The triptych is Finished

Hallelujah!

Last week we packed the 3 by 12 foot triptych into a 50 x 38 x 6 inch box and my spouse (Joe) and I headed to Lancaster, PA. However, we never got there because we were caught in torrential downpours in Maryland complete with flash floods that caused our car’s electrical system to go haywire. I hadn’t had time to take photos of the finished panels together before our failed trip, so today I looked at the three panels and realized that I should have scrutinized the compositional relationships between the three portraits more closely when planning the triptych. Having said that, I don’t know if anyone will notice the problem I see since the artist is always his/her own worst critic. So, the only remaining problem is whether or not Julia Roberts and Madonna should be looking away from Johnny Depp or toward him.

(A)

(B)

I’ll leave that question to the viewer. Look at both arrangements carefully and let me know which you prefer (A or B). You can place your answer in “comments” on Facebook or in “comments” here on the blog. The blog comments section is located at the bottom of this entry. Just click on the word, “comment” and you will be given the opportunity to vote and write any other comment(s) you wish. I will report the result of this informal survey on Facebook.

Julia Three Days Ago

Amazing! I’m on a roll! I’ve got 2 more squares done since I took this photograph of Julia on Friday, the twenty-fifth, and it looks as though I should be finished by this coming Friday, October 2nd. Interestingly, I’m not relying on a complete mapping in pencil within the grid as I normally do. Occasionally, I eyeball the brushwork. That has worked out especially well on the hair, Row A square 1, and Row B, square 1 with some dry brushing that looks almost like air brush.* That should make an interesting contrast to the “paint by number” mapping throughout the rest of the painting. I plan to do more of the same in future portraits.

*She reminds me of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," though she's reversed, and is just a portrait not a full figure. I'm certainly not comparing my work to the master, just saying that this pose of Julia reminds me of the master's painting.

Italian Renaissance.org at http://www.italianrenaissance.org/botticelli-birth-of-venus/, viewed Monday, September 28, 2015, 11:16 EDT.

Julia Roberts

I’ve begun work on the left panel of the “Characters Triptych”

The image shown here is the manqué (model) for the 3’ by 4’ last (left) panel in the triptych. The image for the manqué was created by distilling a number of photos found on the Internet into one, then playing with that image in Adobe Photoshop. I’ve been mapping the large canvas for the past week. Each 2” square in the manqué has been enlarged using pencil by a factor of 6 into the 12” squares on the canvas. I will begin mixing the basic colors for the image later today. They will be different from those in the manqué because I like to make sure that the enlarged image is removed more than one step from the manque. There will be about 12 basic colors. As I work during the next 3 weeks, additional colors will be mixed using the basic 12 plus the complementary color to each, white, and/or a dull black made by mixing the primary colors and magenta. If I finish mixing the basic colors, I will be ready to begin painting tomorrow.

I would like to be done with the 3rd panel by October 1st so I can take the entire triptych to Characters Pub in Lancaster, Pennsylvania rather than only the first 2 panels of Madonna and Johnny Depp.

Johnny Depp Canvas: Part III

Johnny Depp Is Finished

Finally! He and Madonna are ready to go to our Goddaughter’s restaurant, Characters Pub in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to be installed across from the bar in the Banquet room, Windows on Queen. I’ve also begun work on the Julia Roberts panel, but that won’t be completed in time for our October visit to Lancaster. I’m pleased with the intensity of Johnny’s expression, dark and brooding, part of the public persona he so often displays. This dark brooding aspect and another, that slightly cuckoo twist are what make him so appealing to so many people. Of course his acting talent is huge, and that contributes to his appeal as well. There is no denying that he is a “Character.”

The panel is 4 feet by 3 feet, so the two together are 8 by 3 feet. When all 3 panels are finished, the triptych will be 12 by 3 feet.* I am pleased, I just hope I can finish Julia before we leave the north in November. That way the triptych will be completed and installed for parties and receptions at Characters this winter and spring.

Note

The inference to historical triptych's in Catholic Christianity makes sense as the worship of film/theater personalities (icons) in the 20th and 21st century often reaches an almost religious fervor. These characters are our Modern, Postmodern, and Metamodern gods, the equivalent of ancient Roman and Greek gods with all their human foibles and characteristics.

Art Cards IV

Update, August 22, 2015

I’ve decided that I should have been taking photos of the dropped off Art Cards on location, and I’m telling myself that I should have realized that at the beginning of the project. I know that I can’t possibly shoot them every time I leave the cards as this is supposed to be a surreptitious operation. It would be just slightly obvious if I whip my phone out of my pocket and start taking pictures of a store counter, restaurant tabletop or museum kiosk.

Above are two of the photos of cards left in Rehoboth Beach, DE., one at a friends pool club house, and another of cards left on a locker room bench at Any 1 Fitness in the Rehoboth Mall. I use that gym 3 to 4 times every week and plan on leaving them there often until we leave the area in November.

I did keep a log of all the cards dropped since march of this year including our travels in Turkey, Greece and Italy during July and August. I have one photo of the cards on a restaurant table from the trip. I will publish that photo with another entry about the cards at some point in the future. I will also publish the log (to current date) as an entry on “The Art of John Bittinger Klomp” in September, and again at the end of the year as a New Year’s Eve entry.

Storm Tower

Storm Tower (32" x 40") pastel painting

In honor of our return to Delaware, I am posting this image of one of the two WWII Observation Towers located on the edge of the North Shore beach in Cape Henlopen State Park. . It is almost obligatory that every local artist draw, paint, sculpt or photograph these towers at some point in his/her career, and I did a series of pastel paintings of the towers in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. This particular pastel was made with my old mark making technique - "a travesty" - according to most pastel aficionados because the artist is supposed to rub and smear the pastels together with a chamois or other blending tool. Instead I used the pastels themselves to rub and blend the colors together, and that meant I had to make thousands and thousands of marks with the different colors to make them blend together. It was a very time consuming technique and I later learned to use the sides of the pastels to do the same trick after layering some smoother lighter layers blended the old fashioned way. I especially altered the technique because nobody seemed to understand what I was doing or why I wanted to do it. But, that's another story.

The “Storm Tower” was painted on 32” x 40” museum board, and was sold from an exhibit of the pastel paintings and digital prints of photomontage artworks in the fall of 2001 at the Blue Moon Restaurant on Baltimore Street In Rehoboth Beach. That particular exhibit was hailed by many who saw it as prophetic because I had used “Tower #1”, and “Tower #2” in the titles of many of the pastels and had also put images of airplanes in all of the photomontage prints of the towers.

Tower of the Pyrenees (28" x 18") 2001, photomontage

Folks were wrong. If I had possessed such knowledge, I would have at least tried to warn the appropriate government agencies of the possible attack. Anyway, I especially liked this particular pastel image of Tower #1 because my husband and I often placed our towels near the base of the towers when sunning and swimming at North Shore Beach. This was the view I had as I lay on my back in the summer sun looking toward the top of the tower, though I invented the stormy sky behind the tower in this pastel painting.

Johnny Depp Canvas: Part II

The slowly evolving saga of the Character’s Triptych of Madonna, Johnny Depp and Julia Roberts has taken one tiny step forward. The central panel, that of J. Depp is about 2/3 completed. Now that we are back in Delaware, I expect to be able to complete it by the end of August. Then I can move on to the final panel of Julia Roberts, which probably will not be complete when we leave Delaware in November. Thus, only 2 panels will be installed at Characters Gastropub in Lancaster, PA in October.

The two-panel diptych of Johnny and Madonna will be 3 feet by 8 feet, and it will not be transformed into the 3 by 12 foot triptych until 2016, sad to say. Other than my slow progress on the painting, I am extremely satisfied. I placed the finished Madonna panel and the 2/3rd completed Johnny Depp panel side by side in the Florida studio and they looked wonderful. The position / attitude of the two heads in relation to one another works extremely well as do the colors. Now I just need 2 or 3 days when I can work continuously for 7 to 8 hours in order to finish Johnny. Easier said than done, and the reasons why will be revealed in September.