WEEK 25 / The Pine Tree, Sebasco, Maine

The Pine Tree, Sebasco, Maine

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 8" x 13", 2011

PAINTING IN A CLOUD

Here we are on the Maine Coast again. This time we are in mid-coast, just east of Casco Bay, staying at the house of friends. The coast here is different, long fingers of land stretching down surrounded by the sea with a myriad of inlets hiding paintings yet to be done.

The hard part is not just in finding the right spot but dealing with the constantly shifting nature of tide and atmosphere. When we arrived the air was heavy with a south east breeze bearing fog. It is a stunning land of eagles and seals accompanied by a symphony of gulls. Visual space is ambiguous, determined by gradations of value, color is subdued, everything is distant. Fog envelopes you, there is no horizon, sea and sky merge.

NORTH WIND CLEARING

The wind shifts, now from the north west and you are amazed at the islands that now appear. There is more brilliant blue and deep green than you know what to do with. There is not enough time to start another new painting...........next time.

John Marin

The Pine Tree, Small Point, Maine, 1926

Watercolor on paper, 17" x 22"

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

We are also here to find where Marin painted. Small Point is just east of here, maybe a few miles by water. In 1915 Marin's NY art dealer was the eminent photographer

Alfred Stieglitz ( Georgia O'keeffe's husband). Stieglitz forwarded him some cash so he could paint for the summer in Maine. Marin took the money, but instead bought an island in Small Point Harbor. I can't say as I blame him. There's plenty of "wicked good paintin' here".

Tomorrow we head down to Cape Arundel.

Copyright 2011 James Aponovich

WEEK 24 / Still Life with Chocolate Truffles

Still Life with Chocolate Truffles

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 8" x 12", 2011

Last Sunday Beth and I had a group of friends over for a "Buon Viaggio" dinner party in anticipation of their upcoming trip to Italy. As gifts, Sylvia brought a bottle of truffle flavored oil and Joanie brought a box of elegant chocolate truffles. Both are called truffles yet both are very different.

The truffle oil went to the kitchen to await some fettuccini to grace. The chocolate truffles went directly to the studio because I was in need of a "model" for this week's painting. I placed seven truffles on the tissue that lined the box.

Visually these were orbs differing in color and texture, all conforming to the passage of light across them. The tissue envelopes them and adds a translucent quality when placed in front of the stripped wall. The blue ribbon adds a melodic line that accentuates the rolling roundness of

the truffles .But with the world as it is........why paint candy?

"It is a gift to be simple...."

Shaker tune

Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin

A Glass of Water and a Coffee Pot

Oil on canvas, 13" x 16", 1760

Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh

Many years ago I attended a major retrospective of the French artist Chardin at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I was just starting out as an artist and I was completely taken aback by his paintings, particularly the still lifes. The smaller ones were modest yet contained an extraordinary strength within a simplicity of form. I distinctly remember a small painting of a glass of water with some garlic bulbs ( A Glass of Water and a Coffee Pot). I was mesmerized with how the light traveled through the glass and across the white bulbs. Reproductions do not do it justice. It was from that point on that I knew I wanted to concentrate on the still life.

Andrew Stevovich

Woman with Pear

Oil on linen, 20" x 20", 2009-10

Andrew Stevovich and I both began our careers as artists in Boston. We met through a mutual friend and collector. We moved to galleries in New York at about the same time and have remained friends through it all.

I admire his painting ability. There is a clarity of color and a masterful use of brushwork that, in my opinion, makes him one of the best painters living today. I thought of Andrew when I needed to lighten and brighten my painting, by adding stripped wallpaper. Artist's are great borrowers, so that in my painting of truffles I am taking the passage of light from Chardin and adding the compositional clarity of Stevovich.

Now, what should I do with those remaining chocolate truffles......Hmmmmm.

For more information about Andrew Stevovich

www.andrewstevovich.com

Copyright 2011 James Aponovich

WEEK 23 / APPLEDORE: Still Life with Peaches

Appledore: Still Life with Peaches

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 10" x 18", 2011

Sometimes paintings do not cooperate. They just don't listen, are stubborn and generally behave

badly. At this point they are sent to spend "time out" with their face against the wall, sometimes for weeks, months or even years.

This painting was started some fifteen years ago as an oil sketch of bunches of grapes, it was not working and soon was abandoned to the basement. The stretchers were ripped off and used for another painting. There it languished until I recently found it and brought it back into the studio.

We now have wild grapes growing on our property and peaches are ripe and beautiful, so I gathered some grape leaves and set out to make things right! The setting for this still life is Appledore Island, part of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Much more painting will be done on Appledore so stay tuned, it's a great story.

THE AMERICAN PAINTING

John Johnston

Still Life, 1810

Oil on panel, 14" x 18"

City Art Museum, St. Louis

I am a big fan of American painters. This country washed clean and refreshed the vision of so many artists. This still life by John Johnston is strangely modern in concept, ( or I am, not so strangely, archaic). My painting is a reinterpretation of this sweet still life.

copyright 2011 James Aponovich

WEEK # 22 / Three Lemons

Three Lemons

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 11" x 18", 2011

When beth and I travel, we always take drawing supplies with us. Pencils, erasers and paper can be easily packed and transported. Oils however are another matter, what with airline restrictions, transporting canvases, easels, solvents and in the end wet paintings. So, on occasion we pack a set of watercolors and a block of paper.

Study: Three Lemons

James Aponovich

Watercolor on paper, 8" x 13", 2009

The watercolor study above was done on one of our "rainy day" sessions. I found these wonderful lemons at an Italian Greengrocer in Panicale (Umbria), and set to work. With the light uncharacteristically coming from right to left, I did my best to control everything.

Now two years later it is time to attempt the oil painting here in New Hampshire. But I cannot find Italian lemons at my local market so I have to make do with ones from California.

YELLOW

If Blue is associated with spirituality and red, passion, then yellow represents the intellect. Technically, yellow is the most difficult color to control. Being the lightest and brightest color it is easily corrupted when shaded, turning a sickly green. Set yellow against black and it becomes its brightest and most luminous. Given that, it is a chore to control the shading and keep these lemons alive.

Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664)

Lemons, Orange and Rose

oil on panel

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Spanish still life painters could control the extremes of value and still keep their colors clear.

This painting by Zurbaran is one of the greatest still lifes ever painted.....in my opinion.

2011 copyright James Aponovich

WEEK # 21/ Peonies in a Canton Bowl

Peonies in a Canton Bowl

James Aponovich

oil on panel, 8" x 10", 2011

WHEN A PAINTING IS A STUDY FOR A STUDY

In the hierarchy of 'flowerdom' peonies rank right up there as the most difficult to paint. Delicate yet multi-layered they share with roses a beautiful shape and stunning colors. They transition from a tight ball to an explosive full bloom. Those of us who love them really love them.

So, when I was commissioned to paint a large still life, the client requested, no, insisted on peonies. This small painting is a presentation painting meant to illustrate how the flowers are to be arranged and the colors I would be using.

Peonies from our garden

Next comes the study which I am now working on based on peonies from our peony garden, that we call the "peony walk". The larger study ( which I will post when finished) is full scale, measuring 24" x 26". The commissioned painting is larger yet. Wish me luck.

Study: Japanese Peony Vase in a Niche

James Aponovich

Oil on panel, 11" x 14", 2008

This is a quarter scale study to a pair of paintings inset into a piece of furniture. The Japanese are masters at portraying peonies. This is a painting of a Japanese cloisonne vase in our collection.

For information on the furniture

with the painting of the Japanese Peony Vase in a Niche

click on: David Lamb, Furniture Master

For more on our garden check out the variety of garden postings on:

Aponovich and Johansson At Home and Away

Our garden in featured in the book:

The Inspired Garden

Twenty-Four Artists Share Their Vision

Judy Paolini & Nance Trueworthy

Downeast Books

copyright 2011 James Aponovich

WEEK #20 / HYDRANGEA IN A JAPANESE VASE

Hydrangea in a Japanese Vase

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 10" x 8", 2011

We are still on the coast of Maine, slowly making our way back. They call this "gunkholing",

putting in at one port after another. This painting however, began in Blue Hill. I arose early one morning and while my friend Bob was busy painting a watercolor I sketched this flower on a spare canvas I had. Beth and I are now in Cape Porpoise, near Gooserocks. The landscape here is a soft estuary, much different than "downeast". ( see week #19)

BLUE

If red is passion and blood and yellow is clarity and intellect than blue is calming serenity and the spiritual.

Pol, Hermann or Jan Limbourg

May-Day Excursion, "Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry", 1410

Tempera on Vellum, 5" x 8"

Chantilly, Musee Conde

Along with pure gold, blue was the most costly color to use until the 18th Century. It was mainly acquired by grinding the semi-precious stones, azurite and lapis lazuli. When the old Duke of Berry commissioned the Flemish Limbourg Brothers to illustrate his prayer book he spared no expense. Along with lapis lazuli for the blue, malachite was ground to create the beautiful greens that adorn the noble women in this May Day jaunt. Because the book was mainly closed, the colors have remained as pure as when they were painted. That is very rare, many mistaken assumptions of color have been made without taking into account the destructive affects of light and atmosphere on paint.

THE VAULT OF HEAVEN

We call it the sky. Sky blue suggests a certain abstract, remote majesty. It descends from its imperial neighbor, purple which represents immediate, concrete but temporal dominion.

Purple was only for the Emperor's toga, not mine. So blue was passed on to the Queen of Heaven as a symbol of maidenhood. In Christian iconography, Mary's color, one of dignity, spirit, and oddly, wealth.

Fra Filippo Lippi ( 1407-1469)

The Coronation of Mary

Santa Maria Assunta, Choir Apse

Spoleto, Italy

In Southern Umbria, lies the city of Spoleto, now famous for it's festivals and jazz concerts. If you find yourself there, go to Piazza de Liberte, grab a gelato and descend

to the Duomo, Santa Maria Asuunta, to see the most spectacular fresco

by my all time favorite painter / monk / father and overall ladies man, Filippo Lippi.

Here is lapis lazuli, gold leaf, malachite and vermillion all coming together in Lippi's last work. He died here at the age of 63, some say poisoned by enraged family members of a youg woman whom, let us say, he had interest in. He is buried here in the Duomo with this:

Here I, Filippo, the glory of painting, lie buried.

There is none who does not know of the extraordinary grace of my hand

with the fingers of an artist I managed to bring the colors to life

and for a long time to deceive those who hoped to hear them speak

even nature, which had found expression in my figures.

was amazed, and admitted that my art was equal to Hers.

Lorenzo de Medici placed me here in this marble tomb

where before I was covered with common dust.

copyright 2011 James Aponovich

WEEK #19 /" THE DANCE FLOOR", BAKER ISLAND, MAINE

"The Dance Floor", Baker Island, Maine

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 14" x 18", 2011

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Sketch: Baker Island, Maine

James Aponovich

Pencil on paper, 7" x 9", 2011

"How to paint the landscape:

First you make your bow to the landscape,

then you wait, and if the landscape bows to you,

then, and only then,

can you paint the landscape"

John Marin

THE PAINTED SKETCH

Granite, spruce, sky, ocean....and the sun relentlessly beating down, my head draped with a shirt like some Bedouin frantically drawing......and the sweat dripping....it is summer off the coast of Maine.

Sometimes the most difficult thing is to make something significant out of the fewest possible ingredients. Boil the perfect egg.

Here I am on the "Dance Floor". The place is Baker Island, off the coast of Mount Desert.

(For more on how I got here go to :

Aponovich and Johansson, At Home and Away , "A Maine Island")

My task is to sketch giant slabs of pink granite that have fractured and have been piled up by eons of repeated "nor'easters", storms of amazing force. The sun is blinding and everything is stripped down to bear essentials. I start drawing, my composition is nothing but diagonals and sharp edges, and all while the clouds build threateningly. Time is limited so I sweat and draw. Captain says it's time to go, storms are approaching. The sky turns black so we return to the boat. Time elapsed? Not nearly enough.

Marsden Hartley

City Point, Vinalhaven, Maine, 1937

Oil on board, 18" x 24"

Hartley painted here, so did Cole, Church, Lane, Haseltine, Richards, Bricher,

Hassam, the Zorachs, the Wyeths and many more. We still come to this place of jagged rock and hard sea, this "wonderful nightmare" that is the coast of Maine.

For further reading and looking:

The Artist's Mount Desert

John Wilmerding

Princeton University Press

Painters of Maine

Carl Little

Downeast Books, Camden, Maine

copyright 2011 James Aponovich