My class notes from March 5, 2016.

Next drawing class at the Rocky Neck Cultural Center is Saturday March 12, 9-12am. fee: $35.

contact debbieclarkeart@gmail.com; or cellphone 978-652-8273

What to bring: recent drawing(s) paper, pencil, white rubber eraser.
What I will bring: paper, pencil, white rubber eraser, pencil sharpener. Bucky's skull and alternative drawing media for exploration, including a length of crumpled white paper.
No prior drawing experience required.
local folk, kindly consider sharing this link. I am teaching because I have been asked to teach.

                           

                                       

                                       

The space fee is $25/hour. I would like to have the space covered with a minimum of 2 students. any additional will go towards my $30 application fee for the Goetemann Residency on Rocky Neck this summer. thank you for helping with these initiatives by giving yourself the gift of drawing or 'how to see and think like an artist'.

Best, Deb

Painting: Cripple Cove lowtide

Every once-in-awhile I have a go at the view towards Joey.

These are the remnants of the pier which burned down sometime

in the seventies. Wally's packing house once stood on these burnt

pilings stubs. I packed whiting there one very cold season when

I was just a girl and money packing fresh fish was good.

There were 2 paintings of this view. I killed one and kept the

best. 20x20" oil on canvas.

copyright clarke 2015

gloucester ma

feet on floor, eyes forward, brush-in-hand,

onward

deb.

Cripple Cove Prints

Last fall I started a series of distressed digital prints. I photographed the print on 10/1 and the date is imprinted on the photo of the distressed print. The prints of the prints will be offered for sale through FineArtsAmerica, as soon as I erase the date stamp. not sure why the date stamp was set. It detracts from the whole A link will be posted as soon as the images are available for sale 

Best as always,

deb.

Happy New Year! This is my first post of 2015 and I'm starting off the New Year by offering prints of my art for sale through FineArtAmerica. Spoons is a detail of a much larger painting that I frequently use as a 'source' for new compositions, etc.



Please take a moment and click through to the site. The bio has been updated, as well as, new offerings of the Ghosts of Versailles in the various work-in-progress states loved by so many, until i changed it. Seems change is the only constant in my art production.

There are no new shows in site, so I've decided to focus on some on-line marketing. I've spent most of today and yesterday updating, uploading and providing a few words to the tags, descriptions, etc. If you have always wanted a piece of my AHHT, here's your chance (at very reasonable prices).

BTW: If you are local and decide to purchase one of the prints, but want an original...get in touch with me. I can add an original signature, as well as, a few original brushstrokes, or metal leaf to the work so that you can have a 'one of a kind'.

Best to you as always,
feet on floor, eyes forward, brush in hand,
Deb

ps: I want to bombard the site with my work; but, have opted for a teaser. My plans are to update with new images once or twice a week. Maybe I can garner some interest and earn some dough to buy art supplies. onward. spoons acrylic prints and spoons acrylic art for sale spoons metal prints and spoons metal art for sale

Another Ghost of Versailles

still working on the Ghosts of Versailles.  This is a 20x20"  oil on canvas that I banged out late yesterday afternoon.  now, back to the other painting.  It just isn't coming together in a way that feels right.  This other painting gave me some clues.  Will see how it goes today.  changed up the palette with addition of alizarin and phthalo green to give some punch to the values.

best, and onwards,

deb.

Signed/unsigned

i signed it today then crossed it out  there is a freshness to the drawing that appeals to me.  i will turn it to the wall and let it it dry for a few days.  there is a fresh canvas that is triple primed with a burnt sienna imprimatura ready to go.  will put it on the easel and move onto the next one of the ghosts of versailles.  i think this painting feels very french.  what do you think?

best and onwards, 

deb

Ghost of Versailles re-grouping

Added a new few new colors to the palette:  manganese blue ad citron yellow.  The manganese blue is not a true manganese, which darkens to green, it is a pthalo blue mixed to the hue of manganese.  good in tints.  the citron yellow is a chrome or zinc yellow, not sure.  used to brighten ochre. raw umber:  a very dark yellow, burnt umber is the darkest yellow.  burnt sienna, the darkest orange, grumbacher red, a true red, neither blue, nor orange in tint or mixture. titanium white. french ultramarine dark.  i can bust out a lot of color with these babies.

This morning the grid was returned to, re-sized the masses, eliminated some stuff, beefed up the whites. This is the oddest painting I have ever worked on.  Still trying to live up to my potential.  

best, and onwards,

deb

Ghost of Versailles..and Benjamin Franklin's balloon.

Yesterday Nova featured the making of Ben Franklin's balloon at Versaille.  Part of the program was about the colors that the were used to create King Louis' gold on a blue background.  There were very strict recipes.  The blue was a cobalt base, the golds were shades of ochre.  Very good...it confirmed my instincts about painting that gold tone.

This morning I've started introducing the deepest ochres.

My right hand likes to go fast with the brush.  The canvas is only 24x24" and I don't want sloppy drippy stuff going on all over the place.  It is very challenging for me as the right hand has an innate knowledge, and I keep saying, not yet, we'll save the best for last.

Below are various details of the painting, any of which, could stand alone as a painting. Sometimes I fall in love small sections of a painting and decide to rework an entire painting around that one small section.  Instead of starting another painting, or derailing the work in progress, the prints of these details get re-worked into monotypes.

best, and onward

deb.

Ghosts of Versailles

This is a work in progress, an oil painting of my friend Paula and I in the Hall of Mirrors, on the left, and a bunch of tourists.  The work is progressing slowly, I'm holding back on a heavy handed brush with this one.

Almost daily updates are updated on facebook.  I'm debbie.clarke.5011,

My daughter Elizabeth has asked me to start posting less on facebook and to

start blogging, so here I am. 

best, and onward

deb.

 

this drawing pleases me.  i should track it down.  mixed media with foil on canvas.

it's snowing today.  these Sarto sandals had a lot of fun in the sun.

best,

stay snug.

will be on a posting binge today.

lots of stuff to share!

deb.

Walking in Gloucester: May 19 am

.

'Yellow'

automatic photo

copyright clarke 2012 

gloucester ma

Green.

Picasso paraphrase:  'i get so full of green that i must paint green.'

Debbie Clarke: have observed fish for so long that i now see fish in the landscape. 

Green.  is the first in a series of digital photos that i have been taking during my walks, drives around Gloucester.  This green is somewhere along a walk from Main Street to East Main.  There are so many beautiful scenes around Cape Ann, the web is full of the beauty.  some of it breathtakingly beautiful, some manipulated, some 'artsy'.  Viewed collectively I feel as if I have eaten too much cotton candy.  I've decided to let my camera capture my world from another angle.  it's all set on auto, because i don't understand all of the adjustments, nor do i want to.  i have discovered the ease with which i can zoom in on something.  the camera is so smart, it sees the world in compositions that i immediately respond to.

i trust you will too.

best,

deb

Walking to Work

                            ,

Captain Solomon Jacobs Park at The Head of the Harbor, Gloucester MA.  This far view towards Ten Pound Island always catches my interest.  So many things to look at from the up close to the far away, to the above, to the below, to the squeeze in-between.  I'm not inclined to paint this, to squeeze all of this into a flat plane; however, all of this informs my art.  Everything here, within, without, is in constant motion.  This is the essence, and yet so easy to forget, so easy to want to fix, but must surrender to:  change is the only constant.  the still point what binds all of this together is the between.

best,

deb

ps:  the top 2 pics are from my walk to work on Thursday morning April 18.  the bottom pic of the long view was taken yesterday morning April 19.  sometimes i sense the ocean breathing.

Here & Now! a historic house 'Revitalization' project

 deb clarke represents at The Sargent House Museum!  Sunday 7/17.

Spent a white hot afternoon working in the gardens of The Sargent House Museum in beautiful downtown Gloucester yesterday.  2 reverse glass paintings in process, 2 drawings.  a ton of photos. the newly painted blue chairs and tables interest me. I will go back later in the summer for another afternoon of painting.  The fish painting is not what I worked on (it is from 1995), it was there as an example of a finished verre eglomise.  will post pics later of what i did, and need to finish.

The Sunday series of "Here & Now" under the direction of Kate Laurel MacIntosh is a 'revitalization' project to draw interest to this historic house, the one time home of Judith Sargent Murray.  Stop by and chat with the artists working on Sunday afternoons in the garden and get $2 off admission to the museum; pay $8 instead of $10.  the museum is raising funds to re-place the Main Street fence with a fence more in keeping with the house.  here's the link to The Sargent House Museum.  the homepage is breathtakingly beautiful.  If you are an artist and would like to work in the gardens this summer, contact Kate Laurel MacIntosh at the museum.

best,

deb

ps:  if you work in the gardens on a bright sunny day, bring a hat, sunscreen, and an umbrella.  there is no afternoon shade.  i hid in the bushes from time-to-time to escape the sun.

Sargent House Museum, Sunday July 17

If you are in town, come on down! there will be art making and greeting in the garden of this great historic house museum!

the link will take you to goodmorning gloucester, where there is a great write-up about the artists that will be working in the gardens of the Sargent House Museum this summer.  Some of John Singer Sargent's early 'doodles' are on display this summer.  along with Judith Sargent Murray's little desk, and the shoe that was nailed against the chimney? The Sargent doodles are equated with today's 'refrigerator magnets' in one of the write-ups about the museum.  The gardens face Main Street (up the steps).  Entrance to the museum is on Middle Street.  come on down and say hello!

there is fruit growing in this garden.  it's going to be hot; so wear a hat.  i will bring some glass, some sharpies, some foil, some water, a hat, and see what happens.  oh, yes!  I am one of the artists working in the garden tomorrow!

best,
deb

faces i remember: new work-in-progress. Marilyn's Drawing Board

mixed media on laminated fiberboard.  a palimpsest.  Marilyn Buckles, an artist friend of blessed memory, gave me this drawing board to work on.  She had used it as a drawing support for several years, then I used it as a drawing/painting support for a decade or so.  Yesterday the memory of the plant series that we worked upon, together/apart led me to consider drawing.  This I did while all of our art conversations, visits flowed through me.  A figure emerged:  Marilyn at 3 and !/2 ' (a glass drawing of Marilyn advancing towards me.  her exact shape drawn upon the front of the glass, the exact size she appeared as i stood 2 feet in front of the glass, while marilyn stood 3 1/2 ' behind it.)  the painting broke.  i kept the shards.  after the memory moved through me, the marsh paintings appeared, dissolved, then the face began to emerge.  Marilyn's remembered words:  it is everything.  it is the surface, it is upon it, it is in it, it is object.  it is just everything.  yellow light fills the south window where we last met. 

best,

deb

paint failure

the acrlic layer failed. i was able to peel it off to the canvas. it tore the silver leaf. why? i sealed the drawing with egg yolk. egg yolk layers will accept thin oil layers, as well as, additional egg yolk layers. for up to 6 months. acrylic must be kept below the egg yolk layers: fat over lean.

either it's time for me to mix up some egg tempera or pull out the oils. either way it is time to paint. and the failure of these paint layers have a lot of potential.

best,

deb.

Rainy Day Studio

 

this is my little red chair, the subject of many drawings.  sat in it when i was wee,  still use it to sit upon, and observe it through my hands and eyes from time to time.  32x44", a beginning.  greek keys and french curves are my favorite way to travel through complicated visual data. chalk on unprimed canvas.  will add gesso as needed, maybe not, may seal the chalk with egg yolk and move onto another one.  i have plenty of canvas.  if i seal this work, i can take it off the stretcher, roll it up, then stretch another drawing surface.

here's my observational reference.  for many of my training years, i was training my hand to follow my eye.  it has become so intuitive that i now find my hand instructing my eye where to go.  very interesting change of view point.  the drawing becomes a record of my experience of moving through space with eye, hand, body.  an inner sounding happens.

best,
deb

Building the Empire Show: sneak peek 7

Transferring Hokkusai 'The  Great Wave".  4 panels complete.  Brother Mike notes the images get very dimensional when the voided space of the 8x8" stretchers is considered during the re-construction.  

copyright debbie clarke 2011

gloucester ma

vinyl transfer, packing tape, aluminum leaf, Kanku dye (non-edible, not for human consumption)

Transferring the Hokkusai

Hokkusai "The Great Wave"  from the 36 views of Mount Fuji.  This image was on my shower curtain.  A few weeks ago I started to 'see things' in the shower curtain.  What I was seeing was the slow dissolution of the vinyl print dripping down the plastic curtain.  It was not The Virgin Mary.  It was not the face of Jesus.  I replaced the shower curtain with a light green leaf printed affair.  the price was right $4 from Bananas.  long/short on the way to becoming a drop cloth I experiemented with lifting the print with clear packing tape.  yes, success.  below is an image of the work table with the transfer in process.  i will use it up, print, plastic, tape and all.  8x8" on stretchers.

best to all,
deb