Trying Other Methods

For the most part I'm an alla prima painter. I like to work wet in wet and finish quickly, blending as I go. I had some time on my hands recently and decided to try an older method where an underpainting is applied using a greenish tone and lead white is mixed with the green to paint the lights and halftones. It's important to identify the darks early and try to maintain them. I suppose you can use a drying agent like Liquin to speed up the process but I didn't.

I ended up painting some of the warm colors into the lead white mixture when it was wet, which is  not what I was supposed to do. If I try it again I'll use a drying solvent.

Here are a few progress images and the final, which I was pretty happy with. Why did I attempt this? Because I visited a museum a couple weeks ago and noticed that all the paintings I really liked had the red-green complimentary color scheme going on, and the green was very visible in the shadows.

I used a photo for my painting but this method was used extensively in the 16th and 17th centuries from life. Yeah- they didn't have camera back then. :)

Portrait of Robert Stone - Using Arches Oil Paper

Robert Stone died Saturday. He was a talented American writer who specialized in writing intelligent thrillers. He was 78. Stone was probably best known for his novel Dog Soldiers, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1975. Three years later it was made into a movie starring Nick Nolte (Who'll Stop the Rain?")

What I liked most about his books were the descriptive characters and settings. When you read one of his stories you feel like you know the people and you have actually visited the places. THAT'S good writing. He wasn't formally trained, but instead took writing workshops and learned by "doing". His books were authentic because he lived an adventurous and uncommon life. Although fortune wasn't always kind to him, he rose above that and became a self-made man, another quality I admire.

How many people today could get to where he did after being given up to an orphanage at the age of six by a schizophrenic mother and absent father? Kicked out of high school, he joined the Navy at 17 and traveled the world.

I am going to France in June and I want to take a light weight painting support so I decided to try out some oil paper made by Arches. This 300 It comes in a pad and is called I think Jerry's sent this to me in my last order as a freebie. I knew in advance that it would be absorbent, because I have used primed watercolor paper before as a support for oils. So I combined some walnut oil and Liquin and coated the paper with it, hoping this would give the paper a bit of "slip". It seemed to work pretty well. Next time I'll try just linseed oil if I can get the lid off my jar. Last time I checked it was pretty well glued tight.

I limited my palette to ivory black, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson and titanium white. It's pretty close to the Zorn palette, meaning I omitted blue. I did add just a bit of the Alizarin crimson in some mixtures.

There weren't too many good pictures of Stone. In every photo his eyes seemed to be too open and aware. Maybe he was just one of those people who could not relax when their picture was being taken and their eyes bug out. I have been guilty of it myself. I tried to change that in my painting, by darkening the whites and lowering his lids slightly.

I'm including the underpainting I did in about ten minutes so you can see the way the paint adheres to this support. I tried to wipe out some paint for highlights and it doesn't work as well as wiping on canvas or linen. You can't get the white back again. Something to keep in mind for the future.

I can't complain about this product. I thought it performed well as a support for alla prima panting and I didn't feel like I was fighting to keep it wet. I think the absorbency will be a bonus when I travel with it as the paintings will dry faster and I can stack them for easy transport in my bag.

9"x 12"

Robert Stone

(August 21, 1937 – January 10, 2015)

Pastel Painting

This guy posed for our Saturday portrait group last week. He attends Renaissance Festivals on a regular basis and he dressed in his pirate costume.

This was a two hour session from life.

17" x 22" pastel on Canson paper

More Rework

Another found painting: this time it is a model who posed years ago for our local portrait group. I could never paint this woman's face quite right. I have a picture of her but it is taken from a different angle than the painting I did. One of the regulars who come on Saturday mornings takes photos of the models and brings them in the following week. I may have grabbed his instead of taking one of my own pictures because I couldn't find a matching reference.

I recalled how well the painting of Bathsheba went. I didn't have a photo reference for her either. So I decided to "wing it". I pulled up a Rembrandt painting on my computer with similar lighting and tried to fix this girl.

I am sharing the various stages I put her through, from beginning to end. I think this might be my second attempt at fixing this painting.

Something amazing happens when you throw the photograph away. You work from your memory and your general knowledge of the subject. My finished painting might not look exactly like the model but it looks much nicer than the attempt I had made at "painting a photograph." This is a general rule I've known about for awhile but it really sinks in when you see it in action and experience it yourself. As Judith Carducci repeatedly stressed in her portrait workshops: "Don't use photos- they kill your eyes!"

Painted from a photo-and not very well

Getting rid of distracting elements and simplifying values

Adding decorative jewery and cool areas to the skin tones and hair

Original Oil Painting Portrait of Jessica

I couldn't resist doing a full color version of Jessica in her over-the-top costume. If a model is willing to wear long heavy gloves in July I feel it's my duty to paint them in full color. I was going for a Rembrandt look with this- heavy dark background and luminous features.

The jewelry was a lot of fun to paint too. Jessica was going for a vampish look I believe and it really works.

12" x 16" oil on linen

This is a painting of Madison, who modeled for our portrait group Saturday. She had a really different hairstyle that I could have allowed to take over my painting. Instead I chose to paint her face first and add the hair when I was finished. Those are actually feathers sticking out of her wrapped dreadlocks but I minimized them because they don't add much to the portrait. I changed the direction of her glance. She was looking off to the right and I moved her eyes so they are looking at us. The direct stare makes her pose more personal and encourages empathy. Another change I did when I got the painting home was finish the background in a series of colors all the same value, but different hues. There was a red backdrop behind her on the model station and I thought it overpowered the muted colors of her clothing and skin.

Romel De la Torre Workshop

I wish I could have stayed in the sunny 80 degree weather a bit longer but I am back from my annual trip to Arizona. I try to take a workshop every year at the Scottsdale Artists School, They have the largest selection of classes that I am aware of and they are taught by the best painting and sculpture instructors.

This year I took a figure and portrait class with Romel de la Torre, whose work can be seen here. He is an excellent oil painter who spent a lot of time talking about technique, color temperature and brush strokes. It was a fun class.

It was recommended for the class, so I purchased a roll of Utrecht Double Oil Primed Belgian Linen Roll, Type 820, Smooth Texture and I did not realize until I was in class that there was a long thread embedded in the primer. It is currently on sale here and although I got it for a good price I was not expecting that kind of low quality from an oil primed linen. I didn't really notice until I started painting and by then it was too late.
Oh well, it was just a study. This is the one and only picture of my painting of the man we painted the first day. I chopped it up and used the remnants for some plein air paintings.

abt. 20" x 16"

The thread running through the middle of the canvas. sigh

 Here is the instructor, Romel de la Torre, with his finished painting.

People are interesting

When my daughter was seven she told a fiend that she didn't like coming In to my studio because there were always so many eyes staring at her. I was just beginning to paint a lot of portraits then and to attend a weekly portrait group where artists worked from the live model. I would prop the paintings up against books in bookshelves, lean them against the wall or hang them on a temporary hook to let them dry. All the people seemed to be in the same pose, most often a three quarter view of the face. I rarely arrived early enough to get a straight on view of the model.

Yesterday we didn't have many people show up for our portrait group so I was fortunate enough to get a head on view of our lovely 14 year old model, Katelyn. 

11" x 14" oil on canvas 

Another Painting of Michelle

Inside Angles, 6831 Angola Rd, Toledo, Ohio, is hosting a portrait show featuring many works from local artists, including the Hyter Group, through August 17. Saturday our group painted at the store and the owner, Sue, was very gracious. It is an awesome show with over 60 portraits hanging. I have two in the show, including the last one I did of Michelle.

Michelle told us she is moving to Houston to be near her daughter in August so she will not be able to model for us anymore. I was sorry to hear this. She has personality, she can hold a pose and not move and she wears lovely costumes. Plus she's a really sweet and accommodating person. The two times she modeled for us she wore costumes given to her from her friend who frequently visits Nigeria. We will miss her, that's for sure.

The lighting was more natural than we can create in our normal space, an old school cafeteria that sits below ground level. There was a big open window to her left throwing in cool light. I like the pose here, where she is staring into the light.

Michelle

11" x 14"

oil on linen

I asked Michelle to pose with the first portrait I painted.

A picture of the setup at Inside Angles

Using Complements to Create Color

I have a collection of old photographs. Some are family and some are from various auctions where people seem willing to sell their family history for a song. I like the look of old photographs, especially silverprints. Many of the subjects who posed have a solemn, enigmatic gaze. The mouth is almost always closed because it's not easy to hold a smile for the length of time a box camera required. The edges are often blurred and there is a sense of mystery.

I admit to being fascinated by the fact that these people are gone, yet they lived and breathed and walked the earth and someone cared enough to make a record of a day in their life. Yet no one cared enough to save that piece of history.

These old photos have no copyright, they belong to no one but themselves; they are fair game for the artist who wants to practice her craft and experiment.

It's a challenge to create a color image from a black and white reference photo. I can think of only one way to do it and that is to use color theory. Decide on the color of the light-- in this instance I chose yellow and the color of the shadow will become it's complement: violet. Of course local color will affect the color of everything too but making a conscious decision about the color of the light in the beginning helps to speed the process.

I like to add some fun stuff in the background to make it more interesting when I can't see much of what is behind the subject.

11" x 14" oil on linen

Dr. Wright

Man in Fedora- Open Studio

He posed for our Saturday drawing/painting group. I loved the hat and the scruffy looking beard. I used a 'reclaimed' canvas for this painting: an unsuccessful painting from a previous session at the Hyter Group. I like the fact that the white of the canvas is already gone and I don't waste a lot of paint covering it. Derrick posed in front if a green backdrop and hsi hat was green so it kind of faded into the background.

He wanted it so I sold it to him for a very good price. Two hour pose-- 11" x 14"

Sweet Girl from our Portrait Group

Lexus' parents named her after the car. She doesn't mind the name and it seems to suit her. She is a very classy and adult-looking 14 year old. Painted at the Hyter Group in Toledo. We meet on Saturday mornings to paint or draw from the live model at the corner of Hill and Holland Sylvania in a former school building.

12" x 9" oil on linen

The Albert family

I have been working on this painting for a couple weeks. It's a commissioned piece for a friend of Jamie Hurley's. Two years ago Jamie had me create a really illogical painting of her being rescued by her boyfriend, who was riding a white horse and being aided by a giant Michigan Wolverine. A dragon and a castle were also included in the mix. Later Jamie married her boyfriend and I like to think my painting had a lot to do with that. Perhaps not. :)

Anyway, that's how I came to do this painting, which is a lot more traditional and showcases the couple's lovely home and even more lovely child. Plus their two dogs....one of which is paying attention and the other which is not.

18" x 24" oil on canvas

The Model from Saturday's Group

I loved painting this model... she was beautiful and she held the pose so nicely. I love the painting I did too, and that is not always the case when you have two hours to paint someone.

The Back Up Painting

Do you have a painting that you keep in the studio to work on whenever you have a few moments? I usually do. I know that I need a minimum of one hour to paint a small 6" x 6" panel and I don't always have an hour to spare. Usually I find myself with 20-30 minutes of time before I have to go to work or an exercise class or the store... whatever. Once in awhile I am just not tired enough to go to bed but I don't want to start something "new" late at night. When I have short blocks of time like this I turn to my 'back up painting'. This is usually an experimental piece that needs to be worked on in layers or a piece that has been sitting around for a long time and needs more 'interest'.

The past few weeks this piece has been Hannah, a 9" x 12" portrait piece that I initially started to explore the Anders Zorn palette. Zorn was a 19th century Swedish painter who became famous for his ability to create stunning alla prima portraits. It's said that he used a very limited palette of White, Yellow Ocher, Cadmium Red and Ivory Black. I've looked at a number of his portraits and I definitely see hues of green that would be impossible without a blue but I wanted to give it a try anyway.

Here is a painting of Grover Cleveland by Zorn and you can see he was a master of brushwork and gesture. Cleveland was a huge buy but Zorn somehow managed to position him in a manner that minimizes that fact.


Here is Hannah in the early stage of the painting when I used just the Zorn palette to bring her to life. I liked the warmth and natural color harmony of the piece but the photograph showed a green scarf and it was impossible to achieve that brighter hue of green without adding blue.

 Below is a picture of the painting after I glazed some green (mixed with ultramarine blue and yellow ocher) over the scarf. I also mixed some alizarin crimson with blue to change the color of the coat. So while I think Zorn's palette is wonderful for flesh tones I miss the additional colors needed to paint fabric and if I were painting something outside I would REALLY miss by blue.

Hyter Group Portrait

Another Saturday morning spent painting from the live model. It is the single best way to become really observant about color. We have a problem at our group because the overhead lights are too bright and they reflect the green wall up and into our model's skin tones. This creates very strange lighting, especially when it is combined with the warm incandescent lighting of the spot light. A few of us have asked to have the overhead lights turned off to create a more dramatic lighting effect and eliminate the green reflections but sooner or later they always turn the lights back on.

Our model was a wonderful young woman from India and she wore a bright yellow scarf. I used a 14" x 18" linen board (Centurian brand) and I was almost finished after the two hour pose. I painted the rest of the scarf in when I got home.

Mati

14" x 18" 

Another Head Study

This gorgeous looking lady was out model at the Hyter Group last week. It is very helpful when the model actually holds their head in one position and can maintain a bright and alert pose. It's not as easy as it appears. I had to leave early and they started late so this is about an hour and a half. When I know the time is limited I do try to pare things down to the essentials and I am not always as careful with my transitions between dark and light. Still, this sometimes results in a positive result. I toned the 1/2" birch board the night before with a light mixture of black and yellow ocher so it was dry when I started the portrait. The light green really created a dramatic contrast to her red hair so in a way it was just a lucky choice of colors for the underpainting.

11" x 14" oil on birch panel

$150

Portrait of John, an Artist

This guy posed for our portrait group last week. He has really interesting facial hair and it was fun to use the palette knife to add texture to the beard. Although he's an artist himself he looks almost like an old time ship's captain.

I might try a pastel of him this week.

11" x 14" oil on canvas

The Importance of Anatomy

I want to talk about anatomy today and why it’s necessary to study it a bit if you ever hope to paint recognizable people on a regular basis. In the past, anatomy was taught at all the great art schools. It was only with the advent  of newer and more modern painting methods that techniques that had developed over centuries and had been passed down from artist to artist via apprenticeships disappeared. 

As an artist who has always been intrigued by the human form, I have studied anatomy, both on my own and by auditing life drawing courses at local universities. Life drawing, both short pose and long pose, is THE best way to develop skill in rendering the human form. You can copy all the Victoria’s Secret catalog models you want but you still won’t really “get” how the human form turns and moves in space if you don’t invest some time in the study of anatomy and how it relates to ‘real people’.

What is the best way to do this? Find a life drawing or painting group in your area and attend as often as you can. You say there aren’t any? Star one yourself.  I paint with a portrait group in Toledo on Saturday mornings whenever I can make it. The group meets in an old school cafeteria and it costs just $5 for a two hour session. We pay the model $30 for the session and we have the same model for four weeks. That’s a bit too long for most of us, who would prefer to have the same model for two weeks because we’re usually done by then. But everyone works at a different rate so I suppose we have to be flexible. My painting speed has increased greatly since I started painting with this group five years ago. I live about 45 minutes away so I can’t attend every week, which means I ALWAYS try to get my painting done in one session and I am usually close enough to finish it at home using a photographic reference.

A little painting I did of the group a couple years ago.

Teri Bersee runs a small rural art school 30 miles from my home. It’s called Bountiful Arts. Teri sponsors a life drawing session once a month and I attended this group last week because she promised we would  have a female nude model for three 2 hour sessions over a period of three months. I hadn’t been to any unclothed model sessions in awhile so I made a point of showing up to this one. I brought along my easel and paints because I knew I could finish an 11” x 14” piece in two hours. Our model was great and I was happy with my little painting.

I think painting or drawing from the nude is always time well spent. Nowhere else can an artist learn so much about human anatomy than from close observation of the muscles, forms, light and shadow of the nude subject. You might be thinking to yourself, "Fine, she's lucky, she lives in an artsy community and she has all these opportunities to work from life." Nah, that's just an excuse. A determined will does find the way. You make your own opportunities. Network and get to know the artists in your area. I live in a city with less than 8,000 people and I have to drive 30 minutes to shop at a mall. It may not be convenient, but if you're serious about improving the quality of your art you will find a group that encourages you and you WILL achieve your goals quicker.

Here's my painting from last week: 11" x 14", oil on linen

Continuing Along the Same Theme

This poor girl has been waiting for a nose job for almost a year. It was time to fix her. I started the piece at a class at the Scottsdale Artists School last year but we only had three hours to work on her and at 16" x 20" this is a life size painting. This girl has some head of hair!

The cold weather forces me to stay inside anyway so I don't mind trying to finish these pieces. I have a few other plein air pieces that I did in Arizona last year that are on the schedule to be "fixed or pitched". What should my new motto for this year be? Mediocre: another version of Yellow Ochre. You would have to be a painter to get that one, but I'll explain. Yellow ochre is a bland yellow that resembles baby poo. It's not pretty, Although it is useful. I just wanted a catchy slogan that rhymes. ;)

A few of the things I changed on Julie, using a bit of artistic license:

1.  Her gaze-- it was directed forward and for  my purposes I wanted her to appear to be looking at us (the people viewing the painting.) 
2. I added an earring. It was so tempting because that sliver of hair hanging down to her cheekbone deserved to have an echo. Red seemed to be the natural choice.
3. Her nose. I don't give everyone I paint a nose job but if it detracts from the woman's face and I don't have to have a likeness I just go for it. She still has a strong face but I have made some alterations for the sake of art.
4. I changed her expression from boredom to almost a kind of wariness. Whatever... she is done and I can move on to the next "Rework". It's really kind of fun because I get to play plastic surgeon without using the knife.

Julie 20" x 16" oil on linen