Daily Painting: Improving your daily painting skills

 

Balsamic Vinegar 9" x 5" Oil on linen mounted to panel.

Available in my Etsy shop

Close-up

Just under 2 hrs.  

Limited palette consisting of white and black, cad yellow lt, perylene red, ult.blue, transparent oxide red and phthalo green to get that pure transparent green of the bottle.

 What a fun bottle to paint, can you tell the brand? Probably not, unless you use it regularly. I really didn't want the details of the label to over power the overall painting. Squinting and the time limit was key to keeping the details out of focus. Also, I used no soft hair brushes,  just some good old worn out hog bristles.

Artist get away plein air painting

Last August I was invited, along with several other artist friends, to a very nice cabin retreat in Star Valley, Wyoming. We were excited to get away for a few days and paint. 

All of us being artists, we spent most of the daylight hours painting somewhere in Star Valley. Most of the paintings I did while I was there were so-so to me and I kept them to myself and eventually fed them to the garbage can. But these three little studies turned out great! The cabin was surrounded by quaking aspens so on the second day, instead of heading back out with the others, I decided to stay closer to home and paint in the shade.

 I find quaking aspen have a lot of personality. I think of them as I would a figure. They easily become the focus and subject of a painting. Also, the color of the bark of the aspen is similar to flesh tone. When in the shadows, it reflects all the colors around it so it's always a challenge to find that subtle color.

 

 Summer Quakies Study #1

Prepared paper mounted to panel  9.5" x 5.25"

 Available in my Etsy shop

  Summer Quakies Study #2

Prepared paper mounted to panel 5" x 8"

Available in my Etsy shop

  Summer Quakies Study #3

Prepared paper mounted to panel  13.25" x 7.25"

 Available in my Etsy shop

Painting Demo at Scottsdale Artist's School

 

Getting a likeness with no features

This is a demo I did during my week long workshop at the Scottsdale Artists' School, April, 2014.

As you can see I didn't get very far, but believe it or not I accomplished my goal. The main principle I wanted to impart was that features are not really what makes a portrait look like a specific person--it's the big shapes. During the week, this study was seen by many people and everyone who saw it knew instantly who the model was.

Students: So think about that the next time you're painting a face. Try to paint it with no features then step back and ask yourself if it looks like the person you're painting. 

 "...If you work on a head for a week
without indicating the features you will have learnt
something about the modeling of the head." --J.S. Sargent

My second goal was to work with temperature to turn the form because there was a very tight value range in the face. Meaning, other than the darks in the eyes and hair and the highlights on the skin there were only two values. So that gave me a lot of room to play with color variations that were in the same value range. Sorry the photo really doesn't show those little variations- it's a bit blurry.

The other major principle I discussed during this demo were edges and how powerful they can be in drawing the viewer's eye to the center of interest.

Upcoming Workshops

~Workshops for 2014~

~Scottsdale Artist School~
March 31st - April 4th

3720 North Marshall Way
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 990-1422  / (800) 333-5707

http://www.scottsdaleartschool.org/

~Sign up page~
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~Fredericksburg Artists' School~
May 5-9 2014503 E. Schubert 

Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830.997.0515
http://www.fbgartschool.com/ 
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~Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio~
July 21-25 2014

813 Edgecliff Drive
Langley, Washington 98260
360.637.4690 / 206.571.0442 
http://www.whidbeyislandfas.com/
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~Course Gallery and Atelier~
October 10th - 13th  2014

4144 Herschel St.
Jacksonville, FL 32210
(904) 388-8205
Toll Free (877) 386-8205 
http://www.corsegalleryatelier.com/