The Artwork of Brian Kliewer

This is an old drawing I did for practice.  It's based on a figure from the 1945 Norman Rockwell painting, "The War Hero."  That is a very "busy" painting, though very good.  I just wanted to try to capture the expression of the little boy.  Sorry about the poor quality of the scan, and as you can see, the drawing itself hasn't fared too well over the years, either.  Jana Botkin, one of my readers, suggested I post a drawing...so here it is.

I don't draw these days like I should.  I used to draw all the time.  Mostly I just rough in a sketch on my canvas and get into the painting.  But I've been thinking about getting back into drawing more.  Maybe I will and post some of them here or on my other blog.

You can use Tracing Paper for more than just tracing...

Years ago I had a studio window that was "unruly."  Direct sunlight would come in through it and hit my easel.  I had to wait until later in the mornning before I could begin to paint.  Then I got thinking about how I might be able to control things without losing the light.  So I got a pad of tracing paper and taped sheets  of it up to the window.  Bingo!  Instant "north light."  The light remained soft and steady all day long. The window was small, so the sheets worked well enough.  You can buy it by the roll, if you prefer.

I do the same thing in my current studio when needed.  Not only does direct sunlight come in at certain times of the year, but my studio is located above a busy street and sidewalk with plenty of cars and foot traffic.  The tracing paper trick controls both the light and other distractions!

The downside?   In the summertime, it takes away what is for me a great girl watching spot.  :/ And of course, summertime is the best time for watching girls. 

By the way, I rarely "trace."  :)

LEAVE A COMMENT!

Okay, I'm being a little harsh I guess but here's proof showing why it works...

This is a view of one of my recent visitor logs.  Aline and Susan left comments on my blog.  See the little red arrows?  Know what they mean?  They mean that someone visited THEIR sites via the comments they left on my blog.  The arrows denote "outbound" traffic. 

Have a site?  Leave a comment.  Don't be tacky, though, and leave your website URL in the comment field.  Leave it in the website field along with the info blogs ask you to identify yourselves.  I've done it before.  It works.   I've even gained collectors this way. 

I often get feedback in my email from artists after I send a newsletter/update.  That doesn't really do them any good.  A blog comment can.

And as a "Thank you" to both Susan and Aline for their comments, here are links to their websites:

http://paintingsbyaline.com/Paintings_by_Aline/Welcome_to_Paintings_by_Aline.html

http://susangutting.com/

"Early Spring" 6"x8" oil on linen © 2011 Brian Kliewer  SOLD

"Early Spring" detail © 2011 Brian Kliewer

If you would like to bid on this painting you can do so by placing it in the comment box below, but please follow the Updated Auction Rules and Guidelines.  Thank you.

Minimum bid is $100.  Bidding will close at 6:00 PM Eastern Time (US), Monday, Feb. 27.

Paintings usually ship within 20 business days after payment has cleared.

($15 shipping US/Canada will be added to the winning bid)  (5% sales tax Maine residents only)

About the painting...

With spring approaching, I decided to put this painting up for bid.  We've had  a"mild" winter here in Maine...I've only seen "sea smoke" a couple of times and we've had almost no snowfall to speak of.  But that doesn't change my desire to see spring come!  I'm looking forward to it.  Much of my work has a more "finished" style to it.  I do enjoy the loose, painterly look I'm getting with these small paintings, however.  I did this one last year.  I'm currently working on other larger things but expect to post new small paintings soon. 

Bids are now closed.

Painting is more to me than just trying to capture a scene.  Sometimes that's all you can do.  But even if all that is accomplished is the attempt, betterment is at least something to be proud of. 

Here are a few quotes that  sum up  how I feel about that effort...

“Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.”

Robert Henri

“I do not want to see how skillful you are. I am not interested in your skill. What do you get out of nature? Why do you paint this subject? What is life to you? What reasons and what principles have you found? What are your deductions? What projections have you made? What excitement, what pleasure do you get out of it? Your skill is the thing of least interest to me.”
Robert Henri

"You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice."

U2

"One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes."
Andrew Wyeth

"There is a species of emotion particular to painting. There is an effect that results from a certain arrangement of colors, of lights, of shadows, etc. It is this that one calls the music of painting."
Vuillard

What inspires you?

"School Days" 8"x6" oil on linen © 2011 Brian Kliewer

I have to say that I honestly feel this is one of the best things I've ever done.  I almost didn't want to sell it.  This painting carries  a lot of emotion with it.  As I mentioned when I first posted it, I grew up on this street.  Vivid memories are built into it....mostly good ones...but some that still haunt me to this day. I think this is one of the reasons it came out as well as it did. 

So much of who I am today came from here....these were the formative years.    I did my first "real" painting here.  I saw my first shooting star here.  My first heartbreaking crush was experienced here.  My first understanding of human death also came from here.  I went from the joy of stomping my feet in puddles to seeing my grandmother in her casket.   And it was here I remember first hearing about my cousin coming back from Vietnam after having his legs blown off.  I didn't know what that meant.  I just couldn't understand it...any of it.

Most of the memories are good ones, though.  I had the time of my life here.  I still remember my mother allowing us to stay out after 8 one evening and seeing some of the biggest snowflakes I'd ever seen.  To this day I don't think I've seen bigger.  And they were wet!  You know what that means....yes, we had one of the biggest snowball fights EVER!  It was a blast!  One girl in particular caught a very heavy snowball in the back of the head.  I'm not going to tell you who it was that  threw it.  ;)

The road in winter was never plowed all the way down the hill.  The snowplow usually stopped in front of our house, or about where the viewer is standing.  So we often had a nice large snowbank right out in front of the house.  The lower half of the road was too rocky with solid ledge, so the plows never completed a run.  They'd always come down as far as our house, stop and then back up.   I never complained because that meant excellent snow sledding!  I'd often stay out until "hot aches" developed.  Even then I didn't complain.  As soon as I'd warm up, I'd be right back outside in the snow going at it again.  Speaking of snow, I remember one winter's snowfall being so severe I was able to step over the fence out back.  I was only 6 or 7 at the time and the fence was about six feet tall.  I walked over the top of it.

There's something about those leaves...

In choosing the composition of the painting, something hit me.  I don't know if it was my subconscious at work or not but the orange tree on the right reminds me of one horrific night.  There was  a  house across the street (on the right side).  A large family used to live in it.  They had three daughters and three sons, ranging in age from about 6 - 14.   On one very snowy night I was awakened by sirens.  We no longer lived here, but on the other end of town and on the main road.  One fire truck passed and then another.  Then still another would come.  There were five or six trucks in all...all from neighboring towns.  I knew something "big" was up, but I had no idea where the fire was.  Then we got a call at about 2 AM.  It was one of our old neighbors asking us if we could hear the screams.  She thought we still lived on this road.  The Turner house was on fire!  

We got word the next day that four of the six children had died.  These were friends of mine.  They were too scared to jump out of the upstairs window, and one of the exits on the first floor had been blocked by an old refrigerator.  One of the firemen had to be turned away as a couple of the children living in the building at the time were his own.  (One of them died.  The fireman didn't live there and was, in fact, among one of the "called in" crews from out of town.)  In the painting now, I see those orange leaves as flames.  The woman who called us lived in the house you see on the left. 

I'm glad now that we weren't there to see it.  I don't know how I would have handled it. 

I can't always do it, but there are times when there are 'tears' in my paint...and I make no apologies for it.  It's these times when some of the best paintings come.

Too much information?

I believe syrup is for pancakes.  Having said that, it's often been said that we suppress our worst memories and keep our fondest.  In the painting, though not seen, the Turner house is still standing.  The neighborhood kids are in school.  We're heading into winter, my favorite time of year.  And the viewer is standing next to our front yard, where I used to play.  So this scene is sort of a "best of" from that time.   

For Cathy, Ellie, Eddie and Donny.

"Promontory, Bass Harbor Light"  24"x36" oil on canvas © Brian Kliewer

In my previous post I might have sounded like I was 'going after' other atsists for the way they portray our grand old State of Maine.  Nothing like that was meant.  A lot of the work I see does pretty well depict Maine, even if typical.  And if I were an artist from out of state with only  a few days to get what I could on canvas, I'd probably go for that look as well.  It is a beautiful place!  Sometimes I do go for that look.  Sometimes it's just the thing to do.

But like any place it has its own 'character' that isn't typically seen.   This is what I was getting at.  Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse (above) is often portrayed in both photographs  and paintings in full sunlight.  Sometimes you see it in fog.  I liked this view.  The day I was there it was overcast as I've painted it.  It has to be one of the most photographed lighthouses of all them in the state.  In my 'not so typical' view, I elected to go with almost no water in sight.   Sometimes it just gets too pretty here.  This is one reason I like to look for a different approach.  

"Off Season" 24"x36" oil on canvas © Brian Kliewer

"Off Season" was done with this in mind.    However, I'm constantly aware that I can also become cliche  even in my own work.  This is something I try to avoid.  But I don't necessarily try to buck trends just to be different.  It's really about what best expresses both my mood and the scene itself.  While I want to have my own signature style, I would never want to be a 'if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all' kind of painter. 

Being aware of these things can hold you back.  No...being an artist isn't "easy"...anywhere!  

A better title for this post might have been "Artist Or Travel Agent?"  Being an artist in Maine isn't easy.  I know many think it is.  Being an artist isn't really "easy" anywhere but I've often heard, "How lucky you are to live in such a beautfiul place!"  Well, that's true but I don't really want to work for the Maine Department of Tourism.  That's not what painting is about to me. There's a 'truth of life' that I'm after even if the scene is "pretty," and much of that scenery here in Maine is.  It's a constant struggle.  I've seen many, many landscapes and seascapes depicting the postcard nature of the state in idealized splendor.    A great many artists come here from other locales just to capture beauteous snapshots.  But I live here and have all my life.  So I know there is much, much more to it than just that.  This is what I try to put in my artwork.  The "romanticized" view isn't for me.  Even if it is a "pretty" scene, I prefer a harder edge and strive for that.

Have you ever stopped and looked at a scene, I mean really looked at it?  Watching a sloop pass by a pretty cove is one thing.  But what of the clammer who had been there at low tide in the hot noonday sun, breaking his back to dig those clams?  He was there before everything got all nice and cozy with the setting sun.  No, not a "pretty" scene but one I've come to know well over the years. 

Or what about  the beauty one sees while looking through a frost covered window?

"Ten Degrees" 4"x4" oil on linen © 2008 Brian Kliewer

The harsh, cold reality of winter doesn't always bring with it beautiful, sweeping, blue shadows over a field of sparkling snow.  But the "beauty" is still there...if you want to look.  Beauty is where you find it.  You just have to look!

Well that's my "artful thought" for the day. 

Keep painting!

This is a follow-up to my earlier post, obviously.  It will be the last in this series but I wanted to illustrate how effective blogging can be and why I prefer it to social media, i.e., Twitter and Facebook, and online "artist registries," etc.  I might write more on the subject of blogging itself at a later date.  I know some have questioned whether it can really work or not.  I say it can and I'll use an experience I had several years ago to explain why I feel this way.

I recently visited the Fine Art America website.  Their tagline perfectly illustrates why I choose not to be there...

No, that's not the Chicago Cubs but real Maine Black Bear cubs...LIVE online!

Lugnut

I caught this on the news yesterday and thought I'd share it.  You can watch streaming LIVE video of a Maine black bear and her cubs.  "Lugnut" gave birth to two cubs on January 16 and the Wildlife Reasearch Foundation has set up a live streaming video camera in the den.  You can watch it on the center's website:   http://www.wildliferesearchfoundation.org/ 

From MPBN:  "Maine officials and a wildlife group have teamed up to install the state's first "bear cam" in a black bear den. The camera streams video 24 hours a day of the bear, Lugnut, who gave birth to two cubs on Jan. 16. 

Lugnut is one of several black bears in Maine equipped with radio collars, which enable state wildlife biologists to keep track of them. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife teamed up with the newly-formed Wildlife Research Foundation to install the camera in Lugnut's den."

More from WCSH TV in Portland.

Now, I wonder if "Lugnut" will complain about someone 'throwing a wrench in the works'?  Pull down that shade!