On my Massachusetts barn / art studio, by Jon Peters.

Few weeks ago Jon Peters and I went to my Berkshires studio to shoot material for his YouTube series. Here is one video result of that trip.

Set-up, Color-spots, Clean-up with Francis Cunningham (Video)

Francis Cunningham is in the country, in his summer studio, painting while vacationing. Before he left we recorded some footage for the third in a series of video about the painting process. I've edited it into a new, hypnotic video. Hopefully it'll be as pleasant to watch Francis in his studio silently preparing for a short quite theoretical session of painting and at the end revealing some behind the scenes - cleaning-up, as it was recording and editing it. Here is the link to the whole series and below is the most recent video.

Looking at Simon Dinnerstein's work with Francis Cunningham.

If you've been following this blog from the beginning, you know that we've been covering mostly Francis Cunningham studio work and exhibitions in our videos.  However, recently we've ventured out to cover more.  We started with a group exhibition at Westbeth, Grid/ Off the Grid in this video and this blog entry. We liked our readers' and viewers' reactions as well as enjoyed expanding our repertoire to covering painters Francis Cunningham enjoys. We've been inspired to do this by the tireless efforts of  James Kalm aka Lornen Munk to cover NY gallery scene in video reports. You can find his ouvre as a "reporter on a bike" here and here. We can only dream to be as prolific as him, and while we can't do that, we can cover more of the unchartered territory of more traditional painting, which James Kalm sometimes covers himself.

Here is Francis Cunningham at Tenri Gallery walking through the exhibition of Simon Dinnerstein, a gifted draftsman/ painter, discussing his large scale paintings and drawings. Before you look at the video, here is his website.  And below is our video report. Don't be deceived by the video's top image of Paulus Potter's painting, which is going to change in the next 24 hours,  it's all about Dinnerstein!

Francis Cunningham: One Year in Painting (Full Video)

Today, we are catching up with our blogging, having recently completed a couple of videos.  Weeks ago, we gave you a preview of a longer video we were working on, which was a video about the development of Francis Cunningham's large three figure piece (2009-2011). In the video Francis Cunningham talks about all the stages of the painting's development, ending with how to look at painting. His model makes a brief appearance, too.

Inventory - Learning to Paint the Nude

Grid/ Off the Grid Walk-through with Francis Cunningham (Video)

Francis Cunningham is in a group show, "Grid/ Off the Grid" at Westbeth focusing on the use of the grid in landscape. Most of the artists in the show, Violet Baxter, Bill Kennon, Simon Carr, Valerie Mendelson, Robert Feinland, Robert Ludwig, Francis Cunningham and Peter Colquhoun, live at Westbeth. We decided to do something new for our YouTube channel and cover the show with a long walk-through. The video is quite long, but with 60 or so paintings by eight artists, it was only fair to spend a long time with them in the great exhibition space Westbeth Gallery is.

More details on NY Art Beat http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2011/672D
Note, the exhibition ends on Sunday, April 17, 2011.

Francis Cunningham: Over the Years (Paintings from 1962-2011)

Since March 19th about two dozen paintings, large and small: still lifes, premier coup, landscapes, portraits and a major landscape, which were completed between 1962 and 2011 have been hanging on the walls of the Laurel Tracey Gallery in NJ. If have not seen that show, which is due to come down on April 9, or would like to have a walk through with the artist, we have a video report narrated by Francis Cunningham ready. Take a walk through the gallery and through the years of his painting.

New Three Figure Piece Opening Sequence (Video)

Francis Cunningham has just recently completed a major figure piece, which he's worked on with a model from December 2009. We announced it here and reported on the process here.  We've been documenting the process, between the painting sessions, on video and today we have the opening sequence of our 40 minutes video ready to share on YouTube.  Like a true painter's video, it'll be worked on for a while, but today, it wants to get out, at least in a small part.

  

In Plain Sight - Francis Cunningham Exhibition Video Walk-Through

Francis Cunningham exhibition of paintings and drawings is currently on display in Midtown.  Today we're bringing you a video walk-through with the artist.  It was recorded one day after the show opened last week.

Design Within Design Cont.

About a week ago, we posted on Designs within Design and we heard from many of you. Dick realized that there is more to say on the subject of designs within the design as well as framing and composition and we made this follow up video.

Video Tips on Fixing a Torn Picasso or Others

Few days ago a brief news story by Carol Vogel about an accident involving a woman falling accidentally into “The Actor”(1905), "a rare Rose Period Picasso" and damaging it last Friday at the Metroplitan Museum of Art appeared in the NY Times. It was later followed by a longer piece explaining how the small tear will be dealt with.
This somewhat sensational story was of course picked up on twitter and in the general and art news media around the world. Knowing that, I had Dick quickly read the longer story on my iphone and I asked him to tell me about his view on the accident and about his experience with torn canvases. This led us to make a short video below about art restoration.
Make sure to also look at the funny, cruel, cynical and pointed comments in this original blog entry on the NYT Artsbeat.

Designs within Design

Yesterday was supposed be our video editing day- finish another portrait- but we started late and decided to make a short pretty unedited video about the concept of "designs within the design."  The idea of the designs with design define quite well, although not completely, Dick's painting process.
So, for the video, using one of his older, small, premiere coup landscapes, which he had used to create a background for a large nude of Tom Johnson- whose video portrait is coming soon- Dick illustrates how a viewer's eyes enter the painting through the edges of the painting. He flips the painting to its sides and upside down to analyze the framing, a great, simple tool in painting, photography and critical tradition, to get a better sense of space and the painting's compositional organization.
He then moves to another painting, the work in progress, the three figure piece, and reveals a stages in his color-spot process and the way he arrives at designs within the design of the picture as a whole.

Portraits: Mimi Scherb

The video introduction to our new video project, Portraits, received a bit more feedback from you than our previews videos. Thank you. We tried to cover more in each of the previews video and they took longer to produce and put up on YouTube. So, this time we're trying something different, shorter, rougher- more frequent, more focused videos. This time the subject is the models Dick has worked with over the years. First, Mimi with whom Dick worked from early in his career and whom he painted many times.



Your thoughts and reactions are as always welcome. Comment here, email or even snail mail. Watch for more videos here and on our YouTube Portraits playlist and Dick's YouTube channel.

Studio Interior Sheffield (2009) Still Life Videos: Berkshires, Golden Section, End Game

This is our final word on the "Studio Interior Sheffield"(2009) painting and videos, the three videos have been so far called Summer '09 Still Life. See our entry on how it all started in the summer in Sheffield.



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Summer '09 Still Life: Studio in NYC. The What It Is, End Game.

Final, part three of Summer '09 Still Life is up on YouTube. I'd had some trouble uploading the big file, higher quality video, so I decided to lower the quality just a bit. You probably can't tell, except in a few places where the camera moves too fast, when painstakingly following Dick dancing around "the stage" in front of the paining, explaining "the what it is" and the "end game" of the painting process in general and particular.

About New Still Life Video & My Lunch with Dick and Michelangelo on the Tea Cup

Yesterday was my first full day working from Francis Cunningham studio and I spent most of the day editing video about his summer'09 sill life. I made a solid rough cut of part one and am up very early this morning getting the first sequence re-done. I'll just add that the October mosquitoes in my house were a big "help" getting me out of bed 6am. Anyone else has mosquitoes in Manhattan?

Today is Dick's check up day at the doctor's, and the pre-exam dietary restrictions prevented him from sharing this lunch with me yesterday. But, he had yogurt, other goodies and tea from Michelangelo cup.


Next week, perhaps Dick will share the recipe for his famous sandwich when we start on part two of the video about the big still life.

Interview with Francis Cunningham Part 2/2

More images of saints and clothed figures on my website here.

Interview with Francis Cunningham Part 1/2

More images of saints and clothed figures on my website here.