You Tube for Arts Programs

You Tube is such a great resource for artists! Its great to do a search and see where things lead you. One favorite is Lucy Worsley's historical documentaries. Ah, what a job she has... Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

But back to art and artists... there are countless videos to watch contemporary artists demonstrate or talk about their work. Its always interesting to see behind the scenes and learn from others - so long as you don't spend more time on there than at your easel! Even better are the historical ART documentaries I've been finding.

Tonight, while sitting for an hour and a half at my daughter's gymnastics class, I found this video that aired on the BBC "David Hockney's Secret Knowledge" and found it very fascinating. I thought I'd share with you and I'm curious what you all think of his ideas. It made me look with new respect at works by Jan Van Eyck and other Renaissance artists. The amount of work in all that detail is mind blowing. I would sooner eat my paintbrush.

Palette Ponderings

V....Vaughan took this photo at Joel's and sent it to me. I can't quite remember why it intrigued her but I think it was the palette arrangement sort of reflecting the painting image. I have mixed - quite unconsciously - my colors as they appear in the painting. The darkest darks were the first down (alizarin and pthalo). I used that to sketch my figures as well as paint the darks. Then I mixed the fuscia shirt color, the green shadow color is below just as it is in the painting and the flesh tones and background light to the side. 

I don't know if I do that other times. Maybe I do since it was quite unplanned. I think when I have a larger space I start mixing my darks (cool colors) on the left and work lighter (warm colors) to the right. That is how my palette is set up as well. 

Note: you don't need fancy equipment and the perfect setting to work! Lately I've been sitting on my family room floor painting while "watching" the tv and hanging with my family. 

Making Expressive Paintings

Time passes and I have to look at my blog first to see what I've posted.Wow! Has it been that long?

I've gotten the girl back to school. She is very excited to be a 5th grader. And I am very glad to get back to a routine and have hours of studio time. The early mornings are tough tho. 

Yesterday I met V.... for hot chocolate and painting. I started a chef scene. Will finish it today. Also, I'm shipping out some work for the Farm to Table show at DK Gallery this week. 

I continue to think a lot about my work and am considering workshops or maybe asking someone - some "master" - to mentor me and help me push through to the next level. Less representational, more expressive. But I am not sure that can be taught. I think I just have to be willing to risk messing up a good painting to create something that is great. I have to stop analyzing and correcting until the soul is gone. 

The painting below has been on my easel a month now. I like it. But there are certainly things that are incorrect or odd looking. But if I go over it and make changes, won't I tighten it up and just create another average picture?

untitled, 18x18 oil on cradled panel

If I look at Dan McCaw or Tom Balderas - two amazing expressive impressionists - their perspective is off, their figures not perfectly rendered, etc. They are still much looser than I, but I am working my way there. Slowly! And I think that is part of the secret too. Their paintings might look random and messy but they have worked very hard to create that illusion. I imagine every stroke is planned and put down and left alone.

30 Seconds of Painting

Playing with some new technology today (Timelapse app on iPhone) I decided to share a  video of a start. This is a large one - 24x24 - and what took me an hour has been reduced to 30 seconds. 

I like to work fast and get lots of information blocked in early in a painting and like to work all over the canvas. First, I make lines and points to note where things are to be, measuring and comparing objects and then begin to draw my "map" a little more clearly and then begin to mass in big shapes with color. When there are many darks, I begin with thin washes and leave a lot transparent, but in this case, I wanted the painting to have a higher key and went right into more opaque paint.

From here its all in the details. That will take another couple of hours or days. Some of this rough start may be left alone - it's background info. But there is still a lot to do in my focal areas. And I want I be sure I represent that hazy, humid glare of a hot day in New Orleans.

New Orleans

Summer in New Orleans - whew! I can handle hot, but not this humidity. NOLA is a really neat mix and we have a little something for everyone on this family trip.  We've been in the bayou and visited the aquarium and insectarium and done a lot of walking and sight-seeing. 

 

V....Vaughan is also in town. Honestly, we planned these trips with no knowledge that the other was coming at the same time!

We should be able to meet up tomorrow after my family and I trek the zoo and the garden district - and I want to visit one of the cemeteries. 

V and I are exploring some ideas about artwork/show collaboration based on our travels. And I wouldn't mind exploring the idea of us teaching a joint workshop here (not in the summer). Between the two of us we'd cover landscapes, city and figurative work in one workshop. It's an idea. I have a lot of those. What I don't have is time and energy. 

It's this heat - and heavy Cajun food. 

Work in Progress

Well here it is - a little glimpse of a work in progress. Isn't that white daunting? This is my first larger "vignette". I love the intimate, slice-of-life, subject matter and have wanted try working on a larger scale. I didn't do much to alter this blank sheet of linen (I'll stretch or mount it later). I first tried sketching in with my brush but then felt I needed more drawing so went in with charcoal. And made a mess.

Once I wiped off the false start, I used my more usual method of sketching a road map of sorts with the brush and then massing in. The goal is not to create an exact duplicate of a scene, so I forgave myself little errors in drawing and eliminated some clutter.

I made some "notes" on the darks and then used my favorite little trick of wiping out the lightest lights with a little OMS on a rag. Linen is great for this reason - you can wipe it back to a clean white surface again. And clean lights/whites are important to create beautiful highlights.

 Now I worked all the darker and middle tones -most of the painting.

A little more progress being made... but its not done yet. I've left her face and clothes undone and set the painting aside today to work on a new painting while I mull this one over for a few days. I'm not quite satisfied with the "tightness" either. (Everything is compartmentalized. ?) I might even have my model come back to sit for the final touches. This was painted from a study and photos of a model. My second go at a larger work began more easily - with lots of massing in and moving around the panel.

This is as yet unnamed, and is 22x28" on linen. My plan is to show it at the Russell Collection Fine Art Gallery "Femme" show opening in December in Austin. Its nice to have time to work on these larger pieces and live with them before sending them out.

If you care to keep reading, I will tell you that I my plan this year is to paint larger and slow down. I tend to work fast, but that meant that each week I was trying to create multiple gallery-worthy paintings and stressing about it. I have a lot of work available (lots of small works since the Vignettes show) and I think I can relax and really consider what I want to paint and what I want to say.

Mirror Mirror

10x12 oil on panel
Available at Tidewater Gallery
$900 framed
 
This is the same model as yesterday. This was mostly a photo session we'd done at this location, hence the different scenes. I had some comments about arranging models rather than just taking candids - which I do a great deal of too! A few years ago (I can't keep track of time!) I had the idea to hire models to pose at my house and even to pose in public spaces. I wanted to paint more from life, but still paint the scenes I love, not just a figure posed or nudes from a life drawing session. There are a lot of resources in Austin for models so finding references wasn't too hard. You can probably find them in your area through colleges, the art community, theater community, etc. 


BUT - you never can tell about personalities and I've heard horror stories from models as well as artists. I have a minorly scarey/funny story myself. Luckily, the model was fine when I had her at my house and another location in town, but she invited some of us to come to her property to paint there. Terri and Carol might chuckle over this memory! We drove out to this place, buried in the woods and a little rundown. No grand vistas, no water, lots of "funny smoke" in the air, shall we say. She took us on a grand tour through the brush telling us her big ideas about a music event she was planning on the property - spicing things up with some outlandish ideas of government plots, oil and gas industry poisonings, etc. It just got weirder. And we are all too polite to just take off, so we tried to set up and paint - our backs together in  a circle practically. Carol, as I recall managed to get a neat painting in of an abandoned car... hmmm, that seemed to become a theme for her! HA HA
Anyway, the woman was on something and unbalanced and we were happy to make as hasty a retreat as we could. I was a little shaken. 
Moral of the story, don't go out to paint alone. Ever. 


It took me awhile to decide to try the model thing again - and this time I focused on public spaces like outdoor cafes, etc. And it went well... for awhile. There is ANOTHER story. Stay tuned!

Updates

I've been doing lots of techy things - and making a right mess it. Lots of panic moments, rash decisions, desperate calls to tech support and late nights. I actually deleted my website by accident. I am just not as savvy as I once was and technology has moved light years ahead of me. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting less user-friendly than ever.

Some of my recent decisions involved my website and email delivery system. I decided to drop my template-based website service and use my blog for now. It has everything you could need. Above is a set of tabs with links to all my gallery pages where you can see current inventory for each and their contact information. Also under those tabs are information about me and my work. The blog is also made to be viewed on mobile devices.

Next, I've moved my email subscribers list to Constant Contact. I think it will be a better way to manage and use my list. So all new subscriptions will go directly through them, and I've hopefully correctly loaded my google group list - test in progress! You can edit or remove yourself at any time with the "safe unsubscribe" button in every email contact.

When I was going over my list - I was amazed to see readers, NOT related to me, who have been subscribed since 2006! If you have really been watching me that long, thank you! Its humbling to know that some people have found my work informative and inspiring.

In future, I might get a more traditional website and hope to introduce a quarterly newsletter. Maybe put together a video. But I have all summer to play with those ideas. And clean up my studio. But not until I paint the scene. (Inspiration strikes anywhere!)

Anything But Pedestrian

Anything But Pedestrian
12x18 oil on panel
PURCHASE

I've been doing some reading about Pinterest. I know some of my friends love it and I know a lot of artists are very annoyed with the lack of accreditation for shared images and copyright infringement. I don't use it. I figure its just one more thing to keep up with and keep me from painting.

I haven't had copyright issues. I am sure it would suck if I find out that someone has stolen my creative efforts to make a profit for themselves. Frankly, I guess I don't believe my work is good marketing material and I don't think I am "there" yet to copy. But I looked up my blog on Pinterest today and saw a few paintings had been shared. And then they were shared again. And to be honest, I was rather flattered to see that my work was counted as favorites among some of my most favorites artists - Dan McCaw, Sargent, Johannah Harmon, Matisse...Whistler! They did have some beautiful art grouped! But me in there? Really? That is amazing to me. No, I wasn't credited in all the pins. But clicking the image takes you to my blog it seems so that is cool.

I did however drop in a "no pin" meta code on this blog... the only one I can control. But the daily painting galleries my work appears in allows the pins and I will leave that for now. When you are putting your artwork up in a public showcase, there is every chance for it to meander off and be shared, posted, blogged, tweeted, pinned, fav'd, and lose its way. We can't control who prints it at home and makes a poster of it for their wall. I am not one to believe everyone has malicious intent and am flattered that people like my work enough to share it. And who knows when one of those shares might lead to a buyer finding me and my work.

There are ways to safeguard your images and prevent them from being copied and sold, of course. Posting small or low resolution images, including a copyright name on the image, watermarks, etc. But again, that takes more time than I want to spend. There are just too many ways in which artists could spend their days working electronically rather than painting. Between the online galleries, forums, auction sites, email and social network/marketing, it makes my head spin!

Speaking of sales sites, I posted this painting and another larger one in my ETSY shop. If you aren't a member or don't want to sign up to purchase there, email me and I can invoice you directly.

Contemporary Spaces

12x8 oil on panel

Ask Castle Gallery about this painting.

I have a lot of paintings available in the six galleries that represent me and it dawned on me that I should use my blog as a way to bring some attention back to those pieces while I am working on new works. I'm working on my First Impressions series and planning a summer exhibit of 20-30 of those in NC.

A note about the galleries I work with. They are owned and run by lovely people. If you see a painting you admire online and its available in a gallery, don't hesitate to contact them. They will be very happy to talk with you about the work. Many will work with you financially and can offer payment plans if its an investment piece [not that my works are so expensive yet ;-)]. They offer guarantees if you aren't happy with a piece, even if you do not live nearby. I have had buyers contact and purchase from my galleries out of state and had very good experiences. I've done it myself when I've bought other artist's work. So I encourage you to follow up with me or my galleries if you see something you love. Don't let it get away!

Studio Notes

I'm still here!
January always means bookkeeping, inventory, paying taxes, and cleaning up! All those ugly behind-the-scenes things we don't like to think about.
This place was a wreck. I about have the studio back in order and I've finished taxes and a lot of my bookkeeping. That was kinda of depressing too. But after feeling low for a day or two about sales last year, I reminded myself that I cannot help the economy and it wasn't for lack of trying. I had a good year where my art was seen in quite a few juried shows, I attended openings for two group shows here in Texas, I had good press coverage and created some really nice art. SO! Its time to pick up the brushes again and move on.

Speaking of moving on, I am not going to participate in the Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge this year. I was part of Diana's group for about 3 years and really enjoyed it. There are a number of good websites and groups offering challenges so if I feel the need to push myself I can look into those. If you are interested in seeing some of those, I made a list on the "Creative Block." There are yet more, and I think I will create a sidebar actually of those for reference. Putting that on my "to do" list now. :-)

Notice the top of the blog - there are links to my galleries which show the current inventory and I added a FAQs page and a bio. A website overhaul is on the to do list too, but honestly, the blog is really covering all the bases.

Be back soon with some art to share!

If My Paintings Were Music

Just sitting here musing tonight.

Musing about the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega. It makes me want to paint. It pretty much puts to music what I want my cafe paintings to describe. I love quietly observing all the activity of the world moving around me. And in my paintings, I try to make that activity interesting and memorable.

Sometimes I wish a painting could capture it all. Maybe have life and motion like the paintings in Harry Potter. How cool would that be?

Juried Show Thoughts

I've gotten a lot of interesting feedback on my whiny post about being "rejected". Its been fun to think about it from many sides - and some folks have sent me some interesting articles so I wanted to share them below.

I pretty quickly got over my rejection. I knew my work was good (puffed up as I am), but it baffled me as to why it wasn't seen as meriting inclusion (let alone awards!) LOL
Art is subjective, there is no denying that what I like and what my next door neighbor like are going to be very different. I enjoy the nontraditional work of Pollack and Kandinsky but I know some artists get rabid thinking about their paintings. Personally, I find them more exciting, say, than a beautifully rendered photorealistic still life.

This being said, a panel of several jurists, viewing art projected on a wall perhaps for a minute if the work is lucky, will each have a very different opinion and if your work is among thousands of entries, and they have wall space for a couple of hundred, the jury is going to have to be very quick and cutting to limit the work. Now, some mediocre work does get in, and friendships are hard to ignore, so I believe there is favoritism. We used to laugh heartily over the show catalog from one association because the work was so questionable, but it was the work of board members, etc. You can't reject them!

I was a juror of awards once for an organized show. And I think I was lucky that the show had a theme because when it got really tough deciding between my personal favorites and the best executed works (in a variety of media), I was able to judge which best represented the theme (to me).

A recent show I was in had us all scratching our heads over the grand prize winner. In fact, it seemed to be WAY out of nowhere, based on the other award winners that juror had selected. Then I read an article about a juror who admitted to choosing a huge $ prize winner based on the toss of a coin. Could that have been complementary to the artists involved?

So I believe juried show acceptance is based on three things: 1. who you know (or who knows you) 2. the merit of the art and 3. a roll of the dice.

Is it worth it to enter juried shows? Yes. I am selective in my entries. I learned a long time ago to never enter a show that was judged by an academic (no offense) or critic, or layman and to only enter shows which would include my peers or those I aspire to count as peers. I want my work to stand among other excellent work. I also don't enter shows that will most likely be filled with abstract or very traditional work, which my work would not fit in with. So I will continue to enter and try not to be bitter when my entry fee brings no return and just continue to paint what I love. When I am accepted, its good for my resume, when I am not, it has no effect on me.

Here are some interesting articles for your perusal. And thanks to everyone who commented, shared, patted me on the back, and commiserated.
http://faso.com/fineartviews/33055/should-i-enter-art-competitions-and-shows
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2011/07/thought-about-juries-for-exhibitions.html
http://www.sageartsstudio.com/drawingboard/?p=239&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

ps - the painting above is mine (nfs) - its my daughter with her gramma and its in honor of our recent trip to Cozumel which was amazing! Its hard to come back to reality - no buffets and friendly service here - and no chillin' in the Mexican Caribbean when it hits 104 like it is now - it was cooler there btw.

Photography 101

I'm in a slump. I have been going through literally thousands of photos for ideas to work from, but nothing is inspiring me. Its made me realize something that the photos do and do not do for me. When I take photos for art work reference, I am often sketching the scene, and I am smelling the hot coffee or exhaust, hearing the birds chirp or the ocean waves rolling and its the responses of all my senses that contribute to creation and form an idea in my head.
When capture something digitally, I can work from those images with very fresh memories of the location. But once those memories fade, the photos are useless to me. So I've realized I need to get out and about more - I've been too much in my house. I've gone sketching more this past week, and that has generated an idea for a new project - more on that later.

The other thing I wanted to mention about photography for painting reference is that its different from photography as art or as documenting family vacations, etc. I went to France and Italy over a decade ago and I don't have a single photo I can use as reference. I took them all as a tourist not as an artist interpreting for painting. I look for unusual cropping, light and shadow, layers, energy and movement for painting reference. I see the painting in my head and record it digitally. I literally shoot from the hip sometimes because even if the shot isn't good, it will bring to mind that image that made me click the shutter and then I can paint what is in my head.

I suggest to beginners that they don't try to paint from magazine photos or pretty calendar pictures. Those images are already art and the photographer looks for something that won't translate into paintings.

Another issue is the alterations the camera lens makes to the images our eyes see. Charles Sovek is a favorite of mine and he has some interesting lessons on his site - one about painting from photos here. Amazon has several pages of books about painting from photos and I have this one very good one, How Photography Can Make You A Better Painter by Michael Weymouth that discusses the technical aspects of HOW TO photograph specifically for painting reference. Scott Burdick also did a video lesson on using Photoshop to enhance pictures for painting. All very good resource materials.

Studio Notes

I've completed updating the gallery pages on here now so you can see my available paintings at each gallery and contact them from there if you like. Not only will this hopefully help other people find my work and see what is out there but it will help me keep track! It was kind of fun to go through my lists and visit the work again. I think I'm always working on the next painting and forget about previous work. Good memories there.

Next I'm considering a FAQ page. But since the questions I get generally are about specific paintings or about live event work, I'm not sure what I will put there.

Speaking of the live event painting - I am not taking on any more events. I am scheduled to do two this year and one early next year which will complete a family set. Now if only I can delete all search results that bring my name up I could save myself some of those FAQs. :-)

Studio Notes

I found this interesting article - notes from a talk with a conservator. I have no idea how old it is, nor confirmed all the info - so there's my disclaimer. But this part was of particular interest and I wanted to share:

VARNISH

As mentioned earlier, damar varnish can be difficult to remove from a painting without damage when aged for a long period. This becomes especially true when large amounts of damar have been used in the painting itself.

For safety sake, if one wishes to use damar in one's medium, then a synthetic varnish is advisable. Catherine highly recommended Gamblin's "Gamar" varnish. Other synthetics may still crosslink with the paint film underneath. But Gamar is a hydrocarbon based varnish that does not crosslink and removes easily with mineral spirits (which do not dissolve damar). Also, it does not yellow or crack.

Another benefit is that Gamar is flexible enough to be applied as soon as the painting is dry to the touch, instead of waiting 6 to 12 months. This means that artists can apply a full final varnish before rushing paintings out the door to galleries. Catherine says that no varnish seals out air from a painting, and that immediate varnishing will not hinder oxidation of the paint layers beneath.

Gamar comes as crystal resin and solvent that must be mixed and dissolved by the artist by shaking hourly for 8 hours. This is due to it's limited shelf life. One container of Gamar will cover 80 square feet of surface area, so an artist may want to save up a group of works to varnish at once, or else mix smaller portions for use, since it should be used up within a month of mixing.

The gloss of Gamar is meant to be comparable to damar, but some say that it is shinier. To reduce gloss, add solvent (mineral spirits) or wax medium.

No resin protects against oxidation or atmospheric moisture. Its sole purposes are to protect against dirt and atmospheric pollution, and to even out the sheen of a painting, adding depth to color.

* I don't find a Gamar from Gamsol - they have GamVAR - so I think this is a typo on the author's part. Or they've renamed their product.

Q&A Time

I got a lot of questions about recent posts, so I thought I'd answer them here.

How long did you need to wait before you could varnish? Can you share ... what kind of varnish would you recommend?

I do not wait the recommended 6 mos. before varnishing. My paintings barely have time to dry before they are framed and sent to galleries. BUT, I paint kind of thinly, use zinc/titanium white, don't add medium and I live in Texas where there is almost no humidity in the air - indoor or out. Often my paintings are dry to the touch overnight (as is my palette... which is annoying.) I wait a week or so at least though and then test. If the color doesn't come off on the sponge, I varnish. I read something somewhere once that said it was ok. So I'm going with it. I apply it with a makeup sponge too. It goes on beautifully!
I use Synvar varnish. Its an acrylic resin and won't yellow with age. "It may be removed with mild solvents for subsequent cleaning and conservation of paintings." I wanna be sure that the conservators can clean my works later at the museum. ;-)

Do the people realize you are sketching them?

Sometimes. But most people are absorbed in their work, computers, books or conversation. A few might catch my eye and I might look elsewhere or just smile. Same thing when photographing. I take a lot of shots from the hip. And sometimes I act like a tourist and like I am aiming at some interesting object or feature, but really, the people are the element I am most interested in capturing. If well and truly busted, I just tell them that I am an artist and getting some reference material to work from. I've never had a negative encounter but I've seen one mom get mad at an artist friend for taking shots of her youngsters. So be careful about the privacy people might expect to have even in public places. I take very general shots of the whole place, not zoom in on one person.

Just curious is this from a photo ref and how were you able to take a photo of the kitchen?

This was in reference to the chef painting. Yes, it was from a photo. And this was one of those ideal times when I WAS a tourist - I figure in NYC they are used to gawkers wanting to document every aspect of their visit. The kitchen was open and I had a good view so walked over there and chatted with the chefs and took some pics. I LOVED their tall togues! Theory is that the taller the hat, the higher the rank of chef. These must be culinary geniuses! Or maybe its like the Texas saying - "the higher the hair, the closer to God."

Varnish

I sat down to varnish today finally. I've had several paintings that need it, but its been so cold I couldn't do it outside. The house stinks now and I felt lightheaded all afternoon - jk! - but the work is ready to go to galleries now.

As I was varnishing this restaurant scene, I was struck by the difference it made in the colors. So I thought I'd share. The left side is varnished, the right is not. Its quite dull in comparison. When you thin your paint with OMS or some other solvent, you break down the oil - so the paint will dry duller. Since I paint a lot of fat over lean, my paintings can really vary from gloss to flat, so I like to varnish everything to bring the colors to life, create an even surface, and of course, protect the painting from dirt, dust, oils, smoke and other environmental hazards.