Copying the Master: a Tree of Life

    There is a long tradition of painting from the Old Masters. You have seen artists standing in front of a painting in a museum doing a creditable job on a different scale from the original. I am happiest when I am working from a painting I find meaningful; because I see the painting in so much more detail and insights come to me. This time, I am neither so serious nor so careful. I needed a fabric that didn't exist for a quilt challenge, so I had to paint one...paint my own novelty panel.


     Painting on fabric is a blast. I have foam core that I have covered with clear Contact paper. I tape the sketch down and over it I use masking tape to secure the edges of a piece of muslin. I can see the sketch through the muslin and can trace any image with my Sharpie Rub a Dub Laundry Marker. I got out my Lumiere metallic gold and bronze paints (numbers 561 and 565) and started painting with Princeton brushes within the lines. I don't believe Gustav Klimt was so heavy handed in defining things in his Stoclet Frieze where one views, left to right, Hope, the Tree of Life, and Fulfillment. I painted and painted so happily, often redefining lines with the marker. I had to get out a few other colors for the plants at the bottom of the tree, and the cells, mosaics and other symbols of life and death within the top of the tree.

     After quilting along the lines to a piece of batting, I auditioned the squares and the dashes for the binding and backing. Black and white are always good to absorb color. In this case they remind of the architecture, furniture and clothes in fin-de-siecle Vienna, Austria,  Klimt's time. Klimt's portrait of Emilie Floge uses the dashes effectively. I cut batting and the dashes fabric to 12" x 12".  I cut the checkerboard into a long strip to sew around the edges, finishing by hand on a car trip.

      Science and art were in strong communication in the late 19th Century. Klimt painted the cells he viewed under microscopes and learned about at lectures. He painted in nature and from the nude. Sexual references abound as do flowers and jewels. He merged the decorative arts with painting and was a revolutionary with his spell binding works. Hundertwasser admitted that when he was artistically blocked, he would go to Klimt's works to enlarge parts to his canvas to "take off." Be sure to Google both artists and Images, and perhaps hit the libraries and museums. I love Neue Gallery in NYC and the Minuteman Network of Libraries.

Back to Painting...a new start

     Friday before last, Joe and I drove into the MFA to see the colorful quilted 6" x 8" flags sent in from six continents to celebrate Boston. Ahead of me, I had the quilt challenge of "CELL" by my Material Maven international art quilt group. Synergistically, Joe and I had just returned from a stop at the Neue Gallerie in NYC where we viewed "Adele Bloch-Bauer" which is always on permanent display. I happened on a movie of Klimt's life via Netflix and found an unread book in my library titled The Kiss about a Klimt painting. As it turns out, Klimt viewed a lot of cells under microscope which appeared in many paintings. The power of Klimt's paintings inspired me to pick up the brush again.

       Just at the hero and heroine in a romance novel are at odds before they fall in love, I had never liked Klimt's paintings as much as my other favorite painters. Absorbed in his work, I became semi-obsessed.

 
       At Costco, I saw a painting kit, a little more challenging than paint by numbers, and I painted Klimt's "Tree of Life" to get a feel for his cells or signets (an excuse to be a child again). I found some ideas for getting the grands to create their own trees at YouTube. Back into painting, I set up two portable easels to oil paint (alkyds) the grandchildren from photos. I prefer painting from life, but distance is a problem. Whereas I once painted 9 am to 9 pm, after two hours, I had had enough. The next day I realized I needed my BIG easel so I could brace my arm and Joe got me a tall stool. Painting became fun again.  I am looking forward to painting less traditional portraits inspired by Klimt, my teachers at the SMFA Boston and art history...now that I rediscovered my old, but bigger, easel.



       Here are the first day and the second day...MORE TO GO on both. Hannah begins to look like herself, I think; but Erika's is a major miss. But I won't give up! Try, try again, now that I am comfortable. I will save those portable easels for painting landscapes in the open aire, also inspired by Klimt and art history. Click photos to enlarge.