From September 2013 to June 2014, I was a student at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art. During that time, I also studied for a month in Bali and was artist in resident in Italy for a week. See the “My Travels” category for those posts.

Field Trip to See the Rosary Paintings by Ernst Fuchs

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Next weekend, our class is taking a 4-hour train ride to Klagenfurt to see the Apocalypse Chapel painted by Professor Ernst Fuchs and his assistants, including our director Laurence Caruana. Today’s field trip, however, was much shorter.  We went to the parish church of Hetzendorf in Vienna to see his Three Mysteries of the Sacred Rosary Paintings

DLH_6739L to R: Lizzy, Martin, Clovis, Laurence, Rachel, Hadley, Kevin, Florence

There’s quite the story behind these paintings – their slashing by a psychopath (as described on the site) to winning a prize at the Sao Paulo Biennale (South America).  In addition to what you can read on the website, we learned from Laurence this morning in a presentation that these paintings were very controversial and that Fuchs received a lot of criticism because of them, including from the clergy.  He had won a competition to paint these after he had returned from his time in Israel and had decided to devote himself to religious art and to building bridges between the Jews and Christians (being a Christian of Jewish heritage – read more about his life on his website – I still say it would make an amazing movie).  Some of the symbols in these paintings reflect these efforts and are no doubt part of what caused such a storm.  There were many other reasons too – but I’m no expert on the matter and can’t recall all the details of this morning’s talk.  I’m not sure how different they are now than from before they were restored, but they were certainly more impressive in person than in our morning slideshow. Hopefully these photos give you a good idea anyway.   I really like the use of gold on paintings – those of you who know my work know that…

On the Way:

  • I love field trips, especially when I get to walk / see places I’ve never been to before.
    DLH_6617b
  • We all met at Schönbrunn Palace after lunch.  I was there early and most others late, so I had time to play with a few panned shots of tourists.  They look better if you click on them to see them large  – always an option with these galleries.  We then walked through the gardens (which I’ve been to often and thoroughly enjoy) before going through a neighbourhood I hadn’t seen before.
  • It was cooler than we’d expected, but still above freezing… check out the photo of a flowering tree – sweet smelling but alarmingly early!  Not sure what this is going to mean for the farmers, but it’s certainly not typical February weather for Vienna…
  • On our way to the church (p.s., don’t always trust your iPhone GPS – good thing we had a paper version too), we walked by another little palace that I later explored (now a restaurant, spa and fashion school/museum +). There are palaces everywhere here.
    DLH_6745
  • I had dressed up a little for the occasion – palaces and churches do that to me – and it felt so good to not be in my painting or hiking clothes for the first time in what seems like months!
  • I’m not sure if it’s all my walking this week, or if it was this morning’s Kundalini yoga class, but my legs are letting me know they’ve been quite active lately. Good thing I have a day off before my Sunday hike with classmates – this time we’ll be doing #6, a 12.5 km (4.5 hour) hilly hikein District 23.
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Busy Week at School

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We’ve had a busy week since I last wrote about my time at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art.

Thursday evening last week, after class, we were treated to a special public lecture by our guest teacher Benedetto Fellin. The event was to celebrate his own teacher, the famous artist Rudolph Hausner, who would have been 100 this year.  He presented along with Ulrich Gansert, one of Hausner’s assistant teachers at the time and Timea translated for those of us whose German isn’t quite there yet.

1925137_490487357722931_1910378951_nPoetic Landscape – Draperies, Transparent Figures, and Horizons

IMG_5674Left to Right: Lizzy, Benedetto, Kevin, Laurence, Edgar, Hadley, Martin // Timea, Dominique, Rachel

We’ve been fortunate to spend quite a bit of time this past week with both Benedetto and Timea, who have continued to teach us about light and shadow, this time using drapery as our main subject – one of Benedetto’s specialties!

  • Still Life Drawing:

We started by drawing a drapery still life with white and black chalk on coloured paper … not as easy as it seems.  I am still struggling with making things look dimensional and unified. The more I practice, the better I get. Funny how that happens…

  • Abstract Acrylic Ground:
    IMG_5622bThen, we prepared a decalcamania acrylic ground on canvas boards for painting the same set-up from a photograph. We used sticky masking paper or cardboard in the shape of our drapery to keep that part protected before flinging paint around.  This splatter and smush exercise was a lot of fun – the kind of work/play I’ve always enjoyed… I used a little Photoshop magic for the action shot backdrop above.
with Rachel
Lizzy
Masking paper
masking paper on acrylic ground
the fun begins
  • Underpainting in Black and White:

    photo by Florence

    photo by Florence

I spent several hours staring at the photo of our set-up and a photocopy of Benedetto’s painting while working at my easel.  On the first day, I didn’t think it would ever look real.  I tend to go too fast and too bold at first, using more expressionist brushstrokes (as Benedetto calls them – I’ve also heard them referred to as sloppy – a term I may have originally volunteered). I really have a hard time seeing how things all link together with light and shadow – shades of white and watered down black. Truly, I think I may be visually impaired in this way. I didn’t give up though.  In the end, with patience and lots of coaching, I’m quite thrilled with the results.

We then painted the horizon in colour before painting a figure in white in a way that would make it appear transparent – a ghostly figure.  The way to do this is to only paint the highlights. I used a photo reference I found on the Internet and did mine free-hand.  What I learned is that rubbing paint once it’s almost dry doesn’t make it look more subtle… it only scrubs some of it off, revealing the texture of the canvas and taking away all of the subtle strokes I had and leaving the bold highlights.  Oh well … 🙂

  • Oil Glazes:

The next step was to apply thin local oil glazes on top of the underpainting using a transparent paste and a new medium made in part with sunflower seed oil.  Et voilà!  From far it looks even more realistic. I tell ya, that’s progress!

IMG_5765Learning by Observing:

I spent a lot of time this past week just standing behind Benedetto, watching him paint  – a very good way to learn (at least I keep praying that I’ll learn by osmosis each time I observe our teachers or classmates at work).

  • Personal Projects:

Because of tight timing, I’m not sure I’ll get to create my original Poetic Landscape composition that I had planned.  I may do something like it in Bali instead since I’m supposed to bring a design for the week I’ll be spending in Philip Rubinov’s “Eye of the Spirit” reatreat.  I really want to get working on all the other projects we’ve got on the go right now, so I can finish those in the three weeks we’ve got left.  Some students, however, took photos of various drapery set-ups for their poetic landscape project – rather entertaining…

Fantastic Creature Project:

One of these unfinished projects is my Fantastic Creature.  I spent 6 hours on it today, but am not much ahead. I’ve created quite a puzzle and a lot of work for myself – an experiment that was suggested to me and that I’m happy to try out. Instead of simply painting freehand on my large canvas,  I traced my design on transparent paper, then on sticky masking paper and mirrored that.  I then spent hours cutting up and numbering all the bits.  I’ll eventually stick them all on and paint the whole thing dark. When I remove the sticky bits, the colourful parts should show up with nice crisp edges.

Live Figure Painting:

This week, Laurence also gave us a presentation /  demonstration on live figure painting (instead of live figure drawing).  I had fun the whole 2 hours of trying it out – something I don’t usually experience when I work with pencils.

IMG_5760Out and About:

It’s been quite warm here this week, and I enjoyed the sunshine at lunchtime a couple of days.  Even just sitting at the foot of the monument across the street for a few minutes is a nice treat after inhaling turpentine and other fumes all morning.

Wednesday morning, I walked around Vienna’s 5th district for a couple of hours before class because the art store wasn’t open at 8am as I had understood it would be from their website.  No worries.  Instead, I explored a new neighbourhood, found some of the natural supplements I needed to ward off dengue fever and Bali Belly during my trip in April, walked about the Nacht Markt, went into one of those tiny tobacco shops to get another 10 Euros put on my phone (yup, 10 Euros/ $15 a month for all the calls, Internet, and texting I need) and approached school from a different direction – always fun.  I then returned to the art store in the evening to buy supplies and to try out an affordable Mexican restaurant my classmate had talked about.  I enjoyed my in-city 3.5-hour hike that day.  There’s always so much to see.

Congratulations if you made it this far – it was a long one….

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Self-Portrait Still In Progress

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I finally got to put some solid time into my “self-portrait” this week.  If you’re new to my blog, I’ve been working on this since this September/October (see concept explanation half way down a previous post).  This week’s progress feels great and I’m learning a lot along the way.

The Female Figure (Amore, Tree Goddess, Me, etc.):

This was fun!  I finally got to empower my tree woman with 3 of the  sigils I’ve designed since October for this painting and my life.  I had originally thought of making them in colour, but instead, I did them in white and then glazed over them in Indian yellow, the same colour as the tree. Now, I feel they look like jewels emanating from within the tree.  I may still add a bit of colour in the branches, but I like the fact that from far, you can’t see them at all on the figure.  This was the first time I really got to use the chipmunk tail hair brush that I bought from Timea (originally from India – sorry, chipmunk 🙁 ).  It’s a little curved on the ends and so makes fine spiral work much easier.  The fact that the Plaka couldn’t stick to the previous coats of oil paint was a bit of a pain, but its beady effect is quite nice in places – happy accidents.

The Angel (Amore, Guardian Angel, etc):

downloadI got another layer of whites on the angel – a

step towards making him more iridescent like

the bird I saw in the Natural History Museum. Because I didn’t feel like mixing a fresh batch of egg tempera to add another layer of whites, I decided to use Plaka, a commercial casein paint. Never again.  I had a lot of trouble with it as one layer would remove the one beneath, creating the impression of a hole in the angel’s thigh, so Lawrence had to come in and help out.  He had the same problem, baffling him.  This painting seem to be good at doing that 🙂 .  I hear a lot of artists don’t like the Plaka though.  I had much better luck with the tubed casein that we also had in class.

After adding the whites, I went in with various coloured oil paint and worked on my blending skills.  I still have a ways to go, but it’s coming along.  The whites I had put on are just the foundation – glazing didn’t provide enough impact, so I’m just painting over it. Today I worked a lot on the body – especially the highlights on the legs.  I can’t count, however, the number of times I reshaped his face and changed his hairdo. At one point, I just rubbed it off with a bit of turpentine-based medium and started over.  Here’s where working with oils has an advantage over acrylics.  I could go back and forth all day in between other projects and the paint was still wet and workable.

liked it, but the head was too far to the right

I look forward to working on this one some more, but I’d best wait until it dries to go in it again… that hair got pretty muddy because I wanted to add all the colours in there at once. Live and learn.  This painting, just like me and my life, is a work in progress and an unfinished space of exploration and expression.

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Intensives Wrap-Up + First Painting For Sale!

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As you may have already read, we’ve been very busy at The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art. We had two 6-day Intensive Workshops in the last two weeks – Spark in the Void and Thangka Painting.  Six days each wasn’t enough though, so we extended the workshops into this week.  Vera and Timea came to school on Monday and Tuesday to assist us with our various projects.  Beforehand, though, Timea gave us a very informative lecture on colour properties & mixing. Although we were using gouache and the colours we talked about were traditional Thangka colours, the information will be very useful for my work with acrylics, saving me a lot of money in the long run – instead of buying 30 different colours, I may buy half of that and mix my own.

The Mandala:

We only did a partial closing ceremony with this mandala (which included chanting to Padmasambhava)  as there are still a few finishing touches to make.  Although a lot of love, energy, mantras, and intentions have already been infused in this collaborative piece, we will empower it further when it’s completely done by writing Om Ah Hung in Tibetan on the back of the canvas, behind the figure at the forehead, throat, and heart chakras.  I’m truly in awe every time my eyes rest on this beautiful piece- it affects me on many levels.

Vera & Lizzy
Tiimea & Lizzy
Rachel
Lizzy

Individual Projects

Students flowed between their various projects and the mandala during our two days of the Intensives Wrap-Up and some into Wednesday, this week’s studio day (for all Academy projects).

www.hadleyseymore.com
Rachel’s
Martin – www.facebook.com/mcasharts
Kevin Campeau
Sara’s
Sara

Finally Finished my First Painting!

Cosmic VisionIntroducing “Cosmic Vision” – 50cm x 70 cm (19.7″ x 27.6″); acrylics on deep profile gallery-wrapped canvas. SOLD.  

Those of you who have known me for a while know that when I paint, I usually work on about 5-10 paintings at a time, 12-16 hours a day, for days or weeks at a time.  I get into the flow and unless I’m working with thick layers of gels/mediums that take weeks to dry (especially in humid Newfoundland), I stay in that flow until they’re finished.  Then I take time off to take care of other aspects of the business or do other things until the next painting marathon.  That’s the groove I work best in.  It’s a truly connected state of mind and spirit (some may say obsessive, but I prefer meditative) and it feeds my soul.  It’s been challenging, therefore, for me to start a whole bunch of projects here at the Academy and never get around to finishing them – whether it’s because it takes weeks for layers of oil paint to dry before I can glaze again or because we’re going from one class to another, one project to another.  We spend 8 hours a day at least 5 days a week at school, but I hadn’t completed one painting in 5.5 months!  Well now I have!  Yay!  It feels great.  On Wednesday, I applied a final UV protective archival varnish to “Cosmic Vision” – a piece that’s very much in my style, but integrates some of what I’ve been learning, especially about transparency, glazing over whites, dimensionality, and brush work.  I spent most of 5 days working on this piece with short lunch breaks and occasional visits to the mandala. To follow up on what I wrote about this painting in a previous post, it was infused with sacred ritual, energy, and intentions (something I’ve done with my artwork for years)- but this time it was also empowered by writing OM in Sanskrit in the back of the circle and Om Ah Hung in Tibetan in the back of the Buddha.

Photo by Florence
photo by Florence
before the zinc white washes
local glazes on tree & birds
With my wonderful teacher Timea
The final piece
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“Thangka Painting” – This Week’s Intensive

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Dominique Hurley Art & Inspiration Quote SeriesI finally got back into my daily restorative yoga practice this week, and my body is so grateful!  The trick, of course, is to do it before I turn on the computer in the morning.  This is much easier to do now that I’ve completed my “Inspirational Quotes for the Creative Soul” project –  quotes on 180 of my paintings/photographs delivered once a day on my Facebook Page until July 15th.  I’ve started other tax, writing, and art-business training projects though, so I’ll have to keep reminding myself to start my days with yoga –  I can feel the difference all day long.

1489030_416625318467486_1010119384_nThis week’s workshop was a natural follow-up to last week’s.  We studied how to make Thangka paintings, an ancient Tibetan Buddhist style of art used as a teaching, devotional, or meditation tool.  Our teacher, Timea Tallian, spent 6 months in the Himalayan country of Bhutan working with Thangka masters there, adding to her wealth of artistic, technical, and spiritual knowledge. I always learn so much from her.  When we came in on Monday, we were greeted with our biggest altar yet – which included various books, sacred objects, inspirational tools, and loads of art supplies she had picked up the week before in London’s Chinatown.  We started our week with a few breathing exercises and chanting to Tara, the “mother of liberation”, who represents. amongst other things, the virtues of success in work and achievements, enlightened activity, and compassion.

Thangka painting isn’t about creativity or imagination – it’s a craftsmanship that requires years of training.  Young Buddhist monks train for 10 years in order to be able to copy all of the symbols by heart, make their own paints, learn each figure’s dimensions and sacred geometry, etc.

Day 1:  Line Drawings

Unlike these monks, we only had a week. Therefore, on Day 1, we used the photocopier and various copying techniques to create our own thangka drawing.  One technique is to apply powered pigment on the back of our chosen symbols with a small burlap pouch and then trace on top to leave the pigment on our papers and then affix the design with pencil.

Another is to pounce holes along the design and then tap the pigment pouch on top, which leaves a dotted design that we can then draw in with a pencil. This is great if you’re using the same design several times.

We all got to choose symbols that appealed to us to decorate around our double dorje.  Some of us went simple and others got very intricate.  Once we were done, we used special Chinese paint brushes to practice ink line drawing – not as easy as it looks. I had heard an artist talking about turning the paintbrush in her hand while painting – when I asked Timea if she did this, she realized she had been doing it unconsciously all these years.  I’m both needing and appreciating the practice in fine line work with a paintbrush.  I ended up buying one of Timea’s curved chipmunk hair brushes from India as they’re great for curves and spirals.

Bella’s
Mine on Day 1
Mine
Martin’s
Bella
Florence’s
Lizzy’s
Mine – I did a second the second day – improvement!

Day 2 – Shading & Paint Making

On Tuesday, after a bit of Kundalini Yoga, thanks to Martin, we continued working with ink and then shading – either with ink or pencils.  I used a simple black drawing pencil to do mine.  What I like about the Thangka style of shading is that it’s a whole lot easier than the western style, where it has to replicate what we see in real life – light direction, cast shadows, reflected light etc.  In this style, all you have to do is make sure that light is against dark and dark is against light.  The light is usually on the outside. That’s it.  That’s good!

Mine
Bella = http://www.bella-volen.com/news.html
Vera’s

In the afternoon, Timea gave a lecture on traditional pigments and paint-making before we got into it ourselves.  Although we did use animal glue and powdered pigments, we also used gouache colours from the tube to mix into them.  As I said, we don’t have 10 years, only a week, so no sitting for hours grinding malachite into a fine powder…

Timea
Kevin

Day 3: Painting

I truly appreciated our opening circle on Wednesday.  We chanted and OMed, but we also participated in a sacred ritual that resonated deeply within me.  I often start my painting sessions by smudging the studio and blessing all of my supplies, praying, etc.  On this day, we did that as a group.  While chanting, we passed each of the containers of paint that we had mixed the day before around the circle.  We each stirred each one, focusing on an intent/ prayer for each.  We had a lot of colours, so I had the opportunity to pray for loved ones experiencing challenges, for all of humanity, animals, Mother Earth, living with purpose and passion, unconditional love for all, etc.  Those were only my consecrations – can you imagine how beautifully infused those colours were by the end – not to mention well mixed?  Wow!

As you may have read in my last post, I had a challenging day on Wednesday – I’m sure our morning circle helped – in many ways.

Timea demonstrating
Timea demonstrating

For the rest of the day, we painted. This was our last practice exercise before starting our individual projects.  Our task was to use our gouache paints on top of an acrylic ground that had been applied on a photocopied image  – the same for everyone.  Timea demonstrated and we spent hours painting with these creamy colours that felt very much like my beloved Golden Fluid acrylics.

Mine
photo by Florence

Once we were done, Timea showed us how rubbing the back of the image with a crystal  pressed the pigment in and smoothed out the image.  For smaller parts, we could do the front without fear of all our flaws being revealed.

Although we all worked with the same image and colours, the results were all quite different – beautiful work everyone!

Lizzy’s
Timea’s
Florence’s
Sara’s
Sara
Timea & Sara
Rachel’s

Day 4: Personal Projects

On Thursday before Ernst Fuch’s birthday, Friday & Saturday, we worked on personal projects inspired by what we learned this week.

Martin
Vera
Vera’s – http://seelenmaler.net/about/
Rachel’s
Florence
Martin – http://www.facebook.com/mcasharts
Sara

I was inspired by a painting I saw in a calendar and went out to buy myself a canvas to play on, starting with the way I’ve been painting for years – on the floor, with lots of water and fluid paints.  What fun!  After spending a few hours fanning it and working on my design of a tree of life and of a Buddha based on a photo of a sculpture, I glazed the whole thing in yellow.  On Saturday, after a 4.5 hour hiking excursion (photos in next post tomorrow), I went into school for 7.5 more hours of work on this project.  I wanted to bring back some of the original colours and so I added more water & colours – they looked great wet, but my experiment using zinc white (which is transparent) vs. titanium white (which is opaque) led to all the colours drying too dark.  I got a lot of great coaching by Timea today, as well as by Martin (a classmate).  I added a bit of a foreground by darkening the front with a purple glaze and will work on lightening the edge so that it’s light against dark and dark against light.  I did some of that too around the tree and birds inside the circle.  I’m learning so much and still have more to learn.  I look forward to Monday/Tuesday when I can work on it some more.

with yellow glaze
While still wet
unfinished
Photo by Florence
photo by Florence

Oh – on Saturday, Timea demonstrated airbrushing – I could have fun with this!

Celebrations:

At the end of the day on Friday, Laurence surprised Florence with a bouquet of flowers and their son Clovis gallantly presented a single rose to everyone in the class.  Laurence gave his to Edgar 🙂  While he was out, Florence left class to pick up a delicious chocolate cake for Laurence’s birthday and we enjoyed that with a glass of champagne (or orange juice in my case).  Nice!

What a great week! We’ll be spending Monday & Tuesday working on several projects from the two Intensives, and so there will be more fun & photos to follow.

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Happy Birthday Ernst Fuchs!

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Internationally renowned artist Ernst Fuchs celebrated his 84th birthday today and the staff and students of the Vienna Academy of Visionary Arts were invited to his private afternoon party at the Fuchs Villa (see earlier post for photos of this amazing house/museum!).  Professor Fuchs is a co-founder of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism and is our director Laurence Caruana’s mentor / teacher.

Happy Birthday Ernst Fuchs!

Interestingly, it’s also Laurence’s birthday later this week.  Happy Birthday Laurence!

 

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The Real Test of Every Day Life

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Dominique Hurley Art & Inspiration Quote Series

I’m afraid to report that Wednesday was a tough day for me, at times – completely by choice.  As one of my mentors, Dr. Greg Baer of RealLove.com says, “Every single time we become anxious or doubtful or irritated, we must first forget the love and vast potential of joy available to us.” How true.  On Wednesday, I would forget, remember, forget, remember – you get the picture.  The loads of sugar I ate when Kevin graciously brought in chocolate cookies for the class didn’t help. I can’t blame the sugar or Kevin though.  Some lessons I need to learn more than once, or twice, or three times – again, you get the picture. Here’s what happened – I take full responsibility and share it here in case what I’m learning may be a mirror for you even if the details of our stories differ.

Trial 1 – Success

One thing I love about The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art is that there are no formal tests.  This doesn’t mean we don’t get tested though – artistically, personally, spiritually.  I got rather emotional for less than a minute in the afternoon, while cleaning my brushes, because I was comparing my painting to others’.  Our skill difference in blending paints is so obvious, and my lack of progress in that area can be discouraging.  I’m human – it happens.  Fortunately, I was able to let that one go rather quickly, remembering how much I enjoyed painting it and how much I learned by observing others work. It’s all good! Yay!

Dominique Hurley Art & Inspiration Quote Series

Trial 2 – More Learning to Do

With my second test, however, I didn’t do so well.  I’m aware of the lesson and my internal processes, but am also aware that I still have a ways to go to be a truly unconditionally loving person. My classmates are doing a great job at helping me 🙂

Dominique Hurley Art & Inspiration Quote Series

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier posts, one of my lifelong and biggest pet peeves is tardiness. Our class hasn’t had a good track record in the last 5 months – if people show up at all, they’re often late.  Yes, you can already read my irritation in my choice of wording. I told ya, I’m still learning …  I know it is none of my business and that people are free to make their own choices. I can’t control other people.  I also know that loving people unconditionally means caring about their happiness without wanting anything in return.  Who knows?  Their happiness may be enhanced by sleeping in or whatever. I never asked – I never cared.  My anger and irritation (whether or not it shows on the outside) doesn’t serve me and certainly doesn’t serve them. Each time I choose to focus on Me Me Me when people walk in late, I choose to step out of love and step out of happiness.  On some days, my feelings and thought lead me to think that I’ve mastered this lesson, but not on this day.  Instead, I judged and grumbled inside.  We started class an hour late because only 3 of us were there at 10am. While I was preparing the absentee’s work stations and starting the first steps of the day’s project for them in case they showed up (following the teacher’s request), I kept telling myself to choose to see this as an act of kindness.  My irritation, however, kept bubbling up and I was on the love/non-love roller coaster.  Quite the test. I would succeed in making a more loving choice and then a few minutes or even hours later, it would raise its ugly head again because it affected some of the offerings that Timea had scheduled that I had become attached to.  Sigh…

Dominique Hurley Art & Inspiration Quote SeriesSo although we don’t have formal tests at this school, there are plenty of opportunities for custom-made learning and growing – for that I am grateful.  Until we let go of our pet peeves, they’ll follow us around our whole lives and truly, it’s not worth the price of holding onto them. My experience yesterday proves that to me once again.  I know that the only person I can change is myself.  I’m working on it!

My sincerest apologies dear classmates for not loving you unconditionally on this day.

042_FreedomP.S.  Here a link to the  Real Love.com page where you can find some free videos that explain some of what I’m learning about unconditional love and anger/irritation.

http://reallove.com/free-videoaudio/

 

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“Spark in the Void” – this week’s Intensive Workshop

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We’ve just completed a special 1-week intensive at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art.

7749_416624561800895_1386564910_nActually, our teachers Kuba Ambrose and Vera Atlantia (Aichinger) are at school today, offering an extra day for those who wanted to complete their projects, so it’s not really done yet – a very generous offer!

Themes:

Each day had a special theme:

  • Monday:  The Void
  • Tuesday: The Spark – light & dark
  • Wednesday: Colour
  • Thursday: Balance & Harmony
  • Friday: Integration
Kuba
Vera

The week was a perfect blend of the spiritual and artistic.  Each day included: lectures and demonstrations; work on 2 projects, and; powerful meditations, creative visualizations, and chanting.  My Spirit Calling Card Reading upon waking on Wednesday was so right – that morning’s guided journey into the mandala was such a blessing!.

readingProjects:

  1. The first project was the creation of a collaborative mandala – following the guidelines set forth by Tibetan Buddhism, we spent hours meditatively and reverently painting this stunning piece. It will probably be finished today at school, so I’ll post another photo of it later. It is dedicated to Padmasambhava, known as the Second Buddha. Having journeyed into its multidimensional world to meet a guide and the guru through our daily meditations, painting this mandala turned out to be a very deep experience.  We worked on it, usually 3-4 at a time, when we felt called to it or needed to take time off our other project.  The balance between this highly structured project and our self-directed creations was great!
    Photo by the Academy staff.
  2. Our job in our second project was to create a painting on a small cradled panel using only black, white, and one colour.  First, we came up with any image we felt moved to bring into being by using white chalk pencil on black paper.  I started by copying a sea shell from a beautiful book called “Art Forms in Nature – The Prints of Ernst Haeckel”.  From there, the figure and moon naturally evolved – there was not a lot of thinking for me here – I just drew quickly and intuitively.  Second, we used an armature to improve on the composition – I got lots of coaching on correcting the arms, which were originally much too long.  We then drew the image again on our pre-primed panels with white egg tempera, added a coloured glaze (I chose blue), and then painted with oils and a medium (1/2 linseed oil and 1/2 balsam turpentine). For this step, I got some coaching on blending oil paints – something I’m repeatedly told isn’t achievable with acrylics. It’s amazing how many times the woman’s profile (and therefore age and personality) changed as I painted her – not purposely, I assure you! I learned a lot through this whole process and for that, I am grateful.  It’s not quite done – I will either glaze it again in a couple of weeks when dry, or varnish it in a few months.  We’ll see.  As I was painting, I was given the name “Rejuvenation” for it.
    original drawing
    egg tempera on panel
    armature on panel
    blue glaze
    learning to blend oil paints
    As it is now – Rejuvenation

    Once again, I’m amazed at what my classmates created.  What talent!

    Rachel
    by Martin Cash – www.facebook.com/mcasharts
    www.hadleyseymore.com
    Lizzy & Jayni painting
    by Lizzy (Elizabeth Banker)
    by Jayni Raven Morris who came from Saudi Arabia just for this workshop – www.facebook.com/jayniraven.morris
    by Martin Cash
    by Kevin Campeau – www.facebook.com/kcampeau

Every workshop that Vera and Kuba have taught has been both educational and inspirational.  Seeing this couple work together is great!  Kuba will be one of the main teachers for the Spring trimester, along with Daniel Mirante.   I will miss a few weeks in April while I’m in Bali, but I’ll be participating in some classes and workshops when I come back in May and June.  To find out more about The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art’s curriculum, click here.

 

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Tidbits

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I didn’t want to make yesterday’s post too long, so I’ve decided to wrap up my week’s summary in a separate post.

What caught my eye?

Vienna is relatively clean.  With all the smokers, however, there’s bound to be some unusual ashtrays.

IMG_4985Vienna’s Iceworld:

On Friday, I had to go to the main OeAD office to pick up my new apartment keys, and so I walked past City Hall and got to see Vienna’s Ice World.  In addition to a couple of skating rinks, there were long snaking ice paths between them and very appealing food stalls.  It was 3pm, and I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I had myself a Finnish specialty – fire roasted salmon on an organic baked potato and sauerkraut sauce.  It was quite cold eating that standing outside, but fun too!  I may return to skate one day- it’s 6 Euros entrance fee, plus 6 Euros skate rental.  Lockers are 2 Euros, but I could skip that, making it an $18 Cdn outing.
It did look fun and it’s been a few years since I’ve been in Ottawa when the Rideau canal was open – the world’s longest outdoor skating rink.

At School:

  • Poetic Landscape

This week we worked on the concepts for several paintings.  One I haven’t talked about before is our “Poetic Landscape”.  Timea and Benedetto will be coaching us on very specific elements – drapery, transparent figures, and landcapes.  If you’ve followed the link to Benedetto Fellin‘s artwork in previous posts, you’ll see he specializes in all three within each composition.  Our first task was to find examples of these elements to collage together as our painting sketch – something I did in Photoshop. We’ll be doing the drapery from real set-ups in class, however.  Although I’m really motivated to learn both drapery (for long flowing dresses) and transparent figures, I can’t say this project had me very excited when I first heard of it. I saw it more as a simple practice exercise.  After putting these elements together, however, I’m really looking forward to it.  I chose an image of a Buddha and a drapery set-up I found on the Internet and superimposed them on a photograph I took of Shag Rock in Fortune Bay, Newfoundland.  Doesn’t it look like he’s rising from a lotus? Love it – and reconnects me to the very spiritual nature of the Rock – the island of Newfoundland. We’ll be doing this in oils over an acrylic ground.

  • Dominique poetic landscapeFantastic Creature:

IMG_4996

Do you remember that I showed this pony painting by Bob Coonts in my Inspirations post? It’s similar in style to a phoenix that my friend Lori Reddy and I did together (I painted the background and she brought it to life, leaving me breathless!  I later used a similar technique for “Jubilation”.

by Bob Coonts
by Dominque Hurley

Well, that’s the style I’ve decided to use for my Fantastic Creature project, but stepping it up a notch.  On Thursday, I spent most of the day designing the owl, learning new ways of approaching such tasks thanks to Timea’s coaching.   I also added another layer of colour and more white details on the canvas.  Fun!  I’m also including early process photos taken by Laurence & Florence as I just got these.

  • Sacred Codes

On Thursday, Laurence gave a great 2-hour presentation on the Hindu Worldview, looking at the different eras and sacred texts to answer these 3 questions: “Whence Come We?” “Who Are We?”, and “Where are We Going”?.  I certainly learned a lot thanks to his wealth of knowledge and personal experiences.

  • Still in Progress:

On Friday, I spent most of the day working on my self-portrait – you can hardly tell the changes unless you know what to look for, but trust me, I’ve done quite a few more hours of work on this since you last saw it.  Oils in the Mischtechnik take time… Laurence spent quite a bit  coaching me on how to apply shadows on the female figure.  Very helpful.

This blog is as much a diary of my time in Vienna as it is a way for me to share my journey with you – hope you’re enjoying all the details.

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Another Great Week At School

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What a great week! I knew it would be – it just had to be as we started on Monday morning with a dance / meditation circle.  Timea led us through something similar to Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms (bringing me back to all those years of amazing spiritual movement (YogaDance) classes I loved back in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia). It felt great to shake off what I didn’t need on every level, to limber up, and to open myself up to more visionary experiences.

Fantastic Creatures:

IMG_4854

Monday was all about our Fantastic Creature Painting (1 of 3 pieces for this term).  I must say – Timea is a great teacher! She really listens! I don’t even remember saying anything that would have led her to do what she did, but she did – and it was perfect.  She came in on Monday with a huge piece of rolled up primed canvas and said that I was to take as much as I wanted for my Fantastic Creature Painting.  I do remember saying I really wanted to learn to stretch canvas, but she was persistent about my going big.  Yay!  I found myself on the floor (my favourite place to paint) splattering paint and creating several layers of mirrored images with Golden acrylic high flow paints that she brought in especially for this exercise.  Heaven!  I so missed fluid acrylics! I spent quite a few hours over the next few days playing with it and staring at it.  Our job is pull out images from our abstract background to eventually create a fantastic creature. I was in awe at what other students were able to do, either on their small pieces of canvas or on those we did on paper in a previous week.  I found plenty of shapes, but am still at the point of simply outlining them.  Still, that was a lot of fun and I’ve got some ideas of where this will go. Can you see an owl?  This is just the beginning.

 

Poetic Landscape

IMG_4863Our second piece this term will be a poetic landscape (object, drapery, landscape).  The idea itself doesn’t necessarily inspire me yet, but I’m still evoking subject matter.  I do want to learn drapery for all those flowing robes on the figures I eventually want to incorporate in my work.  Not an easy task! What did inspire me, though, was a special presentation by Benedetto Fellin.  His life story, talent, and presence made for a wonderful afternoon. He’ll be guiding us through a few drawing / painting workshops this trimester.

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Works in Progress:

For part of studio day on Wednesday, I worked on the totem animals on my main oil painting from last trimester.  I do believe they’re finished.  Love them!  I still have lots of work to do on the tree and 2 figures.  But there is progress!

IMG_4900

Evoking More Inner Images

Brighid Walks The Land • Helena Nelson Reed

Brighid Walks The Land • Helena Nelson Reed

On Thursday and Friday, we had a special workshop with Vera and Kuba (remember, I went to their place in Payerbach for tutoring?).  First, we looked at 4 images that inspired each student, discussing their conscious and subconscious attraction to various subjects, compostitions, colours, and moods.  Insightful!  I’ve already written about some of my inspirations. By the end of Friday, however, I had found another.  I really resonate with the work of Helena Nelson Reed – gorgeous!

On Friday, we were led through a creative visualization exercise based on poetry.  Using a minimal palette in ways that Kuba demonstrated, we then represented our vision on paper.  I loved my vision – a beautiful story about an awakening of consciousness and sustainable logging.

My first attempt at turning that vision into a painting sketch, however, was way too literal.  I don’t want to be a landscape painter. Through discussions with Vera and Kuba, I was once again reminded of how my key will be to turn these visions (figures, etc) into my own unique style. How do I translate such a vivid story into something that looks and feels like my art?  I still have a lot of work to figure that out and I’m trying not to get frustrated or impatient – sometimes more successfully than others.  I’m starting to fantasize about having another year dedicated solely to painting (without the financial or time pressures of shows, sales, teaching, anything really – hey, it’s my fantasy) so that I can take everything I’m learning here and just work and play alone in my own studio until my art naturally evolves into what it wants to be – yes, yes, all the while loving what it is.  I just know I’ll find a unique way to paint realistic elements into my work.  The more I practice drawing, the easier that will be to do.  Anyhow, by the end of the day Friday, I had created a few acrylic backgrounds to play with that concept, but I’m not thrilled with my first attempt.

Grant it,  I was up at 4am (I spent nearly 2 hours on Skype with Deb Ozarko for a podcast that will air at the end of February or beginning of March – a wonderful experience!) By 4pm, therefore, I was tired and needed to remind myself to be gentle and loving – all part of the learning process.

Well, there you have it – another great week.  It’s sunny now, and just below freezing – thinking of going for another hike. After that, I have to pack up as I’ll be moving residence rooms on Friday (this room had already been reserved by the time I extended my stay).  Have a great weekend!

 

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