Here's another sketch I did in the class with Marc Chatov. Same model and pose as the 3 Hour Sketch I posted earlier.

Here's round 4 (I forgot to post round 3).
I'm calling it done.
I could have kept fussing with it, but some other artists intervened and said to leave the poor lad alone.
My painting buddy, Melanie Ponchot, texted me this quote as a hint: "It takes two to paint. One to paint, the other to stand by with an axe to kill him before he spoils it (William Merritt Chase)."
May God bless you with an axe-bearing painting buddy.

Last week I tried to refine the face. Turns out my original drawing was pretty accurate so I didn't need to change it much. I didn't trust myself at first, I shrunk his nose and his chin when I started laying in more paint. But after a while I wiped it off to reveal the correct drawing underneath.
This week I think I'll refine his eye a bit and start putting more of the arm in.

OH, how I love the potential, the beginning of a painting.

This is my start, my day-one of the four-week long pose in my class with Marc Chatov. "What if this is as good as it gets??"

I'm tickled pink!
My painting was accepted into the 2012 Oil Painters of America National Exhibition, hosted this June by Evergreen Fine Art in Evergreen, Colorado.

"Gentleness"
9x12

I had such fun painting my little one in this painting, I can't wait to paint her again. If you haven't tried painting babies, I highly recommend it. It's the painting equivalent of eating cheesecake.

Who should be so lucky? I get to do THIS for three hours. Hoo. Ray.

I signed up for a class with Marc Chatov and we meet once a week for the next several weeks to paint a model. I do love practicing with my little plaster head, but a live figure model beats the pants off that head.

"Morning Bath" and "Geometry" were selected to be in the Scottsdale Salon of Fine Art this April at Legacy Gallery!

Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art Salon International 2012, has selected Decisions and Shopping with Grandmother for their annual show opening April 14th, Edward Minoff, judging.

Decisions

Shopping with Grandmother

Hooray!

If you're not using varnish to protect your oil paintings, you're doing yourself (and your collectors) a disservice. Oil paint can dry out and appear chalky, especially in the dark areas. A little varnish brings back the deep richness of the colors. If you're going back to work on an unfinished painting that has dried, apply some retouch varnish (which can be worked into) so you can see your colors and values correctly. If I have to ship off a painting that hasn't entirely cured and dried (which can take months), sometimes I just apply a little retouch varnish to return that juicy look and also to protect the painting until the final varnish. Just look what a difference it makes.

I love varnishing dried paintings. It's like wiping the dust off a neglected antique and revealing the rich, lustrous wood underneath.

A beautiful studio does not beautiful paintings make.

All you really need is good lighting and enough room to back up. Thanks to my ever-loving husband, I've got all that within my very home. That may not sound like an amazing feat, but consider that the bedrooms in my home are 9x12 on a good day. And, no, you're not hallucinating, that's the keyboard of a 6-foot grand piano over there. Oh, and my computer desk is in there too. Don't forget the 4-foot filing cabinet and a bookcase holding all of my piano music since I was five. Space is what you make of it.

Trey hung some shop lights, complete with pull chains, which we got at Lowe's. I picked out some 5000k bulbs (that's the temperature of north light). These shop lights are easy to remove (pull out the hooks and mud over the holes) in case we need to turn my studioX3 back into a bedroom. This is also very inexpensive, as lighting options go. It's not particularly pretty, but this is not exactly the front parlor room.

I would need some black-out curtains for the window there on the left (to cut out conflicting light and glare) but I tend to paint at night (when baby is asleep), or on overcast days (that's just coincidence so far). You can't see it, but there's a doorway to the kitchen behind where I stood to take the photo. I can back way up to look at my painting. Way back, all the way to the fridge.

You must, must, must, have ventilation. Unless you have an early-death wish. We have one of those old house fans in our attic, from the 50s. A few minutes of that fan running and I've got a houseful of fresh air pouring in through the doggy door.

I've got it made, I tell you.

It's the getting close to Christmas and I have the tune "Snow Miser" from the Christmas special, "The Year Without Santa Claus," stuck in my head. Now that I've mentioned it, perhaps you do too.

Let's rewrite that little ditty, and remind ourselves not to be a Paint Miser. A Paint Miser mixes little, tiny, thin pools of a color and then tries to spread it across far too much canvas. This doesn't work for several reasons, one of which is that the paint is so thin that the canvas shoes through and changes the value. It also makes it difficult to mix more colors within a value range.
Instead, mix big pools of color, "mother pools" from which to mix warmer and cooler colors of the same value. Also, more paint on your brush can allow you to have a more painterly affect.

Decisions 9x12

Ugh, my least favorite thing: decisions!

Another market scene; yay, fun! Playing around with really thin paint, I let the lights on the figures be the lightly-toned canvas showing through. That gave it a nice glow.

I'm actually talking about naps for my baby. But I can't lie, I like them for me too. Anyway, here's a quick sketch I did while my little girl caught all her 40 winks.

This was done from my "Planes of the Head" cast I was telling you about. Love that thing! It's just a quickie sketch but, as always, I learned a lot. Mostly from starting and restarting.

Never be afraid to start over!

One of the latest, hot off my easel.

I loved the challenge of painting an old woman and a young boy and the contrast between their faces. I kept everything else loose and simple so as not to get lost in the possibly overwhelming detail of a fruit and vegetable stand. The other figures, too, are mere suggestions of people, giving the feel of a busy market without drawing too much attention.

Here's a sketch I did for a painting I'm about to start. By "about" I mean "hope." I'm supposed to go to ths studio tonight but my little girl has on her super-cranky pants today.

I don't usually do this much detail in a sketch but I've been waiting for time to get to the studio and paint, so I've just been nibbling and nibbling at this drawing. I'm hoping that I can save some time with a well-planned sketch. I've also done thumbnails with my dark and light patterns, with a BIG emphasis on DESIGN.

Oh yeah, design!

I have recently been reminded how important design is. With much less painting time to fool around with, I'm finding I can't waste even ten minutes on a weakly designed painting.

I'm wondering, though, if having this much detail in a sketch might somehow be detrimental to my painting. Do you think a fully sketched-out painting saves time?


Wish me luck tonight!

I bought a head on the internet today.

My friends Sarah Kidner and Liz Wiltzen have been telling me about their experiences at Susan Lyon and Scott Burdick's 10-day workshop. I'm living vicariously through them right now because there's not much that could take me away from my five month old for ten days. Who am I kidding, there's not much that can GET me away from my five month old for even ten MINUTES, unless it has buttons and lights up (that'll get me 15). So I had to decline participation in what was "hands down, the best workshop [they've] ever taken." But I still reserve the right to be jealous.

Lucky for me (and you), Liz took excellent notes on the workshop and has passed on scads of valuable information via her blog. One resource she shared is www.planesofthehead.com, where you can buy a mannequin model featuring all the planes of the human head "designed as a tool for learning...how to draw and paint the human head (www.planesofthehead.com)." You can get these from lots of places, but these are good quality. I ordered mine today.

I'm excited about having a model at my disposal all the time. Although my ever-so-helpful husband is almost always willing, he's not almost always available. It'll be nice to be able to sit down and practice drawing a human(ish) form any time I want -- like in the 15 golden minutes I have while my baby girl happily teeths on the TV remote.

I'm excited about being included in an article in the upcoming (July) issue of Southwest Art Magazine! Southwest Art is doing a feature on student/mentor relationships with a spotlight on Scott Burdick and Susan Lyon. Scott and Susan gave Southwest my name and two other artists, Sarah Kidner and Patty Bailey Sheets, as their students. In addition to insights from Scott and Susan about mentoring, the article will include images of our work and some of our comments about their teaching style. Many, MANY, thanks to Scott and Susan for this opportunity! Even more for sharing with us what you know!

This is Scott and I painting the lovely Maya. I don't have any decent or recent pictures of all of us together. This is the closest thing I could find, actually, except one from 2007, where I'm blonde (I found that one to be unacceptable for publication).

Here's one of me with Sarah (left) and Patty (center), the lucky "mentees." We're so grateful for all they have taught us!

Yay! I got into the studio for a little while to paint, of all most wonderful things, a live model! My studio mate, Melanie Ponchot, brought in the most fantabulous male model, Royce. And my double-terrific husband was taking care of our two-month-old baby. I only had an hour, but it was like eating melting icecream -- you're in a rush but it's so divine! Gee, I have a new appreciation for uninterrupted studio time!

More good news! Angélica has been accepted into the 1st Annual Scottsdale Salon of Fine Art.
The show opens April 22nd at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.

I'm pleased to announce that Water Sprite has been accepted into Greenhouse Gallery's Salon International 2011!

The show opens April 2nd at Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio, and is being judged by Daniel E. Greene, N.A.

 

 

Ok, if I've been neglecting my blog I have an airtight excuse. I'm 9 months pregnant. Just try to make me feel lazy. Ha.  I'm focusing on my greatest work of art!

But, meanwhile, I have been painting away, even these last few months. So check out my oil paintings gallery on my website if you haven't seen my new stuff. And here's a little preview of my latest.

Although I won't have a chance to paint much for a while, I'm planning on downloading and watching Scott Burdick's and Susan Lyon's videos on drawing. Check them out HERE.

So you go watch these videos too, or paint a bit, and then write me and tell me about it.  Any day now I'll be adoring  my baby girl, a beautiful little work of art.

Give me an old man with glasses and a beard! Children can be so difficult. To paint, that is. The rest is a subject for another blog.

A child's eyes, nose, and mouth are larger in proportion to the rest of her face than an adult's. That can really throw your brain off (it's expecting the same old proportions), which is probably a good thing but makes drawing more challenging. And children's features are soft and rounded, with hardly any edges or angles. There's not much to grab onto! That little button nose is the devil in disguise. Instead of looking for lines and edges, you have to look extra carefully for small value changes and subtle differences in color temperature. In the realms of portraiture, hell is a cute nose.

Here's a close-up of a painting I'm working on right now of a little girl (done from a photo and a study I actually did a couple of years ago and finally got around to dusting off). This is the soon-to-be-famous Maya, a triple threat of a singer, musician, and actress. The cuter they are, the harder they paint. It took me quite a bit of careful observation to get it right.

Water Sprite 16x20

I love the juxtaposition of a little girl next to the power of the ocean.
I wanted to keep this painterly and simplified, and I chose keep it high-key to bring out the softness of the subject matter.
High-key just means you keep all your color values on the lighter side. If the deepest dark on your palette is a ten and pure white is a zero, then a high-key painting would maybe only use colors within the five-to-zero range. Nothing gets too deep and dark. Low-key would be the opposite. Remember your color values are relative, so if you decide five is as dark as will get then everything shifts.
A high-key palette works great for painting children. But it's certainly not a hard and fast rule.

Cool Softness 12x16

Here's a scene from the Butchart Gardens, which I visited in Victoria while on my trip to Seattle. This charming little waterfall was in the Japanese Gardens. I spent some time studying this scene while I was there because I knew I wanted to paint it. I could have called it "Study in Green" there were so many different shades! The soft mosses and ferns really caught my eye.

I recently saw an extensive collections of Picasso paintings, drawings, and sculptures at the Seattle Art Museum. Throughout the exhibit famous quotes from Picasso were featured on the walls, including this one (which I have heard before):

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I have this in common with Picasso: I am sticking with what I find more difficult. That is to say, it took me four years to paint like a child, but I am endeavoring to spend a lifetime learning to paint like Raphael.
;)

Just having a little fun. I painted a much larger version of this years ago and thought it would be fun to do a quick little one.
I was amazed at how many colors there are in the greens of the lily pads. I saw red-greens, blue-greens, and downright purple in some places.

They're usually referred to as The Group of Seven . . . and Tom Thomson.

Tom Thomson is one of my favorites, so I'd like to even out the billing a little. I think we should call them "Tom Thomson and Company." Or perhaps more accurately, "Tom Thomson and His Predecessors." But "Tom and Friends" has a nice ring. After all, the Group of Seven ended up being about 10 people, so the name needs a revision anyway.

Any way you call it, they are a source of inspiration for so many artists. And I've been hitting them up lately for some.

This summer in Atlanta has been unusually brutal, and it's stretching on into September now. I'm longing for last summer when I spent cooler days in Alberta, exploring Banff National Park with my plein air pochade. So I turned to those 11 Canadians (ooh, how about "Tom and the Ten") for a breath of fresh, cooler, air.

This is a swell book of their artwork. I recommend it. It's loaded with great quality images. It's been giving me chills here in Hotlanta. How's that for beating the heat?

Anybody else have something of Tom and Friends to recommend?

I want to applaud my good friend Liz Wiltzen for recently completing her project of painting 100 plein air paintings in 100 days! Phew! I'm tired just thinking about it.

Here are some of my favorites. There were too many to post here!

To see all 100 paintings click here. Plug: Many are still available for purchase!

To read about her experiences and get her fantastic tips and insights, click here for her blog.

I have to say, I’m really inspired by this idea. After talking at length with Liz today about the whole project, I’m cooking up a plan myself to work on small daily paintings for an extended period of time. Stay tuned.

Congrats, Liz!

Have any other brave souls out there tried a project like this?

I heard it on Live with Regis and Kelly.
Ok, don’t let that discredit me, I was at the gym and the only other choice was Judge Joe Brown. It may not be new, but it was news to me . . .

Sylvester Stallone is a painter.

Really. Google it.

Here's a sample:

What was so funny to me about the whole thing was that, as he sat discussing his artwork with Regis Philbin, he got a little snobby.

The video clip isn’t available online yet, so I’ll paraphrase. He said something like, “You have to have a story behind the painting. Some emotion behind it. If you’re just finger painting . . .” and he sneers a little.

Kelly was quick to point out that talent was also necessary.

One humorous, albeit not necessarily reputable, website offering to buy and sell his work (from which I got the picture of the painting) had this to say:

Sylvester Stallone is an artist. In fact, many of his paintings have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars . . . The rarity of the art along with the driving force behind it will assure that the artwork will grow in value in the years to come. There is also the fact that Sylvester Stallone's artwork is actually very pleasant to look upon. His use of color, shapes, and designs is truly something to behold. Many collectors are eager to obtain paintings from Sylvester Stallone. Even more collectors are eager to obtain Sylvester Stallone autographed art of any type. . . We have buyers for his original paintings now (emphasis mine).

You don’t even need to see Stallone’s paintings to realize that the reason his work is selling for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” is not because he’s a good painter. It’s because he’s Sylvester Stallone.

I’m not knocking the guy for branching out and trying painting, or even making a little extra money off his famous name (ok, maybe I am, a little). I’m knocking Sly, and myself and everyone else, for how pretentious we can be. In fact the less we know, the more pretentious we’re inclined to be.

Edgar Degas pretty much sums it up, “Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.”

I was looking through a copy of Inc. magazine and found an article about what drives salespeople (or what drives good salespeople) to track down sale after sale.

G. Clotaire Rapaille (if you think his name is snobby you should see his picture), a psychoanalyst and ethnographer, founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, blah, blah, blah, did some research on sales people and came up with an archetype of the successful sales person: the happy loser.

A happy loser is someone who sees rejection as a challenge. He sees every loss as a step toward a win.

Rapaille tells of his experience in one corporation:

We had regular meetings with salespeople and asked them, “How many nos did you get this week?” The ones that got nos got points. Then, after a month, we made the correlation: The more nos they had, the more sales they had made. Because they were trying more things, taking more chances. The response was almost Pavlovian. The more mistakes, the greater the reward.

Rapaille encourages salespeople to embrace rejection. For one reason, to be built up to expect success, to expect the “yes,” and then be rejected can be disastrous. He also says “Another reason to embrace the no is that the sale isn’t done until you hear it.” He says when a customer comes in to look for a dress, if a salesman helps her find a dress, buy it, and then the customer leaves, the salesman hasn’t done his job well. He should offer, shoes, jewelry, accessories, to go with the dress until he hears that “no.” He’s not done with the sale until he hears a “no.”

Now I wouldn’t think of myself as a salesperson, but I think these concepts can cross over into almost any area of life. I’m not suggesting we bulldoze our way through life, pushing the hard sell. But maybe “no,” rejection, failure, losing, are nothing to be afraid of. And maybe if we’re not hearing any rejection, or experiencing any loss or failure, we’re not trying as hard as we could.

The more mistakes, the greater the reward. I like that.

What could you be doing to be a happy loser?

I could (and might) make a lot of blog posts about this subject: cheating.

In my opinion (which constantly changes) there’s really not much you can do in painting that amounts to cheating. That’s because I think (I think) that using anything that makes you a better PAINTER is not cheating. I am open to persuasion if you disagree.

But here’s my latest “cheat.”

My friend Corey volunteered to model for me again but she only had a couple of hours. It took me over an hour to experiment, set up the scene, and set up my pochade box (and that’s pretty fast for me). So now I’ve got a scene I like and less than an hour to capture the most information I can to work from later. Yikes!

I’m a painfully slow drawer. My modus operandi in this situation is usually to take a photo, from which I will later do my slow-motion drawing, and then to do a quick sketch of the colors and values I’m seeing in real life which will not get captured accurately by my camera. But even that usually takes me a while because I have trouble completely abandoning the drawing and keeping my colors and values organized in the correct locale on the canvas. I usually have do some sort of drawing and that slows me down a lot.

Even if I HAD more time my enthusiastic model, although willing, could not have held a pose like this on a hard wood floor for very long.

My "cheater" solution: take a photo of the scene with my digital camera, hop over to my computer and print the image on plain paper, tape the paper to a panel, and paint on that! Viola! Insta-drawing!

Now, how did this make me a better painter? It’s more interesting than I thought.

The initial benefits are obvious. I was able to spend my whole brain and the entire time on getting accurate color and the specific placement of even small pieces of color. This gives me good information to work from later and the better your information, the better you will paint.

What surprised me was that painting on a photocopy allowed me to paint more loosely and suggestively than I normally do. I wasn’t fussed over the drawing, because I knew it was exactly right. That allowed me to be quick. That allowed me to sculpt with bits of paint and not fear I would lose my drawing. All the angles and proportions were dead on, so I could be quick and bold with my brushstrokes. I always paint over a charcoal drawing or something when I do slower paintings in my studio, but with all that time I don’t get quite as loose. Plus, after I’ve invested so much time in a drawing I’m afraid to lose it, so I sometimes start to get too tight and small with my brushwork.

The combination of an instantly correct drawing (in which I wasn’t too invested) and the speed of doing a quick color sketch made for a fresh, painterly painting. I LOVED the looseness that I got and I want to incorporate more of that into my studio work. I’m hoping this experience will translate over.

Disclaimer: There is no substitute for good drawing skills. And I am in the process of learning to draw more quickly. But in the mean time, when I'm in pinch for time...

Now, of course, I would never sell a painting done over a photocopy. In fact, you don’t have to look hard to see the paper and ink showing through, exposing me as a “cheater.” Not to mention the paper will deteriorate quickly! But I found this to be a very helpful exercise in fresh painting and now I have a great study, with accurate value and color, from which to work for my studio piece. And I finished in about 45 minutes! That's a time I think (the dazzlingly quick) Kim English would approve of. And that is something I cannot yet do without a Xerox.

And I don’t think that’s cheating.

Tip: Want to "cheat" like me? If you have time, you can spray the paper with varnish and allow it to dry. This will help it resist absorbing the paint, and also last a little longer.

Why do people buy art?

Scott Burdick has a great article on his website about it. He sites 4 reasons:

1. The artwork moves you.

2. For investment.

3. Someone tells you to.

4. To help the artist.

And he goes into greater detail about these motivations. It's a great article, check it out here.

This painting was my very first major art purchase. It just so happens to be a Scott Burdick (see how I tied that in?) and I bought it after taking his workshop. It's been one of the best investments I ever made. I don't mean in the monetary sense (although that's probably true too, in my opinion it was a steal), but in the sense that I have gotten so much education and enjoyment out of it.

Why do I buy art? My reasons fall into the first category. It's not usually the subject matter (although I'm usually drawn to figures and portraits), but the quality and skill in that artwork that moves me. I often buy artwork because I feel I can learn something from it. Sometimes it just moves me in an indescribable way. Usually both!

Now I'm an addict. I had to do some serious finagling to make it out of Scottsdale without spending a fortune. I don't have a lot, but every painting I've ever bought is a joy and a tutorial in one. I may have had buyer's remorse over a pair of shoes, but never a painting!

Have you ever bought original artwork? Why did you buy it? Why do you think other people buy art?

I spent a couple of hours the other day painting my friend, Corey. She was a fantastic model!

We chatted a good bit as I painted. She was interested in the process so I filled her in, now and then, on what I was doing. I could hear myself taking long pauses and trailing off. In my mind I felt as though the conversation were happening far away. I had trouble forming my thoughts and sticking to the subject. I told her I’m not good at painting and talking. I guess it’s all to do with the right/left brain. It is believed that skills for visual art are on the right and language is on the left, so perhaps they are fighting it out.

Something similar happens to me when I try to talk while playing the piano. In fact, it’s much worse. It seems can form the thoughts but I can’t say the words. My husband says I do funny things with my mouth, too, when I play.

I don’t know what my excuse is for the rest of the time, but I’m working on one.

What's your excuse?

I just returned from a trip to Mexico with my husband. We mostly lazed around on the beach and ate more guacamole than is probably healthy. We did make a few exciting excursions: we explored the Mayan ruins at Tulum, swam with sea turtles in the wild, and snorkeled in Dos Ojos – a stunningly beautiful cenote and the entrance to an extensive flooded cave system. So I was genuinely distracted from painting most of the time.

But one night as we sat in the sand on the beach looking up at a strand of clouds passing near the moon, I was compelled to think about edges. Clouds are fantastic studies in edges. I took a few minutes to bore my non-painter husband with my thoughts.

Edges are important to think about. Your eye will go directly to the sharpest edge in a painting. If your painting is a soft and smudgy everywhere, only sharp and “in focus” in one place, that will be your focal point (so be careful where you put it). If the painting is not very soft or smudgy but mostly hard and sharp all over (you might want consider softening it here and there), your eye will be drawn to the edge where the lightest light meets the darkest dark.

I could go on about edges all day, but I only had a few minutes of non-art attention span to work with, so I had to pick one thing. One of my favorite things in paintings are what we artist folk call “lost edges.” That is when the edge is so soft and blurry, you can’t tell where one object begins and another begins. As we looked at the cloud I was able to point out hard edges of strong contrast where the moonlight was hitting the top puffy part of the cloud. It’s hard to think of a cloud as something with a hard edge, but the puffy part of the cloud was razor sharp in terms of definition because of the bright white lining of moonlight against the dark, night sky. I was also able to point out completely lost edges where the cloud was thin and there wasn’t much light on it – it was almost the same value as the night sky behind it. The only difference there was a subtle temperature change between the cloud and the sky. That was just enough to tell our brains which was which, but you couldn’t define the edge.

I think you could learn a lot about edges (and probably value and temperature too) by just painting clouds. They’re a simple subject that our brains will easily accept as having a variety of edges.

What’s really tricky is applying that same simplicity and variety of edges on other subject matter, like people! Believe it or not, you can have totally lost edges on a person, just like a cloud , with stunningly beautiful results. Here’s an artist I recently discovered at Scottsdale Fine Art that really pushes the envelope with edges: Zhaoming Wu. Check out his figurative work. Not sure why I haven’t heard of him sooner, but I LOVE his work!

I’m inspired to push my edges even further. How about you? There’s an obvious metaphor here, feel free to run with it!

I usually try to make my blog somewhat interesting to non-artists and appealing to creative types across the board, but this is one of those painting-specific blogs, so I’ll keep it short.

An idea!

Neil Patterson made a great case (to Sarah Kidner, Marci Oleszkiewicz, and me at the OPA show) for not using thinner (like, turpentine, odorless mineral spirits, Gamsol) to thin the paint or clean the brushes between colors. In fact, he made a good argument for not cleaning your brushes at all.

This is me with Sarah and Marci at the show. I basically just made up an excuse to include this picture.

When you use thinner it inevitably gets dirty and then gets into your brush and leaks into whatever color you’re mixing. He advocates simply wiping the brush as clean as possible and then mixing a big pile of your new color. The residual paint in the brush, he says, is less likely to mix and blend and pollute as much as that dirty, runny thinner would (but you can’t mix little, tiny piles). Also, this encourages you to use more paint! Of course there’s nothing wrong with painting thinly, but who hasn’t been guilty of pushing around invisible paint when you get in a tight spot?

Neil also suggested not subjecting your expensive brushes to harsh cleaners (like Turpenoid, which will eat even the paint off the handle if you soak it too long). Try leaving your paint brushes, merely wiped clean, in linseed oil. Zhiwei Tu supposedly leaves his in water, which I assume forms an airtight seal and prevents the oil in the brush from drying out.

Now, Neil and Tu both paint more thickly than I do, but maybe I’ll give it a try. If nothing else, Sarah pointed out, I'd save money on Gamsol!

Let me tell you a little about the Nancy Seamons Crookston Workshop I took at the Scottsdale Artists’ School.

I joined up with 4 friends of mine from Alberta, Canada. The five of us were a force to be reckoned with (we’re not exactly quiet pupils), but Nancy was up to the challenge. In the online description of the class, Nancy asserted that this workshop would change our lives! We teased her about it all week, but no doubt, lives were changed.

Nancy studied with Sergei Bongart, a Russian Impressionist. Her focus in this workshop was color. Color, color, color! She told us when we’re painting we have three decisions to make:

1. What is the hue (what is the predominant color – green, orange, purple, etc.)?
2. What is the value (how light or dark is that color)?
3. What is the temperature (how cool or warm is it -- does the color lean toward blue or toward yellow

This is basic color theory, but it's not easily put into practice.

We’re such art nerds, the five of us, that we were lounging pool-side one night excitedly discussing how colors interact and change each other’s perception. The poor guy next to us got up and left. The most important idea we struck upon was that color is relative. And, as Nancy kept telling us, you have to paint what you see. And we see relationally! (Is that a word?)

I'm just back from Scottsdale and the Oil Painters of America (OPA) national exhibition at Legacy Gallery. My husband is fond of enthusiastically mispronouncing the initialism,"OPA," as though he were holding high a glass of ouzo. After this week, my first experience in an OPA show, I'm pretty enthusiastic too. What an honor to hang (on the wall and around) with so many phenomenal arists!

I've got a lot of information and thoughts to share from this past week, not the least of which is: make sure you bring cards to an OPA show, and enough of them. What a highly-concentrated, networking, friend-making, opportunity!

Today my mind is brimming with insights from a 3-day workshop with Nancy Crookston at the Scottsdale Artists' School, professional tips from a stellar panel of gallery owners, and fun stories that may or may not have any artistic value but are fun to tell. So stay tuned and pour the ouzo!

Last week at the paint out in NC I got down in the mud! But I did get a painting out of it.

And some chiggers too. Ouch.
Was it worth it? You bet!

I’m headed off to a paint out next week in the foothills of North Carolina. Some of my friends have been asking me what a paint out is (and I’ve been asking myself whether it should be hyphenated).

A paint out is just what it sounds like. Some artists get together and paint, usually out – outside, that is. I’m getting together with some fun and fantastic artists (Scott Burdick, Sarah Kidner, Andre Lucero, Sarah Watts,and more) in Germanton and King, not far from Winston Salem. We’ll paint the countryside and maybe a model or two.

Here we all are last year, painting our favorite model, Maya. That’s her in the chair with the hat.

The paint out lasts all week and then we have a show on Friday at the Germanton Art Gallery to benefit the Piedmont Land Conservancy, whose mission is "to protect natural and scenic lands, farms, and open space in piedmont North Carolina." This effort is especially important to many local farmers who want to preserve their family's land as farm land.

Most artists I’ve met love to get together and paint with other artists (especially in beautiful April weather). Creating art is often an isolated experience and we get lonely! A paint out is a great chance to network, learn tips and tricks, and discover new resources of inspiration and materials.

As much fun as it is, this sort of thing is absolutely necessary to my profession. Although I often prefer to work alone, at least mentally, in my studio (I can’t talk and paint at the same time, one wins out over the other), I get more ideas and inspiration from a week at a paint out like this than from months of going solo in my studio.

What kind of ideas and inspiration do you get from spending creative time with your colleagues? Ever thought of organizing a group of your peers for a creative jamboree?

Disclaimer: forgive my pandering with the cheezy movie reference.

If you’ve seen Avatar then you probably noticed the funny name of the desirable mineral, deposited so problematically under the native people’s homeland. They refer to it as “Unobtainium.” My husband and I thought this was a really uninspired made-up name. Really? Spend millions of dollars on this movie, create their own language, for crying out loud, but can't come up with something more clever than "Unobtainium?" Well, come to find out “Unobtainium is the term used by scientists to describe an unknown or impossible-to-get substance.” Link. I guess I'll let them keep their Oscars after all.
When I'm struggling with a painting I can relate to the search for Unobtainium – something vague and seemingly unattainable. Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on exactly what you need, and even harder to actually get it. It’s easy to tell when something “works” (and that's vague enough as it is). But when it doesn’t “work,” it can be very hard to say specifically why.
I was out with a fellow painter, Liz Wiltzen, plein air painting one day. Frustrated with what I was working on, I said, “This painting looks dumb.” She laughed and said something like,
“You can’t get “dumb” out of a tube of paint. What’s wrong with it? It’s either the color, the value, the drawing, or the design.”

Hmm. I'm taking a good look at my pochade box here and I don't see any "dumb" squeezed out onto the palette.

Richard Schmid says much the same thing in his book, Alla Prima. Those things (color, value, drawing, design) are relatively concrete things (compared to “dumb”) that you can systematically evaluate and correct. THAT is getting closer to naming your Unobtainium.
I think it’s a good idea to make a checklist like this of, more or less, concrete things to run through when you come to a creative problem.

Can you name your Unobtainium? What would your checklist be?

When I was first making a go at painting, I stumbled across a very inspiring group of people at a painting workshop hosted by the owner of my gallery at the time. I was younger and less experienced (in art and in all matters of life) than they were, so I mostly sat and listened. I lucked out and got some fantastic advice from all of them. One thing they told me has stuck out especially:

“Do the work.”

These three words are packed full of meaning. I get different things out of this advice at different times, and each could easily be expanded to topics of later blogs.

“Do the work” includes showing up to do the work.
It includes “the only way out is through.”
It includes my favorite version: “the only way through is through.”
It includes “there are no shortcuts.”
It includes “perfect practice makes perfect.”

What does “do the work” mean to you?

I’m a piano teacher on the side, just to keep life interesting.

During my lessons I find myself repeatedly telling my students to slow down, especially when reading a new piece for the first time. Almost all students, especially adults, tear into a new piece they've laid eyes on at a brisk performance tempo rather than a slow practice tempo. While speed is a good skill for sightreading, a foundation of good reading and execution must be established first. Rushing through uncharted territory like this results in lots of pauses and stumbles. I stop them and tell them to go slow enough that they will not make any mistakes.

This is important because, as I tell them, if you repeat mistakes you will learn them. I say to my students, "If you try to play something 9 times, get it right on the 10th time and then move on, which do you think you are going to be better at – playing it wrong or playing it right? Playing it wrong, of course! You have played it 9 times wrong and only 1 time right!”

Your muscles and your brain will memorize what you repeat. The best way to avoid this is to approach a difficult section slowly from the very beginning, so that you never make a mistake, even if this means going painstakingly slow! This way you will only reinforce correct execution and you will not have to unlearn the memorized mistake or bad habit. This principle applies to painting and almost any mental or physical application!

This face, approximately 2 inches tall, is a work in progress. This is 4+ hours in, and I'm still working. I don't always take that long, but if I must, I must!

Only paint as fast as accuracy allows.

Didn’t Richard Schmid say that?

Ok, here’s mine:

Only do anything as fast as accuracy allows.

They stumble that run fast.

Darn. Shakespeare.

Photographing your work well is immensely important. I am learning more and more about how to do it.
One thing I do is use a color swatch that I got from a camera store. I put it beside my painting when I take the photo (making sure it won't cast a shadows or reflect onto the painting). Mostly I just use the white swatch while editing in photoshop to correct for any color casts. My digital camera has auto white balance, but I still see some color cast.
Here are two photos of the same painting.
Look at the difference you can get between photos.

Maybe I should ask you which one you like better before I tell you which one is more accurate to what I really painted. Ha, ha!

Ok, full disclosure: the first one is un-retouched. The second is more accurate in value and color, and also I was able to remove a fleck of dirt or two (that I will later be able to physically remove when the paint is dry).

But go ahead, tell me what you really think! It's ok, the painting still looks different in real life.

So what does this tell you about the photographs of famous paintings you've seen in art books? Even they can vary widely! And still, they do not really capture it. You must, MUST, see a work in person to really appreciate it! So go! Run, don't walk! See all the art you can!

And if you're ready, like I am, to make the most of recapturing what can't be captured on film, you might be interested in Scott Burdick's video on how to photograph your artwork. Available on through a link on his website, www.scottburdick.com, or here.

Does anyone know any more good sources of info for photographing artwork?

I've only watched part of Scott's video, and I'm probably a little over my head. But it's good stuff to know. Or you can make friends with a professional photographer. Bonus if they have a table saw too!

I needed to get some distance from my painting. Literal distance, in this case.

I avoid getting my nose in my paint, getting up too close and tight and worrying every little pit of paint. When that happens, my painting gets tight. For those of you non-painters, "tight" might be defined as an undesired level of realism that involves things like smoothing out the paint and painting every last detail instead of giving the impression of something with "loose," unfussed yet accurate brushwork.

As much as I try to stand back while I paint, I sometimes find myself too close for good painting. So I experimented in the studio this time and put a chair between me and my easel. It worked great! I physically could not get too close to my painting, and I found myself backing up more often to see the whole picture. This also encouraged me to hold my brush with more control and freedom -- not like a pencil.

This is all part of my most recent re-inspiration. I say "re" because I've had this thought before but I never seem able to put it into action. It came from watching Dan Gerhartz (www.danielgerhartz.com) paint at a workshop in his studio in Wisconsin two years ago. As I watched Dan paint, I noticed he would mix a healthy glob of paint, make no more than 3 or 4 strokes with it, then back up and look from his subject to his canvas a few times to compare for accuracy before moving back in to repeat the process. I determined then that if I could master this one skill/habit, it would improve my painting dramatically.

Even when painting a portrait, Dan does not let himself get too close to the painting. Look at that big palette in his way, for one thing!

Things to remember:
1. Mix a lot of paint.
2. Compare each brushstroke you make on your canvas to what you see in your subject -- you should only be able to do a few at a time. Besides, you'll need to mix a new color because it is unlikely that the same color or value will apply over much of the space.
3. BACK IT UP. Frequently.

But if you can't manage all that at once, do like I did and put a chair between you and your canvas. At the very least it will have you getting enough distance from your painting to see the big picture.

And don't we all need to back up more often to see the big picture?

Another incarnation of fear is self-loathing. I’m talking about those self-deprecating voices in our heads that keep us from taking the leap to something new, that keep us from taking a risk.

At the risk of sounding silly, I want to quote parts of a song that addresses this idea. It’s a song by Alanis Morissette called Excuses. This song is basically a list of things we sometimes hear in our heads that shut us down. Here is my abridged version of some of the lyrics (forgive me for my editing, Alanis):

Why, no one will help me.
I am too dumb, I am too smart.
They'll not understand me.
They'll hate me.
There is not enough time.
It's too hard to help me.
God wants me to work - no resting, no lazy.
It takes far too much energy.
I cannot afford to.
No one will ever see me.
I have to, they want me to - and I can't let them down.

These excuses how they served me so well.
They've kept me safe, stoic, locked inside my cell.
These excuses how they're so familiar.
They've kept me small , blocked, safe inside my shell.

I can relate to some of these “excuses.” And they are all based upon fear, in one way or another. Turning off those self-loathing negative voices while you are painting (or doing anything) is essential. They will probably keep you safely tucked away -- in convention and habit and stagnation.

I have an announcement to make: every now and then, hopefully a few times a week, I’m going to paint a small (6x6 or so) quick painting from life, like this one. Hold me to it.

Shadow and Powder 6x6

The GOAL is: to practice new techniques and experiment, and to learn to leave fresh brushstrokes, simplify detail and block masses, begin with good design, and work quickly.

Why do I feel I must do a small painting to accomplish this?
Because of FEAR.

Fear, Melissa?

A fellow painter once encouraged our frustrated (and fearful) art class, “It’s only paint, y’all!” Yeah! What's so scary about paint?

I’ll tell you what’s so scary. Sometimes, when I am working on a big painting, I am wary of trying new things because if it doesn’t work, I think I’ll have ruined something into which I’ve already put many hours and so much effort. Can you relate? I am tempted to overwork my brushstrokes and become “tight” and overly detailed because I don’t want to risk anything not reading correctly. I can be so overwhelmed by design considerations that I want to resist taking chances. I might mistrust my ability to translate what I see into paint with quick energy and passion. You could probably lump all of these into one category: variations on fear of failure.

So why does practicing with a small painting free me from those fears? I feel free to wipe it off because I feel I’m not wasting any time or resources. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s just practice. I can take risks and try new things because I have nothing to lose (and everything to gain)! It’s only 6x6 inches of board and paint, and a couple of hours. I’ve wasted more than that on lesser things!

Now that I’ve told you what the goal *is*, let me tell you what the goal *is not.*

The GOAL is NOT: To generate (deliberately and consciously) “sale-able” work or to have a finished masterpiece when I’m done. . . in other words to create, every one, a little gem.

Why is that NOT the goal -- sounds good to me!? Because that mindset can put me in that state of fear that I described above.

And, (say it with me) we NEVER want to make any choices out of fear. Not in life, not in painting.

Now, perhaps I will create little gems now and then. And of course I’ll continue to overcome those fears while working on my big paintings as well. But I don’t want that to motivate me or keep me in my comfort zone. I’m committing to this idea as an exercise that will help me learn. You can learn from fear, but you can’t learn in fear.

In what areas do you experience this type of fear? What exercises do you do to overcome your fears?

Want to see some small paintings by other artists?
http://carolmarine.blogspot.com/
http://karinjurick.blogspot.com/
http://www.sarahkidner.com/Daily_Paintings.html
http://www.mountainartist.com/mountainartist/Blog/Blog.html

Ok, so we all know design is important. Indeed. We are so enlightened. But HOW do we make a good design?

Anyone care to field this question for me?

Ah yes, Robert Genn, if you would?

Before you start painting, whether from life, reference material, or from your imagination, canvas your subject matter for evidence of shapes. As an exercise, don't tackle motifs that lack them. Simply find ones that have them.

Find them by half-closing your eyes and reducing material to pattern. Colour and line are not important at this stage. Look for potential shapes that are not standard squares, circles or triangles. Look for irregular shapes, preferably ones that interlock or interact in some way with one another. Look for big shapes as well as small ones--shapes need not be of equal size nor equidistant from one another. While you're looking for these shapes, look also to the potential of other shapes to fit around them. In other words, plan ahead for the advent of negative shapes.

Also, let your strokes be wide rather than narrow. Put down blocks of tone value--patches--rather than lines. Use your larger tools to block in your patches.

Further, let a shape committed in one area be echoed, reversed or mimicked in another area. In other words, go here and there as though you don't know what you're doing. Go back and forth from one side to the other, and up and down as well.

These early procedures go a long way toward establishing a strong composition. The ultimate test, even though the viewer may not recognize the subject matter, is that the work-in-progress also functions both upside down and sideways.

That’s an excellent explanation, Robby, but truly this is harder than it sounds. Exept for the part about going here and there as though I don’t know what I’m doing. I can do that fairly well now and then.

(The comments above were taken from Robert Genn's twice weekly newsletter.)
(The painting below is a really good example of design and interlocking shapes, by Alfonse Mucha.)

Hey, at least I know it when I see it.

Toulouse-Lautrec, The Clowness Cha-U-Kao. Oil on Cardboard.

I was flipping through an art book while I was waiting at a frame shop (plug: JFM Enterprises) and stumbled across this Toulouse-Lautrec painting that stopped me cold. Well, come on. This is just a painting of a slightly pudgy woman from the back, in a yellow tutu. What is fascinating about that? WHY would I stop to look at that? The subject itself is not particularly interesting to me (a Moulin Rouge dancer from a less than flattering angle).

When you’re absentmindedly flipping through pages of an art magazine, what makes you stop and look closely? Or when you’re across the room from a painting, what makes you walk up to it for a better look? Can you guess where I’m headed? At the risk of repeating myself...very often the culprit is design!

Design is the ultimate "hook."

I stopped to look at this woman’s fleshy shoulder because at the very first instant, before I can really even see everything, the DESIGN catches my eye. Look at that dazzling yellow amorphous shape! The pale arabesque! The deep dark negative navy shapes! If you took this painting and simplified it down to only abstract shapes it would still catch your eye and tickle your brain.

But what is so fabulous about representational art (as opposed to much abstract and nonrepresentational art) is that beyond the abstract design there are infinite other joys. Just the second look will tell you the drawing is exquisite. As you look deeper you notice other remarkable features such as the subtle value changes within the flesh, the translucency of both the skin and the tutu, the texture of the background.

If you want people to look at your paintings, you often have to catch their eye from across the room, or from the pages of a magazine – basically from the visual space of a couple of square inches.
At that size, and with only a few seconds, the only tool you have is design. Once design has done its job, the viewer will be further drawn in by your brilliant color, your sensitive brushwork, and your overall shining genius.

But first, you have to get them to stop and look.

And you have a lot less time than the music industry's standard of 30 seconds into a song to introduce the "hook." Get a powerful design and hook your viewer instantaneously.

I baked a German Chocolate Cake the other day. To go with brats and saurkraut and Hefeweizen, of course. The cake was a lot of work but also a lot of non-work -- that is, refraining from work -- which is hard work.
The secret to making moist, tender cake (and muffins, and biscuits, and other quick breads)is to barely mix the wet and dry ingredients together. You want to handle them as little as possible. If you overmix, you get tough, dry cake.
I didn't over mix, but I did overbake, so I got tender but slightly dry-on-the-edges cake. However, coconut butter pecan icing covers a multitude of sins.

It's too bad you can't paint with the stuff, because one of the keys to great painting is not to overwork the paint. And this is an occasional painting sin of mine. On a bad day, if I put a stroke of paint up there I want to stroke it again -- like a pat on the back to sure up any insecurities. The more insecure I get, the more I start pushing the paint around the canvas.
Meanwhile, the paintings that I love have fresh, un-retouched brush strokes. I'm always trying to resist manhandling the paint too much, but it takes a lot of discipline.

Sometimes it takes more energy NOT to do something than it takes to do something.

And using all that energy makes me hungry. I think I have one piece of cake left...

Frames and canvas are available mass-produced in standard sizes (6x8, 16x20 etc.) for those of us too lazy to make our own (that’s me in a nutshell). This, I have noticed, has brought about a problem for me regarding design. And what have I been saying lately? Design, design, design!

I am forcing a standard size frame around a composition that needs to be wider or taller to allow for my first, instinctual design. When I crop my image in Photoshop or with my viewfinder, I am opting to leave out a couple of inches on this side or that for the sake of using a pre-cut canvas panel (my ground of choice). And my designs, now and then, are suffering for it. And when my design suffers, I suffer! Almost literally, because I often end up rolling around in a fit of frustration on my studio floor.

I’m calling myself out here, admitting my guilt that I might not trespass again. In the future, dear reader, if a standard size does not suit the composition the best, I will crop for the greatest design and cut the canvas panel to fit. If that means I end up with a 7x13, so be it!

I think I need to go with my gut a little more in the area of composition. I’ve been trying to follow rules for fear of screwing it up, but I'm beginning to think:

If you will trust your eye, it will actually define your style.

I also think:

You should make friends with someone with good tools, like a table saw.

Words for any artist to live by. No?

So judge for yourself. Which looks better to you?
Here is a 12x16, a standard size, of an image.

Now here is a less conventional composition of the same image, and the size is 12x24 (8 inches longer). Which means I would probably buy an 18x24 and cut off 6 inches.

What's the verdict? Do we send that panel to the guillotine?

Girls, girls, girls! Location, location, location!

Some things need to be repeated to drive their point home. I am now repeating to myself: "design, design, design!"

While I was at Lake O'Hara I was ever so lucky to meet (thanks to Liz Wiltzen and Gaye Adams) a famous Canadian artist, Robert Genn. We did ponder if Gann and Genn were not variations on the same family name. I like to hope so. He's a fascinating man and he paints beautiful, stop-you-in-your-tracks landscapes (among other subjects). As I was analyzing WHY I thought his landscapes were so arresting it became obvious he had a powerful eye for design. Oh yes, and mind-blowing color, and fresh brush work, and a cultivated genius. But let's just go one at a time here, and focus on design. As I saw him paint for the first time, I could see that he was using the landscape in front of him (Lake O'Hara in this instance) as a spring board. If something in the nature before him wasn't working for his design, he changed it. This is nothing new, but:

This is sometimes terrifying because nothing is harder for me than making decisions.

In my head, I already knew I should strive for excellent design and I had seen other artists alter for design's sake on their canvas. But it struck me so profoundly at this time that I began to think that design could be more important than anything.

Here's one of Robert Genn's paintings. You can see more at www.robertgenn.com or subscribe to his brain-stimulating twice-weekly newsletter at www.painterskeys.com. And it's not just for artists!

Another fascinating thing to notice is that he paints in acrylics. I have half a mind to break mine out again.

Here he is painting that enormous plein air painting I saw at Lake O'Hara.

This was one of my favorite painting days while I was in Banff. I can't imagine why!
I had a cute little onlooker, a little girl, who asked me some very pertinent questions like, "How much will you sell this painting for?" I told her that was a loaded question. No, I didn't really say that.
And she also asked "Where do you get your materials?" "Materials" seemed like a big word coming out of such a small little girl. But I'm sure my "materials" looked like fun: a tripod with lots of clips, a little metal airtight container of mineral spirits, a slim wooden box with hinges for my palette, and all that gooey paint. So, ok, they are fun. Good call, little girl.

There I am at Sargent's Point at Lake O'Hara in Banff National Park, the exact vista John Singer Sargent famously rendered so convincingly with mere paint. No really, there I am. I have to say it twice because it's hard to believe. One, because it's just too cool. And two, because this is no easy place to get to. Lake O'Hara limits the number of guests and we had to wait for standby seating on the bus. To make things more difficult, I forgot to bring money. We could have hiked (11k uphill with heavy packs), but the other painters I was with were too lazy. Ahem. We caught a lucky break and there was ample seating on the bus.
Once we were there, my breath was utterly taken. There are no words. So, naturally, we tried to paint it.
I was actually pleased with the first painting I did (the one I’m feverishly working on in this photo). It's not a fantastic painting, but I so thoroughly enjoyed painting it that I didn't care. Now THAT’S hard to believe.
None of my photos that day really capture how beautiful that place was. And certainly none of my paintings. It might be THE most beautiful place I’ve ever been.
But Sargent came pretty close, don’t you think?

Darn it, Johnny. Why you always gotta make us look bad?