I made progress on Euclid Avenue I this morning. Progress on the 48″ x 60″ painting has been slow at times. This canvas is from a stock of ‘professional grade’ canvases I bought some time back. The surfaces on these ‘professional grade’ canvases are very poor–execrable. I’ve had to spend a lot of time correcting them and still the grounds are sub par. I paid a premium for these canvases in order to save time. I wrote about this experience. Since then, I prepare all of my own canvases. Artists have to be wary of shysters, or–perhaps worse–craftsmen who do not understand what quality is.
Anyway, fighting the ground has made progress slower than usual. Fighting poor-quality materials is one reason I write so much about materials and craftsmanship.
Using photographs in paintings
I’ve never enjoyed paintings that are intended to look like photographs. When I was a young art student, I felt like the last figurative artist in the world, and, in my isolation, I pulled every bit of support I could from artists like Pearlstein and Leslie. But photorealism left me cold. When many of my fellow students, equally frustrated at having the tenets of modern art relentlessly shoved down our throats, turned to photorealism as a way out, I couldn’t follow them. Photorealism seemed like a dead end. I haven’t changed my opinion. For a time, I refused to use photographs in my work.
Now, they are another tool in my toolbox. In preparation for my Playhouse Square series, I took hundreds of photographs around Cleveland’s Playhouse Square. It’s like having the entire Square as a studio. I can mix figures from different days moving through one of the Square’s street corners.
Even though Euclid Avenue I is unfinished, it is a good example of my method. This photograph provides the painting’s basis. I moved the central figures forward toward the viewer, and then added figures from two other photographs taken on different days. My trove of photos provides the figures for my drawings and paintings. I have masses of photos on several other topics too.