Robert Francis James

The soul grows by subtraction, not addition. — Thoreau The rare exception, I painted Beer Bottle alla prima from a photo yesterday. (I usually paint from observation.) I’m away from my studio, staying, Thoreau-like, in a cabin in Maine, and can’t set up my subject easily. While still wet, I posted Beer Bottle on a couple of painters’ groups on Facebook. The painting received a rather stinging comment from someone who posts none of her own work: “How about some cast shadows?” I advised her that, in reality (in this case, photographic reality), the cast shadow falls behind the bottle, and is invisible to the viewer. She responded: “Artistic license is an essential part of the process. We can add or subtract as our vision dictates. Shading and shadows add a bit of interest to a rather flat and static composition.” Grrrr. Unless solicited, the rules for these Facebook groups prohibit criticism; but that’s beside the point. Should I wish to paint what I see (even in a photo), ...

Inspiration is for amateurs. — Chuck Close Old objects and the personal memories associated with them inspire my paintings. I’m content to call it nostalgia . Like weight-gain, nostalgia is an affliction of the aged and can rapidly get out of hand. I especially loathe the kind that wistfully pines for a rosy past that never was so rosy. But at least I’m never at a loss for inspiration. Thanks to post-World War II consumerism, there are millions of old objects for me to paint : millions of cans, bottles, tools and toys that have been stashed away in attics, basements and garages; and millions more on display in thrift stores, antique malls and on eBay. I can buy these for a song. I just finished a Yoo Hoo bottle and am planning next to paint a beer can—specifically, a Ballentine’s Beer can—an idea planted by a throwaway remark made to me this week by another artist, Peter Swift , while we were waxing nostalgic about Newark, New Jersey (the home, until 1972, of the P. Ballantine ...

All painting is accident. — Francis Bacon My small oil painting Nutella  came about almost by itself and almost instantly—or at least it felt that way, coming on the heels as it did on a much larger painting entitled Yoo Hoo.  Nutella  took less than two hours to paint; Yoo Hoo , nearly eight. Slathering paint on with a spatula and spreading it about with a pallet knife reminded me the whole time I was painting of smearing fresh Nutella  onto a warm slice of toast. Only the initial drawing and the lettering across the label required use of a brush. The lesson here is that oil painting is a game of letting go, of gestures that are loose and free. Grabbing an unopened jar of the goop off the pantry shelf and plopping it in front of the easel was an unpremeditated act. The fact of the matter was, I had two hours of time left in a three-hour painting class (online) and—with Yoo Hoo unexpectedly finished—lacked any plan for my next painting. All I knew was ...

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. — Henry David Thoreau This week I had to print my Artist Statement for an exhibition and wondered whether it was up to date. I’d put a lot of work into it last year (as did my business consultant, Danielle Glosser ), so was pleased to find the statement still works: I paint small, alla prima expressionist still lifes in oil on canvas and canvas board.  My goal is to capture the workaday things that compose our homes. Most of our days seem like a ceaseless whirlwind of doing; but by applauding the plain and prosaic, my paintings ask the viewer to slow down, step back, stop doing and start looking —if only for a minute. Stop doing and start looking : that crystalizes my purpose as an artist—both for myself and my viewers. But that’s easier said than done (were it easy, it wouldn’t be a purpose worth the pursuit). Stopping/looking. Looking is difficult enough; stopping poses the even larger challenge—a challenge...

I’m pleased to announce the release of my first e-book, Paint Licks . Paint Licks gathers insights by 30 painters, living and dead, into the whys and hows of painting. Download your free  copy now . Share it with a friend. And let me know if you enjoy it . The post Paint Licks appeared first on Original still life oil paintings for sale l Robert Francis James .

With the aid of my trusty spatula , I am attempting to paint only in planes. I’m taking my lead from  Cape Cod School founder Charles Hawthorne , whose wisdom is captured in Dover’s diminutive Hawthorne on Painting . Hawthorne asked painters to “forget drawing” and “see color planes.” By encouraging painters to “paint in planes,” he hoped to abridge and distill the process of painting a convincing work. Don’t struggle to “make a thing,” he told followers. “Let it make itself.” In other words, don’t construct a thing; reveal it. Don’t draw it; unveil it. But how does the painter reveal ( φανερόω in the Greek of the Bible) a thing? To the best of my understanding, Hawthorne’s advice boils down to this: eschew outlining . Easier said than done, because we learn to draw by outlining. We thus have to “unlearn” drawing to paint. Here’s Hawthorne’s formula in a nutshell: Load your brush—or better, a palette knife—and put down a plane, starting from the center of ...

Influence is not influence. It’s simply someone’s idea going through my new mind. — Jean-Michel Basquiat Robert Rauschenberg once told art historian Dorothy Seckler it was okay to swipe from another painter because “one can use another man’s art as material, either literally or just implying that they are doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.” Swiping is the subject of Soutine/de Kooning: Conversations in Paint , a blockbuster show now at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. “This show is the reason there are shows,” Forbes said of Soutine/de Kooning . Soutine/de Kooning asks you to see for yourself the many ways Willem de Kooning swiped from Chaïm Soutine, 11 years his senior. And swipe he did. Soutine’s paintings, with their impastoed surfaces and high-energy brushwork, were eye-candy to de Kooning, and influenced most aspects of his abstract figurative paintings of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. The influence is hardly imaginary. There’s historica...