Figure Session

Taking a short break from the Road Series – I am not that prolific.

This one here is from a few days ago. I painted it at the figure session at the School. Attendance suffers a bit when summer starts, so there was plenty of room in the studio to set up wherever I wanted, but I ended up all the way at the edge of the room.

Why, you might ask, would I pick a "bad angle" if I had the option of setting up where I had a clear view of the face with wonderful light and shadow patterns falling across the forms?

...Or you might not. But I'll tell you anyway. First, I wasn't interested in doing a portrait treatment. I didn't want to paint an individual, I wanted to paint "everyman" (or woman as the case may be). and painting features gets in the way of that. As soon as you paint them, it becomes about the particular individual, with whom I have no personal connection except for the fact that she's the model and I'm painting her. The relationship goes no farther, so my making a painting about this person would be a shallow exercise indeed.

You've seen me do portrait stuff on this blog, sure. But I do those as painting exercises. Because it's important to be able to paint things like the human head, I do try hard to get it right, whether I'm painting features or not. I usually do the "portrait treatment" when I'm feeling unsure about my chops, to make sure I haven't forgotten how to do the basics.

Secondly, I was really interested in the clutter surrounding the model. Typically, we put detail and busy stuff near the focal area and calmer, passive areas surrounding it to support the main point of interest. I thought it might be neat to try and reverse it, a la Dean Cornwell, to surround a relatively quiet focal area with busy clutter.

My view already looked like that, so I didn't have to make up any of it. In fact, I painted all the elements just about exactly as I saw them, with the exception of the foreground yellow flowers. Those were slightly out of the picture frame and I moved them in to immerse the figure in clutter.

Incidentally, my favorite part is the white flowers in the background. I was really happy about the economy of brush in that area. I can't say the same for the figure itself, but it was still a satisfying exercise.

Letting It Evolve

Evening Descending, 12 x 16inches, oil on linen

To let a series evolve, and evolve slowly, I avoid making drastic changes from piece to piece. That would be mutation. Or revolution. I try to think of each subsequent piece as a variation of the previous. Keeping the changes small means I can compare the two and make judgements on only the things I changed. If I change too much, I'm comparing apples and oranges essentially, and that doesn't help me much.

For this painting, besides moving the road to the side and rearranging trees, I wanted to try two things. 1) a slightly larger format. This one is 12 x 16. I want to eventually get to much bigger canvases, but I know from experience that I have a very difficult time if I jump from 9 x 12 to 24 x 36. Scaling up brings new considerations to brushwork, the general impact of any given color / value relationships, and the amount of detail to include or edit. What works at 9 x 12 may or may not work at 24 x 36. I can't look at a 9 x 12 painting and tell whether it'll work on a large canvas, so scaling up in baby steps allows me to avoid wasting a whole lot of time, effort, and paint on a big doomed canvas. Given enough practice, I'm sure I'll be able to take larger steps in scaling up, but I'm not there yet.

The second thing I wanted to try was to paint this in a limited palette. I used White, Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, and Transparent Oxide Red. It's a muted primaries palette, which gives me a lot of control over subtle harmonies (it's really hard to get out of control because you don't have much saturation to start with ). Often this palette results in a earthy, tonalist look of the pre-impressionist dead guys. It has that old dusty look of paintings created in the studio rather than out there in the natural light. I kinda like that.

Unnamed Road, 12 x 21 inches, oil on linen

Some of the passages in the previous painting got quite thick (by my standards), though I wasn't necessarily looking for impasto treatment. I liked it, so I decided to go thicker overall with this next painting. This canvas is also a little bigger, although the scale of the painted elements aren't any bigger. The paved road is replaced by a dirt road, which gives it a different feel, don't you think?

The palette is expanded; White, Ultramarine, Black, Cad Lemon, Yellow Ochre, Permanent Red, and Transparent Oxide Red. This is a double primaries palette with a high and low chroma of each of the primaries. I basically added to the earlier palette the option to use more saturation. Having the earlier painting next to the easel as reference, I felt confident that my colors weren't going to get out of control Where I did use more saturated notes I was careful not to make big jumps. It worked pretty well.

Now I've got a group of paintings to stare at. And I have an idea for the next step.

A + B = C

Into the Sunset, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Here's a painting I did recently. I've been doing these "road" paintings, and I'm always thinking about where I can take the theme. I haven't even scratched the surface, I know. When I embark on a series of paintings, I want them to evolve slowly. I can easily imagine settings and compositions with vastly different landscapes, but I don't want to just dive into twenty different directions that may or may not work together. I like the idea of staring at a painting and letting the next idea come to me naturally. Soon I'm staring at two, three, or more paintings and the ideas take on a evolutionary path, and that seems to me like a pretty good way to create a cohesive series.

This is important to me because I know that one of the things that keeps getting in the way of my career building is that I do too many different things and thus I lack a strong identity in terms of marketing my art. If you don't have a strong recognizable "voice", it's very hard to build a solid art career. Not to say that one shouldn't try lots of different types of approaches and subject matters. I believe it's absolutely essential for an artist to tackle all kinds of subjects and try out a broad range of ideas if they interest him. However, artistic growth isn't the same thing as art career building, and when I say I lack an identity, I'm talking about the latter. This is probably a touchy topic and I could talk about it at length but it would probably be better to do that over a couple of beers. Suffice to say it's important to me to find ways to maintain a stylistic focus without becoming bored, or heaven forbid, mannered.

But I digress. I just wanted to show how the idea for this painting came about. I was merely putzing about in my studio, staring at a bunch of earlier paintings, two of which happened to be side by side;

I took the road theme from one, and the light / atmosphere from the other, and ended up with the new painting.

Now I stare at the new painting, let my mind wander and imagine where this road takes me.

The Diner v2.0

Permanent Fixture, 12 x 24 inches, oil on linen

Revisiting the truck at the Fremont Diner. The first version was done during the Sonoma Plein Air Festival about a month ago, and I was very pleased with how that turned out. I almost didn't want to sell it but had to, because the owner of the diner had to have it.

Here is the original painting. There were a few things I wanted to try with this motif -besides having a version to keep for myself - and one is to have a less... romantic? sentimental? mood. This mostly had to do with the violet pink sky I painted in the first one. It was something I knew I could pull off, but it wasn't exactly what I saw. I wanted a blue sky, but I have trouble painting the blue sky; often my blue skies look too happy.

I wanted more of a dusty, tired feel to my truck painting, so in the new version, I gave it a more of an overall dusty orange light which allowed me to keep my blue sky very muted and still feel somewhat blue by contrast.

My ground plane is also more of an ochre color, which adds to the dusty feel, I think.

I took my liberties with the rust and paint patterns on the truck itself. The idea was to let the theme color, or the color of the light (dusty orange) predominate over the local colors of pale green and rust. I end up with a more tonalist solution this way, and again, adds to the mood.

This is such a great motif - an old truck in front of a diner that it conjures up all kinds of stories. I kind of gravitate toward stories which have a lot atmospheric mood in their depiction of small town life - John Updike or Richard Russo, may be. They give us a realistic sense of being an ordinary joe in an unremarkable life in an even less remarkable town, but somehow imbues a lot of humanity into their tales. I really like that, and I always try to achieve some of that quality in my paintings. I'm not saying I can do it – harsh reality part is easy. It's the subtle, suggested (and not spelled out) humanity part that's always so elusive - but I try.

I tried to do this second version from a photo reference but it kept looking too photographic so I trashed it and went back on location to knock it out. Having done it once, I felt fairly confident I could pull off a larger panel (12 x 24). I did may be 95% of it in the field, came home and touched up to finish.

I'm happy with it.

Someone's Mom?

A couple of sketches from last week. They're both the same model - came out looking like someone's mom? Well she is a mother, but the paintings look more... I don't know, a retro tv sitcom mom? Maybe it's the hair.

On the top sketch I did something I rarely do, and that is to render out the eyes. Doing so really makes the identity an issue, which is not something I usually look for in a paintings that I do. But once in a while I like to make sure that when I leave out the specific identity of a figure, I'm doing so on purpose and not because I can't paint little features. So when I do these kinds of portrait sketches, I'm testing myself.

Three hours is a long time for a little 8 x 10 sketch, so I had time left over to do another one. Couldn't quite resolve it before the end of the session but the parts I did get in, I kinda like.

Actually with this one I wasn't all that interested in painting her face as much as the way her torso articulated into the hip area... which is what I didn't get to, of course. You can kinda sense the volume due to the cross contour gesture created by the red shirt's hem.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, isn't there?

Figure Sketch - Flat Lit

When you are standing right by the light source (or close to it), you don't see much of a shadow on the model. Sometimes we call this front-lit, but since my model was facing sideways I'll just call it flat lit to avoid confusion. The basic premise is that your subject is lit as if you were wearing a headlight.

Because you don't have the light and shadow patterns to help you define a value structure for your painting, you have to rely on local values to give your painting some punch. The dark background provides ample and rich areas of dark, while the shirt gives us the upper end of the value spectrum. Thus I can use a full range of values, and even give it some really strong contrasts without the help of light and shadow on a shared surface.

Small dark notes in the face, such as the eye lashes, the nostril, and the upper lip define the features. There isn't much else in the way of forms to suggest likenesses (except the silhouette, which is pretty significant) so these little notes have to carry a lot of weight. That is to say, they have to be executed very carefully, or it'll start looking like a different person very quickly.

I'm not a portrait painter so painting likenesses isn't at the top of my priorities, and usually I don't care if my painting doesn't look like the model – I'm more interested in the overall mood, gesture, the universal rather than the specific – but bad drawing bugs me so if time allows, I'll fuss over critical notes like these accents notes (eye, nostril, upper lip).

The figure is not entirely devoid of modeling, of course. The light source is slightly to my right so there is a little bit of darkening as the forms fall away from the light-facing planes. I was able to sneak a little bit of anatomical definition this way, but still, it's nearly flat.

Diffused light works similarly too, in that local values are key to giving the painting a good value range. Often, diffused lighting suggests north light or may be outside in an open shade, or perhaps an overcast sky. In these cases the light is much cooler than the warm flat lighting I have here.

So the next time you're in a figure painting session or class, and you don't see much shadow from where your easel is set up because the light is flat, don't start grumbling. you can still do a good painting by relying on local values. Make sure to pay particular attention to shapes, because if the shapes aren't interesting, you don't have much else to go on. On the other hand, if your shapes are strong - such as a strong silhouette - you have a lot of freedom to push paint around as long as you keep your value structure organized.

Lake Tahoe Workshop Recap - Day 3

Lester Beach at DL Bliss State Park is one of my favorite places to paint around Lake Tahoe. It's got this great mass of boulders which is provides great structure. In addition, it has a beautiful sandy beach, open shade to stand in, plenty of parking, picnic tables, and clean restrooms. I'd gladly pay more taxes if more state parks were so suitable for workshops!

We got a later start this morning - I guess I wasn't the only one worn out from the day before.
I started this demo around 9:30 just as the light on the rocks became optimal. I love paining boulders - they're so logical. Just separate the light side from the shadow side with enough value jump, and you have believable structure. Add to that one or two value stepping within the shadow side, paying attention to the orientation of the planes, and you've got volume.

In actuality, it's not that simple, but it's still very logical, which makes its construct much easier to understand than something with a lot of soft, ambiguous edges like foliage. At least it does for a guy like me who has two left brains. Some students had difficulty separating the values, and we wondered if it had anything to do with whether you're left or right brained? "May be it's because we're women!", laughed one of them. I wasn't dumb enough to be suckered into agreeing, of course. I think it's just a matter of practice. I can't remember if I had the same problem early on in my training, but I've seen countless students start out unable to separate values in the beginning but with practice, became quite proficient. It's a matter of seeing and making sense out of what you are seeing, and not about painting. Seeing takes practice!

There is another parking lot near those boulders, and from there you have a bird's eye view of the cove. Quite beautiful. If you ever go there to paint, be sure to check it out.

In my demo you can see that the background mountain is much lighter than in the photos. That was part of the demo; I first painted it darker, closer to what I actually saw, and pushed it back to make a point about atmospheric perspective.

We wrapped up mid afternoon. Back at the house, I did a critique of everyone's paintings. We agreed that it was challenging but there was much progress. Students struggled less on the last day, perhaps because they got their jitters out of their system on the first two days, or maybe the boulders were easier to paint than bushes. I think they were, but there were some disagreements about that. It's true that the conditions were much nicer today, what with cool breezes near the water's edge and the big trees to stand under.

Whatever it was, it was nice to have ended on a high note, and I hope that everyone had a good time, and was able to learn something new – even a little thing – this weekend.

Back to reality!

Lake Tahoe Workshop Recap - Day 2

To everyone's delight, the sky was so blue the next morning; it almost looked fake. At this altitude there isn't much to pollute the air so when it's clear, it is really clear.


We headed over to Hope Valley and got started. There was so much good stuff there to paint, I think the main problem was figuring out what to include and what to edit out. It's natural to want to put everything in the painting – the clear blue sky, striking snowy peaks, the evergreens, the stream, the meadow, the boulders – I kept telling students to narrow their focus, and pick one "star" and make one statement.

A sunny day was what we ask for and that's what we got. We also got a warm day. It started to heat up mid morning. The altitude must have been affecting me too – I got a small headache which gradually got worse. It wasn't one of those pounding headaches, but a nagging, uncomfortable one in the back of my head. I took a few painkillers and drank lots of water, which kept it under control.

I did a quick small sketch in the morning in between rounds. (the painting at the top)

After lunch, we continued to work. When I came here to scope out the views the previous day, I thought there was ample shade, but the views people chose often didn't allow them to stand under a tree. Some used umbrellas, others used their cars to shade themselves and the easel, and still others just took the sun and bared it. Like an idiot I forgot my hat, so I got burnt, but I was too into the work to notice at the time. Ah well, another example of what not to do.

Here's another 30 minute quickie. I like doing road scenes. The great thing about this motif is that you can always find it, no matter where you live or go! Actually, this view has a snowy peak above and I wanted that to be my background, but that required a vertical format and my panel was too small (6 x8) to be oriented vertically on my Soltek. So I did it horizontally, opting for a big foreground and Steve and Marie's car as a point of interest.

A shot of the creek snaking through the valley. By this time, the light is flat and we don't have shadows to work with, but we press on. I was amazed at the stamina these ladies possessed. I was ready for a nap by 2pm, but they kept on going. So of course I wasn't going to look like a wuss (you kiddin' me? with this group, I'd never hear the end of it!). I kept at it too. By the end of the day, I felt pretty worn out. Hat's off to you, ladies!

Back at the house, we ordered in pizza, opened (many) bottles of wine, and the art discussions continued. I think I threw in my towel at around 9:30 or so. We had another full day ahead of us.

Lake Tahoe Workshop Recap - Day 1

Just returned from a wonderful workshop in Lake Tahoe where twelve students and I painted beautiful meadows, boulders, snowy peaks and the blue blue lake for three days. I came home sunburnt and exhausted, but I had a merry ol' time with a bunch of ladies whose endurance put me to shame.

But let me start at the beginning. On Friday morning I trekked up the mountain. Lake Tahoe is only a couple of hours' drive from my home but it is another world up there. The lake itself is 6225 ft above sea level, and the surrounding snow capped mountains rise to more than 10,000 ft. Truly spectacular!

This morning, I wanted to check out Hope Valley to see if it would be suitable for my workshop. I've been there many times, but I wasn't sure about the weather conditions - we've been having crazy weather lately, including some snow days here at Tahoe recently - and I wanted to be certain there was ample parking, views, restroom, shade.

The pic above is what the valley looked like when I arrived. Drizzly and cold, but beautiful.

As I had hoped, there were plenty of parking spots, and the one restroom in the area was open and working. Views aplenty, too. There was no snow on the ground, but the mountain tops were white. Aspen in this area were still mostly bare, but there would be some color provided by other vegetation.

The creek running through the length of the valley was a full-on river this time around, thanks to all the precipitation this winter and spring.

Satisfied, I headed to our base station in South Lake Tahoe. I arrived at the big house Barbara rented for us, and said hellos to my unruly group of students, had my cup of coffee, and planned my demo for the afternoon.

It was drizzling off and on, but not cold like it was last year - that was a doozy - The sun would come and go, teasing us with possibility. I didn't want to have to set up out in the open only to be forced to abort due to rain (Murphy's law suggests this is likely to happen) so I finally decided to set up on the covered porch of the house, and paint whatever I could see from there. And here's my demo;

Some of the students thought I was joking when I said I was going to paint the van, but I thought it would be fun to try to make a nice painting out of something you wouldn't normally think of as a "paintable" subject matter. My choice was either this van, or the barbeque grill on the porch, and I opted for the van because I liked the inclusion of the blue. (the grill was black)

This was my view. The sun came and went, changing the light every minute, so I used it to demonstrate how cast shadows from trees, etc. are to be designed to suit your composition, and not to be copied literally. I rather like the dappled light on the deck in the foreground.

After the demo, the rain pretty much stopped for good, so the students ventured forth with their gear and painted near the base station. The beach was close by, and we had this view from there. Where else but Tahoe would you see a steamer with an alpine back drop? I was making my rounds from easel to easel so I didn't paint it, but it sure was tempting.

Later that evening, we all went out to dinner at a local restaurant and predictably, I ate too much. They had Rogue Brewing's dark porter on tap, which I thought were pretty damn tasty. I know you wanted to know that :-)