Page

Magma Chamber on the easel

Idea Mining

To get ideas I just start doing these little scribbles. I am starting to look for something to develop. I am searching for the thing that will light the fire. The idea is the most important thing. I know what to do when the idea comes.

River Retreat Abstract

A lot of my work is moving toward abstraction. I haven't shown much of it on the web yet. Here is an example.

The epic feel in movies inspired me to do a series of long format watercolor studies.

Here is another longer format watercolor landscape format. I am inspired by the epic feel that filmmakers get when they use a long format.

Landscape Study

I am working on a watercolor landscape study in a longer format.

New Video New Class New Show

I have three things I want to report. A new video, a new class, and a new show.

I made a new time lapse video of myself painting a chickadee. You can see it on Youtube or Facebook. Please comment and let me know if you would like me to make more videos.

Next I am teaching a Workshop at Oregon Art Supply in Eugene, Oregon on March 14th and 15th. Check it out and sign up.

I am going to have a number of paintings on display at Oregon Art Supply in March and April. I will be at the First Friday Art Walk Friday March 6. I am going to bring my gear and do a bit of painting. I hope to see you there.

Food and Art

This year I decided to try something different. I started going to a writing group! I felt like an interloper since I don't feel like a writer and have never aspired to be a writer. As it is turning out I am find myself writing more and more to help further my painting. The group is very inviting even though I feel a little backward surrounded by many fine writers. I first published this post on johnholdway.com but since I decided to move blog posts here. I think this post was inspired in part by being a part of two food art exhibits this summer and meeting Mary of oneperfectbite.blogspot.com at the writers group.

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Michelle wrote about food in literature while getting her Masters degree from Johns Hopkins. We lived in Baltimore and spent many evenings drinking wine and talking about books, food, movies, ideas and art. Listening to her talk about how everything is affected by our relationship with food opened my eyes to how food is a tangle of the ordinary, spiritual, political and cultural. Michelle is my muse but I haven't done a pile of portraits of her. She is not a sit still kind of girl. She feeds my mind. The ideas make their way into my art.

I eventually started a series of paintings of food. I exhibited those paintings in many exhibitions including two solo shows, Shelf Life at Opus6ix Gallery and Fresh at David Joyce Gallery. Just recently I am included in two group exhibitions that question the role of food in culture. Farm to Table:Table at David Joyce Gallery in Eugene, Oregon and Culture and Agriculture at New Visions Gallery in Marshfield, Wisconsin both deal with the disconnection between the food we eat and its production. I heard Tony Shalhoub interviewed on the radio yesterday and that made me think of Big Night. Michelle and I saw that movie at The Charles Theater when it came out in 1996. The cultural enthusiasm over food was buzzing in the zeitgeist. When we moved to Eugene in 1997 The slow food movement and Community Supported Agriculture were taking off. Eugene already had well established farmers markets and community garden programs. We got a community garden plot and began growing our own vegetables. My series of still life food paintings began with squash grown from our community garden. Here is something I wrote for the Farm to Table:Table exhibit-

Farm to Table: Table Since the industrialization of our food supply we have begun to develop a vision of a romantic farm. We romanticize agriculture of the past. This is not so helpful in describing the past but instead tells us more about our own desire. Industrialization has many benefits and we cannot go backward. Industrialized agriculture also has costs. One of these is our connection to the food. We seem to need its connection: we want a beautiful vision of where our food comes from. Our food has never come from the Garden of Eden. It is doubtful the truth of food production will ever live up to that idea, but I see that we crave that vision. In that way food is important beyond it’s physical nourishment. In the painting of still life the subject takes on a new importance. The image is similar to a shrine. We are allowed the time to observe and contemplate. I feel that this exhibit is a connection to my own personal work. It seeks to question our own connection to the food we eat. How can we reconcile our physical needs with our spiritual needs?

Back to Blogspot

I am switching back to blogspot for studio news. I just don't have time to fiddle with the security issues of having a blog on my webpage. This is a picture of some works in progress on the shelf where I keep my paintings as they dry.

Preview of David Joyce Gallery

I took this picture of the show at David Joyce Gallery at Lane Community College. Come to the opening on April 23.

Exhibits Spring 2014

I have two shows happening now. A group show at the David Joyce Gallery and a solo show at the Stellaria Gallery.

David Joyce Gallery

There  are two of my paintings in a show at the David Joyce Gallery at Lane Community Gallery. The show is titled Farm to Table / Table. It is the last part of a three part exhibit. There will be an opening reception on Wednesday April 23, 2014 from 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm. Here is a link to great directions.

David Joyce Gallery
Center for Meeting and Learning
Lane Community College
Main Campus
2nd Floor
4000 E 30th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97405

Stellaria Gallery

I have a number of my still life paintings on display at the Stellaria Building in Eugene. They will be on display from March 2014 through the end of April. There will be a closing reception on Friday April 25, 2014. 6pm-9pm.

The Stellaria Building
2nd Floor
150 Shelton-McMurphey Blvd.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-686-0921
Here is a map to Stellaria

Big Flood

I am starting a series on floods. The idea is to draw figures moving through the water in the rain. The idea came from my sketchbook. I was drawing my son while he was playing in the river last summer. It is wonderful to live in a place where a kid can swim in clean water in nature. It is inspiring for my work just to be here. Later I was looking at my sketchbook and the drawing had a melencholy feeling. I saw it differently. The figures are in the midst of a disaster but are past despiration and now just trying to make their way through. I don't want to nail the metaphor down too much but these are the feelings that I have been working through in the studio for the last few years.

If this image stirs up a story for you, please share it in the comments.

Bulldog final

Here is the finished painting of the bulldog. 

Bulldog continued

I am continuing my bulldog painting.

I am working on the eyes a little and a shadow on the body area.

 I removed the gum from the eye reflection and and changed the spot on the right side.

Darkening the darks all over.

I put in a blue gray background.

This basically the finished piece. I am going to look at it for a few days and maybe add a couple touches here and there. I will have a print ready next week. Leave a comment if you want. Ask questions if you want to know more.