Martha Kelly Art

I am always amazed in the Orsay by the Surrealists. I love their feel of otherworldliness that is so different from my own art. I keep thinking about their distinctive visual vocabulary (Redon with his floating flowers, Van Gogh’s portrait with the stars behind it), and I would love to achieve that feel in my own work without knowing exactly how to do it that doesn’t feel completely derivative. I saw an Andrew Wyeth exhibition recently, and he’s such a hardcore realist, but he had one amazing landscape with feathers floating across the picture plane in the foreground. It was perfect for who he was as a painter. As I’ve been looking at these details, I’m daydreaming about using them in conjunction with figures. I did the first self portrait on the right, and (aside from the deer in the headlights look — faces are still hard for me), it had something of that Medieval sense of pattern and symbolic space that I was hoping for. The second has more realistic space in it, but with the added Art Deco details I sketched on various buildings. I’m going to keep playing with this for a bit and see what happens.

I know I’m in Paris and haven’t actually SKETCHED Paris yet. I’ll definitely get there. But the figure sessions recently have me thinking about drawing people (as do my recent figurative paintings), and it’s been market weekend, where I hang out with musicians and draw them. Today, with all that momentum going, I did a few self portraits. This is actually pretty common for me in Paris. I have lots of time here to walk and think about the world, and somehow self portraits always spring out of self examination for me. So, for whatever reason, I did three today. Two largish facial drawings (definitely new territory for me) after one mostly full body one with a face I was really unhappy with. So I decided to dive more deeply.

This evening, after visiting with a marvelous artist friend of mine, I walked over to Luxembourg gardens and drew yet more people. I’m really enjoying these brush pens filled with ink. But I’ll post those in the morning, in the hopes that these blog pages will load better if they’re not totally weighed down with multiple pictures. Also, it’s past 8:30, and I’m on (nominal) vacation, so I think I’ll go read a book.

I spent a week up north in the first apartment I ever came to here with my usual cat sitting gig. It was great to be back in that neighborhood again, and I did a bit of painting to celebrate that time. A couple of more self portraits (including a slightly meta sketch at right of the one above plus my Paris teapot and a second hand rose my friend Rene gave me that had been left in his tip box while he busked. Amazingly it perked up when I got it home and in water. I also painted the view out the window and Dusty, the resident cat.

​Dusty is a pretty active cat, so I could only manage a brief kind of gesture sketch. She's got many more lovely stripes than I managed to capture, but I'm also trying not to overwork pieces here. I get too caught up in details sometimes, and drawings lose their energy. I'm trying to use my Paris sketches as a time of correction back in the other direction, even if some of them end up very impressionistic indeed.

My self portraits last year began with one in this window, and I really wanted to do one for this year as well. It's a stunning place that I love spending time in. It's also a nice book end to the series that began last year. I don't have another one in mind, though more may appear as I go through the trip. At the moment, though, I'm back to working on the Mr. Darcy book, which feels great. I also have friends visiting, so I'll be spending a bit less time making art and a little more time on vacation this week.

I'm spending time with the surrealists in the Musee d'Orsay again. I can't exactly explain why I'm so drawn to them, when they do art so different from mine. But sitting with Redon's portraits, plus walking and thinking and having solitary time again, are all making me do self portraits again. The last spurt started here last year, also looking at Redon, and I've done my seemingly annual self portrait in that style just a bit, with floating flowers.

I did a second one once I got rolling as well. I've been carrying this poem fragment around in my mind and wanting to paint from it, wearing this vintage slip, for some months, but I've been covered up with the worship book illustrations and afterwards the Mr. Darcy book. It was finally time to let this one out as well.

At right is the Redon study I've done so far this trip, a painting called Eyes Closed. I loved the juxtaposition of the figure with the sea.

After getting properly dressed for the day, I went and had lunch in Luxembourg Gardens and ended up doing a sketch of Genevieve, my favorite statue there, since I was already revved up and going on the female figure. This one is less detailed than I've done in the past, and it's nice to try different things with a familiar subject. I'll probably be back to working on Mr. Darcy tomorrow, but it felt good to branch out a bit today and paint something current.