"My Calistoga" - completed at last!

My Calistoga  •  © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls  •  36" x 36" acrylic and collage on canvas

Sometimes it just takes awhile to figure out what a painting needs. I sit and listen, because at this point in the conversation between me and the painting, it needs to tell me what it really wants. And sometimes the painting is quiet. Sometimes they're quiet for months... or years. Sometimes I just say, "Okay - we're done!" and it becomes a moot point.

At last I figured out what My Calistoga needed – it needed gold. So here it is, photographed on the easel, with its added gold (and a little copper). And now it's ready to go out into the world.

And it did – you can see it at the Calistoga Visitor's Center (the Chamber of Commerce) in Calistoga for the next few weeks. Proceeds from its sale will benefit the Calistoga Art Center.

In case you haven't seen the story of its creation, it began as a demonstration piece at the Napa County Fair this summer. Here is its beginning, in my earlier blog posts about it:  Painting Demos at the Napa County Fair  and "My Calistoga" – continued progress.

"My Calistoga" - continued progress

My Calistoga • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here's My Calistoga in its "final" state (to date). As you could see in the previous post, I had a long way to go with My Calistoga after my demonstration times at the fair ended. Here's the process....

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, I added a scumbled white frame around the sides of the canvas, between the collaged photographs. I've also developed some parts of the central composition a little further.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

You may notice variances of light and warmth in the photographs – not to mention varying bits of easels and background around the edges. The photographs were all taken in changing light, at different times of the day, and in different parts of the art center as I worked on the painting. Here I've continued to develop the central composition, especially the palm trees, the area around them, and their reflections. I've worked a little on the "Calistoga" sign at the top, too.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

At this stage, I've begun the process of tinting the collaged photographs. I want them to have a kind of old-timey, tinted photograph look (though they've actually been taken over the course of the last few years). I've developed the reflecting pool area a bit more, too.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The most obvious change is scumbling over the scumbled white, which covered an underpainting of reds. This time I've done it with a mid-value brown, mixed from every color in my palette.

Palm tree detail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I continued to add details to the palm trees, although they're subtle. Throughout the painting, I've used scumbling to give a sense of energy and vibrancy, and a kind of mistiness to the geyser. I love letting colors show from underneath.

Palm trees detail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Although there's some detail to the palm fronds, and the negative spaces between them, I haven't developed them overly much. In this painting, they're not as important as the geyser. The studies I did of fan palms in Palm Springs came in handily as I worked on these....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I continued to work on the little collaged photographs, too. Here are a few of them.... Left to right, downtown facing the Palisades; a sunflower from the Farmer's Market (a prizewinning photo for me); and Tom Atkins' tractor, which pulled last year's Art Center float in the Fourth of July parade.

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, Eden's bicycle, which she kindly let me photograph at a concert in Calistoga's Pioneer Park a couple of weeks ago....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

A wonderful old olive tree across Tubbs Lane and over a bit from Chateau Montelena....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Top to bottom, riders (on beautiful Palominos) in the Calistoga Cinco de Mayo parade a few years ago; the Faunce's barn on Foothill Boulevard; and Calistoga City Hall.

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Top to bottom – mustard between the rows of vines; the Calistoga Mineral Water truck sculpture; and Mt. St. Helena rising above mustard and vines (the view next to Faunce's barn).

I'm teaching these collage painting techniques this Saturday at the Calistoga Art Center, too. I'm looking forward to it! You can click here for the workshop information:

http://www.napavalleyartworkshops.com/painting-collages1.html

I intended the painting to be kind of iconic of Calistoga (represented by the geyser), surrounded with the small images of so many things and places I love around town. Some stand in symbolically for other places, because I just couldn't fit everything in. I still have a little bit yet to do on the painting, but it's mostly finished.

More wrestling...

Morning Celebration, in progress

© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I love beginning a painting. I know for some people the white canvas can be intimidating, but for me it's invigorating. There are so many possibilities!

Morning Celebration, in progress. An important part of that process is painting upside down.

© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The middle of the painting, for me, is much harder. I tell my students about how I was once told that, if you were to open up a cocoon before the caterpillar is ready (don't do it!), you would find green goo. The caterpillar has to, essentially, dissolve and reconstruct itself as a butterfly. Painting is like that for me. The middle section is a long period of green goo....

Morning Celebration, in progress © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I call it "the green goo phase of the painting." Knowing that every painting has to go through this is helpful. It helps me refrain from being judgmental as the painting goes through its awkward stages. Judgment is a creativity killer — it can stop the creative process cold, if you let it. So I don't.

Morning Celebration, in progress

© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Sticking with this middle green goo part of the process is tough. It's just not going to be pretty. Another appropriate analogy is the growing-up process we all have to go through. The middle phase of the painting is like an awkward adolescence. Some paintings go through more extended periods of adolescence than others, and some paintings are less communicative and more sullen than others. My job is to stay with the process, and coax it into becoming what it needs to be. I don't know at the beginning of this what that will look like. Painting is a process of discovery.

More later....

Wrestling with the angel....

Morning Celebration, in progress

Sometimes painting is like wrestling with the painting. You know the old story — Jacob wrestling with the angel all night long, saying, "Bless me! Bless me!"? Working on this painting has been a bit like that. We've been wrestling.

Morning Celebration, in progress

Here it is, on the easel, in its early stages. The canvas is 36"x48." I'm working from a photograph I took nearly a year and a half ago, of a tree and meadows just around the corner from my house.

Morning Celebration, in progress

I rose before dawn that morning specifically to photograph morning light and shadow on the fields and trees. It's a particularly beautiful spot — I created my first painting of this area years before I lived right here.

Morning Celebration, in progress

It was 22° that morning — not much for my cousins in Sweden or Alaska, but cold for California. The ground was white with ice, creating the most gorgeous blue shadows.... I'm playing with the color here, because I want a warmer feeling in the painting, but I want to retain those beautiful shadows.

More later....

Pear painting in progress

This weekend I painted two simple paintings of pears, as the light changed. I decided to photograph the painting process of the second one. Here it is....

In the first stage, I've established my composition and blocked in the underpainting. Things will change a bit before everything is finally completed.

Here I've painted in the next level of the composition, breaking things into smaller shapes and layering my colors. I'm using a limited primaries palette — titanium white, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium, and cobalt blue.

I've layered the colors further here. These paints were a bit on the transparent side (ordinarily unusual for these pigments), so the layers finally begin to have some opacity.

Here, the painting is nearing completion — I ran out of time, though the light was still lovely. I'll definitely do a little more around the stem — I'm not sure if I'll add anything else.

On My Easel

On the easel © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here's what's on my easel currently. This began as my Earth Day demonstration painting. It's changed a bit since then. I'm thinking of calling it Sunny at the Top of the Hill. It is very close to being finished... I think....

I usually go back and forth between different paintings at the same time. I have two others in process that are 20"x24", and have been working on a number of smaller mixed media pieces in the interim as well. I like going back and forth between them. The extra time gives me a chance to listen to what each painting is trying to tell me about what it needs next.