This is a sketch of a business meeting and I was really fascinated by the expressions on people faces as they talked and gestured at each other. Unlike photography that can be quite intrusive, people do not seem to mind if you sketching them and steel a glance once in a while.  In fact, I think many people even flattered by the fact of being chosen by an artist to be a subject of a drawing. I can sometimes even see how they, very subtly improve their hair or fix some part in their wear to be more presentable. As I sketch, I like to imagine and guess the reality of the people’s lives as they come trough their characters.

I think, psychologist and detectives should learn how to sketch in public in order to improve their skills of observation.

Behind every form there is an intricate flow of energy lines that define it and delineate its borders and at the same time are part of an intricate web of interaction between other forms.
It is full of vibrating dots, lines and planes, constructing three dimensional forms that are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, held in place by the meaning and purpose of the form.
The art of painting is a gentle interaction between the intrinsic meaning of the form and the discerning observation and interpretation of the artist’s eye.
When the two coincide, we have a great piece of Art.

Sitting in my regular place, the neighborhood cafe, sketching and looking at the rain outside. The contrast between the grey dampness outside and the warm coziness inside makes the sketching, delightfully playful process.

The background music together with the gentle murmur inside interrupted occasionally by the screeching noises of the near collision cars outside, create a perfect blend to allow me just the right amount of concentration.

I remember reading somewhere about a research that shows how different people react to noise and outside interruptions with some people feeling paralyzed and others feeling a marked enhancement of concentration.

I apparently belong to the later group.

I feel stuck with my project of the cafe. Part of this feeling of being stuck comes from lack of concentration. Another part, comes from trying to byte more then I can chew.

This problem is not a new one but I still feel unable to change this pattern and keep repeating myself, building too ambitious compositions that require total  dedication and extraordinary concentration, with huge amount of details.

Still, I feel that the subject matter of the cafe as the meeting place between worlds, requires a meticulous balance between the details, the general atmosphere and the overall design.

Meanwhile, sketching in the cafe is a great respite from the demanding work in the studio. Actually, sketching in the cafe is where the whole idea for the cafe exhibition project has started, so it is really nice to go back to the simplicity of the original vision.

I remember in this context, painting once in the far north of Israel right on the border with Lebanon .There was a heavy machinegun shooting  noises in the background and the whole thing felt so weird and unreal.

Here is a painting from the place.

Metula

I like this work actually and maybe something about the absurdity of the situation gave me an added sense of urgency that left no time for being busy with non essentials.

There are probably many artists who have worked in times of war but there is one whom I particularly admire . It is Johannes Vermeer, the great master of grace and light from Delft. (1632 –1675.)

I think that at least part of his life he must have lived during the great Dutch Revolt against the Spanish rule of King Philip||. Perhaps it was different in those times when wars were still fought with arches, spears and swords but I am sure that there were also cannons and sounds of explosions.  In fact there was a terrible explosion known in the history of Delft as the  Delft Thunderclap, occurred on 12 October 1654 when a gunpowder store exploded, destroying much of the city. Over a hundred people were killed and thousands wounded.

Few years later Vermeer painted the famous “ View of Delft “, leaving one to wonder what scars it left on his young soul and how much was this disaster, responsible of Vermeer’s family financial ruin, that consequently led to his early death at the age of 43.

It is obvious that wars and general unrest is not a good conductors for promoting creativity and art making and I believe that every language has it’s variation on the famous expression

“When guns are talking, the Muse is silent “.

3D modeling of Menachem and the Shechina

The whole month of April was almost devoid of all direct activity on the project of the Cafe.
There are many reasons for this, most of which are plain procrastination but  there is one reason that is actually quite a good excuse.
What I mean by that is the discovery of the importance of 3D programs as a tool for enhancing the realistic feel of the general composition.
As some of you may know, part of my creative process includes asking questions by the means of sketching and small limited studies that include working on some specific problem related to the correct form. By this I mean of course the relevancy of form to the content and the inner meaning and not so much the slickness of the realistic appearance.
After finishing my last painting of the double portrait of two of my friends from cafe Tamar, I was not satisfied with the appearance of the cast shadows on the table, so I decided to experiment with 3D programs.
Since I took a class in multimedia some years ago where part of the training included 3D programs such as 3D studio Max , I realized that it would be a great tool to help me solve the problem of designing the overall compositions including a realistic feel of the shadows.
I am proud to declare that after struggling with some of the 3D programs, mainly Bryce, Poser and 3D studio Max and solving some of the problems of moving files between all of these programs, I found quite a satisfactory solution.
Mind you, it is nothing to be very proud of in terms of the 3D itself as a finished product, since my goal is not a 3D composition as such but more as a tool to enhance the feel of reality in my paintings.
You can see the result in the photo above at the top of this post.
The composition in this 3D work is a r stray from the original composition that was initiated by a photograph of my friend Menachem Mizrachi who has passed away about a year ago.

Here is the original photo.

Menachem in Tika

and here are some variations of the original theme

Menachem with Daniel as the Shechina

Quick sketch variation

and here is another sketch, which if I remember correct was actually the first attempt

first attempt

Cafe Tamar

Spring is here. We had an extraordinary winter with much rain and even snow in the mountains, which is quite unusual for this region. Everybody seems to be glad and thankful for the sun and the warmth.
With the spring energies things seem to gain speed and momentum  and I am finding myself getting really excited about my decision to put a completion date for the big exhibition of the café. I have written elsewhere about the concept of the café but I guess I will be writing about it quite a lot in the near future. I am going to post a weekly update about the progress in the new section of my site and you are all invited to add your constructive comments and ask questions.
About a month ago I decided to use some help to focus myself better on the goal of the exhibition and took advantage of an opportunity offered by an amazing coach ( Dafna Grosberg) who did an excellent job, putting me on the tracks.
This exhibition seems like a huge undertaking with multiple layers of meaning superimposed one on top of the other.
The neighborhood cafe is my habitual hangout place for many years and serves also as an outdoor studio for sketching and men watching which made the choice of using it as a general framework and the theme of the exhibit very natural.
In a way, the cafe is just an excuse to mix many different elements together where all of my usual subject matter can coexist in a creative comfort .People, cityscapes, landscapes, still-life, all sorts of animals, domestic and wild, all interact with one another creating a rich and chaotic  background for the flow of the imagination. When the imagination get’s ignited, then the whole thing gets into a completely different dimension creating  a whole which is much more than the sum of its constituents.

The last painting I have just completed, (the  painting above ) illustrates well this process which oscillates between the plain observation and the creative imagination where two figures of two good friends in a famous local cafe suddenly find themselves in a  new context of a jungle with orangutan apes hanging from the trees and lizard crawling on their hands.
Some of the meaning is quite literal as the place on certain days turns into a blissful chaos with
all the many layered interactions happening all at once that would seem to the uninitiated, as nothing less ( or more) than a madhouse. As the last bastion of the bohemians, this place which was founded in 1941 by an illustrious figure, Sara Stern, has served as home for some of the most prominent creative personalities of the Israel’s rich cultural life.
On deeper level the theme of the cafe as the meeting place between different worlds allows me to superimpose the principles of traditional painting with a more contemporary ideas in which the cubist non linear perspective , meets the digital culture of cut and paste allowing for a creative mixing between narratives and metaphors, between different eras and timeframes  and abolishment of artificial distinctions between fictional , virtual and real.
In my opinion, all reality proceeds from consciousness and therefore all reality is equally real, imaginary and virtual. Matter is a concretized  thought form of Mind and when we add Passion and Desire, what we get is Art.

ATM a digital sketch

I was sketching today in my regular cafe with my iPad, using the Brushes application which allows some very nice manipulations with different types of textures that quite convincingly simulate something that can resemble crayons effect and for a brief moment I could see how the future of the whole art of painting is going to change in the direction of the digital art.I must admit that the dialog with digital art making is not an easy one for me .I have a feeling it is not an easy dialog for many artists of my generations especially those among us who grew up on craftsmanship born of hand and eye coordination.Later, a friend and colleague artist joined me for a coffee and saw some of my digital sketches and frankly got alarmed about the fact that he was not sure at all if what I was showing him was not in fact ” real ” hand drawn sketches but instead some quick digital sketches.He is of course not a first one and it is quite a popular surprised reaction by many people when realizing that the painting or drawing they see is a piece of a digital art and can’t believe that it is not hand drawn.This in itself proves actually that the future is already here.If so many people cannot tell the difference between what is digital and what is hand painted, then I believe that we need to readjust our sense of reality and accept the fact that the computer has evolved and matured enought to become a real helping technological tool that can be our ally in the process of image making and creativity.