Oh, it hurts to look back on those days… anyway… today I am in the midst of clearing the office for tax prep and I ran across the tiny stack of the surviving photos. They tell a tale of very early days of my woodworking career and some of the fun that Peter Follansbee and I had and since most of you know me only as a painter I thought I’d share them as proof that once, in a time far far ago… I was a Chairmaker…

The beginnings at the Follansbee home on Pierce Rd.

Follansbee and Myself along the banks of the Little Conewago Creek...which as you can see is still in it's banks.

And now here's his son Daniel hard at work in his Plymouth Plantation workshop.

A chair for nephew Neill

This kid is now in college !

Little Nephew Johnny who is now 16 and well over 6 feet tall.

and...I think this is James, Stephanie's oldest son, Steph being my oldest friend from waaay back in high school...he's now at Brown ...that's my basement workshop in the background.

So there you have it. Now digitally documented for posperity.

When I decided to give painting my full time attention, circa 2000, one of the first things on my easel was this homage to that life of shavings, In the Chairmaker’s Wake…makes me want to sit on my shaving horse and think back on all the happy hours with the old drawknife…

A rare snowy day this winter and I find myself at sixes and sevens bumbling around the studio…eager to get the next painting up on the easel but there are gremlins about. I have a stable full of panels that are prepped but stand awaiting their final coat of gesso…the good stuff. This means that, once I decide what I’m going to paint and find the appropriate sized panel, put that gesso on and let it dry, then do the final smoothing wetsand… I have at least a day if all goes well before I can start the next painting.

Today, there was little cooperation from the muses. After telling myself not to try to do this without a drop cloth, I dumped a full quart of gesso on my favorite handmade rug…after I told myself to put on a smock…there went the shirt and pants…etc. Even when it did dry and I started the wetsand there were troubling areas that seemed to wipe completely down to the canvas so I had to re-apply and wait for that to dry and then sand again…twice !

So, while I practice patience and wait for that hopefully last coat to dry… it’s time to get back into the blog world. Last week my friend Peter Follansbee had an entry on his blog about the painting he is doing on his groovy new toolchest.

I noticed that he was using a mahl stick..

The simplest of painting tools it is basically a stick used to rest your hand on to steady it and the brush. It’s especially helpful for fine detail.

The one I’ve been using for decades I made from a twisty branch I brought back from Tucson. I sharpened the end, put a superball on it and wrapped that with a piece of soft leather. Wrapped this way the ball provides a soft pivot point that won’t marr the painted surface as you rest that end on the panel.

This one is about two feet long but has it’s limitations.

Then I watched a video that Bob Jackson has out now in anticipation of his newly published book,

Click on his painting above, The Feast, to view it’s creation. It’s a crazy slideshow look into his work process and along the way I saw him using his mahl stick. Couldn’t really tell because of the speed of the video but it looked to be somehow attached or anchored at the top of the panel or on his easel. This gave him a nice pivot point which seemed sturdier than my floating version.

So…I looked around the studio and found… The Niblick.

It’s an old wooden golf club that was used as a prop in the painting, Tea Time…

and now it is reincarnated as painting tool. It has just the right flexibility from the thin wooden shaft, and the iron head provides a nice weight, and the hook of the wedge is perfect for catching the top of the panel, or cross pieces on my easel. Because that edge is sharp and hard, I softened it by tying a piece of leather on and also wrapped the handle with a chamois for extra comfort there.

It’s just the thing for those tiniest details…

The painting I just finished yesterday was quite a bit larger than the one featured above and when the stick was hooked over the top of that panel it did not reach low enough for me to work on the bottom half of the painting. So… I dug around in the golf bag and came up with a 5 Iron. Not as asthetically pleasing with it’s metal shaft but the sturdiness of the metal seems to be needed for the extra length. I do have to close the curtains when the sun rakes in though…it shines off the silver and casts wierd light onto the panel surface.

Well the sunset came on quickly and the snow covered branches are blue against the darkening sky. I’m going to go see if that panel is dry enough to sand and then work on tuning up the sketch. Then it’s home to the fireside with Herself and Finn…and the snowy walk home will make it all the warmer.

Keeping up with the latest technological trends is definitly a balancing act but our behind the scenes tech wizard, Ross Ritchey, has finished his tweeking and handed over the newly polished website which, as you can see, now includes the HN Studio Blog.

For you, that means one less click. If you have any interest at all in following along with our conversations here, you can subscribe to this blog (look at the boxes on the right…all the way down the page…for the subscribe box) and you should receive an email whenever a new post arrives.

For me, it means that I can now use the WordPress interface to edit and manage my entire website. Who knew. Ross did and now the learning curve continues as I try and navigate the new powers at my fingertips.

Finding new and novel ways to reach out to patrons and friends and to expand the audience is integral to the creative process, and I do appreciate your feedback and checking in once in a while to see what’s fresh off the easel…it’s all part of the journey.

two weeks getting the composition just right,

one solid month of painting…and painting…and painting,

I offer you…

well, I don’t have a title yet…but here is the final apple series painting…

( remember these are just iphone photos so we’ll all have to wait for it to be varnished and professionally shot…but you’ve been waiting much more patiently than I have…so….)

And here are a couple detail shots with the parts I’ve been hiding…

I usually reserve the treat of sushi for after I’ve sold a painting…but in this case Pat is willing to indulge me.

Whew…I’m ready to have some fun with teacups now.

Nighty night.

Yes I’m still….painting….apples !

Try as I might, this final work - the seminal, keystone, massively fundamental focus of the apple themed series -  is just simply spanking my artistic self. And it’s all Chris’s fault. Back in 2010, when picking apples at the Tiasquin Orchard on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and visiting with it’s farmers, the Magnusens, my beloved gallery owner Mr. Morse had a vision. Wouldn’t it be sorta fun for someone to do a painting from the bottom of the hill looking up through the trees at a person picking apples ?

Simple idea, lovely idea…who better to do this painting than the woman whom Patricia Neal dubbed, “the artist who paints people without their heads “… Heather Neill.

OK she says and rounds up her favorite Vineyard model, Mr. Theodore Meinelt who happens to live just down the road from the orchard, and off we trot to pose among the heavily laden limbs.
Now viewing this photo you will see one of the biggest challenges I faced in composition. These are ancient trees and, like so many of the island specimens which are battered by ocean storms, they are small. Wonderful for picking, and probably pruned to their diminutive height for just that reason…but when you put a human next to them he ends up looking like a giant.

One other challenge was that, good for Debbie tough for me…it was a bumper crop. Thousands and thousands of apples. I knew that in order to do this idea justice, again Mr. Morse must be thanked, it would need to be a panel large enough to let the viewer have the same panoramic feel that originally inspired my muse. And I knew that my ridiculously high standards would not let me take a pass on rendering every one of those apples (forgive me) right down to their core.

I debated, fussed, dripped with procrastinating angst…(Pat has been driven to longer and longer walks with Finn as each stressful day of whining passed) … and finally decided to use the 60″ panel thereby committing to what I knew would be weeks of work.

I started out taking daily shots of the progress with the idea of sharing the journey with you all. But I was so frustrated with the slow pace and the overwhelming amount of detail that I bagged on that early on. But now, as I am nearing the end…she says oh so hopefully… I have decided to show you the abbreviated “process” shots. I’ve been putting detail shots up on facebook  as I complete small sections and now seem to have a small but dedicated group of followers with whom I have been teasingly withholding the ” big reveal” of seeing the whole finished work.

There was a great amount of artistic license in play in an effort to wrangle the tree and background, concept and balance, in the pursuit of the “essence” of the orchard. Here is one of the dozens of photos that I used as reference…the closest to the finished comp…

The initial sketch…

First pass…
 Some sky…

Needs to say more about the island… so how about a water view ?

Flash forward…weeks forward…to the first detail shots…

And  now…I’m off to the easel to finish this baby. Have about two square feet of apples, leaves and branches to tighten up and one long branch to snap into shape. Might be two days of work since I have squandered this morning writing this entry…and allowing the tylenol to take effect…since the steady hours of resting my pinky on the panel to work the tiny brushes is taking a toll on my own limbs.

But I’ll get back to you just as soon as it’s done. I promise you will be able to hear the huge sigh of relief in the furthermost corners of your own apple orchards.

John Seed has included my painting, The Beginner…

in his Huffington Post Blog as one of the top 10 Mememorable Paintings of 2011 . The painting is currently on display in the Small Works Exhibition at Gallery 1261 in Denver, CO.

From the depths of my creative hibernation… I thank you John.

Here’s the extended snippet of the comments I sent to John with my thoughts about the work…

Our little studio workshop has been buzzing with print orders this week and Pat has been making daily runs to Fedex in the sleigh…

I’ve just updated the website but if you don’t see the painting that you want a print of…or if you have other questions about the ordering process…please don’t hesitate to contact us… hnartisan@comcast.net

Ho Ho Ho !

(Cori is the hard working woman at the right, alongside her mom, on the day that the entire Zink family showed up to help us clean up after the flood.)

Hi
Heather,

Love Finding Abstraction!  My 4th graders just read Jackson
in Action in their new reading series.  I just finished a lesson with them
using the children’s book Action Jackson and then let them do their own
Pollock (sometimes I’m down right nuts).  I did not manage the consistency very
well and most of the paintings look like a mess but they had a blast.  I think
they had almost as much fun crawling around with a sponge to clean the floor and
chairs as they did making the mess.  And somehow I managed to not lose one pair
of pants to paint splatters!!!  Their reading about Romare Bearden now – collage
is next.  I’m loving this new reading series.

C. 

I just love Cori’s creative way of putting lessons into action. My brushes are raised to her !

PS – today she sent along a couple examples of the student’s artwork.

They both have nailed the strength of the linear gestures and the resonance of vivid color. Wicked cool as they say where I’m from. These guys are from the Paxtang Elementary School.

Artwork by J. Mattey

And here’s one by Jeffery Gleiter