“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” —Claude Monet

It seems like FOREVER that I am in start up on the latest painting in the Lower Haight series, the bathroom at Toronado. I really thought that this was going to be an easy, fun painting. I laid in the initial color and composition and then got stuck. I guess this is similar to what they call writers block.

I suddenly did not know where I was going. My normal way of painting is to get the under colors in and then start bringing up the actual paint. In this case I found that the under color or lay in worked. Not a usual experience, and luckily I had mixed a huge amount of that color (which now lives in the studio refrigerator… it’s like gold).

Unlike oils that you can walk away from and come back to on your palette the next day, acrylic is fast drying. If you want to keep the acrylic colors that you have mixed you can cover in plastic wrap and either store in the fridge or freezer. Just remember to let it warm back up when you bring it out again – the original consistency and color will be usable as if just mixed.

What is a palette? Well, any surface that the artist uses to mix the colors on/ transfer paint from. Many artists working in oils use an old windowpane, for acrylic I use plastic (the same one I have been using for, well more years that I care to say – college days – so I guess I am being “green”?). Wood can also be used, but it tends to not be slick and soaks in the color.

On a sentimental note, I keep my Dad’s wood palette in my studio with me… I love looking at the paint stains that he made in the 1950’s when he was working in oil doing abstracts.

Back to the painting. Today I decided that opera just wasn’t going to get me moving on the colors, so I switched to some “lets get danc’n rock”. It helped. I dug in, said to myself “forget about it, just paint… color color color!” I love it when color starts to happen, what a rush!

Color is not always obvious. Take a moment. Look around. It’s there. It can be subtle. It can be beautiful in the most unexpected places.

In the sky, on the ground, beautiful patterns and wonderful surprises are right there, waiting.

When my friend Sara shared her iPhone photos of our neighborhood (intersection of Haight and Fillmore) I was taken by the beauty of the MUNI wires. How could I pass this everyday on the way to the Studio and have missed it?

Wires are starting to disappear in our cityscape, “they say” it’s beautification, well, perhaps, but while they are still here, do not miss the urban beauty… someday soon this will be a nostalgic memory of a century past.

Here is another photo that I took of one of the few remaining above ground telephone poles in the Lower Haight.

Many artists are doing wonderful paintings that are inclusive of wires and poles. I look at these and simply go “wow”. Our urban landscape displays a natural color palette.

I did a small painting in 2009 of the Roxy Theater on 16th Street - just a fun, abstract interpretation of color. I did not think about the wires when I started it and as I was laying in the painting I realized they were so part of the view.

We also have amazing views looking down, the streets, the mundane that we pass over; there are wonderful patterns, like magnificent abstracts in steel and concrete.

The studio chair

I have been searching Craigslist and every used furniture store in town for months to find the perfect hanging out chair for the studio. I was searching for a cheap, somewhat beat-up old leather club chair, thought it would give that whole Paris artist studio feel on raining afternoons.

Then, one morning, there it was, on Craigslist - “ Ikea red chair $20.00”. I was so excited; the photo was of the same style chair that we had purchased from the Ikea in Roma for our Pz. Bologna apartment. Why was I looking for Paris, when a memory from Roma was the perfect answer? And in my budget!

Here is a photo of the same chair in Roma – with our very wonderfully tacky plastic bow-up Christmas tree (which has become a ritual that continues in San Francisco). I find myself (if I can get Taxie out of it) sitting and reflecting on the work I am doing. I love my new chair!

And in addition to finding the perfect chair, my friend Sara (and lucky me, our next door neighbor) has been coming to work in the studio with Taxie and I. It has been good to have her company, as it can sometimes feel a bit isolating to work alone.

Sara has been working on a figurative drawing that she is experimenting with, using small lines only - a bit tedious to say the least (I am in awe of her concentration!) Oh, and BTW, it is quite good; I am looking forward to seeing the finished work. As you can see in the photo, Taxie is very happy to have someone else around and is guarding Sara. That seems to be her new “job”.

I finally finished the Minnie’s Memphis Bar-B-Que painting (which Sara renamed “Ghosts of Pigs Past”… love that! See enlargement above) So, this week while Sara has been working on her drawing, I have started the next in the Lower Haight Series, the bathroom at Tornado. I have gotten the color laid in and next week the “painting” starts.

The blank canvas

I often feel like I am in the marble quarries of Michelangelo’s Carrara when I am picking canvas for my next painting. It’s a ritual, I touch the surface and I look at the wood stretchers for size. For me, it is always new and exciting. I love this part of the process.

Generally, I pick my canvas based on an idea that is away off as I am usually in the middle of another painting. I pick it out; take it to the studio and it waits, stacked up with the rest of them.

When I am close to completing a painting I start to prep the new one. This means getting the Gesso on. Gesso is the Italian word for “chalk” and has this very long and, for us painters, romantic history. It represents the beginning and the possibilities. For non-painters it is simply used for both sizing and priming the canvas.

I thought I was almost finished with the Minnie’s Bar-B-Que painting, and then it took on it’s own life (I am getting used to this) and I am nowhere near done. But, that said, I have prepped the canvas for what I think will be the next painting in the “Lower Haight” series, the bathroom at Tornado. I am looking forward to starting this new one – should be fun!

Oh, and thank you John @ Artbot Photography for posting up some of my paintings on your web page! BTW, if you are in need of having your work photographed, John’s a great guy, always responsive and easy to work with - he delivers on time.

The art of French winemaking, the process of California painting

The painting process. Artists approach painting in unique ways and it is much the same for the great winemakers of the world. There are basics of course, but we all have our methods, our aesthetics, and the love of what we do. Both are passionate.

I am very lucky to have wonderful and interesting people in my life, and Valerie Aigron, is no exception – she is an amazing and passionate women who loves what she does. Yes, yes, Val, I still owe you that “Martini” painting – soon I promise! (Valerie is currently the Export Manager of Cave de Rasteau in Provence www.cavederasteau.com and when she was in San Francisco last spring she introduced me to yet another amazing and passionate women, Mulan Chan-Randel.

Mulan is the French Regional and Rhone Valley wine buyer at K&L Wine Merchants (she knows her “stuff” to say the least and is currently a candidate in the Master of Wine program). Mulan has started a wine blog that I would like to share, mumu vignes. The web address is www.mumulesvignes.com … check it out it’s fantastic!

The painting… getting there. It’s interesting, with the current paintings I am not doing any pre-sketches, I find that with the subject matter of these painting they seem to take on a life of their own anyway, so why bother. I just sketch out directly onto the canvas (abstract I approach differently, still doing a pre sketch). I have stopped fighting with the canvas, well, for the most part.

I get an idea in my head and just start painting (like my friend Matt said to me while having a glass of wine in my studio and looking at the paintings; “I’ve always wondered what was in your head… kinda frightening”).

The first step is to sketch in the idea/ basic composition.

2nd, I lay in base colors and start laying in the color flow around the canvas.

I tend to paint “off the canvas”, meaning, not ending the “story” at the edges. Next I start “developing” the full canvas. Somewhere at this stage is when the unexpected happens, that’s when it gets exciting… one color leads to another.

Then the fear factor. I think every artist goes through this. The “I don’t want to screw it up” part. But, I have learned that’s the process, you go on, and when it’s done, you know. At that point, you walk away and just let it be what is meant to be.

Painting with acrylic and Taxie the studio pup

I sometimes feel, and in this very soothing way, like I am living in a Norman Rockwell panting or something. Taxie the Studio Pup, who still somehow thinks that I am going to desert her and send her back to the SPCA , settles under the easel at my feet. I put my headphones on and start to paint.

Speaking of dogs, my life with Taxie is so about Dubose Dog Park, it’s a Lower Haight/ Dubose Triangle/ Wiggle life style. I am reminded of the San Francisco painter Roy De Forest’s “ Country Dog Gentlemen”. He did this painting in 1972 using polymer on canvas. Polymer is an acrylic based product. Well, to be exact, polymer and matte mediums are used to extend and thin acrylic paints, while promoting even flow and leveling, and maintaining the film's stability. This might be boring, but it is important as I now paint in acrylic. I started experimenting in the early 70’s using water based house paints as a wide range of colors were not readily available at the time… wow, how the medium has progressed and been enhanced. (And just to name a few who also worked in acrylic: Rothko, Lichtenstien, Warhol, Hokney).

I find it amazing that so many gallery owners are still unwilling to show artists who work outside of the “oil on canvas” box (and so love people like John and Jessica Trippe of Fecal Face Gallery www.fecalface.com/SF aren’t stuck in the proverbial past) isn’t art and medium up to the artist? Isn’t it all a valid means of expression? Don’t get me wrong, I love working in oils, but with a dog in a studio, it’s toxic. Acrylics have there own challenges, experimenting with pushing the color, and the medium being sensitive to weather conditions as they are fast drying when it’s hot, can get gummy when it’s humid or damp. I find acrylic very rewarding and challenging. Isn’t that what art is, what the artist chooses to push?

Speaking of pushing. I love periodically visiting fellow 2nd Floor Studios artist Kirsten Tradowsky to see what she is up to. Kirsten seems to always push her limits and I so admire her wonderful work. She does her own thing... and yes, paints in oils and get’s “rock’n” colors!

Winter light

I am not sure exactly what date is the actual start of winter, but as my friend Liz would say; “Just Google it!”. All I know is that the studio is cold and the light has changed. It is very inviting, moody and romantic. I love that there is a hole in the window (which could potentially destroy the paintings from the moisture), but I have covered it with plastic for the near term. It feels so Paris, circa 1910. It feels so much like what an Artists studio should be... there has to some suffering doesn’t there?

I am always grateful for shows, so many thanks to Andy G. @ Cafe Que Tal for inviting me to have a show for this month, December. Stop by if you get a chance (see event listings on my web page www.clarussell.com for address).

I am currently continuing my “Lower Haight” series to get ready for the next show in April at Bean There Cafe (thanks Maurice F.). I have just finished #3, LH Terrace View

and now working on #4, “Memphis Minnie’s”... about 2/3rds along with this one (and making my partner Anne and neighbor Sara crazy with all the neurotic “what do you think, what do you thinks”). Hope to have it finished up next week.

The “heat is on” to get ready as this show is in “my hood”.

#1 is Noc Noc Bar and #2 UVA Enoteca

Just booked a show at the coveted Jumpin’ Java (thanks Sal F.) for January 2012... wonder what work I will have in two years? The process is always interesting.

Yes, the process is always interesting. IPod back on, Italian Opera. Taxie at my feet. It’s all good!