I don’t know what you’ve been doing to keep your wits about you, while madness rampages over the globe, but I’ve been painting.
Working on this painting of a Mexico city neighborhood for a few hours every day, over the past two weeks, has not only been absorbing and challenging, but has also plunged me back into the joy of oil painting. I love watercolor, but it comes with frustration and tension. Oil painting, for me, is a sensuous pleasure even when it’s hard. Unlike watercolor, it’s forgiving — you can always wipe things out, repaint, or make corrections, as I did many times in this painting. Here’s the process it went through.
This was the original drawing done on location, from a balcony on the top level of the Biblioteca Vasconceles in Mexico City’s Buenavista neighborhood. A garden runs along the side of the library building, which is on higher ground overlooking the city to the east. I took a number of photographs in the same direction as this drawing but taking in more of the city beyond. Those formed the basis for the painting, while the drawing was a touchstone for what attracted me in the first place. It came down to the unusual vista of the trees, especially the contrast between that tall cedar and the deciduous trees on either side; the white tents of the street market peeking through them; and the city buildings beyond, mostly white and grey and shades of pink, with that strong diagonal street running kitty-corner across the scene.
Here’s the initial monochrome drawing in thin oil paint on the canvas, indicating the basic values and structure.
Working on top of that monochrome drawing, the first color strokes set the basic chromatic palette for the whole picture. I’m using a very limited set of pigments: Ultramarine Blue, Brilliant Green, Viridian, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow, Hansa Yellow, Quinacridone Red, Burnt Sienna, Indian Red, and Titanium White. The support is heavyweight raw linen that I stretched myself and double-primed with gesso — a lot of work, but you end up with a wonderfully receptive surface.
My goal was to capture the sun-washed, slightly hazy atmosphere of Mexico City’s urban landscape on that day, maintaining a palette of greyed greens and pinks, with touches of yellow and aqua. Almost all of the greens contain some ultramarine blue. All the shadows are based on a combination of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. The sky is ultramarine blue and titanium white, greyed with a slight bit of quinacridone red. Using limited pigments in this way, and mixing colors very carefully rather than using them directly from the tubes, helps maintain color harmony throughout the picture.
In the stage above, the cityscape is filled in, the foreground is more defined, and I’m starting to work on the trees.
With the trees in this state, the painting felt close to finished. However, I decided to simplify and focus the foreground, taking out the bushes at lower left and lower right, defining the scrubby grasses and rocks and adding some to the left side. I also emphasized the diagonal which runs perpendicular to the receding street in the center of the scene.
This was much better. Eventually I deleted the right-hand bush, added a reverse-curve walkway in the shadowed right-hand area, and improved the dappled shade. (It was interesting to note, just now as I write this post, that the foreground diagonal and reverse curve are in my original sketch on the canvas, but had gotten obliterated as I worked.) I’ll leave it in the state below for a few weeks and then decide if I want to change anything else.
A few details:
Making something from scratch — whether it’s a chocolate cake, a poem or a plant you grow from seed — stands in opposition to those whose modus operandi is destruction and chaos, and heals our wounded spirits. This is where we have to start: with ourselves. The efforts to create, and to appreciate created things, bolster our recognition that destruction and its desired effect— paralysis — don’t have to prevail. Even in the worst situations, no one can take away our ability to look for the beauty and complexity of our world, and make something from it, even if it’s just words or a melody or the idea of a drawing that we hold in our head during a time of suffering or fear. I hope a lot of you are participating in demonstrations today. And I hope tonight, or tomorrow, you’ll write some words or play some music, read a good book, walk in a park or natural area or garden, or make a good meal. Let me know how it’s going with you. Sending love.
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