Something from the Bar

12x12 oil on panel

Available next week at Russell Collection.

Bouncing back to the darker colors and playing with interior lighting. Bars are fun because of all the spotlights, reflections, and varying neon lights creating ambiance. This is the back bar of the Cypress Creek Cafe where we had a fun dinner during our workshop in Wimberley.

Final Touches

12x8 oil on panel

Available at Castle Gallery.

This is something new for me, this lighter palette. I'm trying to lighten up a bit, use more neutrals to emphasize light and color. I think for a long time, in order to suggest or have areas that were empty, I would use dark washes. Its easier to pretend something is in shadow, and obscured if you just lose it in blacks and browns. But I think neutrals actually enhance colors and light better. And add more punch to darks as well.

You can probably guess my inspiration for this. The models were actually posing for some photos for us at Kim English's workshop. We didn't paint inside, but had them pose in our hostesses beautiful home. I wonder if Kim will paint this scene? And how his will compare. At any rate, I am really pleased.

Train Riders

8x6 oil on panel

Available at Loretta Goodwin Gallery next week.

I've been hard at work since my weekend getaway. I'm totally refocused on painting now.
It was such a wonderfully relaxing break. No tv, no computers, no phones.... just nature, R&R, hiking and enjoying the company of my sig ots. Its always good to put things in perspective - it was much needed. So I am back and dedicated to painting and keeping myself relatively unplugged still. The computer can certainly eat up lots of time when one plays too much.

I'm pushing my palette a little more this week. Trying to capture dramatic light, trying different scenes, playing with color and lightening up. In other words, having a ball!

Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

This month I got to choose our challenge and since I have become such a promoter of the "30 minute study/start," I wanted everyone else to try it. Should have been easy for me, but I chose a rather ambitious subject. I'm still processing my workshop and pleased that some of my efforts last week are appearing in my work (painted at the last minute of our deadline of course!) I'm anxious to read what the others thought about using a timer and painting so rapidly. From the looks of it, they did a great job!



The Critique - study
9x12 oil on panel
©2010 Robin Cheers



The Weeper
5x7 oil on canvas
©2010 Suzanne Berry



Thea's Rock
13x13 pastel
©2010 Vicki Ross



Glance Back
12x9 oil on canvas
©2010 Diana Moses Botkin



Last Light
5x6 oil on board
©2010 Aaron Johnson Cordell


This month we welcome a new member too - hello to Sharman Owings!

Red Flag
10x8 oil on masonite
©2010 Sharman Owings

A Week of Art Boot Camp

I've now realized that Kim English's class is like boot camp. I painted so much my wrist is sore and my head was reeling every night making sleep difficult.

It truly was a great experience. First, Belinda Aber of Wimberley Artists Workshops is running a great school and has some really good teachers on her schedule. I'm thrilled that she is so close to Austin. Wimberley is a small but active community with lots of beautiful Hill Country scenery around. And the artists who attended the workshop were such a pleasure to work with!


Dinner out for our group at Cypress Creek Cafe


Table 2

I learned a lot and can't wait to get back to work next week to continue pushing myself. We literally painted 5 minute poses. That means we tried to paint two models and the background in 5 mins. and when the timer went off, we had 10 seconds to wipe our panels while the models assumed new poses. Kim English can capture the scene, on a medium sized canvas, with no trouble. Its amazing. And what an exercise for us! We eventually graduated to 10 and then 20 minute poses by the end of the week. The 20 minute poses seemed much too long! LOL


One of my 5 minute sessions Friday.


Another 5 minute sessions from Friday.



This was from Tuesday (day 1) - since that day I warmed up my palette a lot and managed to get a little farther like adding some background info.

I can see the difference from the start of the workshop in my own work, but I still didn't make the progress our instructor could make in his demos. All of us seemed to hang in there, complaining a little, but working hard.



This is an example of Kim's 5 minute painting Friday.


I'd highly recommend the exercise! It sure beats my 30 minute studies! That might feel like forever to me now.



This painting is now mine! A 12x14 5-minute demo by Kim English.
Priceless.

Workshop Days

I am getting whipped (hopefully into shape) this week.... I've posted a bunch of images from the past several days on Facebook and there used to be a way to share the album publicly.

See if this link allows you to see without logging in or having an account.

it seems to work - to see more images, click on the small "next" text on the upper right of the photos.

Hi! Remember me? The artist who lives here?

What a couple of weeks! I haven't painted much because of too many other parts of life getting out of control. I've taken on too many volunteer things this fall. To sum up - weekly Destination Imagination team meetings (I'm the manager so I've also had/will have training days, etc.), Brownies cookie coordinator (really going to kick in during January !), school field trip, monday modeling sessions coordinator, travel, wedding painting events, husband travel, sick dog, daughter and husband, Halloween was in there somewhere, right? My calendar looks like a splatter painting.

BUT - this week is full art immersion (well, starting tomorrow). I am going to study with Kim English, an artist whom I consider a master. I've heard wonderful things about his classes, about his technique for training artists to work quickly and accurately. Its going to be a challenge - and I can't wait. I hope I can post here and there to share some of the fun with you either on the blog or Facebook. So stay tuned.

Zen Stuff

My friend Kate shared a wonderful post on The Creative Block that I hope everyone will read.

Having found my lost sketchbook (scary days), I found the note I made about about our conversation that day. "There is no way we can avoid being who we are... even if we try to erase or subdue our 'self'."
(Zen stuff) ala Kate.

Morning Traffic

10x12 oil on panel

Soon to be at Charleston House in Montgomery.

Finished this one last week. And so far, I haven't painted this week. I guess it is only Tuesday! Yesterday's model session was put off owing to my having a meeting to learn how to be cookie coordinator for my daughter's Brownie troop. Tomorrow I will be prepping for her Destination Imagination meeting - for which I am team manager. If I don't sound overwhelmed, I am. Trust me.
But on a high note, I just caught up on my stack of bookkeeping today!

Wedding Reception - The Corinthian

28x22 oil on linen

Today is somewhat of a recovery day. This party ended very late! Late for me - I am not worth much after 7 pm. But the band was fun, and the wedding coordinator, Ann Whittington, always takes care to have a nice spread for the vendors so I had a good salad, chicken and a couple brownies to sustain me!
This was a surprise for the bridal couple. She apparently had wanted me, but was told I was booked and unable to paint her wedding. I saw her when her mom pointed me out at work - on the upper level. I hope they are as pleased with the final product.

To be honest, I'm still ambivalent about these gigs. Sure, its great exercise for me, its maybe a nod to traditional impressionism, and its very special for the family. BUT, is it good for my career? And I always feel like the work is left unfinished... which is the nature of it, but I wonder if that is best? I could do so much better by bringing the work back and completing it in my studio. Most of the live event painters do not do this. And there are drawbacks to it...when in my studio, I need to be focusing on gallery work. And there are only so many hours in the day. Seeming to be fewer and fewer too. This morning I went to a meeting to learn about being "cookie coordinator" for our Brownie troop. Please, somebody stop me next time I volunteer!
:-)

East Enders

12x16 oil on panel

Gallery info to come.

Here is my finished product from the demos below. Frankly, I am not sure I am thrilled by it. Maybe the figures turned out too small and don't draw the eye. And its a soft light illuminating the scene - something I always have trouble with. I like the puddle in the foreground the best!

Loading my stuff up to go to Houston for a wedding reception painting event this weekend. Been a busy fall for those!

30 Minute Start

If you haven't guessed by now, I am becoming quite the advocate for using a timer in the studio! I thought I'd share an example of my using it to start a painting. With only 30 minutes to get as much in as I can, my brush moves quicker, I mix paint faster and more intuitively, and use more of it. It stretches my observation skills.

This is a 12x16 panel* and in the first 15 minutes you see my drawing set and the bones in place.



Then in the next 15, the whole panel is covered with masses blocked in. Now all I have to do is model my forms and play with highlights/shadows. I can also decide at this point if its going to work. The colors and composition are balanced. The focal point - the figures - are in an interesting spot and from the viewer's point of view, we are going to meet in the crosswalk.



Now, I'm working from a photo in this case. But I've been doing it when painting the model from life. And I think it would be an ideal way to approach plein air landscape painting. Think how fast you could get in your masses and determine the sun/shadow before it changes.
Granted, this doesn't appeal to everyone. Its not for the realist or the person who likes to render objects. My buildings will be left as masses of obscure shapes, for instance. But it works very well for the impressionist. Try it!!
(and wish me good luck not messing up from here!)

* note: the diagonal lines through my panel help me locate objects in my sketch. While I am being loose and gestural, I do want my figures to be the right size relative to their environment, and I want the right perspective. This is a trick I learned from Jeanette Le Grue (great painter!) and I do it both with photos and from life.

Gusty Day

12x16 oil on panel

Available at Edward Montgomery Fine Art, Carmel next week.

This scene is from one of our Monday figure sessions (scroll down to see the study I painted that day.) I tried to finish the study today but felt constrained by having to work around what was already there. So I started a new one. I have this dreadful habit of not being able to continue work on an incomplete painting. I can't tell you how many I have sitting around the studio now. There is going to be quite a few more now too since beginning our model sessions. Like the one below. I used the same panel to paint a second study of our model in fact, knowing it is just for exercise and I won't complete it. I'm definitely an "alla prima" painter.


9x12 oil on panel - study from figure session

Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

Our challenge this month was to paint anything we liked, but on a 6x8 support and only with a half-inch brush! Diabolical! Actually, I paint every painting with just one brush, but use a smaller one - a 6 instead of an 8. I think I am just lazy. The artists I paint the model with on Mondays were surprised to learn that. They were aghast when they heard that I don't clean my brushes either. I use OMS (Gamsol) and just swish my brushes in there until they look good and lay them down and walk away. I don't use expensive brushes and they get a lot of abuse I suppose. Using one at a time until it flays out finally or the ferule loosens. I like a synthetic too actually, with a crisp edge.

Now, on to my painting. This horse was turned out one morning during our visit to the dude ranch two years ago this fall. The background was very Texas hill country. Dry scrub. And when I was flying in this past weekend and looked out the window, I was momentarily surprised because the ground looked almost like snow. The colors were so pale and muted. Lovely in their way.. and I wanted to try to capture that in my background here.


Facing the Morning Sun
6x8 oil on panel
©2010 Robin Cheers




Onion
6x8 oil on panel
©2010 Aaron Cordell




Bright Bales
6x8 oil on hardboard
©2010 Diana Moses Botkin




Bling Pouch
6x6 oil on canvas
©2010 Suzanne Berry




Still Life
8x6 oil on canvas
©2010 Vicki Ross

Oheka Castle Wedding Reception

Took a very quick trip over the weekend to go and paint at a lovely young couple's wedding reception on Long Island. The site was Oheka Castle - a beautiful private home built in the early 1900s by one of those fabulously wealthy "robber-barons." It was a beautiful setting. I am exhausted...and no honeymoon to look forward to!


early stage - the light from the setting sun inspired me, though the party was going to be at night.


ready for populate the scene with some wedding guests


no time for pics in between - this is the final painting. I hope the family is happy with my results!

Cowgirl

30 minute study

I've been in the habit lately of just cutting off a piece of linen and taping it up when I need a certain size. Haven't had the right panels available or something. Makes for a bit more work later gluing and mounting things, but its convenient when you want to get right to work.

I'm about to hand my computer off now to get a new smokin' fast (big?) hard drive installed. Lots of tech upgrades lately. Some unplanned too.

Sidestreet

16x16 oil on panel

Available at Tidewater Gallery next week.

Remember this study from a couple days ago? I am so thrilled with how the big version turned out. I started the same way. I set my timer for 30 mins. and massed in, sketched, scrubbed and placed as much as I could, covering most of the canvas. After a little break, I set the timer again and kept going the same way. The final touches took probably an hour also, but getting the bulk of the scene painted under the time constraint made me stay loose and work all over the canvas. I didn't get bogged down with defining all the details of the buildings or cars, but found that after I'd massed in, all that was needed were some highlights and a few other strokes to suggest form. The only thing I am not totally sure of is the tree shadow just in front of the figure. I think it needs some editing. Overall, a great day at the easel! (not so much in the rest of life... laptop died, spilled water on my debris-strewn studio floor, forgot to eat, min. schnauzer shaved, glued my fingers together...)

Figure Session

Spent the morning with a model and several other artists enjoying a beautiful morning outside at Mozarts. Mozarts is this really lovely coffee house with lots of decks overlooking Lake Austin. Its really a great setting for painting and we are so glad they tolerate us!

My first painting, below, I did for the first 2 hours of the pose - in 25-30 minute sessions with breaks. I tried hard to apply my recent play with "30 minute sketches" and worked quickly at the beginning. The light moved very quickly too.



I moved to a new spot to get a different angle for my second painting but didn't have much time to work on it. I like my start - colorful at least. And I don't like, or get confused by the background anyway. That is one way pencil sketching has an advantage. With paint I feel obligated to put in the background or setting. Though one of these days I want to put my "live event" skills to the test and paint a large cafe scene (mostly) on location.

Sidestreet Study

30 minute sketch

I love this exercise! It seems almost unfair to spend so short a time, but get such good results. Truly, a few more minutes could refine this to a gallery ready painting. Its about 7 inches square on a loose piece of linen. This week, more of these and I'm going to start "gallery" works with a 30 minute "flash dance" as a friend commented! Love that. First thing for Monday though is our weekly figure session at a coffee house. Can't wait for that for many reasons.

Laundry Sketch

30 minute sketch

This is such a great exercise. I needed it today. My week turned out to be very busy and I had spent two days (I think) working on a larger, more complicated piece. So I wanted to just paint some simple scenes and thought that to break them down to their simplest shapes would be ideal. I set my timer for 25 minutes and went to work. Its wonderful to just look at the big shapes, shadow and light, and mass in. When the timer went off, I allowed myself just a couple minutes more to make final touches - hit the lights harder. I'm always trying to capture the sunlight. Aren't we all?

btw - the model is me. I wanted a scene, so I set up my tripod and camera (using the timer) and hung some laundry in the backyard. More on that later.