Wisteria After the Bus Drove Through the Stop

One of those days; a morning spent in a dentist's chair, then a longish walk carrying art supplies and groceries, and the Septa bus drove right by without stopping; the killer was it was not rush hour and not full of passengers.

Walking several blocks to blow off steam, I spied these wisteria, and was mollified. Another lesson to always have my camera. Taken near the one of the #57 bus stops in Society Hill.

After Tiepolo

click images to view larger

A quick study of a detail taken from the Banquet of Cleopatra by G.B. Tiepolo for fun.
the original is a fresco, mine is acrylics on canvas. measures about 12 x 16 inches.
champagne and pearls, perhaps she is about enjoy some oysters

©Kim Senior 2008

Before and After

Before and after photos are the most powerful way to present a potential mural project. I have many examples in my portfolio.

I came across an intriguing blog article called "Before and After Gardens of Humphry"; about Repton's *Red Books*.
"Long before cable TV popularized instant makeovers of houses, gardens, wardrobes, bodies and souls, Humphrey Repton knew the power of the 'before' and 'after'. His famous Red Books were presentation sketches for his potential clients; lovingly detailed watercolors with flaps that lifted or swept to the side to show in turn the existing landscape and how he proposed to improve it."
The University of Wisconsin has a marvelous digital library of decorative arts materials, and you can see the entire Repton sketchbook online.

Jane Austen mentions Repton in Mansfield Park; she and Repton were contemporaries, though she was 24 years younger, they died a year apart.

“I wish you could see Compton,” said he; “it is the most complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know where I was. The approach now, is one of the finest things in the country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison— quite a dismal old prison.”

“Oh, for shame!” cried Mrs. Norris. “A prison indeed? Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world.”

“It wants improvement, ma’am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that wanted so much improvement in my life; and it is so forlorn that I do not know what can be done with it.”

“No wonder that Mr. Rushworth should think so at present,” said Mrs. Grant to Mrs. Norris, with a smile; “but depend upon it, Sotherton will have _every_ improvement in time which his heart can desire.”

“I must try to do something with it,” said Mr. Rushworth, “but I do not know what. I hope I shall have some good friend to help me.”

“Your best friend upon such an occasion,” said Miss Bertram calmly, “would be Mr. Repton, I imagine

That is what I was thinking of. As he has done so well by Smith, I think I had better have him at once. His terms are five guineas a day.”*

*comparing todays currency to 1815, a factor of about 60 is appropriate; so Mr. Repton's terms would be £300 a day. A guinea was the same as a pound; "You paid tradesmen, such as a carpenter, in pounds but gentlemen, such as an artist, in guineas. It was a tradition in the legal profession that a barrister was paid in guineas but kept only the pounds, giving his clerk the shillings (they were all men then)."
link to book review "Jane Austen and the English Landscape" by Mavis Batey

link to article on Repton, landscape plans forHanslope Park; illustrations.

link to Independant article by Anna Pavord "Landscapes of Scents and Sensibility"

link to what is a guinea?

Instant Encore

"InstantEncore is your web resource for live classical music. Search through over 15000 classical concert listings."
Wonderful!
via Artswatch

pretty pictures

I am adding this to my wish list. Great series, I could add them all. Here's a link to fantastic hi-res online images of Italian frescoes.



Italian Frescoes: The Baroque Era
1600–1800
Text by Steffi Roettgen
Photographs by Antonio Quattrone and Ghigo Roli

Buddhist Mural Process

Some pics of the stages of the work of the Buddhist Garden Mural.
As the design calls for soft, flowing areas of paint, using acrylics rather than oils involves practice to avoid ugly *lap-lines* where the paint starts to dry before blending is finished.
Once I begin painting an area, taking into account the dryness of the air, I plan how much I can cover before the paint will become unworkable. Once it reaches this stage, I need to stop working it, let it dry before painting another layer.
The bamboo was to be painted as it would be hit by sprackly uneven light; I *oil in* ( using an acrylic glaze medium) a slippery layer over stalks that I have laid in with a base color; then I work quickly to soften the patches of different colors into it. Once this dries, I paint the more linear shadows and highlights with the aid of a mahl stick.

mural by Kim Senior
bottom three photos by Eileen Eckstein
©kimsenior.com 2008

Buddhist Garden Mural

Been working on this mural for a couple weeks; its almost done. My client is wonderful, she wanted something calm and restorative for this renovated attic room, all she said was "do something soft, with greens and blues, and maybe some bamboo." The goal was to expand this little space and create a distance.
I came up with the idea of an asian water garden, and she provided me with the perfect focal point reference, a photo of a statue of Kuan Yin, (also spelt Guan Yin) which she had taken about 10 years ago, on a visit to China, and some of the mountains.

click on photos to see larger
Buddhist mural work in progress link

©kimsenior.com 2008

Straus Center team finds Holy Grail

"Straus Center team finds Holy Grail" link

Harvard Gazette Archive May 6 2004 by Beth Potier
excerpt;

"This is one of the most beautiful rooms in the library, in my opinion," says Teri Hensick, paintings conservator for the Straus Center, which provides analysis and treatment to the collections of the Harvard University Art Museums and, occasionally, outside clients like the BPL. "Because of the amount of grime, I think people began to forget what is here."

Working from a temporary office and lab beneath scaffolding in the Abbey Room, the Straus Center team won't soon forget the 15 murals depicting the quest for the mythic grail from the birth of Sir Galahad through his presentation of the grail by angels. Abbey, an American painter who shared a studio with the better-known Sargent in England, painted the murals on canvas there; like the Sargent murals, they were fastened to the BPL's walls much like wallpaper, using a technique called marouflage............

In addition to the Abbey and Sargent murals, the Straus Center team has returned the luster and magic to other murals and artwork around the BPL's historic McKim Building - the Puvis de Chavannes paintings along the grand staircase, damaged by an accidental steam leak in the early 1990s; the ceiling mural by Boston artist John Elliott; the Pompeian and Venetian lobbies on the second floor."

Puvis de Chavannes at Rodin Museum

A while ago I saw this small mural by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes 1824-1898, at the Rodin Museum in Philly. (click to view larger)

Legendary Saints of France
Reduced version of the frieze above 'The Childhood of Saint Geneviève', church of Saint Geneviève [The Panthéon], Paris
c. 1879
Oil on canvas
Left canvas: 30 1/4 x 32 1/2 inches (76.8 x 82.5 cm); center canvas: 30 1/4 x 35 inches (76.8 x 88.9 cm); right canvas: 30 1/4 x 32 inches (76.8 x 81.3 cm)

I knew Chavannes was a renowned muralist, and hadn't been aware of this piece.

Found this wonderful article on Chavanne's methods; it describes in detail his media and the background of his mural works; how he strove to get the feeling of fresco in the way he prepared his canvas, and how the marouflage was done;

"...The final step in the preparatory process was the creation of a full-scale painted cartoon combining many of the earlier studies. According to Puvis's student and collaborator Paul Baudouin, the cartoons Puvis produced for his mural projects “were very precise and studied works, in which all of the values were expressed” (Baudouin 1935, 300). Baudouin also noted that Puvis used either paper or canevas (a French word describing a coarse, light-colored cloth used for tapestry making) as a support for his large-scale cartoons. Notations on a photograph taken while the cartoon for the Inspiring Muses was on exhibit in the Salon of 1920, in the files of the Musée d'Orsay, indicate that the cartoon was painted in gouache on paper. The present whereabouts of the cartoon are unknown; its last location was in the attic of the Comic Opera, Paris (d'Argencourt et al. 1977, 231).

Puvis executed the Boston murals on a plainweave linen canvas, typical of the type he generally chose for his monumental wall decorations. In the library murals the coarseness of the canvas is evident in many thinly or dryly painted passages. Puvis had access to immense canvases. Only two pieces of linen were used for The Inspiring Muses, each one measuring 4.88 m (16 ft.) high with the left half 8.81 m (28 ft. 11 in.) long and the right half 6.60 m (21 ft. 8 in.) long. If seams were necessary in his large mural projects, Puvis did his best to camouflage or hide them. In the huge Sorbonne mural, The Sacred Grove (1886–89), for example, the two seams coincide with vertical tree trunks... continued... link *

*PUVIS DE CHAVANNES'S ALLEGORICAL MURALS IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY: HISTORY, TECHNIQUE, AND CONSERVATION
TERI HENSICK, KATE OLIVIER, & GIANFRANCO POCOBENE

I hope to sometime visit his and Sargent's murals at the Boston Public Library.
photo via Gruenemann on flickr, and this one too. Another reason to visit BPL; this amazing amount of siena marble!!http://www.comitepierrepuvisdechavannes.com/english.html
"More than 60 descendants of Edouard, Marie-Antoinette and Joséphine Puvis de Chavannes, brothers and sisters of the artist, are members of this Committee."

©KimSenior.com 2008

Hidden art could be revealed by new terahertz device

"Like X-rays let doctors see the bones beneath our skin, "T-rays" could let art historians see murals hidden beneath coats of plaster or paint in centuries-old buildings, University of Michigan engineering researchers say."
link to illustrated article
"The paper is called "Terahertz imaging for non-destructive evaluation of mural paintings."
via Technorati

Topolski Action Drawings

I have an old issue of Marg magazine, with no cover; going to the Marg-Art website archives, and searching by keyword dates it 1957 September.
It has some action drawings by Feliks Topolski, illustrating an article on Classical Dance of India by Ram Gopal, who was the leading exponent of that form for many years.
I've scanned some drawings, (click to see larger) and linking to a photo of Ram Gopal from that time on another mag cover. One of the most challenging things to draw is a moving figure; Topolski sketched from life, and had a seemingly effortless facility, honed by constant practice.

A good example of the ability to draw, without labor, freeing the artist dash in colors and shapes. watercolour, gouache and silkscreen on paper, circa 1972
93 1/4 in. x 39 7/8 in. (2368 mm x 1012 mm)
Lent by through Pamela Cullen, Pandit Ram Gopal, 2002
National Portrait Gallery
bottom photos via http://www.salidaa.org.uk
link to more sketches and illustrations
link to images by Topolski at the Tate
link to my post on Topolski's 600 foot long mural
link to Wikipedia article on Topolski
link to Wikipedia article on Ram Gopal

Topolski's 600ft Memoir Mural

"For more than twenty years, one of the most unusual exhibitions in London has been Feliks Topolski's monumental installation "The Memoir of the Century". This 600-foot long panoramic painting, standing from 12 to 20 feet high, was ....... Begun by the sixty-eight-year-old Topolski in 1975, and still unfinished at the time of his death in 1989, it still sits under the arches, close to the constant activity of the South Bank and the flow of the Thames, gently shaken by the regular rumble of trains in and out of Charing Cross on the other side of the river."

"The final section is a huge movable canvas mounted on vertical rollers, carrying contemporary images and entitled "the Diary". In this section, to quote Topolski, "the Memoir reaches the present, becomes the Diary and continues from day to day, to be cut short only by nature's will". ..

"...Topolski gave his "Memoir" to the people of London in 1984, but the burden of upkeep proved too great, and in 2002 the family stepped in and established a new trust, Topolski Memoir Ltd, to take ownership of the work and oversee its restoration and display. This project requires Pounds 3.3 million, of which more than Pounds 2 million has already been raised, from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other sponsors. Work is beginning this year and the newly restored Memoir will reopen in 2009, twenty years after Topolski's death.".... continued, see link below to article.

I recently learned about this huge mural, by an artist who's fluid and beautiful sketches I had long admired. I enquired of Sandra Lynes, who is the Director in charge of the Restoration of the Memoir, when it would be re-opening; I would love to see it. She replied that funds are still being raised, and it is hoped to be ready in a year or two.

link to excellent Times Online article, by Nicholas Hilley
link to feliks topolski website, with 'virtual' memoir

Michael Webb; Architectural Muralist

Michael Webb

is the artist who's murals have become a familiar and loved part of my Philadelphia scape; I look forward to seeing them every time I pass one of them, and that can be several times a week. Michael included a self-portrait, at work, in the Beasley Building Mural.

I was charmed by his presentation of his work this evening at the historic Carpenter's Building, his talk was titled Buildings on Buildings; the Painting of Architectural Murals. He is an artist with the Mural Arts Program.



















Asked how he plans the figures in his work, he says he sketches them from his imagination, to scale. Once he is satisfied with the design, he will find a model to pose for a photograph. He uses his original sketch when he transfers the figures to the gridded wall; and then only will he or his assistants make any final adjustments using the photo references. This is what keeps his figure work so fresh, rather than projecting photos to enlarge onto the wall.
His own website is sparse; so I'm posting some photos of mine, and several by others I found on flickr; from zepfanman.com, mancalaura, and lb_philly

Click to see these much larger.
These two are murals that depict the *ghost* of St. James Epsicopal Church, that used to occupy this block at 22 and Walnut; its now occupied by Sunoco who commissioned the mural from Susan Maxman and Michael Webb.
The *bricks* are all painted; this is meticulous trompe l'oeil.

London Sky and Clouds Photography

photo by Marco Lillini, who posts on the site Cloud Appreciation Society.

How lovely to be in the driver's seat, with a camera.

Marco's website for some spectacular sky and aerial larger images, many wide angle.

Painted Cloths; A Pretty Slight Drollery

A delightful discovery, this illustrated essay on the history of painted cloths*, from Tudor times to the present.
Nicholas Mander, the author, has a unique inside view of the materials and background of paints; his family's business for generations, Manders Paints, is described in interesting detail here.

link Nicholas Mander's essay on the history of painted cloths

link Nicholas Mander's history of Manders Paints and Inks Company great description of the factory and care taken in the manufacture of paints, from the late 1700s.

link Owlpen Manor "OWLPEN has long been recognised as one of England's most romantic manor houses. In 2006 it was voted one of finalists in the Country Life - Savills award for "England's Favourite Manor House".
The Tudor manor (1450-1616) stands with its early formal garden of magnificent yews at the centre of a clutch of medieval landmark buildings. Many are now adapted as quite exceptional award-winning Cotswold holiday cottages. "

*As You Like It
ACT III, SC.ii ]
Orl. Not fo: but I answer you right painted cloath, from whence you have ftudied your queftions.

267 painted cloath ] CAPELL : In the painted Cloth Style. i.e briefly and pithily.
Tapestries are improperly call'd painted cloths: therefore the cloths here alluded to seem rather those occasional paintins that were indeed done upon cloth, i.e. linnen or canvas; and hung out by the citizens ... via google

photos from www.owlpen.com

Sacred Places Tour; Murals, Mosaics and Stained Glass

Click of images to enlarge. Independance Hall, Muslim Mural Lancaster Ave., Amish Farm Stand Powelton Village, MAP mural by Paul Santoleri.

Yesterday, gorgeous, mild, sunny: I visited two churches on a tour presented by Partners for Sacred Places and the Murals Arts Program. We left on a trolley from near Independence Hall, through Powelton Village, Walnut Hill, passing more than a dozen MAP murals.

Composite view showing organ, and down into sanctuary. On the right, stencil pattern.

Calvary Center for Culture and Community is located in the Calvary United Methodist Church at 48th and Baltimore, by architects Brown, Gillespie and Carrell 1905-1906. The Center is in the middle of an ambitious restoration process, already having rebuilt massive gable walls to save the 2 immense Tiffany windows.
The story of how the congregation is dealing with the challenges of maintaining this historic and deteriorating building, while strengthening the community, is well described by Rich Kirk.

The large mural on canvas is of the Sermon on the Mount, by PAFA graduate H. Hanley Parker. He painted other decorative elements in the Sanctuary and Chapel as well. There is a beautiful stained glass dome by Tiffany in the Chapel, detail shown, and a Brothers O'Dell organ.
detail of Tiffany Resurrection Windowcenter section of mural by H. Hanley Parker

Massive scagliola columns in need of repair, mural of Sermon on the Mount, detail of Tiffany Resurrection stained glass window and Trinity Angels dome.

St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church a couple of blocks away, is an astounding landmark, with its mulit-colored tiled dome and towers. Susan K. Weiler was our docent, describing the engineering challenges of restoring the dome, and showing her deep love for this beautiful building. Some of the problems in the dome are the consequences of a well-intentioned but ill-suited application of gunnite to the outer dome in the 1960s. This church has the 2nd largest organ in Philadelphia, the largest is the famous Wanamaker organ.

Guastovino tiles on interior ( and exterior ) of dome. "a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar in a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof" (Susan mentioned that Guastovino used this technique in many other buildings, including the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. image from tanguero's flickr stream)Susan K. Weiler and elevation plan of dome.

link to wikipedia article on St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church.
link to wikipedia article on Guastovino tile.

Rendell Declares Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day

Happy Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day!

"Harrisburg, Pa. -- Governor Edward G. Rendell has proclaimed January 11, 2008 as “Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day” in the State of Pennsylvania. On this day, the friends and family of the late Sister Rosetta Tharpe will come together for a benefit concert to honor the gospel music legend at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA (www.keswicktheatre.com). " link Webwire

Gospel greats Odetta, Marie Knight, Willa Ward, the Johnny Thompson Singers, the Huff Singers and the Dixie Hummingbirds share the stage. Proceeds will fund a memorial for Tharpe’s unmarked grave in Northwood Cemetery.

great article on Sister Rosetta http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2008/01/sister-rosetta.html

link to Didn't It Rain audio on NPR

Photos of Obama's Campaign, Lebanon NH

Some photos of Barack Obama, taken by Randy Senior today in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

fun video of Steve Brodner drawing a caricature of Obama, *Thinking Lincoln* link via New Yorker

Steven Brodner on Drawger

Theatrical Muslin, Mural Preparation

I use different materials for murals, depending on the size needed, and the surface where they are intended. MDO plywood for rigid panels are great for mounting on exterior walls. Canvas or muslin is suitable when the work is best performed in the studio, and may be rolled and shipped for installation on site.

This is a description of preparing muslin that measures approx 120 inches (10ft) x 192 inches (16ft), as that is the size of my wall. The final mural size will measure approx 6 to 8 inches smaller, after trimming.

There are a several sources of this material, Rosebrand and i Weiss are a couple of excellent theatrical supply houses. For smaller murals, narrower widths are easily available from regular fabric suppliers, and you can save on shipping.

As well as the large size possible with theatrical muslin, I prefer painting on a firm surface, unlike on artist stretchers which are a bit bouncy. Using large wood stretchers are fine, when you have room, and not a large enough flat wall. Canvas is best over stretchers, the muslin will be too thin in that case.

About this wall; homasote cut to fit in 2x4 frames in ... ceiling height is 9ft 6inches, wall is 16 ft wide. The final mural will be trimmed to about 9ft x 15 ft.

All the homasote panels in place. I like homasote because its very easy to staple into, or use push pins, and easy to mend. Its a little lumpy, and drywall is a smoother harder alternative, if a really smooth surface is crucial to you.

Important to smooth seams with tape and joint compound... challenging due to the bumpy surface of the homasote.

Tape a layer of thin polyethlene sheeting in place, as smoothly as possible over the wall.

After the plastic is up, a charcoal line is snapped across the top of the wall, to be the guide in tacking the top edge of the muslin, starting in the center. Tack the center top, then the center bottom, then the corners. The top edge of the muslin is actually perfectly level.. I photoshopped two photos together here which distorts the angles a bit.

For a very large piece of material, using a plumb helps ensure your stretching evenly. The plumb is hanging down the center of the canvas.I snap a charcoal line that will be easily brushed off.. to help guide in the even stretching of this large mural. If I pull to hard, or unevenly while I staple the sides, I can see easily the crooked chalk line.

Working solo to stretch the muslin, requires many trips up and down the ladders.
the muslin is stretched, but not too tightly. Too tight at this stage and your muslin might tear or pull out. The wrinkles will disappear when the many coats of priming are applied.


The following steps are what I do to prime, though you can skip the step with the alkyd.. I learned that step from Pierre Finkelstein, its a lot of work. You could skip it, and do a couple more coats with undiluted primer, if you don't want the trouble of degreasing.

Prep, 1st ct , Fresh Start / Benjamin Moore primer / w 30% water,
2nd ct , " / 15% water /
3rd ct, " / 5% water
4th & 5th cts, Oil based/ BM Dulamel eggshell, or other alkyd primer (light sand between cts)
Then degrease whole thing with whiting. Make sure you get all the whiting off; wipe with a damp sponge till you see NO whiting on the sponge.
Then paint mural with acrylics.
There will be virtually no shrinkage after cutting mural down.

©Kim Senior Murals and Decorative Painting

Antonio Mancini at Philadelphia Museum

Last November, saw the exhibition of work at PMA by Antonio Mancini, 1852-1930, and was very intrigued by the range and evolution of styles. There's an article on the show in today's Times, which had me going back to look at some of the photos i shot of the show.




top left; Il Saltimbanco, 1877-78
Antonio Mancini, Italian
Oil on canvas
80 1/4 x 43 5/8 inches (203.8 x 110.8 cm)
Vance N. Jordan Collection, 2004

top right; Mancini would order and eat at a neighbourhood restaurant, and out of funds would pull out some paints and finger paint on the plate for payment.

bottom; portrait of seamstress, and detail. Didn't note the date of the work, but much later than the top one. Startling energy in the painting, and in the detail you can make out the imprint of his grille system, which he called graticola.

" Mancini invented a number of highly personal working methods. One was a device he called the gratìcola—or perspective grid—made of a wooden frame with strings stretched across in all directions. One such frame was placed in front of the subject, while another was placed against the canvas in use. Mancini described this mysterious apparatus variously as a means to obtain the exact perspective of his painted objects or to capture the important element of tone. Very often the artist allowed the marks of the gratìcola strings to show in the finished painting, sometimes subtly, but at other times quite aggressively. In extreme cases these grid marks impart a textured, almost quilted decorative quality to the painted surface."

Apparently, John Singer Sargent stated that Mancini was one of the greatest if not THE greatest painter alive. Link to portrait of Mancini by Sargent.

from Roberta Smith's article, Tumultuous Mind, Spread Across Canvas
"His works tend to be skirmishes of contradictory impulses: academic idealization, gritty realism, bravura society-portrait brushwork and thick, modern-looking impastos slathered and scarred with a palette knife. In some instances it is as if Courbet, Jean-Léon Gérôme and John Singer Sargent — a friend of Mancini’s — have all fallen feverishly to work on the same canvas."

"The Irish dramatist Augusta Gregory, who sat for Mancini in Dublin in 1907, described the way the artist would fix his gaze on some part of her face, back up as much as possible and then advance toward her, gathering speed, his paintbrush outstretched like a sword. “I needed courage to sit still,” she wrote. “But the hand holding the brush always swerved at the last moment to the canvas, and there in its appropriate place, between its threads, the paint would be laid on, and the retreat would begin.”

update; just read a very interesting commentary on Smith's article on ArtblogbyBob
and agree that its amazing that someone so good could be unknown for so long.

Thanks to Curator Ulrich Hiesinger for presenting Mancini's work to us.

Update; Charley Parker's blog has posted an article on Mancini.

©Kim Senior Murals and Decorative Painting