Ewan MacLeish

Working in Monochrome

2008-02-19T21:46:17+00:00

Working in full color can get in the way of what I really love to paint: light and atmospheric effects. I've been experimenting with a limited color palette with some of my Michael Sloan work lately (reason: I'm not getting great full color prints from my Epson printer when using my favorite printmaking paper).

Now I'm experimenting with limited colors here, too. This watercolor painting follows the "Wanderer" theme of my work shown in the Watercolor Paintings gallery on this site.

Long live monochrome!

Lost In Brooklyn

2007-07-26T18:47:58+00:00

Several years ago, I dreamed that I was taking the F train home from Manhattan to Park Slope. I fell asleep as the train went underground approaching Prospect Park. I awoke on the other side of the Park when the train becomes an elevated line again, and found myself in a part of Brooklyn that I didn’t recognize. It was nighttime, and everything was in black and white. The city was shaped like a bowl, surrounded by buildings that looked like they were alive.

The city seemed endless (as Brooklyn can be south of Prospect Park), with viaducts and bridges, bright lights coming from unknown baseball stadiums, and impossible, monumental architecture from another era.

I remember feeling fascinated and anxious in my dream; I don’t like getting lost. I’m amazed that several years later this dream is still so fresh in my mind, still a source of inspiration to me. Here are a few of the drawings that this dream inspired.

Painting For My Son's Birthday

2007-07-13T02:17:36+00:00

Here's my birthday present to my son Dylan. He loves animals, especially birds, and I love painting fantasy architecture. I think this painting could lead to a nice illustrated story for children.

The Progress of a Thunderstorm in France

2007-05-24T14:08:22+00:00

These three pastel drawings document the progress of a thunderstorm in May over Merindol, a tiny village in the south of France. As a group, these drawings capture several things that I love to sketch: architecture, and dramatic light and weather.

Above is the first drawing of the day from my friend's hilltop ruin. It is late morning, and the storm clouds are forming to the south.

In this second drawing, I have walked down to the village. The clouds and the light have become much more exciting. Now the thunder is rumbling in the distance. The thunderheads move majestically from left to right.

In the third drawing of the day, the storm is about to break. The air smells of the coming rain, and the wind is picking up. The thunder is loud and nearby; I work quickly to finish this piece before the rain arrives. The two splotches in the center of the drawing are the first raindrops to hit. I pack up my gear and run back to the house, getting completely drenched along the way. This is the best day of outdoor sketching I've ever had.

From time to time when I want to remember this day, I take these three drawings out, put on my Ravel piano music, and get a glass of red wine. Ahh... Magnifique!

Cathedral

2007-04-01T14:06:29+00:00

This new oil painting captures some influences and themes that I've been trying to get to the essence of: New York City in the 1940's-50's as inspired by the photographs of Andreas Feininger, a jazz sensibility inspired by Duke Ellington's song "Single Pedal of a Rose" and the Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue", and hope rising out of darkness.

Every once in a while I'll do a painting that really "sings" to me, and has some kind of magic. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want to do is go to my studio and look at it. To me, this painting has soul.

Two New Oil Paintings

2007-03-15T14:45:51+00:00

"My Town" is inspired by the view from my old apartment in Gramercy Park, Manhattan.

"The Immigrants" was a scene I saw as I was driving at night in upstate NY a few years ago. It went by in a flash, but the sight of this group of people just off the road walking across a hilly meadow under the stars made a big impression on me. I've done a few sketches of it over the years from memory with the idea of doing an oil painting of it someday. Voila!

What I Collect #1

2007-03-08T01:04:07+00:00

Bob Staake's post about what Drawgers collect made me want to share one of my prize possessions. I found this late 19th century stamp album in the trash of an estate sale when I was 10 years old and at the height of my stamp-collecting passions.

The illustrations inside and much of the decorative borders are hand-carved engravings. Everything about the way this album was produced says it was done by someone with a great aesthetic sense. It is beautiful to me.

Most of the over 70 pages have postage stamps on them. The collector took some pride and care in their hobby.

Even the pages without postage stamps are beautiful. Many of the countries listed in the album no longer exist.

The Last Steam Engine in Brooklyn

2006-11-10T16:39:59+00:00

A few years ago I got an assignment to illustrate an old steam engine that had just been discovered in an abandoned tunnel under Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, NY, not far from my apartment. I was very excited about the assignment and couldn't wait to see the long-forgotten train.

Sadly, the assignment never panned out and I've always wondered what the train looked like. My son loves trains, so for his third birthday I did this painting for him. I imagine this is how the train was discovered, and what it looked like. Now "Dylan's Train" hangs in his room.

Henry Cheffer and the Art of French Postage Stamps

2006-10-08T18:20:40+00:00

Henry Cheffer (1880-1957) was an artist who designed and engraved many of my favorite postage stamps. He specialized in scenes that celebrated the architecture and landscapes of France. A distant cousin of the sculptor Auguste Rodin, Cheffer was recognized in his lifetime with two Prix de Rome and over 60 commissions for French postage stamp designs. During the time when his stamps were issued (1929-1970), it was the custom to print the artist's name directly on the stamp. I think this was an indication of the respect and pride that France and its postal service had for the work of Cheffer and his fellow stamp artists.

Cheffer's first stamp, the Pont du Gard, Nimes from 1929, is one of my favorites. Up until then, French stamps had a stiff formality, generally depicting sculptured heads in profile of great men in French history (Napoleon, Louis Pasteur), or symbolllic representations of French ideals ("Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"). Cheffer's "Nimes" was the first stamp to show the effects of natural and dramatic light, chiaroscuro, and a technical virtuosity that makes the engraving process look easy.

My favorite of Cheffer's stamps is the 50th Anniversary of the Eiffel Tower, issued in 1939. To me, it's a perfect harmony of perspective, composition and design. Details like the crowd scene at the base of the Tower are nearly impossible to see with the naked eye and are, I think, a testament to Cheffer's genius and perfectionism.

In Pointe du Raz, Finistere from 1946, Cheffer captures the action of a windswept sea, the surf pounding up against the rocks. The detail of a line of hikers, fragile in the fury of this colossal landscape, is another of my favorite touches.

There's a website with a complete list of the 62 stamps Cheffer created for France here.

Old Sketch Inspires New Painting

2006-09-05T17:24:58+00:00

I never would have done this new painting had it not been for a sketch of the rocks from a year ago.

Paintings from Buzzards Bay in August

2006-09-05T16:14:24+00:00

I've wanted to paint this weathervane for several years since we've been taking our summer vacation in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, a small town on Buzzards Bay. The whaling industry is an important part of local history. The weathervane sites ontop of a bandstand overlooking the harbor. The top half of the flagpole is the actual mast taken from a whaling ship that was built in town on a nearby dock; the ship ran aground off Cuttyhunk island in the mid - 1800's.

I loved painting the ocean as I sat on a beach overlooking the bay. On this day, there was nobody on the beach. Looking at this painting of a tropical storm approaching, I can remember the sounds of the surf and the quality of the humid tropical air coming up from Cuba. The effects of light and weather can be so fleeting.

Carrots from our Garden

2006-07-25T13:18:21+00:00

This is exactly how these two carrots appeared when we dug them out of the ground in our garden. The way they are intertwined is perfect - an analogy for love. I just had to do a painting of them! Now how will we be able to eat them?