R. L. Macaulay Musings

Done with Ophelia, on with Juliet

2011-10-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

Ophelia is finally done, varnished and ready to hang. I am going to submit her and Xaipe to the Exhibition at Industria Studios entitled Mirror, Myself: A Self Portrait. We'll see what happens.

I've decided to continue on this theme of Shakespearean women. Next in line is the well-known tragic figure of Juliet. I did a preliminary sketch yesterday and thought I'd show it to those interested. In this next painting, I'm not going to focus on her death, but on the morning she has to say her last goodbye to Romeo. He is not in the scene, but has just left out the window, and as she stares regretfully at the eastern horizon, a lark alights on the windowsill. Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers "argue" about the lark, and&emdash;as always&emdash;I never forget to include a highly symbolic bird:

"Juliet: 'Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day./ It was the nightingale, and not the lark,/ That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;/ Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree./ Believe me love, it was the nightingale.'

"Romeo: 'It was the lark, the herald of the morn,/ No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks/ Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east./ Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day/ Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops./ I must be gone and live, or stay and die.'"

After Romeo expresses his will to stay and die because Juliet wants him to stay, Juliet gives in and presses him to leave:

"Juliet: '...It is the lark that sings so out of tune,/ Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps./ Some say the lark makes sweet division;/ This doth not so, for she divideth us.'"

Moving Right Along

2011-08-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

Ophelia is moving right along and I have two more progress pictures to share. I've paingted in her hand, the robin and her hair; I've also given her a dark red dress to compliment the warm red on the robin's breast.

Fighting Inspiration

2011-07-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

It's been one year since my mother died, yet I still find it extremely difficult to be productive and active, especially in my art. The first painting I managed to do after her death was one of an Ancient Greek grave stele of a young girl with her doves (Xaipe).After I finished, I thought that maybe it would be unhealthy to continue on this theme of death... and so for little under a year I have forced myself to think of other subjects.

First phase of my Ophelia painting.

I came to realize one morning that I shouldn't fight inspiration, even if it is macabre, because if I am not inspired to do a painting, I can't do it well, I can't be happy with it and I can't finish it successfully. Creating work on the subject of death will actually help me heal and release the overwhelming stress, frustration, sadness, and regret.

Progress of my Ophelia painting.

As soon as I let go and listened to my inspiration, I immediately thought of ideas for new paintings and became excited about them. It feels really good to be excited again about making art.

Don't force yourself to do things you aren't inspired to do. Act on the inspiration and you'll be happier.

The inspiration for my next painting is the tragic Shakespearean character Ophelia, who, through the loss of her father and rejection from Hamlet, was driven mad and drowned in a stream.

Portable Oil Palette

2011-04-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Materials

Process

The best palette surface for oil paint is glass and the cheapest way to get a nice oil palette is to get a glass frame from a place like Walgreens (don't waste your money on special oil paint glass palettes). After squeezing out all your colors and mixing your paint just the way you want it, the last thing you should do after a day of painting is scrape off all your excess expensive oil paint and throw it away or have it sit idle and start drying until you paint again. To preserve your muy presioso oil paint, carefully put your palette in the freezer to freeze the paint, then thaw it before painting again (this will slow down the drying process considerably).

Now, it doesn't take long for an artist to realize that storing and transporting an oil palette is a hassle; when you store it in the freezer, the oil paint can get on your food and you need to make sure you have enough room to store it flat. There are special storing palettes for acrylic paint, but—as far as I can tell—there are only messy, non-convenient options for oil paint. Enter my portable oil paint palette.

This post will show you how to make your own, relatively inexpensive oil paint freezer palette.

Materials

You will need:

Large, plastic scrapbook box (or if you want something small, a plastic snap-lid pencil box)
Two 8"x10" cheap front-loading glass frames (I found mine at Walgreens—they're called Format, made by MCS) . If you want to make a small palette case, get the 4"x6" frames.
A metallic Sharpie, or something that can mark on black plastic.
Eight 1/2" machine screws with nuts.
Phillips-head screwdriver for the machine screws.
Sharp, round file suitable for poking holes through thick plastic.

Process

Step 1

Take the two frames apart and with the metallic Sharpie mark the insides of the frames directly in the middle of each side. Then, with the sharp metal file, poke holes through the frames where marked (I only had to poke two holes per frame because the frames I used already had two holes in them for hanging).

Step 2

Center each of the two frames inside the lid and the bottom of the box and mark their position through the holes with the metallic sharpie.Then, poke holes through the box where you marked the placement of the frames.

Step 3

Once there are holes in the frames and in the box, screw the machine screws through the holes into the box. Then take the screws out and do the same with the frames. This will ensure that the holes are large enough to accommodate the screws and make threads in the plastic that the screws can follow.

Step 4

Once you make sure the screws can go through the holes, line up the frames' holes with the box's holes and from the outside of the box, drive the screws into the box and frames. Screw the accompanying machine screw nuts onto the end of the screws to secure the frames to the box (you don't want your frames to fall out when you have all your paint on them!).

Step 5

Replace the paper and glass into the frames (flipping the paper around to have a tan or gray surface showing).

Conclusion

...And that's it! You have a portable palette you can throw into the freezer or transport without a big messy paint hassle.

Please let me know if any of this didn't make sense and feel free to tweak as necessary.

New Year, New Work

2011-01-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

There is no end to my resolutions this year and one of many is the dedication to paint more. I am currently working on two—soon three—paintings and have a few ideas of sculptures I want to carve. I hit the ground running at the beginning of this new year: I resolved to get paperwork in order to officially start my own business, which I believe I will call RLM Studio (or something like that), I am working with a new website client, and I have decided to go back to school in the fall semester for a computer science class and another foreign language (I'm leaning towards Arabic). I still ultimately want to become an art professor, but I want to expand my horizons before I narrow them; I want to build a stable financial foundation before I tackle such a challenging task. Plus, I really enjoy working on websites—they provide endless mind puzzles, which I adore.

Art is still my heart's passion, but there is always time for art if you make time (sorry Facebook games, I've got better things to do). The first painting I'm working on has been around for a while collecting dust because I wasn't very happy with it, but the other day I looked at it again and decided to salvage it. The subject is about bird nest soup, which comes from the actual nests of swifts—not swallows—as sometimes it's called "swallow's nest." Although I hear it's very healthy, I'm averse to the idea of eating regurgitated nest material. In the painting, I felt to express my uneasiness by playing with the idea of a bird nesting in a person's open mouth.

The next painting's imagery has been stewing in my mind for about a year. The subject matter is simple and is comprised of a Japanese Shinto gateway (seen from a low angle) with birds sitting on it and flying over it. I am not sure it will work as a painting, but it made a really nice little relief print. I've always been fascinated with the Shinto belief of birds being the messengers between this world and the next. The gateway marks the divide between the ordinary world and the sacred, and since birds are the messengers, it's natural to find them at that divide. In fact, the Japanese call the gates "torii" and the word for bird is "tori." It has been said that the gate also functions as a type of glorified bird perch (I can't remember where I read this, please correct me if I'm wrong).

I've included pictures of both the works-in-progress in this post. Hopefully they come out as well as the imagery I'm imagining (crossing fingers).

I dub thee "XAIPE"

2010-11-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

My latest painting is finished and is named "XAIPE," (pronounced khai-ray) which my sources assure me loosely means "Farewell" in Ancient Greek (many Ancient Greek gravestones have the word "XAIPE" engraved on them).

The subject is a gravestone from Paros depicting a young girl expressing her devotion to her doves. Doves are sacred to the goddess Aphrodite, but I am unsure of the exact relationship between these doves and the girl. Were they her's or did they belong to a temple of Aphrodite? In any case, the hands which carved this grave stele may very well be the same hands which sculpted some of the figures on the Parthenon frieze. The stele is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and its details can be found here.

This is the first piece I've done since my mother's death and, in a way, is a farewell to her and her innocence.

Book of Art

2010-10-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine passed a handmade book to me. I judged the book by it's cover and immediately thought, "Alright! It must be a sketchbook that you pass on to people—I can't wait to draw something in it."

Alas, it was not. It was simply a book full of lyrics and two CDs. It was well done and made... but I was expecting something much more interactive and engaging—something that would spur my creativity.

I was disappointed, but, with encouragement from friends, I decided to make such a book. I made the book with pages of all different types of materials: plain paper, manuscript paper, lined paper, canvas pad, charcoal paper, hosho paper, etc. I also put photo sleeves in it in case a photographer wants to slip in a picture or if someone finds some inspiring leaf or something flat and wants to share it.

I just completed the book yesterday.
The instructions I put in the book are as follows:

This book is for your artistic expression.
Pick one page and

write
draw
paint
compose
sew
fold
photograph
collage
Do some art.
Be inspired.

You have two weeks to finish.
There are many surfaces provided to express your creativity:

rice paper
charcoal paper (3 colors)
drawing paper
graph paper
watercolor paper
manuscript paper
lined paper
canvas paper
canvas
hosho paper
black paper
plain paper
photo sleeves (for photography or inspiring things)
The medium you choose is not dictated by the page material.

Once done, sign your piece, place the piece of tracing paper back between the pages (for its protection)and give the book back to the maker.
If the artist you received the book from is not the maker, slip the book (in its box) into the pre-paid envelope, located at the back of the book, and mail it.

Out with the Old...

2010-09-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

My website plans presented in my last post have not come to fruition until recently. I am now finally making more time for my art and it's promotion. While my website is not updated yet, my design plans can be seen at http://www.rlmacaulay.com/testpage01.htm. I've made little icons for each section of artwork: Painting (paint brushes), Drawing (pencils), Printing (U-gouge tool), Sculpting (wire loop sculpting tool), Mixed Media (scissors) and Design (compasses); you can see these icons in the background of this blog and the website test page.

I have been posting my painting progress on Facebook, but I'm also going to start posting my progress on this blog (for all those non-Facebookers out there).

In the design world, with the help of Drupal, I've been building a new site for Tansey Gallery at http://www.tanseygallery.com (formerly known as Mountain Shadow Gallery). They've gone for the clean black and white approach for their new persona and I've applied what I like to call my "Geisha in Gray" color scheme to their new site—I have some color themes on adobe's kuler.adobe.com if you'd like to look at them.

For now, my painting-in-progress can be seen on my Facebook page.

New Direction

2009-04-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

Last time I wrote on my blog, I was blathering about my torii paintings. Those paintings have long since been done, But I still haven't signed or photographed them; eventually I will get around to it. Despite having graduated in December (yay, I finally have my BFA) I've been extremely busy.
Reasons of my busy-ness:

I am now working full time as a graphic designer (30 hrs is full time according to the University) for the Institute of the Environment's Climate Assessment for the Southwest at the University of Arizona.

I am constantly watching tutorials at lynda.com to keep my Adobe and website skills fresh,

I have been requested to keep working on www.erikstewartjewelry.com and www.kristylynn.net,

I am invited to teach the owner of Mountain Shadow Gallery about making websites,

AND I'm trying to re-design my own website with CSS.

Whew... unfortunately all these things don't leave me much time for making paintings, but that doesn't mean I'm out of ideas. As soon as I get more of a schedule figured out, I can squeeze painting into it.
Hopefully, I can upload pictures of my torii paintings next time I decide to blog- whenever that may be.

End of Summer

2008-08-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

I was never very good at keeping a journal or a sketchbook. I know I should keep a sketchbook, but that is just how some artists work...
Anyway, it has been over a year since I posted anything and it's high time I made some use out of this blog.

Classes begin at the University of Arizona on August 25th- my last semester before getting an official BFA and two minors in Japanese and Business Administration! Picking what graduate schools I want to go to is hard because I'm one of those people who tends to grow emotionally and physically attached to my location. I'm very attached to Tucson, but I will have to transplant myself sometime soon- I'm excited, but I'm also very scared. Some places I'm looking into are Northern Arizona State University, Arizona State University, and Laguna College of Art and Design. Laguna is expensive, but I'm hoping to find financial aid; I love the work that comes out of that school and they take a representational approach to their subjects. I'm a believer in learning all the representational rules before breaking and manipulating them.

In regards to my website, I have finally updated it after more than a year. I didn't mess with it for a while because I was having problems uploading my files to my server- but all is well and up to date now.

Right now I'm working on a series of paintings about the Japanese Shinto gateway called a "torii." I am fascinated with this structure because of its associations with birds (if you can't tell from my artwork, I love birds...) and its being a division between this world and the spiritual world. Shinto is a very interesting religion and if I were a more decisive individual, I would probably like to be a shintoist. Back to the series- I have ideas about depicting different toriis out of various materials and in an environment corresponding to its material and the style of the torii. I will include pictures and attempt to fully describe my ideas in a different post.

I have discovered the addictive world of Facebook, and I can now be found in its crowd of lethargic individuals. I was never a follower of very popular things, but I have found Facebook to be a good way to establish and strengthen relationships and display artwork- anything which will help me get my art out there works for me!

It's Up!

2007-06-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

My website is finally up and everything is current! Check it out at www.rlmacaulay.com. Please let me know what you think.