Yasumasa Morimura, Singing Sunflowers, 1998

Yasumasa Morimura, Self Portrait as Art History: Mona Lisa in Pregnancy (top), and Self Portrait as Art History: Mona Lisa in the Third Place (bottom), 1998

Monument

Greetings! Nearby where I live is Redwood Park. Above the Hazelmere Valley, these originally clear-cut 80 acres were owned by deaf twins, David and Peter Brown. Around 1893, when they were in their early 20s, the brothers started planting and caring for small trees collected as seeds and seedlings by mail from places like Russia, Austria, Japan, France, Italy and California. As the trees grew, the reclusive and eccentric brothers built and lived in a two-story treehouse. Here, in 1958, they died, leaving this property to the municipality. Today the park is a mature forest--a stately cathedral with winding pathways, occasional sunny meadows and secret painterly hideaways. To set up here is to feel the brothers' dedication to peaceful isolation and the miracle of growth. All of us have the opportunity to leave our world with some sort of monument. Some among us have the compulsion more than others. Down deep, many artists have the idea that the objects we produce will be our legacy. Our life in art is like the growth of a forest--small seeds nurtured until their presence is inescapable. We, too, use the power of nature to build our unique monuments. With dissemination and distribution our life-work in art is divided and travels to many lands. Unlike a forest that can be taken down with a single careless match, ours is of many parts--some, at least, which may stay out of harm's way. We owe it to ourselves to manage the quality of our craft. We need to take care of permanence and give heed to the integrity of our designs and the lasting freshness of our colours. "Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat," says Plotinus in The Enneads. It's a given that our art might just be around for a long time. "Ars longa, vita brevis est." (Hippocrates) "Art is long, life is short." The brothers, great readers that they were in their silent worlds, knew the value of ancient things. "The emanation from old trees changes and renews the spirit." (Robert Louis Stevenson) Best regards, Robert PS: "Along the way trees are planted which are not expected to bear fruit in one's lifetime." (The Dreamway, 231) Esoterica: Incense, Lebanon, and Blue Atlas Cedars and many other evergreens have done well here. Elms, chestnuts and maples are doing okay. Of the 32 species the brothers planted, the California redwoods, Sequoia gigantea, have truly thrived. Is this the world's longest living thing? Is this one of our largest? These sequoias I now sit under are truly large, but they are perhaps not as large as they are going to be. Current Clickback: "Colour choice and adjustment" looks at putting down the right colour. Your comments will be appreciated. Read this letter online and share your thoughts about leaving behind a monument. Live comments are welcome. Direct, illustratable comments can be made at rgenn@saraphina.com The Art Show Calendar: If you or your group has a show coming up, put an illustrated announcement on The Painter's Keys site. The longer it's up, the more people will see it. Your announcement will be shown until the last day of your show. The Workshop Calendar: Here is a selection of workshops and seminars laid out in chronological order that will stimulate, teach, mentor, take you to foreign lands or just down the street. Many of these workshops are recommended by Robert and friends. Incidentally, if you are planning a workshop and have photos of happy people working, feel free to send them to us and we'll include a selection in the workshops feature at no extra charge. The Painter's Post: Every day new material is going into this feature. Links to art info, ideas, inspiration and all kinds of creative fun can be found in this online arts aggregator. If a friend is trying to subscribe to the Twice-Weekly Letter via Constant Contact, please let her or him know that confirmation is required and to reply to Constant Contact's confirmation email. You can also follow Robert's valuable insights and see further feedback on Facebook and Twitter Featured Responses: Alternative to the instant Live Comments, Featured Responses are illustrated and edited for content. If you would like to submit your own for possible inclusion, please do so. Just click 'reply' on this letter or write to rgenn@saraphina.com

Abstract landscape paintings by Yangyang Pan.

Guy Laramee, The Cloud of Unknowing

With less one finds
With too much one loses oneself.

Paintings by Tomasz Alen Kopera Eternity, oil on canvas 28” x 36”, 2010 Entwined, oil on canvas 28” x 36”, 2010

atavus: Francois Robert - Stop the Violence

Stanisław Wyspiański, Portrait of Kazimierz Lewandowski, 1898

Stanisław Wyspiański, Portrait of Liza Parenska (Among Blossoming Pelargonium Flowers), 1904

The Xiying Rainbow Bridge

The Xiying Rainbow Bridge is an elevated pedestrian walkway located in Magong, Penghu County in Taiwan. The bridge is lined with a thin neon band that reflects a rainbow onto the water’s surface below at night. (via gaks)

Pontormo, Self Portrait, 1525

Great depth of field...

Colour choice and adjustment

Greetings! Some painters nail the exact colour they need on the first go. I'm not one of them. In my experience, 90% share my problem. Colours change as the colours change around them--and you can't know the colour of a passage until you're picking up what you're putting down. The situation is compounded by the presence of (or desirability for) reflected lights, silhouettes, local colours, broken colours, cast shadows, equal intensity lay-bys, etc. Finding the right colour can be like looking for the Higgs boson. Understanding how colour works is largely a self-taught skill. Two years ago a young New Zealand painter, Richard Robinson, produced a remarkable video on the subject. There's a twice-weekly letter about it here. Further, every serious painter should study the research of Josef Albers, Albert Munsell, and other colour wizards. Here are a few practical ploys to consider: * Consider limiting your palette. One of my all-time best tips is to start out with large dollops of six or seven pigments only. How's about black, white, cad red, crimson, yellow and blue. By forcing the mixing of opposites on the colour wheel, limited palettes facilitate delicious, sophisticated colours. * Consider "pushing colour." This is where you overstate early on with brighter or "any old" colour in the full knowledge that you can adjust later. Curiously, a gut decision in overstating often gives a delightful energy that doesn't need later modification. * Consider grisaille. This is where black, white and gray-scale become a chassis for colour to be localized later. Apart from achieving a certain kind of style, grisaille proves once again that relative tone values are more important than local colour. * Consider "infinite play." Taking care not to overwork, keep adjusting colour hue, intensity and tone value. The hues within sunlight and shadow, for example, are not always obvious at first. Keep playing until you begin to see visual truth. * Consider glazing. Tone down or re-tone passages with a transparent, generally darker tone spread over a dry under-painting. Warm can be made cool and cool can be made warm, either overall or in selected passages. One of the most underrated and underused ploys, glazing fixes and pulls together lame colour compositions for fun and profit. Best regards, Robert

HAPPY 101st BIRTHDAY, Lucille Désirée Ball [LUCY] (August 6th 1911 - April 26th 1989)

Whenever they were in the Bay Area, she (Lucy) and Harriet, who was not only her maid but her gin rummy partner and confidante, visited Harriet’s best friend, Dot. Knowing Lucille loved barbecue, Dot bought ribs, and they all sat in the kitchen eating them. “I kept staring at this beautiful lady eating messy ribs,” said Dot’s daughter, Barbara, who was ten at the time. “Lucille loved children and she always treated me like a princess. She had her dressmaker make me pinafores and she sent socks to match. My mother was afraid I would be spoiled rotten, and I was. Lucille made people feel important in her company, because if she liked you, she loved you.The little girl delighted in seeing how silly Lucille and her aunt Harriet behaved together. “They tried on hats with feathers and veils and pranced around like college kids.” Harriet and Dot reminisced about being dancers together, and Lucille chimed in with tales of her Goldwyn Girl days. “The three of them would have a couple of drinks, then push the furniture back and form a chorus line, laughing and giggling and dancing,” Barbara recalled.

Le Mont Saint Michel Sous l’Orage (by Caputarietis Philippe Cabaret)

Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), Alexander Reid, 1997. Oil on board. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow.

Alexander Reid (1854-1928) was an influential Glasgow art dealer who was a flatmate of Van Gogh and his brother Theo at the time this work was painted.