FIN 220 Unit 3 – Stewart Lamon

RICHARD DIEBENKORN – Artist Research

“Ingleside”, 1963. Oil on canvas, 81 3/4 x 69 1/2

“Invented Landscape”, 1977. Gouache and crayon on paper, 17 x 14.

FINAL PAINTING

Initial drawing done with a black, acrylic marker. In emulating Diebenkorn, I made no attempt to hide these black marks, nor any adjacent white, so they would to some effect outline the various sections I had taped off.

I taped off just about every contained section or segment of this painting, so the black outlines could be at least partially preserved by taping over them.

I ultimately used the Cad Red Medium and Quinacradone Magenta with varying amounts of Titanium White for the red house. I added some Sap Green to make some of the darker shingles on the red house. For the blue house, I used Ultramarine Blue and Payne’s Grey with Titanium White.

My original goal with this painting was to produce something like one of the Group of Seven house landscapes, and I do find this reminiscent of LL Fitzgerald’s “Doc Snyder’s House”, 1931, as unintentional as that was. However, the more I read about Diebenkorn, the more I tried to incorporate his techniques, especially the use of sections and segments, and the imprecise, thin outlines of black that he used so much.

Everything peripheral here (sky, trees, fence and grass), and the roofs were done with drywall scrapers. The central parts are more detailed, and the ‘give’ of the canvas centrally didn’t lend itself to the use of scrapers. Hence, the style peripherally and centrally look different from one another. The trim on the two houses was difficult to decide on. The yellowish white on the blue house seemed like a good choice, but it ended too close to the yellow oxide-white I used on the red house. I would have liked them to differ more.

VAL NELSON Commentary

3 Life Paintings