The Ocean...

My , and my children childhood, and many other children, I think ,are familiar with the technic of folding newspers, creating hats and boats....wear the hats and sail the boats in the water of the tub....it kindled our imagination....

 

My first painting series ,many many moons ago, while still in art school was painting/illustrating my childhood memories, writing short stories to accompany them.

 

This frame brought me right back to my childhood momories.

 

Past and present,life and stage, life and memories, all became one ocean, to draw from.

 

I upload part of a painting from that first series....( the hat was painted first and the paper writing content was planed before and was glued from a letterset, letter by letter on the surface,... needed a very carful accuracy of work . The title means" life style", a corner in one of the papers.........)

 

Thanks for your impressions

Please read preface, thanks

It seems you are starting a very interesting work. I love pictures with a story. Your picture is well contrasted and the texture is excellent. The painting, is simply fabulous. Congrats and regards.

If the is $100 bill, I anticipate it might sink. A lovely performance with tones emerging from a dark stage.

 

 

I love the painting, somewhat stylized like a Modigliani, but not quite.

Armindo, thanks, that what I'm trying todo, tell stories ,human life connected....

 

Jeff, it still holds even with that $ bill...The painting is only a part of the full frame painting.

 

Thanks both of you.

I'm interested in why a $100 bill, not the shekls, or was it lirot? Also, his dress...kibbutz-like? I love the idea behind this work. The painting is exquisite.

The article you sent, btw, is more of a linguistic victory.... Practically what does it mean? Linguistic victories only get people through things; they don't change reality. It's a Chelm response. Bialik didn't buy into that.

I don't know what kind of money is the boat done from, I think it is a random one taken for folding the boat. The idea , the bowl and the man's hands were what attracted me to it, and connected it to my painting. I have had another painting of that series with two boats, but it was sold in the exhibition and I could not find the photograph.... these are very old photographs.

 

I have answered you via email about the article.Thanks

I love your story and I think your painting is wonderful. Your connection to childhood by the play with paper is great. There is a childlike quality and innocence to your painting that comes through very well and reaches out to me. I find the photograph interesting and intriguing, especially due to the story and the subject and the framing. The strong element you've creatively chosen to leave out, the head, is a very effective choice. It helps focus the image where you want to go and leaves some appropriate mystery to it all.

 

I'm having trouble relating it to some of the emotions you've expressed in the painting and in your writing. I do think it has the necessary elements and a great deal of potential. The three elements I am in touch with most are the hands, the floating paper, and the table cloth. I think more magic could be brought out. I feel right now that every part of this photo has equal weight and I think there's room for more selective emphasis, more personality and personal interpretation.

 

Do the hands connect visually to the paper and to the viewer? What is their story? Is there excitement in the hands? Longing? Action? Skill? Strength? Provide them with character. For instance, the closer hand seems to want to come toward us. It feels as though it has the potential to pop out of the frame at us. But it's not. What could make it reach out more to me? Would you want it to? How important is the shirt behind it? The edge of the bowl also feels like an element that could give visual three-dimensionality and reach out more to the viewer. How special is the reflection? Can the tablecloth have more childlike mystery, or fancy, or energy? Is it important to you or should it recede?

 

This photo, because of your approach to it and your thoughts and creative vision, has much in it. It is full in a very good way. I think you have captured it well and it's clear that you were in touch with a lot when you took it. I think more visual commitment in your approach to it could make a difference.

Thanks for your wonderful evaluations. It is so interesting how we see elements in a photo.

 

I will try to tell you how I see it. The hands are perfectly ready to "save" the boat if it will sink in the water of the bowl.I would not change it because I remember my hands in the same position in the past... ;-)) the tablecloth looked to me as waves in its form, its a bir " blending' in the scene looks right to me( I have cropped the legs of the table as I thought it brings the "waves ' form closer to the viewer.... his shirt crumpled, fited my taste as it reminded me a child that is busy playing and not taking care of his clothes....( how do you think you would have liked to see this shirt?)

 

What I agree with you is the bowl and reflection in it on the L side( inside the bowl) cloning the reflections on the L side may enhance the boat form, and working more on the form of the bowl to give it more a 3 D look is right in my eyes.

 

Anyway, thanks for your point of view, food for thought. !

( btw, the painting is only a half, in the original there are two children ....)

Thanks for your response and explanation. I did not mean to suggest that you change the position of the hands. They're wonderful as they are and, of course, they are already set in their position in the photo. I mentioned the shirt because it is the background to the hands. So I was thinking more about what could be done to the shirt in post processing in order that the hands project more in the frame. Also changes in light and shading and bringing out nuances of detail to the hands themselves, all of which can add character and emotion and can also emphasize depth and perspective.

 

I understand your narrative connection of boat and hands. And I think it's a wonderful way to view this. I thought there could be more visual telling of that narrative connection other than through just the positioning of each element. Similar or isolated lighting could perhaps tie them together or similarity of gray tone compared with the rest of the photo. That way the viewer would be led emotionally to "getting" a connection along the lines of the one you are feeling.

 

Thinking of those photos of Judy Garland and Jane Russell I posted in my other comment, I can imagine the very same women in the same poses with the same makeup not reaching me near as much in the hands of a different photographer. It's all the details, the contrasts, the way breasts are made to protrude (because of the darkness of the line of cleavage), smiles are focused in on with lighting, mystery in eyes is created with shadow, body curves suggest a hidden other side out of view, profile suggests the entire face, a severe burn in the upper left corner of Jane Russell's photo relates to the burn at her chin pushing the viewer's eye right back down to her face should it wander over to that corner.

 

Pnina, I appreciate that you understand that I am trying to put out general ideas for approach rather than a specific vision which I believe should remain yours and not mine. Your reaction is gracious and open. There are many ways this photo can speak. My suggestions are just that and, as with suggestions made on my own photos, they will either ring true for me and stimulate me to look differently or they will reinforce my own original approach or they will get filed away and have an impact sometime down the road. As I've always said, a critique will tell you as much about the person giving the critique as it does about the photographer being critiqued. The balance will lie only in the guts of the individuals creating what they create. I will always respect whatever your way is.

I understand it very well, I 'm always open to another point if view, I don't see it as negative, on the contrary, I think that with the years I'm in this site ( and my work, and studding and reading here), I have learned a lot by thinking of what was written to me in real evaluations. I don't accept everything , but when I think it helps, I think about, correct flaws and use it also later on. so I enjoy your wide point of view, and for sure will use it in the future, Thanks and don't hesitate to let me know your impressions, I will exchange my feelings with yours and it for sure will be good for both of us, but at least for me.;-))

Not on this photo, but on a couple of others, I've noticed you've written "bugs" instead of "bags." The first are crawly things, the second are things you put stuff in or that I have under my eyes because I don't sleep enough. :)

Not to be confused with teabags, which one can put under one's eyes to treat those pesty bags.

Boy, it's interesting where one goes with an image. My immediate and apparently "wrong" concept of this image was first that it represented the sinking dollar. with the hands getting ready to make a bailout. I also thought that the hands belonged to a man who had no pants, and made inference to the emperor who has/had no clothes. Well, so much for my interpretations. I'm still thinking that it is a workable one, but so far from the mark of your intentions that it kind of scares me.

Fred, Why don't you sleep enough....? this one I know... and it happens because I write fast, read it again and correct the spelling, but not always with good results... So I hope bugs are not crawling on your eyes, and sleep well so you don't have bags under your eyes... "elements" I already know.... ;-))

 

Donna, tea bags is grandmother modicine, I did not try it, but as long as it will not be "teabugs"....LOL

 

David, you made me really smile reading your thoughts.....taking into account the $ situation you can read it as you did and wish..., but where will you put my painting in all this? ;-))

I had the same thoughts like David:-) I appreciate the background of this image, which is beautiful and nostalgic. Children do make these paper boats even now, in India, and try their best to save these from sinking.I admire your cropping,caption and the choice of tone.Those two hands eager to save the boat is symbolic to me., like the invisible hands that protects us.

Thanks for your evaluation. Children are doing it here nowadays as well ;-))

Why, on the wall of course. lol

;-)) , I can promis you that your 5 years old grandchild would have loved this painting on her wall....

First I have to comment that I love your painting and would like to see it in its entirety.

 

I think we are all floating gentle along in paper boats all our lives.... some of us are more aware of this than others. I am much less convinced about those guiding hands waiting to pull us up if we begin to sink.

 

To some degree I can see where Fred is coming from with his evaluation. As compared to the majority of your B&W work, this one is a bit flat tonally. Nothing really pops out from the background in the way it usually does with your stage images. I cannot tell to what degree this is the result of the stage lighting or your post production.

Wonderful photo, Pnina, a great composition and an image pregnant with anticipation. And here we are together at last, off to cross the fishbowl in our $100 boat. By the way, your painting is great. What a talented lady!

Pnina, excellent photo and symbolism. Besides, I love your painting; maybe I had read about your other talent, but did not recall it and it was a great surprise. Congratulations, multi-talented lady:-)

Thanks all of you first for liking the painting, Gordon, as you have asked I will upload the entire painting, but as the hats contents were done in Hebrew( each hat was about 8 hours of work....) and I have planed the contents, it needs some explanation. The R side title is " Life style" ., the life people live when they can choose how to live.

The hat on the L is called " Special eddition" and tells about the terror act in Ma'alot, at the north of Israel where terrorists attacked a school and many children died, were wounded ,and you will understand the rest( 1974). The painting is the contrast of both situation of normal life vs. cruel reality ,and the children innocent world ..( it was painted while still in art school in the early/mid 70s, ).

 

Gordon, about the photograph, I appreciate very much your honest critique ( as well as Fred's), It is helpful points to think of for future works.Thats why I'm here and ask for critique. Even though ( thanks Fred ;-)) for me it is completing a circle, about the way it is presented there are different point of view., and I'm open to get and learn from both sides.

 

 

Jack , thanks for your evaluation on both, the painting and the photo, which I appreciate much.

 

Paula, thanks as well, yes I think you have commented on my last series of paintings,here, at the bottom of all photographes.

Thanks for sharing your entire painting. I love the look of the painting and I appreciate the yin and yang of life which it depicts. Equally poignant is the fact that the children wear this news of their world, as party hats whilst blowing bubbles, as yet too young to grasp the cruelty of the adult world. Very touching work.

 

 

I love that painting.