elaine sachs @ impasto dot net

…from spending a little time in Australia. Looking forward to making a second home in the Blue Mountains.

I did a few successful landscapes. I might try to post them later on, or I might just continue lazing in the heat of summertime, delicious summertime that I’ve missed…

Been painting a lot.. will probably not post until I get back, though. I am leaving shortly for Australia for two months. Hope to get in a fair bit of work there, of course, too.

Been doing portraits and landscapes, and just having a grand old time the past month..

… on the portraiture section of this site.

In the meantime, I have discovered yet another artist to be incredibly humbled by, Margaret Bowland.

… and I am very pleased with how easy it’s coming. I’ve never painted a portrait of a baby alone before, and was apprehensive. But it turns out to be coming very easily, and I’m quite happy about it!

Unfortunately, I am still having photography issues. But I will address these with tips from friends in the coming weeks, and hopefully start getting some good shots and getting my portrait portfolio really cookin’. I’m going to go purchase some reversal film and figure out a reflector of some sort.

Also, I just spent three weeks in Australia and have new sketches for some landscapes to work on.

I’m just feeling really good and hopeful right now! The studio, such as it is (unfinished garage- washing machine and everything), is still such a blessing, and feels so good.

Here is the link.

Looks nice! Fun to have some stuff out there.

… on to the next muse.

And, eventually, creating an updated website for my portraits (groan).

Looks like some of my drawings will be in the next issue of this German, online magazine. I haven’t seen the design at all. But, the last issue (their first) looks pretty slick, so I bet the next won’t be too shabby.

…let’s make some progress on coloring this sketchbook.

I plan to have a few sketches printed in mini-comic format for social purposes at Comic-con this year. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for years, but somehow, have never made the time…

Guy isn’t very articulate, but clearly a freak. And, I just like looking into people’s studios.

Wow! Phil Hale was chosen for this! Here is a video interview.

I did a small still life of flowers a few days ago– my first completed canvas out of the new studio. I started small to win some easy confidence back.

It worked, and was also much needed, as I am still struggling with my landscapes. I’ve been working on landscapes from very old sketches for some time now. It is like an unfinished  project that nags on my mind. And it does feel good to work on them again. But at the same time, I can’t wait to get out and do some fresh sketches, and, I’m hoping, make a big breakthrough landscape work. I’ve never been comfortable with landscapes, and only have a handful that I’ve ever been happy with. I hope that this is the case because I’ve focused a lot of my precious painting time on portraits thus far in my life.  I enjoy portraits and think they are my strength, and so landscapes have come second and been forgotten and neglected often.

I hope to correct that, soon. I like to think that I can make some that I am happy with. I’ve always been a fan of abstract landscape and a huge admirer of those who do them well. . . I wonder if this is because they are my true passion that I have not discovered, yet, or simply because I suck at them so badly myself that I am in awe of those who are capable. . .

I put my first few marks on a board today in the new studio.

I’m attempting again an irish landscape that has been with me for ten years. I feel like I might finally be doing it justice. Having a space of my own– not shared, not in someone else’s garage– for the first time is truly something remarkable. And, I had the whole day to myself to sit in the studio. I really am quite speechless when trying to wrap my brain around the whole event. But there is truly something to having no demands in the back of your brain whatsoever as you paint. Painting in your own space.

My garage now stinks of solvents, as it should.

I have to amend the post of yesterday, though. This isn’t the first time I’ve put a brush to canvas in two years. I’ve painted in my parents garage occasionally over that time, so paintings of the last two years do exist. But this is my first time really getting a chance to devote more than two days at a time to the work. And I’ll tell you, it certainly does feel as if it’s been two years in the sense that it is truly a completely different animal. One or two days is nothing. Painting is a lifetime of work, and time plays a very significant role, as I’ve talked about before.

I finally have a studio again- a proper one. I’ve gotten it just about set up and primed some recycled boards yesterday.

Tomorrow or Saturday, I am going to be painting for the first time in two years. I am more than a little bit nervous.

I can’t believe I’ve let life get in the way of me seeing these. I’m dissapointed. . .

http://www.livinginrome.net/2009/03/cy-twombly-at-national-gallery-of.html

http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/rome-2007-12-cy-twombly/

A hit for Kenny Lapatin.

A friend and I have an eternal crush on this Asst. Curator at the Getty, back from when we were fortunate enough to have sat at his knee at Boston University.

I can’t say that this has ever been an area of interest of mine, but some of the innovations have piqued my interest. I like the idea of putting things in chronological order, as opposed to being grouped by material, which gives me the feeling of looking at someones damn china hutch- no china scholar am I.  I’ll definetly give it a look next time I’m in Manhattan, which will probably be in the next few months. . .

Linky

..and it’s getting a bit depressing. Basically, I’ve been in a transitional period for a few months now, and really hope to get that resolved in a few weeks, and get a real creative space again. For now, I’m in a cramped little room, and have been doing what I can, but really need some space.

I have been reading a lot lately- that’s been nice. For the most part though, I’ve been working, being sick and stressing myself out.

I’m kind of stupid.

While an underlying sketch can give a painting a sense of time- many stages in one, final state- there is at the same time something satisfying about the fixed nature of a canvas. There are immutable boundaries which are generally not crossed. The artists’ entire statement is contained in one, complete package- one foreceful vision.

Every stroke you see has been put there, in that spot, for a reason, and you can take in the perfect whole of the message generally from one vantage point.

The whole world in one square..

I came to realize a few months ago one of the reasons I love sketches so much. I am always fascinated and romanced by artists’ preparatory sketches, by paintings where you can see underlying drawing, by pre-’90s cartoons where you can detect the artists’ hand, and so forth.

Some people think ’sketchy’ looks ‘dirty.’ But that’s never been the case for me.

One facet of this is that the sketch is a clue to the artists’ method of construction. I don’t see why this shouldn’t be fascinating to any artist. But I’ve just discovered another, more cerebral reason- underlying sketch marks give a sense of time.

When you can see initial marks covered over by increasingly more studied marks, or marks in a different medium entirely, you have a past and a present tense in your drawing. Sometimes, you can see beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes there is even more to the story. In a sense, rough drawings and paintings with multiple resvisions visible in their final state are like an epic narrative as opposed to a single scene.

OK, so now my computer is broken. Windows has a bug in it and won’t start up. With the help of a friend, I’ve gotten all the data off of it that I care to, and so this is not the end of my world in that sense. But, in another sense, it ties into that lingering fear and revulsion I have for all media electronic.

Earlier this morning, I was in the donut shop having some coffee and enjoying my Atlantic when I came across an article with a grim forecast for print journalism. The tagline and main premise of the story is how frighteningly close we may be to seeing the end of The New York Times.

I don’t want this future.

I don’t want my magazines carrying viruses. I don’t wan’t the Times to be offline for maintenance. I don’t want my books to crash, and I’ll be damned if the power goes out and I can’t even read something.

For me, this goes past the romanticism of rounded, yellowed pages; musty smells; treasure buried in stacks and stacks of toppling volumes; the promiscuity of the library book (although I’ll be the first to admit deriving ecstatic sexual pleasures from these things). My disgust has also to do with the idea that machines that do not perform their functions consistently are not properly functioning machines.

This machine grates on my sensibilities. The internet, too, in the same way. Sometimes, it can crystalize in fantastic ways and makes for some wonderful moments and connections. But at it’s core, it is so wildly unstable- always moving, breaking, crashing, rebuilding. In my reading on trying to fix this machine, again and again I come across the concept that it’s not a question of whether CD drives, hard drives or any media storage device will fail, it’s only a question of when. And I don’t want my future written on to that.

I’m planning on buying a house very soon. Part of my vision for that home of mine is a subscription to The New York Times, printed on paper. So for now, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, and hope against all odds that the level of reporting made possible by the existence of The Times in printed format will continue to be a part of my future.

I had some serious problems with my hosting a week ago. The site was actually down for a few days, email and all, which has never happened before. But, I’ve decided to stick with the company for the time being, and I don’t expect anymore problems like that.

So, here I am again. I’ve never had a blog before, and I’m going to just let it grow organically- ie, I don’t have a message and I’m going to be really apathetic about that for now. And I don’t care. The reason I put this up in the first place is because I had started getting annoyed when I visited an artist’s site and they didn’t have a blog. Lazy bastards. So, I suppose I’ve guilted myself into this..? Well, if that’s not a sure sign of greatness to come, I don’t know what is.

Personally, I don’t care in the least if a journal is on topic. I just like reading what smart people write. See Gary Panter’s blog, of which I am a big fan. So, I’m just gonna go on that premise and the conceit that I’m at least not stupid, and imagine that someone is going to enjoy reading what I have to say about art, the universe, and everything.

Thank you for visiting the home of my illustrations on the web, impasto dot net. My name is Elaine Sachs and as of this moment, I am the creator of this site and all of the graphics on it. I’ve begun, however, looking for collaboration.

I would love to partner with graphic and web designers with delusions of grandeur. From time to time I’m asked to do jobs out of my scope- designing webpages and flyers- when all I really want to focus on are my crazy illustrations. I would love to meet a designer who matches my aesthetic.. one passionate about hand-drawn lettering, imperfection, imitating non-digital printing techniques. But mostly I’m looking for someone who thinks this collaboration might be beneficial to them, and even fun.

I’m not promising lots of jobs or fame. I’m just starting out myself. All we might get out of this are a few portfolio pieces. But I’ve tasted enough of the freelance world to know that there is indeed a lot of promise out there, if we are determined enough..

I’m also open to the idea of joining forces with other, dedicated illustrators with real goals and work ethic. I have much bandwidth to share, and would love to share it with driven people– maybe making impasto dot net a forceful creative team.

And I’m also always interested in communicating with great artists, exceptional thinkers, courageous designers, lovers of antiquated techniques, obsessive doodlers, poetic scribblers, scratchers, readers, walkers, thinkers.

Let’s litter the cosmos with our aesthetic.