Darling Picky

some painting ideas I've been saving

2009-05-16T08:45:00.001-07:00

Couples edition

2009-05-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

What should I write and post today?

It's summer and I've been avoiding painting because I feel uninspired and overwhelmed by the idea of "PAINTING". I want to make a really grand, beautiful, moving piece and I know that's what is stopping me. I need to just paint for the love of making art, and think that no one ever has to see this piece if I don't want them to...because it's true! There aren't any teachers standing over me, or peers looking at my work. It's just me and the canvas. the wide, blank, empty canvas.

So, I have this folder called "painting ideas" on my desk-top and it's getting pretty full, so let's dump some it onto the blog!

William Orpen loved mirrors

2009-02-16T18:05:00.001-08:00

so did t. f. simon- as you see in this paris-interiorOrpen...

mirrors

2009-02-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

Zinaida Serebriakova, young woman in Mirror 1909
PAULUS MOREELSE
PAULUS MOREELSE 1571-1638
Moreelse, Paulus 1632

2009-02-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

Perhaps one should use a video monitor to capture a self portrait so that things aren’t backwards
self portrait as allegory of painting, Artemesia Gentileschi
Her painting (as in Vermeer) shift from descriptive, to emblematic, to reflexive

Francis Bacon: portrait of George Dyer

In the mirror, object of still life, body, nature share the same psychic resonance; none may boast a priveledged representational status over any other which applies even to the painter himself.

melanie peter, self portrait in the bathroom mirror
planar mirror = flat—perfect reflection….non-planar mirror = some form which is reflective
mimetic premise- everything that crosses its path will share an equivalent visual weight, or capacity for generating meaning.

Jan Steen, the dissolute Household

Is the painting actually a mirror that is hanging on the “fourth wall” that is the picture plane? ~~~ If so, then the painting truly displaces the mirror by implying that the mimetic tableau does not unfold BEFORE the beholder, that is, at a distant remove from him, but, rather, behind him, or, at least, on a plane that is contiguous with the one he himself occupies.

2009-02-16T17:50:00.000-08:00

*planar mirror = flat—perfect reflection….non-planar mirror = some form which is reflective
mimetic premise- everything that crosses its path will share an equivalent visual weight, or capacity for generating meaning.

Mary Cassatt, the fitting
Cassatt: doesn’t pass off painting as equivalent of reality the mirror is there to remind us of its flatness

lefebvre, claude (1632-1675) ,La Fille ainee de l'artiste coiffant son frere vers 1672, musee magnin dijon
1973 - Dali from the Back Painting Gala from the Back
Eternalized by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected
in Six Real Mirrors
Just how removed is this image… a painting from mirror is not 1 but 2 steps away from reality

C_W_Eckersberg_Woman Standing in Front of a Mirror) 1841
planar mirror presents perfect reflection, other reflective surfaces allude to the ultimate planar mirror.

Auguste Leroux, the mirror

mirrors--some very different paintings involving mirrors

2009-02-16T17:43:00.001-08:00

Antoine Watteau, Gersaint's shop sign:
filled with mirror tropes –
mirror= used to reflect PEOPLE thuse you see portraits
mirrors are whole worlds bound within th arbitrary edge of glass= thus the cnavases
the threshold of the shop is the threshold of perception (our entry point) the cobled street shows the illusion of depth, even though its on a flat surface.
And the stage (complete with proscenium arch) implies the fourth wall.

The body of the beholder/viewer is both instrument and object of vision-the self as spirited perceiver and nature morte (this is called “ecological viewing” we feel as well as see our own body outside of the picture [in peripheral vision]… but a successful mirror-mode painting somehow includes this corporeal extension
Whistler, woman in white
Vermeer, the little street
the implicit subject is the straat (surface) the vessel of reflecte light the primary pavement he trains his attention on is the painting’s own cobbled surface

Matisse, the drawing lesson
Bellini, young woman with mirror
MIRROR= reflecting pool of a fountain, vanity glass…etc, a ready-made arena for aesthetic self-picturing
Random cropping of the image (in a mirror) means that the play of depth versus surface places everything that traverses its path in a spatial “envelope” between mimesis and representation
In the 16th century the Venetians perfected the manufacture of the mirror plate, which stirred fascination for the planar mirror among painters

mirrors

2009-02-16T17:36:00.001-08:00

Las Meninas--Velasquez
* the mirror with the royal couple may be said to embody the ‘mind’s eye’ - The king and queen are not necessarily physically present, but rather conceptually omnipresent.

Vermeer’s woman reading letter by open window: if the foreground initially appears as a kind of boundary that insulates the interior space…it’s a perceptual threshold which conscripts the gaze of the viewer and repositions it as the painter within the picture.
*In his Schilderboeck of 1604, Karel van Mander exhorts painters to pay exceedingly close attention to reflexy-const, or the art of depicting reflections, and not only for their importance to the successful simulation of reality. As Walter S. Melion has argued, this spieghelen, or mirroring, is for Van Mander a kind of primal truth, “the very principle on which natural proesses of representation depend”

Ultimately, this mode of looking betrays vision as a fallible faculty; it is a perceptual process that constructs, or construes, reality as much as it objectively “reads” it.

Vermeer, View of Delft

Van Eyck [suggests] that such powers of simulation are at once a momentous achievement and a thin conceit-perhaps, finally, a slight of hand that depends for its success on a manipulation of the beholder’s attention (as opposed to mere looking) with seamless timing…’the mirror mode’ of reality, which posits that while mimesis simulates reality it also calls attention to its own strategies as a representational system....Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665-66) the model is looking at her reflective bauble (earring) obliquely with the aid of a planar mirror. Her gaze never really returns that of the beholder, instead it subtly elides direct beholding, thereby implying that the image we encounter is synonymous with what the model herself perceives.
*Like the Lacanian mirror, she cannot be engaged as “us”…unless we are looking at the earring

mirrors

2009-02-16T17:29:00.001-08:00

Manet: Nana, 1877
another play of depth Vs. Surface
she prepares herself for gaze of others (mirror is turned away)

Bonnard: Nude in Light (bottle of Cologne) 1907
The mirror is a FIELD OF REPRESENTATION
Reflecting the figure: mirror tropes in painting (mirrors usually show people—they are whole worlds bound within the edges of the glass)

(The Self Pictured: Manet, the Mirror, and the Occupation of Realist Painting. Art Bullitan 1998 Gregory Galligan)
self portrait with palette (1878) “as the painter gazes outward, he engages us in no simple standoff; rather, our position is uncertain, perhaps that of a portrait sitter, the painter himself, or a mirror before him. In sum, we serve as a complex foil that returns Manet’s gaze to his own body and the canvas itself, in a continuous three-way shuttle.”
Cezanne: self-portrait with palette
By the time Manet [and Cezanne] took up painting in the 19th century, the mirror had acquired the status of a thinking painter’s paradigm…the mirror had long surpassed both its original function as a mechanical tool for realized the painter’s self-portrait and its common figurative use as a metaphor for mimesis itself as a painter’s means of “reflecting” reality. …the premise having arisen directly out f the practical problem of how to transcribe the visual plentitude of reality to a flat and fixed surface (that is the stretched canvas or wood panel)… Manet’s painting constitutes both view and reflection at once, its surface beckoning our faith in the reality represented yet simultaneously drawing our attention to its impermeability as a mirror of self-inscription.
Manet: woman with Parrot 1866
the act of looking into a glass surface is thematized by the eyeglass conspicuously suspended from the model’s neck. The reflexive gaze of the model is further signaled by both of her gestures: one hand fingers the cord of the eyeglass, while the other lift flowers to her nose ( the scent might be appropriated by the body) the reflexive message is then recapitulated by the parrot perched on a double-barreled feeder, which Manet has placed at such an angle that it seems nearly to collapse into one unit, the better to function as a metaphor for the beholder’s implied shift form binocular (spatial) to Monocular (mirror) vision. She is engaged in the act of self-picturing—she does not confront the viewer; instead she views herself in preparation for the gaze of someone she wants to attract.

Mirrors

2009-02-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

Arnolfini Wedding Portrait by Jan Van Eyck

Manet: the Bar at La Folies Bergere

*Painter: first accomplice to the assembled tableau
*Beholder: veiled occupant of the…
*Painting= mirror

The sense of unease this generates in the modern beholder is often equated with… ~voyeurism
~Narcissism
~Lacaniam indexing of the self as a divided, self-alienated object

Ming and Nigel

2008-07-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

NigelMing

So soft and crazy. Yestday Nigel annoyed me all day...just meowing and meowing---begging to have his gross little toy thrown. Ming was just being her cute, fluffy self.

Our Baby (for now)

2008-06-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I rapped at ya! Almost a year since the skunk incident! Well...that darling animal has grown so tender and essential to my heart, and the skunk is just the tip of the iceberg. We left the baby cat in the care of Bennet and Kara last summer, and then had Mom and Dad bring the kitties to Florida when we settled in down here. But Oh~~ the pearl was waning into a shadow of her former self when we saw her. She was skin and bones and dying before our eyes. So we brought her up to the vet's office and prayed and cried in the interval. And prayed and cried some more. I called the vet to let him know that he could release the ghost from her tenuous frame. But Lo! He told me she could come HOME in the next day or so...and not in a card-board box or wrapped in a damp and cold towel, but alive and meowing in the cat box! We were over-joyed that this miracle-worker had nursed her back to health. She has been grateful and adorable ever since. We have been grateful and adoring of this vet as well. Whe is literally the most LOVing animal I have ever seen. She loves to rub chins, legs, book-corners etc. And Puurrrrrs like no purr I've ever heard. She is the love of our life and light of our home.

Thanks, Sweetie.

Helmut Newton ,Deco Revival Fashion ~ 1972

2008-04-26T12:15:00.001-07:00

Helmut Newton 1972

2008-04-26T12:14:00.001-07:00

70s deco revival

2008-04-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

my sweet God-daughter

2008-03-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Just look how adorable she is!!!

Colorful Book Cover

2008-03-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

Nice ~n~ odd

2008-03-11T06:15:00.001-07:00

This old logo from a Portuguese publisher makes me happy.

found here: www.flickr.com/photos/gatochy/sets/

Sposa, Boda, Bride

2008-01-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

chrystele St. Louis Augustin as lacroixs 'bride'

5

2008-01-14T16:51:00.001-08:00

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923)
After the Bath - 1908
Sorolla does an especially skilled job of painting thin, wet cloth on the woman's leg.

4

2008-01-14T16:46:00.001-08:00

John Currin, Heartless
1997

Third Place:

2008-01-14T16:36:00.000-08:00

painted by Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights
Painted around 1504, it is one of his best-known works.[1] It portrays various imaginative scenes linked with Biblical Creationism and the consequences of sin through the use of complicated and vivid symbolism.[2] The work is currently displayed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

Second place:

2008-01-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

Starry Night Over the Rhone, painted in September 1888 at Arles. The painting is oil-on-canvas and measures 72.5 by 92 cm (28.54 by 36.22 inches). The painting is currently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Vincent Van Gogh

Josh's best paintings

2008-01-14T16:05:00.000-08:00

Rogier Van Der Wyeden
the Deposition
1435
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

I'm loving this Frech paper mache artist right now.

2007-10-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

2007-07-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

Something crazy just happened!

2007-07-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

I opened the back door to scatter some bread when I saw some springy black and white fur scuttle away from me. It was a skunk! I wanted to show Josh, so I called to him. I was too stunned to describe what I saw, but he came to get a look beside me. Our heads were peeking out the opening while this creature waddled about three feet away. Before I could form the name of what I saw our little kitty, Pearl, shot out of the open doorway. Josh immediately started yelling her name. She paid no heed, instead bounding straight up to the skunk which was becoming agitated. It bared it's sharp fangs and started to raise it's bushy tail. Both cute little animals' fur was standing on end, and neither one was about to back down. After about twenty seconds I ran in and got some cat treats. I scattered them on the porch between us and the stand-off, but to no avail. i implored Josh to call Pearl more gently, but nothing would pry her away from the disaster unfolding. I pictured tossing a treat in their direction, but thought better of it when I imagined that a flying object would be the last provocation the skunk needed. It seemed to be weighing whether this smaller animal was worth a good spray or not, while they both hissed, their faces an inch apart.
I decided to try another approach. I ran to the other side of the house so that Pearl was between me and the skunk. I called to her sweetly, and she galloped towards me. I put some treats on the grass, and as she started to eat, I swooped her into my arms and sprinted toward the front door. Unfortunately, this served to freak her out, and she hissed, bit and scratched the side of my head. I was relieved though, better me than the skunk!

more Capucine

2007-07-07T13:36:00.001-07:00

2007-06-08T10:46:00.001-07:00

Spring has Sprung

2007-03-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

Spring is currently springing and I couldn't be happier. The sun actually shone for three days straight! An Ohio record, I'm sure.

Who is Capucine?

2007-03-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

The painter

2007-03-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

here is a photo of one of my favorite artists, Joaquin Sorolla.

Sorolla!!

2007-03-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this painting in the home-turned-museum of Sorolla in Madrid. I absolutely loved it, but for some reason I didn't take a picture. I guess I thought I could get a picture somewhere on the internet...which just didn't happen for years. I searched and searched! I even tried to paint pictures of it from memory (which didn't work too well). The funny thing is, the painting wasn't as important to me standing in front of it as it became in my memory afterwards. Part of the reason is that Josh and I got bumped from our flight out of Spain and had to spend one extra night in a tiny village on the outskirts of Madrid. That night we saw procession of statues that originated in the church and slowly twisted through the streets and throngs of devotees. The sight and sounds were moving to say the least. And it looked so much like this exquisite painting by Sorolla.

reflection...again

2007-03-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

hi Blog!!!
I haven't blogged at you in quite a while. It's so nice of you to wait patiently for me here like the loyalist of minions. It's 2007 now. Weird to think this decade is creeping to a close. I'm 25 now. I can't help noticing a few wrinkles here and there....and my skin never sees the light of day! I pull back the skin at the sides of my cheeks for an instant face-lift. But it's not like that would improve things. It's funny how so many people get cosmetic surgery as they they decline. I always think it never looks as good as when they were young. There is just no substitute for youth. and yet it is, as the saying goes...wasted on the young. That's how I feel looking at old pictures of myself. Why was I so bored and depressed and sleepless? Those were the years to savor the carelessness. A time of not worrying about money and responsibility. SO why wasn't I content? Maybe I NEED to have responsibility. It gives me a purpose. I have something to wake up for, goals o achieve and so on. That's a good thing. Maybe all I needed before was a little (scary) independence. Now that I have it...life is settled and smooth. I'm not my own worst enemy anymore. I realize this body needs taking care of. And that's a good thing realize while still in your 20s.

Picture Time!

2006-10-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

Create Your Own!

Pictures of Al and Suzanne's rehearsal

2006-10-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Create Your Own!

2006-08-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday, February 12, 2006
message in a Bottle
Looking at the past posts is like recovering your own message in a bottle. I can't believe I wrote all that more than a year ago...I'm sorry I abandonded it for so long. I probably will again, though. I'm actually very happy right now. I love life. The weather sucks..but life, that's good. Husband is lovely. he's laid up with a nasty cold I passed on to him, but in good spirits and as cute as ever. I've somewhat convinced him to let his luxurious locks grow out too see what it looks like. I'm jealous of his dark, glossy curls, and he always cuts them too close to enjoy. I wish I would've posted when I was in Spain last year. All the memories gots mashed up in a goreous blur that I'm lucky to dream about on occasion.
Spain sealed the deal. I MUST be and art history professor. I have to get back there and delve into the life and times of Sorolla. I can feel the energy in the air that emanates from his canvases. One must go to the spot to recover the information on this gleaming art.
OH the food! I'm not ne to talk about food. But SPAIN has some fresh, delicious food! I could live there happily most of the year. But my goal is to do so at least SOME of it.
I love Josh. I jast had to say it. We've had so many adventures together, least of all, Spain. Our lives and our relationship is the richer and deeper for having been. I understand why it's so cliche'd to say someone's your "rock". Because when it'strue, there's no other word to describe it.
We're going off to grad school together, and it seems out lives are getting just a bit better with every move we make.
kisses.
Perseph.

posted by zinaida at 3:38 PM

posted by Antonia at 2:13 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, December 04, 2004
kali

kali.hg
Originally uploaded by Persephanie.
I think every girl needs a picture of Kali in her room. It would remind them to be courageous. She is beautiful in her ferocity. She was sent to kill the Buffalo demon because not one of the Male Dietities were able to do it. She is stronger than all of them put together.

posted by zinaida at 4:04 PM

posted by Antonia at 2:12 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, December 16, 2004
even-keel
Life seems to have gotten quite a bit better over the past couple weeks. Husband and I both have a job working for a person and a publishing company we truly believe in. Getting paid for something you like to do anyway is a novel idea! And I stood up for myself at critique yesterday. I had a prepared thesis to explain why my art does what it does, and I articulated it pretty well (in front of the captive audience). It makes me realize that I really do need to be a teacher. I love to give and recieve information. I love art so much that i want to convey that to other people. Heck, it just feels good to have a soap box once in a while.
I'm not sure how far I want to go with my degree. Art history is one of those things that you can delve ever deeper into. I know I will do it for the love of it, though, not for a title. Now, if only I could learn Sanskrit, and Greek. That's the ticket!

posted by zinaida at 9:45 AM 3 comments

posted by Antonia at 2:12 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, November 18, 2004
unrequited love
Unrequited means not reciprocated or returned in kind. But don't we associate "Romeo and Juliet" with that word? We know that they both love eachother, but there's no way for them to be together. there's no word for that is there. Tim and Dawn on 'The Office', is another example. Oh, I know it's called the Office, but it really all revolves around a love story. There can be no love story without conflict.
Since when has it been interesting to see two people calmly lock eyes, then genitals, and live happily ever after? Bor-ring!! There has to be pain...and when they BOTH love eachother, and they both know it, yet they can never show their feelings...that's a good pain! It's all about TIMING. one is usally with someone else, while the other pines, and finally when that person is free, then the piner (probably not a word), has gotten fed up and moved on...yet we all know they SHOULD be together. oh yes, they must be very sweet, considerate people, that is why they don't just tell thier betrothed to go to hell, so they can go chase after this UNrequited love. They are also very afraid of rejection, and concerned about keeping up appearences.
SO, whenever the moment of truth arrives, and the love is declared...do they end up together? I certainly hope so! For some reason, it's very satisfying. yes, yes, they will now becoem boring people, but ther are many other young, timid people with raging hormones to occupy.
And if they Don't end up together...no, there's really no hope. in Fact, they never see eachother again. What a pity!!! however, they're not Quite as boring-in a literary sense. they always have that secret, unspoken desire. Of course each one (or at least one) has settled into comfortable domesticity, and they go about thier daily business with a placcid demeanor. It's Inside that they are passionate. the longing is just as strong, or stronger that the last day they saw thier love. Even dacades later. Its a tragedy! It's a waste of time and effort. it makes the heart heavy, and steals the present moment. that is why it is much better to read about unrequited love, than to participate in it.

posted by zinaida at 12:16 PM 0 comments
About Me

A slideshow of my favorite Bollywood actress

2006-08-19T18:42:00.000-07:00