Plein Air with Kevin and I
This is our first plein air painting of the season for Kevin and I... It measures approx. 24x48, painted in acrylics and spray paint on plywood. I brought over a couple tubes of paint and the plywood to Kevin's and he had the idea to go over to Pleasant Run and see if we could paint the railway bridge that goes over the Run. We couldn't find a place to park though until a street or two down, when we spotted this house. It sort of has a unique architecture to it, sort of European in a way. Very nice people came by to check it out, tho there were some knuckle/chuckleheads in cars shouting obscenities and the same in gestures... dunno if I was ever the one to shout obscenities in that way... anyway, the good of the community there seems to have precedence over the bad, which comes by in their cars all 1957 with their crew cuts and their fat mufflers...
but yeah, we kept at the painting... I was sort of bummed at the end because while Kevin was signing it I, unaware, stepped on a tube of his paint and it emptied almost entirely onto the grass.
We stopped for coffee at the Lazy Daze Cafe in Irvington, got a coffee, smoked a cigarette and a man took an Intake out of the news box, we unloaded the eisel at his place with the supplies and promised to do more painting later. We have tentative plans to hit up Eagle Creek at least once when the leaves are spring green.
posted by Brian Matthew Duff at 8:57 AM
8 Comments:
Very cool, guys!
Are ya sayin' this is done by both ya? Or that both of ya did the same scene?
Collaberators are so hard to get a grip on....
Kevin and I painted just this one painting. I did the bolder trees and the bolder elements of the garden, house on the left, the bricks on the chimneys, and some of the tweaks on the windows and doors of the main house in the center... I also added the sign in the yard saying 'Stratford'... but Kevin did the sky and the fainter trees in the distance, layed out the main house dimensions and the right side houses. He did most of the grass coloring and the trees on the right side, except for the barren three pronged sucker which I did.
anyway, we both signed it in the lower left.
And, is that fair? I mean, using TWO of ya t'do the picture?
when we paint together, we're neither two nor one... everything is easy, then. worries fade. I guess it might not be fair if no one else did collaborations... but then what is the difference between us, our minds? our bodies? If you're alike in mind and pursuit there's no separation except experience, the things we've learned and seen and smelled and heard, the stuff no one can really share. I've tried meditation but it never is as revealing as a pause during the wind-down of an amiable conversation. Will it continue, will we part, what will happen next? The painting was that question I think. So is it fair? dunno. I feel like every time I paint with Kevin, I may be borrowing his spirit, but maybe he borrows mine a bit too. It's like every game that's every been devised, only so much simpler and less competitive, but on the whole less frivolous and more productive, if productivity be measured not in points or money but in the experience derived. We didn't talk before we started painting except that I said, "How about we start with the sky" and then later we talked to some of the people who came by and once in a while one of us would affirm what the other was doing... but it's always positive, constructive, and most of all a short utterance of appreciation for what the other is contributing to the project. Does it achieve the best results? What is best? Who says what's best, what's fair, what's equitable? The only judgement I have to make is whether I'm trying my best to understand... If I'm convinced I am, I'm probably not understanding at all. This conversation of doubt could linger forever, with an occasional pause for wondering.
of course, to say "let's start with the sky" was a matter of course. That's how landscapes usually begin, from bob ross to grandma duff.
you know that, so assume i said it for any layperson reading here.
If I were you guys...I'd knock on the door of the house you painted and sell it to them. Who wouldn't want that? It's awesome, especially if it's your house!
we thought about doing that, but it seemed like an idea as well to treat it as a landscape, like, this is a beautiful home, and everyone who sees it sees a beautiful home... so it is documentary... Bob Crumb once went door to door soliciting $10 to do architectural style graphite drawings of people's homes... that was back in the fifties or sixties.
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