tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post2027308353198374249..comments2024-02-19T00:39:22.870-08:00Comments on zoe in wonderland: Madeline von Foerster and the Impossiblezoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-76742109221582880362012-01-18T13:53:46.091-08:002012-01-18T13:53:46.091-08:00jodi--it's true that it's all a learning p...jodi--it's true that it's all a learning process. and fascinating :)<br />that's really kind of you to say about the colors. :) i've been a lot happier with them since trying the red. i am still curious about things like flesh, though--for example, the bluish-white glow of the figure in 'self-portrait' above...<br /><br />on another odd, creepy note, i've discovered this fascinating book called phantasmagoria (by marina warner), and in it i discovered the anatomical cabinets :<br /><br />"At the Hunterian Museum in London, a pigmy woman who was brought to England to be exhibited, and then died in childbirth, is preserved--or rather a half-section of her. The case of the Hottentot Venus, whose genitals were removed and bottled and exhibited separately in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, has inspired widespread protest."<br /><br />and then she talks about later wax models:<br /><br />"...one of the purposes of the modelers' verisimilitude was to obviate the need for medical students to have direct contact with corpses. The good intention was frustrated, however, for the production of exquisite replicas, destined to replace real specimens, exacted a flow of bodies that taxed the supply: Lelli used fifty corpses for the ecorches on display in Bologna, and in Florence, later, during the work for the anatomical cabinet La Specola, a porter is on record protesting bitterly at the horror of his work as he had to cart so many corpses from the hospital to the laboratories through the hot streets in order to meet the needs of the anatomists."<br /><br />ew.zoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-48312632482788791662012-01-15T05:33:42.982-08:002012-01-15T05:33:42.982-08:00Zoe, the way I managed the transparency there was ...Zoe, the way I managed the transparency there was mostly through pigment choice. For the see-through clothes I used thin layers of pigments that were already naturally quite transparent. Though I did under-paint as well. For the faces I pretty much had to use some white in the mix which made everything opaque, so I just had to blend in the background colour with the skin tone. I think there were maybe other ways I could have done the same things... everything is a learning process though.<br /><br />It's true about the red base... and you can definitely make the colours glow with that... like if you put a cerulean blue or something like that on top of red it becomes almost too bright too look at. Still, I have had nightmares after painting on red all day, so I am a bit wary of it.<br /><br />I don't really know anything about mixing oil and acrylic. I guess that most gesso is acrylic-based and then you paint over that with oils. Because of that, I would imagine that you could probably put acrylic paint under oil and it would be ok... but I don't know and it could end up cracking or something. Some days I make myself into a zombie trying to find answers to things like this online. It's too bad there isn't some sort of art hotline to call... like those ones for medical or legal questions. Maybe people at an art shop would know. <br /><br />Though the funny thing is, after I commented here last time I thought how strange it was that you were worried about getting more intense colours, because you always seem to have lovely colour in your paintings.yew tree nightshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14159879472613574800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-38787712125054543862012-01-13T04:08:30.853-08:002012-01-13T04:08:30.853-08:00sapphire: i am convinced that it is ok about it be...sapphire: i am convinced that it is ok about it being created during the first five years of life, because using dreams and hypnosis and creative activities, we can change it. we just have to be willing to be ridiculous, sometimes. i think :D<br />in fact, i think that's the difference between 'normal' people and saints or gurus or magicians (as opposed to illusionists)--those guys somehow realize at a deep level that they are only dreaming, and so they can perform miracles. i'm working on it--i'll let you know how it goes :D<br /><br />jodi! thank you for all this information. you are right--looking at those instructions is overwhelming. i would really want to be able to go through the process with someone. i always wondered about how that translucency came about (like in your latest painting); i understood it had something to do with the medium but had no idea (only a depressing instinct) of how complicated it was! <br /><br />one thing i find really interesting about it is that the mische technique starts with that red base (well, actually, i found it pretty fascinating that the whole thing starts with ink! really??). this is something i learned from clive with acrylic paints. when he told me he started everything with a red oxide base, over which he put a conte crayon drawing, i could not see how that would possibly have any effect on the painting at the end--i just liked it as an idea, how he described it as almost like the pulse of blood underneath the painting. but when i finally tried it, i was amazed at the depth it gave to the color...and now this whole conversation reminds me how everything we see is so profoundly influenced by something underneath that we can't see... hm... :D<br /><br />also, i have this bizarre panic about egg-related diseases, if you can believe it. i'm compulsive about washing after touching anything that's been near an egg-box. my poor addled brain. i can't imagine trying to paint with it. (*laughs nervously*). <br /><br />have you heard anything about mixing oils and acrylics? it seems i've seen artists talking about it here and there, but never any "lessons" of any sort. i wonder if you can just add depth to colors once the basic painting is done by going back over it with oils. or do the oils have to be underneath?zoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-88627213083716573852012-01-13T03:34:52.762-08:002012-01-13T03:34:52.762-08:00Hi again!
Oh I haven't read that yet. It sou...Hi again! <br /><br />Oh I haven't read that yet. It sounds pretty interesting though! I'll keep an eye out for it. And it does sound weirdly similar to what people suspect happened with those bog people. Irish kings of that period seem not to have come from a heriditary line, but if they were unblemished and had at least a great-grandfather who was a king they were eligible for the position themselves. They were sort of married off to the land, and so any famine or disease was a sign that they weren't fulfilling their duty and propitiating the goddess of the land or whatever. Also, the age of that of land goddess was tied to the age of the king, she would age as he did, so it was far better to have a young king so that the land would be healthy and fertile. Sounds fun right? I can't even imagine how terrible it would be to have that role, especially in a place where the weather's not great and the land's not super for crops either. The thought of everyone turning on you, "better you than us"... Horrible! <br /><br />As for the painting... I use an egg-based medium and white paint for under-painting. It seems to me that she does the same thing but that she also continues on with the egg tempera, blocking in all the colours before starting with oil paints. The man who I learned this from only does one layer of under-painting rather than two or three (usually done in red, then yellow, and sometimes blue on top of that)... instead he usually used a brown colour as the base, which I sometimes do as well. (In that last painting I under-painted just on a green... it was so ugly before it was finished that it was unbelievable, that's why I have no pictures of early stages of it!) I'm not sure if the colours are more vibrant. You can compare this painting http://yewtreenights.blogspot.com/2010/03/spring-coming-in.html where I did three layers of under-painting and then this one http://yewtreenights.blogspot.com/2011/03/village-under-frost.html where I did no under painting at all. Though, I'm terrible at photographing paintings, so maybe that's not too representative either. I think the under-painting gives a better feeling of form perhaps, but the same could probably be achieved without under-painting by a skilled painter too. <br />There is a great series of process shots of a painting done this way, here: http://www.brigidmarlin.com/Pages/Mische.html (Madeline also has a good one on her site, but I'm sure you've seen that)<br />and a detailed description of the technique, here: http://www.art4spirit.com/MischeTraditional.html <br />Even with all the detail there, I think it'd would be better to see someone do all of that, because it's rather overwhelming otherwise. <br />I would love to learn more about this technique and about egg tempera (for this and to use on its own)... someday!yew tree nightshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14159879472613574800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-59055422949753212332012-01-12T20:20:34.266-08:002012-01-12T20:20:34.266-08:00Thanks a lot for this very interesting post, zoe! ...Thanks a lot for this very interesting post, zoe! Your mention of the perceptual bias must be true. Oh it is created in the first five years of life?! Oh.... <br />I so enjoyed the video which I think is really helpful in appreciating her works. This post reminds me of several major mass extinctions the Earth has exprienced so far. When seeing Ammonite fossils, Pterosaurs fossils and so on, I cannot help wondering what causes such mass extinctions, each of which is thought to have annihilated anywhere from 50 to 95 percent of all species on the planet. Some scientists say that extinction is part of the constant evolution of life, however, it makes me shudder that humans are definitely driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve. It seems to me that her works are a light, a ray of hope, in this world filled with human karmic activities.☆sapphirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13444996989089740303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-23571002148378576252012-01-11T04:09:31.763-08:002012-01-11T04:09:31.763-08:00jodi,
see, now that comment just opened up tons of...jodi,<br />see, now that comment just opened up tons of stuff for me to read about! thank you! i hadn't known of the poem, and of course there's tons of information out there on this tollund man...a great entry point. but you're right, being a king sounds like a bad deal....reminds me a little bit of tom robbins' jitterbug perfume--did you ever read that? the man is king, but upon the discovery of his first grey hair, he's to be killed, and it's supposedly this great honor? and then he escapes and becomes, in a surprising twist, an honorary king somewhere else, where the great honor is to die also. :P<br /><br />power point does seem to ruin a perfectly good lecture, doesn't it? <br /><br />ah, so to get those lovely vibrant colors you use egg tempera mixed with oil? i had never heard about this before and am very curious now... i had especially been blown away by the colors in your last one, "the lonely place." <br />everybody, you can see jodi's gorgeous paintings here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewtreenights/<br /><br />it's funny you should say that about her age--she has such a style of "old master" that i also thought she would be much older. i vacillate wildly between inspired and dismayed :)zoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-47656967337446413772012-01-11T02:41:48.713-08:002012-01-11T02:41:48.713-08:00Hi Zoe,
I think I came across Madeline's work...Hi Zoe,<br /><br />I think I came across Madeline's work a couple of years back when I was trying to sort out some things about the painting technique I was learning in France. I don't know if I do the same thing as her or not... though it is quite obvious that even if I do, it's in a far more naive fashion than what she paints. Her things are wonderful. (And, not that it matters, but I imagined she'd be older. How good to be so accomplished and still have a long while to paint in!)<br /><br />As for bog bodies... most of the lecture was about Iron Age ones. Apparently all but one of the bodies from that period that have been found in Ireland are men who appear to have been killed in rituals to do with kingship (possibly during times of famine). It would seem that being a king was not such an enviable position in ancient Ireland... apparently most kings were only kings for about five years or so, as mostly they functioned just to lead people into battle. The lecturer, who was from the National Museum of Ireland, talked a great deal about old gods and human sacrifice in Europe. It was an interesting lecture, but there was a lot of power point and speculation... it wouldn't have been worse to stay home and read Heaney's "The Tollund Man". <br /><br />(And sorry to have hijacked the comments, it was a lovely post... I was just in the mad state of about-to-rush-out-the-door I suppose!)yew tree nightshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14159879472613574800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-28300303990709432002012-01-10T10:39:06.931-08:002012-01-10T10:39:06.931-08:00and i'm glad the post pleased :D
i was really ...and i'm glad the post pleased :D<br />i was really inspired by her work...zoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-5224894361178874352012-01-10T10:38:47.922-08:002012-01-10T10:38:47.922-08:00jodi--
i am fascinated by the subject of the bog b...jodi--<br />i am fascinated by the subject of the bog bodies--what astonishing things! i hope you will share what you learn...zoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16526746200112764467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841684678223214738.post-62381844375780209352012-01-10T10:25:58.913-08:002012-01-10T10:25:58.913-08:00Zoe, thank you for this post! Maybe it's stran...Zoe, thank you for this post! Maybe it's strange, but this past little while I have been hoping for a post like this from you. Why? I'm not sure, but I have been... and of course you surpass my expectations! There are too many little nooks and crannies of thought in here for a nice concise comment, but that's a very good thing indeed. I am just about to head out the door to a lecture on Irish bog bodies... but I'll think about all this on the walk over and probably read this again later. <br />Oh, and happy new year!yew tree nightshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14159879472613574800noreply@blogger.com