Talking while Drawing

Sketching vs watercoloring

Interviewer: Can you explain why you feel comfortable talking while sketching with a pencil but not while painting with watercolor?

Stanley: Yes, it's something I've thought about. Pencil and paint, watercolors, that is, are different media. 

Interviewer: Different strokes for different folks?

Can talk...

Stanley: Not different folks. It’s media-driven. In sketching you can pause and in watercoloring you can’t. With pencil I can
stop and resume without losing the flow. With watercolor, once the paint is on the paper, you can’t correct easily.

Interviewer: So technicalities govern the workflow?

Stanley: There are techniques requiring close attention, like wet-on-wet, dry brush, and layering.

Interviewer: Is there anything in the way the two media make you feel?

Can't talk...

Stanley: Oh yes. Sketching is more casual. With painting it feels more intimate, almost like a dialogue between me and the canvas. So talking is like another person interrupting the conversation.

________

Voice-over

When sketching with a pencil mistakes can be erased easily and you can pick up where you left off. Watercolor painting requires adaptability and embracing imperfections. In other words, knowing when to control and when to let go, to anticipate how the paint will behave while also allowing for serendipitous effects. 

Giovanni: A shop/writing den in Tokyo

Nakamichi Street in Tokyo. A quaint shop filled with Italian posters, papers, calligraphy pens...

Giovanni: Buongiorno.

Masa: Buongiorno. I'm quite interested in traditional Italian papers, especially those from Fabriano.

Giovanni: Ah, Fabriano. You have good taste. 

Masa: I've used Fabriano papers for my watercolor paintings. Nice texture.

Giovanni: Aha. An artist, you are then. Most people just come in and take a look at the posters and wander off. But I like it this way. It gives me plenty of time to work on a novel I'm writing.

Masa: A novel?

Giovanni: Set in Italy during the Renaissance.

Masa: I've always found novels to be a wonderful way to learn about other cultures and times.

Giovanni: Novels paint us into different worlds and eras. But my novel is a labor of love, and this shop serves as my writing den. It's quiet, and I can immerse myself in the world of Renaissance Italy while minding the shop.

Masa: Nice. Writing a novel set in Renaissance Italy while running a shop, great. What’s the plot of the novel?

Giovanni: It's a tale of intrigue, art, and love set in Florence during the height of the Renaissance. Character-heavy. It's my way of bringing a piece of Italy here to Tokyo.

_________

Voice-over

And the conversation ends with an exchange of names and contacts. Scribed on a slips of Fabriano paper with a quill pen.

Bicycle under a Persimmon

Painting a persimmon tree…

Instructor: Simple.
Learner: Yes. In keeping with my watercolor skill level.
Instructor: Does it have a meaning?
Learner: It does. I’m painting the tree but it reminds me of when I got my first bicycle I’d park it under the persimmon tree in the garden.
_________
Voice-over
Boyhood bicycle-hood memory from 60 years ago. The boy in him recalled the bicycle, while the septuagenarian appreciates the tree. Vision is fusion.

Art Nouveau show at RiverCity

Three nouveau artists…

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Audrey: A fascinating grouping: Beardsley, Mucha and Klimt.

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Alison: Overlapping lives.

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Audrey: Although Beardsley died young aged 26, Klimt at 56 and Mucha at 79.

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Alison: So which picture impressed you the most?

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Audrey: Walking through the 3D room with all the faces and golden arrows and chains swirling about.

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Alison: Ah. Modernizing the nouveau? For me, I liked the life stories and minimalist approach to exhibiting their works. Stories behind the pictures. Like that stunning portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. And the framing of it.

_________

Voice-over

Some say that banker and sugar baron Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer believed that his wife and Klimt were having an affair and asked Klimt to paint her portrait thinking that this would dissipate their passion. Not all artists fall out of love with their subjects but it is said that this worked. Klimt worked on the portrait for four years 1903 to 1907 leaving a shimmering image called The Woman in Gold, later stolen by the Nazis and returned to the family in 2008.

...

Niccolò Codazzi

Art Gallery Front Desk...

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Receptionist: Shall I renew your annual subscription?

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Octavia: No thanks. Only came once the past year. The Corsini collection. Loved the Codazzi pieces. Nostalgic architectural ruins. Fusion of reality and fantasy.

Niccolò Codazzi:
Figures, architecture, an ominous Vesuvius

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Receptionist: That was a good collection. Nothing since I’m afraid. We hope to get more collections from overseas. Sometime.

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Octavia: So it’s hardly worthwhile getting an annual.

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Receptionist: I know what you mean. New Zealand has a hard job getting funding and arranging exhibitions from overseas art museums.

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Octavia: Catch 22. Can’t get the numbers, hard to get funding.

___________

Voice-over

A receptionist who agrees. Paintings from long ago and faraway can be inspiring. Good PR or honest opinion? Anyway, Niccolò Codazzi (Napoli 1642 – Genoa 1693), an Italian painter of architectural paintings, capricci and vedute, that was well curated exhibition. More please, Auckland.

...

Reduction in Jazz and Painting

Picasso: Three Musicians

A jazz elder and an art critic compare blue notes…

Jazz Elder: Jazz is about simplifying. Play a bunch of notes, take out the ones you don’t need. Just leave the pretty ones. That’s what Miles said.

Art Critic: Like an artist simplifies all the clutter in a scene to its essentials, a few lines, a few colors. That’s what Pablo said.

Jazz Elder: And twelve basic notes can generate an infinite number of sounds.

Art Critic: A few lines can suggest an infinite number of shapes and three primary colors can generate millions of shades.
_________
Voice-over
A parallel conversation. Both saying the same thing. Quoting their gurus. Reaching the same conclusion. Manifestum est reductionem.
...

The Primavera as Classical Narrative

C  -----------  B  ------------- A

In a Medici courtyard…

Sandro: The picture is classical and the plot is likewise classical.

Lorenzo: How say you?

Sandro: It is a right to left narration.

Lorenzo: We read from left to right.

Sandro: Direction does not matter. Harken to the story. At right, there is Zephyrus, the March wind. He captures Chloris and she becomes the goddess of spring, Flora. See, she scatters roses thus.

Lorenzo: And the woman at the center of the story?

Sandro: It is no earthly woman. That is Venus, attended by the Three Graces.

Lorenzo: They seem to spurn Chloris.

Sandro: Nay, they turn their backs on Zephyrus with his earthy love. Instead, they lean towards Mercury who loves knowledge.

__________

Voice-over

The Primavera is a depiction of one part of Ovid’s Fasti, a poem explaining the earlier Roman (not Julian) calendar. It is linear, and thus classical, beginning in January and ending in June. But critics say in places it is so allegorical as to border on erroneous. As such, Ovid’s narrative is also said to be fragmentary and difficult. He left it unfinished. Post-classical narrative?

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