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This October has been so busy that I didn't expect to have time to participate in my neighborhood's annual "Dia de los Muertos" festival this weekend, October 28 & 29, as I have for the last four years.
Sherman Heights, just east of downtown San Diego's Gaslamp District and Petco Park, is unique in that, in addition to a display of traditional family altars (or ofrenda), the neighborhood also holds an outdoor festival of altars created by artists who interpret the "day of the dead" concept in new and different ways. These "public" altars are located at historic homes that are arranged to make a walking tour of the Sherman Heights Historic District.
This is the portfolio pic of my altar in 2002, the first year of the festival:
At the suggestion of my friend and resident historian Louise Torio, I am going to display elements, photos and information from previous year's Dia de los Muertos at the San Diego Finishing School, my new studio located at 2279 L Street, San Diego, CA 92102.
In addition, everyone is invited to tour the San Diego Finishing School studio, open to all visiting Sherman Heights for Dia de Los Muertos from 12-5pm both days. I will actually be working on the chalk painting from Corso Degli Artisti for the Little Italy Association and speaking with folks in attendance on the guided walking tours Louise is leading, starting from the gorgeous Villa Montezuma museum.
And of course, after getting involved, I decided I had to do a new ofrenda at my home, properly this year, as last year I was hip deep in the tile work for the Cesar E.Chavez Trolley Station and did only a small impromptu piece; this year I'm back to my usual scale, developing my third ofrenda to the our service men and women fallen in the current Iraqi conflict.
This is the first altar in 2004:
Side note: anyone who visited last year and saw the tile mosiac murals in progress at my home studio can see the finished art installation beginning at the corner of 25th and Commercial Streets at the southeast corner of Sherman Heights. Its a 3 block walk to the station from the San Diego Finishing School at 2279 L Street.
To read my press release about the weekend, click here
For more information about Sherman Heights' "Dia de los Muertos" event, please call 619. 233. 8833 or e-mail shermanheights@aol.com.
Whether chalk or paint, any large scale image begins with the drawing. And anyone who has studied drawing knows that the process of drawing involves as many lines or marks that you decide you don't want as those you do.
So where do those marks go? Mostly you don't see them on the finished piece, and in both chalk and fresco there isn't the time to make many marks that need corrected or erased altogether. Does that mean that artists doing these kind of projects don't make mistakes or corrections?
Of course not. We all make mistakes, even Michelangelo. But when working very large, or under a tight time restriction, or in front of as crowd, we make our mistakes (and corrections) ahead of time in creating templates for our work.
Michelangelo began each composition with small sketches, where he could find the shapes and forms he wanted to see in the finished work. When the sketches were perfected, they could be enlarged onto full size sheets of paper in outline form called cartoons, usually by assistants. Any errors in the enlargement process could then be corrected, or changes made to the composition, before a single stroke is applied to the actual fresco surface.
When the full scale cartoon was approved by Michelangelo, it was transferred to the fresco surface by a technique
called spolvero, (which) involved perforating the lines of the drawing on the cartoon with thousands of little holes through which a charcoal powder would be sprinkled, or "pounced", by striking the cartoon with the pounce bag and thereby leaving on the plaster an outline that was then reinforced in paint. (Ross King, The Pope's Ceiling)
In addition to the perfection of the drawing this technique offers a host of other benefits for its seemingly extra work. Remember, the wet plaster surface of fresco can only receive paint for so long before it cures, so the spolvero technique gets the artist a perfect drawing in the shortest amount of time, leaving the most time for painting. Also, if a section of plaster went wrong in the mix or cure and had to be removed and done over, the hard work of the drawing wouldn't be lost, because the perforated cartoon could be used over and over again.
For these same reasons, I use the spolvero technique in chalk painting as well as in many of my handpainted custom mural projects. Chalk painting happens over such a short time, I figure the audience doesn't want to see me puzzle over which lines to draw or see me make endless corrections to the outline, they want to see full color and dimension emerge from the pavement like magic. Similarly, I usually have some kind of paying audience when I do a custom mural in a private residence or public/commercial setting, and it builds confidence to see perfectly sized and corrected drawings appear onsite in minutes rather than hours.
In the same way that Michelangelo would want to keep drawing errors out of the fresh plaster surface because they are difficult to correct, a messy drawing in chalk or on a client's newly prepared mural wall makes the painting process more difficult because complete erasure in any of these mediums at large sizes is far harder than it looks and more time consuming than its worth, especially with someone watching you work.
And of course if a chalk painting gets wet or smeared, or if a mural wall is damaged or stained and need resurfaced, the spolvero drawing is ready to be used again anytime.
I have attached a series of pictures from my featured piece at Corso Degli Artisti to illustrate the use of spolvero. In the first picture, I am ready to put down the drawing of the central figure. You'll notice that she is already indicated in white primer contrasting with the grey background:
In fact, I already used this drawing to position her and lay down the white base before the panels were delivered to Little Italy. You can see the chalk smeared around the perimeter in this photo of the cartoon placed over the panels:
You can see the interior outlines from the perforations if you look closely. In the next picture, I've covered the drawing in black chalk and rubbed it through with a rag, making the image almost undecipherable:
After I lift the drawing, shake it out and fold it away, I'm left with a clean, accurate drawing in a matter of minutes while the audience watches:
One of the beauties of this technique is that the lines are so delicate they completely disappear into the developed chalk drawing:
I actually used this technique on each of the figures in this piece, as well as for the text that will finish it off. I also created spolvero cartoons for the small demo piece I did on TV (see earlier entries) and surrounding text. All of these drawings join my library of full size drawings from past projects, which can be reused in both other projects and in the teaching demonstrations I do at the San Diego Finishing School.
After a couple days recovery and return to the rest of my life, I'm reminded of another relationship between fresco and street painting: the physical challenge of working quickly and effectively with your body in an unusual position. Ross King mentions many of the various afflictions Michelangelo bore in four plus years of painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, including having later difficulty reading and drawing unless he was leaning back and looking up.
I am used to working on ceilings and other inconveniently located surfaces in my regular work doing custom handpainted murals and unique finishes, but I don't spend that much time on my hands and knees, so a couple of ten hour days street painting makes some impact on the body. That said, I had a great time this past weekend, getting to meet a lot of interesting people while getting some satisfying work done in the great vibe of Little Italy.
As I mentioned to many of you who came by the event, one of the great things about being the featured artist is that I'm not under the gun to completely finish my piece, as it has to come back to the studio for sealing anyway. Here's a picture of the featured piece set up at my studio to be finished over the next couple weeks:
Everyone, especially anyone who didn't make it to Cosrso Degli Artisti last weekend, is welcome to come by the studio to check it out during my open studio hours this month, Wednesday October 11 and Thursday October 12 3-6 pm and Saturday October 14 2-7pm. The address is 2279 L Street, San Diego, CA 92102, just east of Petco Park and the Gaslamp District, click
here for map.
I took a lot of progress pictures over the weekend and will share a few of them next time, along with some more from Ross King's "The Pope's Ceiling" about how we construct these images and bring them to life.
From Ross King's "The Pope's Ceiling":
"The term fresco, meaning "fresh", comes from the fact that the painter always worked on fresh- that is, wet- plaster. This called for good preparation and precise timing."
Michelangelo's concern was the curing time of the plaster and how much "open" time he had to work a particular section of his design, because after the plaster cured, you couldn't work the image any further than "twelve to twenty-four hours.
Since after this period the plaster no longer absorbed the pigments, it was laid down only in an area that the frescoist could complete in a single day, known as a giornata (day's work).
Street painting or chalk painting is almost always choreographed as a one or two giornata all day festival here in California, where each artist needs to finish his or her work by the end of the event because the streets are washed clean that same night. Street painters, like frescoists, "work against the clock" to complete their designs, though for opposite reasons. The frescoist works in a medium designed for eternity, the street painter works just for today.
Either way the creation of the artwork becomes a performance in itself, requiring careful planning, what I call strategy, to not only make it "art" but also to make it on time. Michelangelo pushed back the completion date of the Sistine Chapel several times before he was done, keeping his work covered from below so no one could observe the process. Even Pope Julius II was kept off the scaffolding to keep him from seeing the work until it was "done".
Street painters, on the other hand, typically work in front of an audience of festival-goers and passers-by like I did this morning on Ch.7 KNSD's "Streetside" segment with Kimberly King to promote this weekend's Corso Degli Artisti street paintng event combined with the annual Little Italy Festa (sponsored by Precious Cheese for the same five years I've been doing event). The piece I did is the only other finished painting by Michelangelo known to us besides the Sistine Chapel frescos, and was a great warm up for the Sistine Chapel ceiling detail I will be painting in chalk as this year's featured artist at Corso Degli Artisti.
Here's the image before today's segment:
This is when the segment was done:
I used some of the same techniques on this piece that Michalengelo himself used in the Sistine Chapel and I will be using tomorrow and Sunday in Little Italy. This piece will be displayed (and hopefully already finished) where I'll be working as the featured artist making a piece of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in chalk for the Little Italy's permanent outdoor art collection. Next epidode I'll have pictures of the beginining stages and a continued discussion of fresco/chalk technique.
The Holy Family painted for his friend Agnolo Doni is the only other finished painting by Michelangelo besides the famous ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. A round painting about 4' in diameter, it foreshadows his preoccupation with the muscular human form and his use of dramtic lighting effects revealing those forms in a sculptural way that made the Sistine Chapel such a definitive turning point in the devlopment of western art.
It seemed a natural to use The Holy Family as a demo for this week's TV spots promoting the Little Italy Festa and its Corso degli Artisti street painting festival, because as the featured artist, I will be doing a detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling as a new permanent piece in Little Italy's outdoor art collection.
Sculpture was Michelangelo's preferred medium, and it is an interesting story that he accepted the Sistine Chapel commission from Pope Julius II in the hopes of securing a huge sculpture commission from Julius that he really wanted but never came to fruition. My favorite book about this is "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" by Ross King. (See the Amazon link in the sidebar). He gives a terrific, concise description of the method of fresco painting I'll share with you tomorrow, as well as why those methods are relevant today both to street painting with chalk and the custom handpainted murals I produce with modern acrylic paints.
To see the development of The Holy Family demo piece I'm doing in chalk, be sure to check out the Fox 6 morning show between 8am and 9am on Thursday October 5 and Little Italy Festa media partner KNSD channel 7 morning shows at 6.30 am and 9am on Friday October 6. To see the Sistine Chapel piece come to life, come to Little Italy on Saturday and Sunday October 7 & 8.
As I start working on the pieces for the week's street painting events (I'm actually doing two different Michelangelo pieces, a small sample for the local morning TV spots and the full scale piece during this weekends' Corso Degli Artisti) I've been thinking about the usual questions I get when working on large, mural scale painting in chalk, usually on my hands and knees in the street:
How do you do this?
What happens when you're all done with it?
How do you feel when they wash it all away?
Do they pay you to do this?
How do you make any money doing this?
This year the answers will be a little different because I am the featured artist of the event, which means I'm getting a fee to do a piece on panels (instead of the pavement) that will be mounted and permanently displayed in Little Italy neighborhood when its done.
As this is the first time in five years of participation that I'm being directly paid to chalk in Little Italy, I wouldn't say that "I make money doing chalk." But given that my contracting business revolves around creating custom artwork of many kinds, from custom handpainted wall murals to unique "faux" painted and plaster finishes for interior and exterior surfaces, street painting is a great way to meet people interested in unique custom art and spread the word about my custom art services, which I feel are unique in their blend of design experience, art and architectural history, technical skills and prodcution experience. (See some of my past custom art projects at www.john-scenic.com).
When I develop a custom art project, often the experience that I provide to the the clients and the working dynamics I make possible for the designer(s) are just as significant to the success of the project as the actual artwork. Street painting is similar in that its as much a performance art project as a visual art one, taking place over a set period of time for a live, often interactive audience.
So really, street painting to me is practice: practice drawing & painting on a large scale, practice communicating with people, practice sharing knowledge. I particularly enjoy the practice of working from the masters (like Botticelli or this year's Michelangelo) because there is always more to discover in their work the more you study it, and more to share with people who ask.
My favorite question is the first one ("How do you do this?") because the answers are always new, yet build on the previous ones, in the same way that every mural or faux finish that I do is differnet than everything I've done before and lays the ground for the next one at the same time. (I teach this "method" throughout my mural and faux finish classes at the San Diego Finishing School).
This year my how-tos will be based on the methods Michelangelo himself used. To find out more, check out KUSI morning show from 7.30-9.30am tomorrow October 3, 2006 to see me start a small Michelangelo in chalk, and then check back here tomorrow for a "transcription" of the process. I will continue the piece on Fox 6 Thursday morning and finish on NBC Friday morning before starting the big one on Saturday morning in Little Italy.
