The ABC's of Painting Eyes.

Close-ups By Johanna Spinks. Eyes in progress.


Going cross-eyed? I painted four sets of eyes on my studio easels this week, three of them from life.  Come back to see them finished. 




My ABC's of Painting Eyes
A: AVOID hard outlines: hard whites of the eyes, hard highlights within the eye and hard socket edge shapes. There is never pure white paint within the eye and there are lots of soft halftones around the exterior eye socket.

Think of putting a mist between your 'painted' eyes and the viewer. Lavender helps to push it all back. 

B: BE rigorous in your own art training. Draw eyes often. Paint studies. Study these old Superstars, my own personal heroes of portraiture:

Philip de Laszlo: https://www.delaszloarchivetrust.com

Anders Zorn:  http://www.anderszorn.org

 John Singer Sargent http://www.johnsingersargent.org

Joaquin  Sorolla  http://www.sorollapaintings.com

Also look to modern day Masters:

Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A. http://www.everettraymondkinstler.com

Jeremy Lipking  http://www.lipking.com

Morgan Weistling  http://www.morganweistling.com

C: COURT your sitter. Paint from life as often as you can. All the greats did - and do.

Chat to your sitter while you are painting them. Their eyes will light up revealing a spark of their personality, their bodies will go into a natural pose. If you have your ABC's down, you will catch it.

Good luck. I will be doing my ABC's too. Always.

A demo of an eye I did in my teaching class this week for students showing the light source moving through  socket.

The Best En Plein Aire Box?

"The Way Forward. Malibu"
Johanna Spinks
Oil on Linens 4"x10"
$395
Purchase at my online store :click

Painting at Peter Strauss Ranch yesterday with my "secret' box. It magically paints everything for me.

Recently I have been out and about painting a lot of sketches en plein air taking a much needed break from the rigors of portrait deadlines in the studio. More deadlines starting next week so I have made use of the time. It has felt marvelous. It has also felt like the ONLY thing I wanted to do. Nature equals nurture.

I have been around a lot of artists during these recent 'landscapades', and some GREAT ones, many from far afield, including at Jeremy Lipking's February workshop www.lipking.com in an assisting role capacity to him. Now there's a guy who can paint landscapes!

There is a ton of  talk about painting boxes. Which is best?  Paint boxes seem more fascinating than how Marilyn Monroe really died or did O.J. do it? Along with a few other of life's great unanswered questions. 

Soltek versus the current hottie Alla Prima? Guerilla Pochade versus Mabef?  And all the other whizz boxes I don't even know the names of and can't spell. Sorry to say, I don't know the best one.  All I do know is these boxes are more expensive than a Mercedes monthly car payment, not that I have one of those. 

I also know expensive boxes won't make you a good landscape painter and they lend somewhat toward personal taste, like shoes.

I also know understanding values, composition, drawing, edges, and color temperature will make you paint well from an old shoe box.  Along with soul. A few creature comforts packed in that box, will also help you stay on location well.  Clothing in layers, hand wipes, trash bags for rags, sunscreen, bug spray, hat, water, cell phone, snacks, and I now keep my car keys on a tie around my neck. Lost keys on location? Big problem. I know to my expense.

So what do I use? I have spent my inheritance on every single thing Guerilla Painters pochade company ever made owning two of its boxes and every super sexy slinky dinky accessory. I was among this company's earliest of fans and sent many people to its' way. I have enjoyed these boxes. I have travelled internationally with them many times but my paintings often looked far from sexy or the way I wanted them to. Nothing to do with Guerilla. 

Now I use a box and set up that works for ME. It is a very personal thing. Only learned perhaps by doing it. These days I  like a very small lightweight compact set up that can be carried/rolled in one trip. NO going back to the car. I don't like to sweat and puff. Best of all, I have no care to defend it to those  art box purists.

My box was made for me by a retired police officer, the lovely Bob W.,  who I first found out about from the stellar artist Morgan Weistling during a workshop I did with Morgan in 2003. www.morganweistling.com. Bob was the model. 

Bob is a real craftsman as well as a dedicated artist. He makes art boxes for artists whose work he wants to collect. He and his lovely wife now have  an outstanding HUGE art collection by the way,  worthy of a museum, including, I am honored to say, two of mine.

Bob and I reconnected two years ago when I was lucky enough to assist Morgan Weistling at Weekend With The Masters. I told Bob how much I had wanted one of his boxes for a decade. Soon enough, I was invited to his home having a lovely time with him and his wife.

I can't tell you how much I treasure my box. I use it ALL the time. And I think about Bob, about to turn 80 years-old, each time. I know I will paint on it for the rest of my life. It gives me good vibes and confidence somehow whilst fitting my compact needs.

So that is what I think about art en plein aire boxes. Find what works for you. You will probably spend a bit of money so perhaps try an old shoe box first.

Bob, if you are reading this, I covet  that little attachment. You know the one I mean. Just saying...

Paint a Friend...Lose a Friend? AKA How to paint halftones.

This is hot off my easel. A portrait I did this week of an old friend of mine who hopefully will remain a friend when he sees it. The old Victorian master John Singer Sargent said you lose a friend when you paint a friend.

I was really thinking not only about the sitter here and why haven't I painted him way sooner because of such a great face????,  but also about halftones throughout this piece.

I painted it in about three hours using just three colors on a hot ground trying to mix the 'exact color value' I saw as I went along concentrating on three values for the light and two for the shadow.  Mr. Morgan Weistling here talks a lot about this value range in his excellent painting DVDs as does Mr. Everett Raymond Kinstler, my mentor, here about exact color value in his crazy good teachings. I admire both master artists very much and they have taught me
priceless gems.

Now I truly believe it to be the only way to paint. Fast results. Simplify what you see. Make the choice to render it this way. Edit what you see. Five values. Students in my class seem to have the hardest time understanding how to paint halftones. Halftones turn the form in the light away from the light and are never found in the shadow. But the halftone mix is subtle.  More subtle than you might think.  Too dark and your sitter's cheeks will have dents. Too dark and your apple will look bruised. But I guess the art eye has to first be able to SEE a halftone before it can understand how to paint it simply.

Anyho...I liked what I got. I post the progress. Hope I didn't lose a friend. I will keep you posted.


Study with me every Wednesday morning at The California Art Institute, Westlake Village CA.

And also this spring/summer semester at The Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, Van Nuys, Ca.  Class starting Friday April 20th. Voted Top Ten teaching school in America.

Private instruction ---email me.http://morganweistling.com/

THE FUNDAMENTALS!

The Studio Companion IS Getting His Drawing Time In

Thanks to The Ventura County Reporter for this great piece on the school where I teach The California Art Institute - and for putting me in the same sentence as Morgan Weistling!...That is always a good thing.

clickhere

Cease and Assist The Greats..?

My sketch yesterday from life, two hours

Sketch from a year ago, done from photos I took

Sketchbook sketch from life

Block-in for painted sketch

Chelsea has the type of face I love to paint. Not to mention being a super person. I hadn't seen her for a year since my stint at "Weekend With The Masters" assisting the inimitable master painter Morgan Weistling. http://www.morganweistling.com/

It was fun to re-visit with her when she arrived at the studio of another inimitable master, Jeremy Lipking, http://www.lipking.com/, to model for his packed three-day workshops. Lucky for me, I was also assisting Lipking on this day. I find Lipking to be in a painting world class all of his own. That is why I choose to assist him.

Someone close to me asked me the other day:"Why are you assisting another artist? Aren't you too far along with your own art career to be 'seen' doing that?"

Well, quite frankly, no. Being around brilliance often makes one raise one's own art game. There is no fudging this level of mastery however you try to sugar-coat it. Also, the greats I have been lucky enough to be around, work very hard I have noticed, on top of their natural born gifts. They are also incredibly generous in spirit too to an artist like myself wanting to get to the next level.

So between my assisting duties (and of course watching Lipking's magnificent ethereal morning demo) I squeezed in a two hour sketch of my own yesterday afternoon. Top image. I also post one I did of Chelsea, a year ago, from photos I took, after the Masters weekend. Also, a drawing I did of Chelsea from life quietly in my sketchbook while assisting Weistling.

It is interesting for me to see the difference. A year is a long time in an artist's life. The darks in my old sketch are now too heavy for my liking.

For details on Lipking workshop schedule and his regular Tuesday night class go here: http://www.lipking.com/

For details on Morgan Weistling 'everything' go here: www.morganweistling.com/

For details on Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A., (I don't paint anything without thinking of this great man every day) go here: http://www.everettraymondkinstler.com/

GIVE ME HE-ART...

Someone I don't know asked me from afar why do I always paint or draw beauty in my art? My first reaction was "I don't". I have done my share of gnarled old character and enjoy that. My second thought was, and 'so what if I do?'

Artists do tend to like a theme. Case in point. Yesterday I went to see The Masters of The American West Show at The Autry Museum in L.A. This year's show is a a stunner. THIS IS THE LEVEL OF PAINTING I ASPIRE TO. Forget the subject matter. Morgan Weistling's work was once again my favorite in the show, winning the covetted Patron's Award, and not for the first time! but I am a bit biased when it comes to this man's great work. See it here www.morganweistling.com

I raced home and got out my drawing board. Back to the drawing always. Forgive me but I did a bit of beauty. The MASTERS all had it and I had seen plenty of beauty today in the show, be it in the face of a weathered cowboy, in the drifts of melting snow, the feathers of a white swan, the fur of a wolf, or in the lace of a pretty child's apron.

Keep going, I said to myself, and may the Art Gods please give me strength to paint my HE-ART, always as beautifully as I can.

STRENGTH

DAILY PAINTER ORIGINALS

16 x 22"

Pastel and gouche on paper.

$95.00

Shipping $6.00

You Got the Cutest Little Babyface...365 Days of Drawing

This child has the face of an angel...I so enjoyed drawing her portrait last night and finishing it up today.

I post three stages of the drawing, the start (after about 30 minutes of drawing), the middle (an hour and a half) and the end (2o minutes today softening edges/slight drawing adjustments with a fresh eye).

I remember when I first started doing kid commissions having a hard time getting that BABYFACE. It is all in the drawing proportions of course, painting a lot of kids over the subsequent years, and learning from those Loomis books, not to mention Morgan Weistling. No-one paints a kid better than him.

www.morganweistling.com

Practice Makes Perfect, Kinda!...365 Days of Drawing

My first drawing for the tenth month of this unbroken daily challenge was from a photo I had taken assisting Morgan Weistling (www.morganweistling.com) at his dynamo Weekend With The Masters workshops. I had also done a drawing from life of this model Chelsea from EXACTLY the same angle as the photo between my assisting duties. I struggled somewhat with that drawing, posted previously. This one I was much happier with. Practice makes perfect, kinda. I was glad I revisited.

SERENE

8x10, oil

Paypal

$300

Honor...365 Days of Drawing

It has been my absolute honor this weekend to be Morgan Weistling's assistant at Weekend with the Masters, in Laguna, CA. www. morgan weistling.com

No time to paint for myself... but did make sure I drew to meet my yearly challenge. I post them here. Two were done as my head hit the sheets VERY tired. The third done in his workshop, quickly from life, between my assisting duties.

Another day to go but Morgan Weistling ROCKS!

More to follow on this subject...

EARFUL...365 Days of Drawing

The last thing I felt like doing yesterday was drawing for a daily challenge after a busy weekend teaching and drawing a ton.

Funny thing tho', I knew exactly what I was going to draw from the moment I woke up even tho' I got to my drawing VERY late at night. EARS.

One will always be judged by the weakest link in one's painting it seems to me and in portraiture it is often the ear, (followed closely by hands) that gets not just overlooked but darn right ignored. As if it doesn't matter. But that ear sure is close to that face one is so carefully painting. Not that hard to learn the anatomy of an ear. Why don't people do it? The ear 'handout' in class often finds its way to the 'lost and not found' department of learning.

Once the drawing shapes are down, an ear can be painted quite simply with no need for a medical text book rendering. Three values for the light and only two in the dark. Say more with less. Morgan Weistling, www.morganweistling.com, taught me this. His simplification of ears are a great study. Actually anything by this uber-talented young master is a great study. Period.

I have been teaching for a while now on a very regular basis and this last weekend teaching my workshop with some great work going on in the room, but perhaps not on the ears, reminded me of this eerie ear neglect. So I decided to give myself an earful of my own teaching medicine and just remind myself of that ear.

Practice what you preach.

WISH I COULD PAINT LIKE THAT!

Master artist Morgan Weistling Hosts The Portrait Society of America's CA  Teaching Academy in Los Angeles, November 2008, Glendale.

Images copyrighted.

Morgan Weistling has long been on my "I wish I could paint like that" list. I remember the first time I saw one of his paintings of a blond child dressed in yellow holding roses. My mouth dropped to the floor and remained bruised for quite a while. I consider him one of the masters in my painting orchestra. I am the conductor but when my art baton is shaky (quite often) I pull out these greats to help me solve problems, create harmony in my work,  and I learn from them. 

I was lucky enough to do a rare workshop with Morgan a few years  ago. I left it, yes bruised again, because I painted terribly but he was, and is, one of those rare painters who can teach well. He is gracious and sharing giving his students everything he's got. Brutally honest sometimes which is for the good! He has been very kind to me over the last few years taking time to do a critique of my work once every so often when I am sure he was so super busy carrying home all his awards and shipping paintings to museums' permanent collections.

When The Portrait Society of America first approached me, in my role as a Co-State Ambassador for CA,  about the idea of Los Angeles hosting one of its national teaching Academies for the first time, and who I thought might teach it, well, Morgan was the first name that came out of my mouth. I was 100 per cent sure this was our guy! I was blown away when he agreed to do right away.  I thought I might have to do some severe arm twisting. But that is gracious Morgan for you and we were lucky to have him. And no-one got, yes, you guessed it, bruised in the process. 

Skip forward a few months, and after a lot of preparation, hard work and volunteer hours there he was doing a demo at the Brand Library in Glendale for 100 eager artists a weekend ago followed by a workshop for 32 the next day.

True to form, Morgan did an effortless demo talking, and entertaining the crowd the whole way through taking questions as he went.  Patient with a few wacky questions at that. Just look at those piercing blue eyes! No, not on Morgan, on the model. Although Morgan does have nice eyes too. However those eyes in the painting are copyrighted just so you know, as are all images here.  Most everything about Morgan is copyrighted as so many have tried to lift his award-winning work. The price that a super successful artists pay. Can't wait to be ripped off myself.

The following day he worked on each artists' canvas making his teaching statement more clear. Values: light family and shadow family, keep them apart. Five values: three for the light and two for the shadow. (Students in my class at LAFIG will be used to this!)

Four types of edges, hard, soft, firm and lost. Color and temperature. Get the value correct -color will follow. How true. Shapes...there are good and bad ones. Think "line meets curve", not wiggly Cheesit looking things. Morgan talks a lot about the importance of good drawing.

I have never forgotten in the workshop I did with him, he said the only difference between him and me was drawing. I think that a slight understatement but I got his point and those that know me, know I have worked hard at improving my drawing since. This will continue. I have also learned the value of impeccable draftsmanship from the one and only Mr. Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A. (www.everettraymondkinstler.com) See earlier posts for more on this marvelous man and one shortly to follow about HIS magical workshop in New York this weekend.

These days I drool over Charles Dana Gibson, Monty Flagg, Howard Chandler Christy, and Harrison Fisher. These are my drawing idols. There is a famous quote that Mr. Kinstler often shares about Charles Dana Gibson being able "to draw white paper". Few people draw like these guys today, in unforgiving pen and ink too! It is a lost art.  Certainly a lost level of drawing.

Morgan talked about the value of Anders Zorn etchings. They fall into the above category. Copy them...as Morgan advises. I now do. You won't regret it.

I don't think people get better at painting, they get better at seeing, observing, and quite simply drawing it with more fluidity and skill.  Students come to class complaining about their progress. I ask them, are you practicing your drawing outside of class, your forms, the structure of the features? I KNOW the answer already. I have often shared what Morgan said to me about my drawing.

For those of  you that couldn't make the Academy, go as fast as you can to Morgan's website and purchase one of his DVD's. I had someone this week tell me it was the best she has ever seen after purchasing it at the workshop. This artist is a professional herself of quite some standing. A good testimonial I would say. I also have both Morgan's DVD's and agree they are fantastic.

Morgan Weistling's website is http://morganweistling.com/

All thanks to Morgan!