High Fauxdelity, 3

(Here's an article that appeared in the Athens Banner-Herald, 11/15/07, with one minor correction*)

Pun-tastic fun with album art

By Julie Phillips | julie.phillips@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 10:59 PM on Wednesday, November 14, 2007

For all the great album art out there, there's an equal number of albums that, well, aren't so good.
Play the game of bad band names and you've got a conversation to last for hours.
Dennis Harper's been taking note of such pictures of in-excellence for years, storing up puns and casting a curious eye on creepy, weird album covers.
And so it came to be that "High Fauxdelity" emerged, a collection of paintings rendered by Harper, who's certain they wouldn't do much to sell the supposed records they hold.
Harper, who by day is curator of exhibitions at the Georgia Museum of Art, and fellow artist Jeffrey Whittle, an instructor at the University of Georgia's Lamar Dodd School of Art, combined their efforts - Whittle's collection titled "12 Inch Love Songs" - for a show currently on display at Flicker.
While Whittle doesn't veer far from his lovely, if offbeat style, Harper takes a break from his more serious (though not without humor) egg tempera works for his acrylic "albums."
"It's been a nice [antidote to my tempera work]*," he says, adding the size of the images in the show aren't CD-size, but "the size of 12-inch LP's - I miss that more broad expanse of graphic design - so there's a little nostalgia for that."
Probably the best part about Harper's works are the pun-tastic album titles for records you'd be pretty scared to listen to - "Sexy Organ," "Moody Waters" and "Modern Vibes for Groovy Chicks and Guys," for instance.
"There's plenty of bad album art out there, and people love it," Harper says, admitting to a love-hate relationship with bad album art himself - though the love part comes in no small part from the ideas it inspires.
"I carry around a little notebook for ideas," Harper says. "You know, bad ideas are like bad songs - they pop into your head and you can't get them out."

'High Fauxdelity' by Dennis Harper and '12-Inch Love Songs' by Jeffrey Whittle
Paintings inspired by album art
When: Through Nov. 30; reception 6-8 p.m. today
Where: Flicker Theatre and Bar, 263 W. Washington St.
Call: (706) 546-0039

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 11/15/07

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High Fauxdelity, 2

After a sad but almost certain cancellation of our show, due to Flicker's closure, Jeffrey Whittle and I are again back in the loop, installing High Faudelity / 12-Inch Love Songs this week thanks to Flicker's sale and re-opening. The show will be open to the public after happy hour Tuesday, November 6, with a reception Thursday, November 15. Come on by sometime that evening.

I don't have any of Whittle's pictures to post, but here are four more of my fake album covers included in the exhibition. (Each 12.5 x 12.5 inches, acrylic on MDF.)

Susan, Thrice (Yoko Godai)

Here is another painting going to Manipulating the Commonplace at Swan Coach House Gallery.

Susan, Thrice (Yoko Godai), 2007, egg tempera and silverpoint over casein on panel, 24 x 31 inches.

Detail

Untitled (Encounter in a Foyer)

Not too many new postings here recently, eh? I've been busy with several projects, one of which is working on new paintings for a show at the Swan Coach House Gallery, in Atlanta. Manipulating the Commonplace: Nine Southern Artists Reinterpret Realism opens August 9 and runs through September 22.


Here are a few views of one of the new paintings. Untitled (Encounter in a Foyer), 2007, egg tempera, gold leaf, and silverpoint over casein on panel, 16 x 20 inches.

High Fauxdelity, 1

Olsen's Palette has sat untouched in the studio for some several weeks while I have concentrated on more pressing projects. For those one or two faithful visitors to this blog who are interested in seeing its progress, my apologies for the hiatus. In its stead, I'm painting a portrait commission, new works for a show in Atlanta in August, and the exterior of my house (plein air painting?) Also, I'm preparing for a two-person exhibition in Athens with Jeffrey Whittle, showing this November at Flicker. My works for the show are a group of fake album covers, called High Fauxdelity; Jeffrey's print series is called 12-inch Love Songs. Look for more info on our twin-bill in later blog posts.
Meanwhile, here are the first three "LPs." Each is acrylic on hardboard panel, 12.5 x 12.5 inches. (Bigger than Whittle's.)

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 10)

10

At long last I've come back to this painting. As a couple of months have passed since last working on it, I felt I needed to prep the surface to receive new paint. To do that, I first brushed the painting lightly to remove any dust (or, as necessary in my house, dog hairs), then painted a couple of layers of dilute unpigmented egg wash across the whole panel. This seems to help new layers of paint take more readily to the already curing paint film. Yolk to water proportion is probably about 1:5, or slightly thinner. The painting still doesn't have the kind of resolution of forms nor the color/value contrasts that I'm looking for in the finished work, so I've started to strengthen all the shadows and edges; first with a greenish-umber pigment, then ivory black. I think I'll likely do something as well to the negative space below and beyond the table to place the palette and table more firmly in space, and in the context of Olsen's studio. Probably, I'll show a glimpse of one of his paintings in the background.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 9)

9

I will have to delay my work on the painting for a short while. I want to use the panel-- in its present, unfinished state -- in an exhibition (and tempera painting demonstration) at Gainesville State College, Georgia. This current photo reflects continued progress to refine the local colors of the tubes and other objects as they gradually evolve from the monochrome underpainting that defined basic volumes and space. When I resume work on the panel, I'll articulate further distinctions of the objects in the pile, and move from washes and glazes into more linear brushwork and hatching.
See you in about a month...

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 8)

8

Unfortunately, not a lot of time to paint today, but I decided to use my limited time in the studio to begin giving the tubes their "indigenous" colors. Some of the tubes are old and grubby, mingling all the colors from Ole's handling of them and transmogrifying into a kind of mongrel brown. I'll get to that as a last touch, though.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 7)

7

Still working to bring depth and volume to the rendering, I alternate between adding light and dark washes. The red underpainting peeks through a little more strongly than I'll want in the end, but you can see how it imbues a warm glow to the cooler grays and browns that will predominate the colors in the finished painting.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 6)

6

I used tints of ivory black and zinc white to begin giving color to the metal tubes of oil paint and to cool the shadows they cast on the work table. The same color is in the floor and wall beyond the table. A little green earth is washed over the round glass palette, and I'm using a greenish raw umber to continue modeling the details in the big pile.

Detail

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 5)

5

I've started applying egg tempera washes over the casein underpainting. First, however, I sized the casein work with a couple of layers of dilute egg yolk wash, unpigmented. Next, I laid down a loose glaze of raw sienna (a golden brown variety). I then modeled some of the middle values in darker but still transparent raw sienna and verdaccio giallo. Finally, I reinforced the lighter values with buff titanium (a light tan-hued white pigment.) I'll bring up the lights a little more strongly and start applying washes of grays, blues, and greens over the composition. I'll push toward more natural colors yet try to keep the treatment a little soft-edged, brushy, and transparent at this early stage.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 4)

4

The painting after more modeling in Venetian red, ivory black, and titanium white washes.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 3)

3

I'm starting to shape the tubes of paint in the picture with reinforcing washes of ivory black and Venetian red, still in casein. I want to bring out their overlapping crumpled forms, of course, but also try to impart a sense of spatial recession by varying the value contrasts from front of table to back. I'll take this stage of the process a good bit farther, remaining essentially monochromatic, as I resolve the underpainting before moving on to naturalistic colors.

Detail

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 2)

2

I finished working over all the chalk transfer with diluted black casein. I really just wanted to establish the contours of this jumble of forms. Later, I'll model the range of lights and darks. On top of my linear outline I washed a couple of passes of Venetian red casein.

Olsen's Palette (work in progress, 1)

1

This is a "still life" from a corner of Richard Olsen's studio: the painter's work table and palette. My panel is a commercially prepared support, rabbitskin-glue gesso on Duron Masonite. It was made by an Athens, GA based company, Realgesso, and given to me by them to try out. (Thanks, Howard!) It's a small one, 8 x 10 inches. This first photo shows the initial processes in my painting technique. The faint red outlines are red chalk transfers from my drawing study. On top of that are contours in black casein wash that strengthen the chalk lines.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 7)

Step 7

The finished painting. I came back to the panel today after a short respite. I worked to clean up the edges of shapes, and intersections, and tried to bring more fleshy warm tones to his head (while still keeping it bathed in shadow.) I softened a few of the shadows across his face and made minor adjustments to his features. It's a near likeness, but not exactly right. These photos, again, don't accurately reproduce the color range in the painting. The darks in the face should be slightly more reddish-orange; conversely, the white background should be less red. The pale green earth/verdaccio glazes fade away in the scan.
The detail below shows the brushwork better. For a sense of scale, the head is about 2-1/2 inches from top of hair to bottom of chin.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 6)

Step 6

The painting is almost finished. I lightened the white wall in selected areas using a scumble of zinc white and verdaccio. I softened the contrasts within the yellow painting behind his head by washing over the darks with slightly lighter versions of themselves, and glazing over the lightest areas with barely darker colors. I also lightened the broad yellow field, in general. (I'd like the rectangle to hover about his head like a thought balloon, or halo, but I still need it to sit back in space behind him.) The most obvious change since the last post is the stronger modeling on Olé's head and shoulder. This was done through short linear strokes of opaque paint, following facial surface planes. I used Indian red and titanium white on the face and hair, greenish raw umber and white for the lab coat. After heightening the flesh tones, I glazed the bright areas with a thin cinabrese to subdue the contrast a little. I also glazed the brighter umber highlights on the shoulder with a mixture of raw umber, greenish umber, and bianco de Vicenza. The latter pigment has a very subtle, warm hue and almost no opaque capacity. In tempera it is a useful glazing color to impart warmth to cooler tones. It also provides a delicate cloudiness that can help to soften focus and articulate a sense of space.
I'll probably now let the painting rest for a day or two before making final touches.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 5)

Step 5

Everything is touched with basic local colors, and the modeling of volumes is fairly close to where it needs to be. I can now start to finesse the color and value relationships.
A couple of comments about the composition: The squiggles in the background are strips of masking tape that Olé uses to create sharp edges in his work. They are stuck to the studio wall after being stripped from canvases in progress. Interestingly, though he seldom leaves the actual tape on the surface of the painting, Olé often adds simple, but illusionistic painted renderings of tape strips in his compositions. In his studio, some walls are covered with clear polyethylene sheeting to make removal and reuse of the tape easier. The plastic sheets make a nice reflective sparkle along their creases, but I may not include that detail in this small painting.
Olsen is a retired professor of art and in his classes he cautioned against certain awkward compositional elements that halt the eye's movement around the image in a detrimental way. One of his bugaboos is the "triangle in the corner." As an homage to his teaching, I positioned the stretcher bar and brace of a canvas leaning against his studio wall to bear a literal corner triangle down upon his back and shoulder.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 4)

Step 4

I'm using glazes of the pigment cinabrese to model the face. It's a pale, warm red earth color that's very good for rendering flesh tones. With multiple applications, I go over the entire face and hair with the color -- straight pigment but quite dilute -- while allowing the verdaccio underpainting to remain mostly untouched in the darkest shadows such as the creases in the face and other features. For the lighter passages, I added a small amount of titanium white to the cinabrese glaze. I'm using that slightly more opaque (and lighter value) red with a dry brush and pointed stroke to follow the cross contours of the face and further bring the head into relief. I want to draw everything into resolution slowly, though, and prolong a diaphanous color treatment so that later, more direct paint will indicate mass and give the impression of spatial projection. In a manner similar to the painting on the head, I've started to model the brown lab coat with applications of greenish raw umber and white.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 3)

Step 3

I continue to lay in additional color glazes, modifying the forms, deepening the colors, and adding detail. I still want to keep the surface open and porous, but I'm starting to use small amounts of titanium white in the color mixtures to make the colors slightly more opaque where I want the objects to solidify and pull forward in space.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 2)

Step 2

I have begun to lay in "local" colors in semi-transparent glazes of egg tempera: yellow ochre, ivory black, raw umber, verdaccio, and Vagone green, all tinted with varying amounts of zinc white. Zinc is the most transparent pure white pigment, and thus does not obscure the underpainting. The head took several glazes of straight green earth, without any white added. Before jumping to these egg tempera washes, I sized the casein underpainting with several thin coats of dilute yolk and water to cut the absorbency of the casein and permit the initial tempera glazes to flow on a little more easily. I'll continue to refine the image's colors and details with mostly transparent or translucent glazes, and build up to more opaque passages towards the end.

Richard Olsen in His Studio II (work in progress, 1)

Step 1

This painting of the artist Richard Olsen is smaller than one I completed a couple of years ago, and depicts Olé in a more casual, candid pose. It's a very modestly sized panel, 8 x 6 inches, made by True-Gesso Panels in Santa Fe. I had begun it as a demonstration for an egg tempera workshop I participated in at the High Museum in 2006. After showing the students how to transfer an image and begin an underpainting, I set the panel aside until today when I rediscovered it in my studio. The photo above shows a continuation of the initial underpainting in casein, in ivory black, Venetian red, titanium white, and green earth. At this stage the image is somewhat loose and brushy (for its scale) and is mainly rendered in dry brushwork and washes.