Palette Knife Portrait Painting Tips

Palette Knife Portrait of the lovely artist/muse/musician, Mather Louth
16"x12'
oil
Johanna Spinks
NFS

I love painting with a palette knife. This was my demo yesterday at The California Art Institute. Join me there Wednesday mornings. If you can't, here are my top tips for palette knife painting.

1. It gets really messy. Plenty of paper towels, gloves and an apron.

2. A good selection of knives for different effects. A rounded tip is better for doing a head than a sharp one.

3. Pre-mix a bunch of neutrals ahead of time so you can work faster. Think mid-value pools of color.

4. Let it stand for 24 hours so the paint gets a bit tacky and you can push and pull it a bit more.

5. Put ALL your brushes in a padlocked cupboard. That way you won't be tempted to pick them up. Palette knife portraits are much slower going than brush. You don't have as much control which is the point but it can get a little frustrating when that eye is taking forever. The moment you pick up the brush, it ruins things. I use the brush only for my drawing block-in so I can get a feel for where I am going. Then I put it away.

6. Use the knife as if you were a sculptor going up and down the forms.

7. Relax and let the happy accidents happen

8. Paint from a GREAT model http://www.matherlouth.com

9. Study the work of Nicholai Fechin

10. Post so I know you were interested and will post more.

closeup

Building up the forms

The demo starts after a block-in with brush. This is the only part where I use a brush

TGIF Painting Tip

Well, here it is...my TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) freebie painting tip, posted late in the day due to wildfire craziness in this part of the world

Let me know what you think and if you would like more.

Have a great-ful weekend.
Johanna

Demo, 24x30
Available for purchase
email johanna@johannaspinks.com

Five things to ensure a great portrait demo.

My class demo yesterday at The California Art Institute.
12x16, oil
Join me Wednesday mornings
Purchase this sketch at my online store.
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Demo block-in using transparent wash for gold light

Building up...

closeup

I am often asked to do portrait demos for various art groups and I find this a real privilege. So what are the five things I have learned from doing them - as in the big five to getting things right in front of a crowd, painting usually in a very short amount of time? By the way, this was the earliest demo I have ever done, arriving at 7.30 am for an early morning start!

*Be as awake as you can. I like to give myself a couple of hours to wake up  if I can before I paint in public, but not too much coffee. Hand shakes not good - only on arrival or departure. Get a good night's rest. Set the alarm early. 

*Good light set up. Travel with a light, extension cord, spare bulb. Extra props. Hats, scarves, to spice up the pose. 

*Hand-outs, free stuff. Mailing list sign-up. People love swag. I know I do. It also gives people a chance to see your more finished work. BE GENEROUS with free stuff and YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

* Sketch the day before to sharpen your drawing. However, not the night before. Give the brain some time to rest.

* Keep things simple. Keep the pose simple, keep the value shapes simple, keep your palette simple. Don't try to impress painting the sitter upside-down. Being 'clever' never works.  Just paint what you know...that is the best teacher of all. 

A privilege to be invited to do a portrait demo for gifted high school students this week. I love help shape young art minds.

Figure painting in Paris.

Dreams of Paris
8x10
oil on archival board
$500
Free shipping

Writing letter to get me to Paris

image http://www.freehdwall.com/2011/11/eiffel-tower-statue-and-inscription.html


If I am going to spend a year in Paris, I am going to need a good satin robe. For the models, not me, silly.

Plans are going well. Resumes/applications being hand-written for opportunities.  Yeah, right.

This  figure sketch was painted this week in my teaching class at The California Art Institute. Join me every Wednesday. Well, until I get to Paris.

How to make a career in painting...

I love what I do...to be on this planet living my dream, painting my world of faces...wow.

This was my life painting demo today at The California Art Institute, USA, 30 x 24!!  About two solid hours of demo painting. Yes, that big.

Go big or go home. BE fearless.

SOAR!!!

I will remind myself tomorrow...

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/

How To Paint Eye Wear...What was I thinking?

I seem to be painting a lot of eye wear recently. So, how to paint eye glasses? Leave them to the very end of session and get in and out faster than a bank robbery leaving just a few notes of paint.

Then it's money in the bank!

My teaching class in now back in session, Wednesday mornings, at The California Art Institute, Westlake Village, Ca. Join me for each First Friday of the month 'in studio' painting day.

Email me for details johanna@johannaspinks.com

Do or Dare?...Portrait Demo Tonight.

Sink or swim? Join me tonight at the San Fernando Valley Art Club where I will be doing a public portrait demo. One hour and twenty minutes to paint a sitter chosen from the crowd. Should be fun!!!

http://www.sfvartclub.org/

This sketch is a demo I did in my recent class at The California Art Institute. NEW SEMESTER NOW ENROLLING. Email me for details.

Enjoying painting on a somewhat distressed board I prep. myself. The paint gets sucked in like ink on blotting paper. It takes several rounds to make it work.

Should I leave those boards home tonight? Play it safe? Do or dare?

FUCHSIA WOOSHA...365 DAYS OF DRAWING

I don't know what inspired me to do a 22 x 28 demo on the last day of the semester today at CAI but I did it anyway of a lass with fuchsia hair. I have found most students find fuchsia hard to paint from flowers, to fabric and hair. All that brilliance.

It was going great until a slight disturbance in my teaching class sent me off-kilter and out of the enjoyment zone of my demo. That can happen so easily I find. So I stopped painting.

Ah well, onto the next. This will just be part of that mile of canvas I need to paint to learn. Good news is the drawing challenge is about to hit its' 10th MONTH!!! YES!!! Not a day missed.

Yesterday's drawing I can't post for privacy reasons around a commission. You will just have to trust me, fuchsia or not.

FEEL THE FEAR...365 Days of Drawing

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

One thing I have learned as a teacher is that when you take harder props in for the class and set up harder poses for students to paint, it is going to be a more demanding and difficult class to teach. Hard to even think of doing a demo too when quite a lot of 'hands-on' teaching is going to be required.

But a leap of faith in all directions has to be taken.

Teaching demo from my class yesterday at The California Art Institute. And my drawing for the day.

Life Happens...365 Days of Drawing

This, for me, is when a character model 'life sketch' works, unlike my demo from my teaching class at The California Art Institute last week, an aforementioned dud. I really have no idea why some days it rolls off the brush better than others but for me that is the case no matter how disciplined I am around drawing challenges etc. Life happens...and there is no controlling art which is probably its' appeal.

This will be my drawing for the the daily challenge today. My only regret is I didn't have longer to paint her within the confines of my teaching class etc. This was probably one and a half hours, total.

I have learned not to touch the sketch when the model is no longer on the stand. Nine times out of ten, I will ruin whatever good might have been there. The freshness, etc. Even a dud is worth the time spent painting from the live model.

this one is a steal!

TIME GOES BY

18 x 24, oil

PAYPAL

18 x 24, oil

Trash the Headband...365 Days of Drawing

Yes! It is the same headband as the Pacific Art Guild demo the day before.

I had a short turnaround to get to my teaching class the next morning at The California Art Institute in Westlake Village. Sometimes shortcuts happen. Tired of that headband now though.

Thought it might be interesting to post three stages of the my class demo which was probably a total painting time of one hour and fifteen minutes. Give or take.

I wasn't that happy with it. It lacked subtlety. Sometimes that is the way it goes particularly if you were working late the night before. But it counts for my drawing for the day. And as you know by now, I post for the 2010 Drawing Challenge, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Let me know what you think?

Give Me A Hand...365 Days of Drawing.

This hand is growing on me. The block-in counted for my drawing challenge for yesterday.

Hands are good to study. This was painted from the model in my teaching class yesterday. It is not perfect, the hands moved a bit as models do and the angle was awkward but worth the short exercise.

The class hand-out was of course about hands, how to block them in, and the model 'set-up' designed to showcase hands, one nestling a champagne glass, the other holding pink satin. Just like I usually do in my day to day life.

I love painting hands in portraits. They are not always the easiest. I find an artist's treatment of hands in a painting separate the men from the boys. Hands-down, Sargent is one of the best to study for hands and I have to hand it to my mentor, Everett Raymond Kinstler. N.A., because his painted hands are pretty dandy too. I also like Philip De Laszlo's hands.

George Bridgeman's book "100 Hands" is still my favorite, and one I pull out regularly.

I took 3 books about hands in for my class but few students really looked at them or the my hand demo. I wonder why? I know my hand demo wasn't the best but people seem to want to hand-off the painting of hands in their paintings. Like Gainsborough's painting assistant specializing in just hands will walk into the room

So you can give me a hand for trying this. I was really glad I did it and plan to do more.

My french photo of the day: some genuine french hands eating a baguette. Or should I say holding?

The Pleasure and The Pain..365 Days of Drawing

The pleasure and the pain. Sometimes they are just in too close proximity to fathom.

This is the case with the next drawing in my challenge done last night and my head study demo done today in my teaching class at The California Art Institute.

I liked last night's drawing. It came as fast and easy as pouring chocolate on a sundae. I love cloche hats at the best of times although not on Angelina Jolie in that recent movie which prompted every mall store to carry them for a while. Yawn.

Cut to this morning's demo. It was the same pose almost, the same hat almost. It wasn't however the same artist at the easel.

The drawing was off all the way through if I am honest. I was trying hard for some mystery but it wasn't coming through. It is a challenge to teach in many ways, especially to do a head demo and still be a very VERBAL teacher making sure you get to each students' easel every 15 minutes or so to comment or work on their paintings. Your brain is switching from right to left as fast as tennis ball at Wimbledon.

You don't want a dudd demo. Some teachers ONLY do a demo for the whole class and make everyone watch them. I think this might be a good idea.

So much for practising that drawing every night huh?? Didn't do me much good today.

This is a long hard journey sometimes. For me the battles are not easily won. And behind every small gain, there feels like an army of art mis-steps. Maybe the really talented like Rembrandt just soared without walking in molasses.

All drawings for sale.

Take The Time...

I haven't posted in a while, not because I didn't want to, I just have so darn busy meeting the demands of deadlines necessary in my painting work life. My life whizzing by in a crazy way. Which leads me to my painful point.

Suddenly, in the middle of all this art/professional mayhem, a lot of it amazing, governing your time and then some, heck, your priority, shows, great commissions,  new teaching posts, etc...your breath is taken away by life making you catch your breath. And making you stand drop dead still. And think. And cry. And deeply regret.

In the space of a month, two people, both husbands of  good friends who were so much part of our earlier lives with young/teenage families, Halloween, birthday, holiday parties, trips away, carpool etc..., quite frankly all the things we did at the that time to raise our kids the best way we knew how, suddenly died in very difficult tragic circumstances.  I found myself painting very sad and shaken. 

Most of all sad that I had let painting overtake that phone call I should have made so many times. Sad that suddenly good old friend times had given way to just working, achieving. Painting in the obsessive compulsive way that I do it. I regret this. 

I feel disappointed in myself that I let friends go...and then they are gone forever. You can never pick up the phone again. You are left at their memorials. Feeling dreadful. As an artist, we work, work, work. In a solitary way.  I have at times felt myself becoming reclusive and thinking, accepting, this was OK., too tired at the end of the day to reach out to my immediate family yet alone anyone else. My art life more important than keeping ties. 

Sadly not OK.

So, in the midst of this, I found myself taking the time to finally paint something I had always wanted to paint but somehow never found the time to do it. My eldest daughter, now 22, and a delight in every way.

This photo of her had stared at me EVERY morning when I woke up. I had thought for years, I needed to paint that. Yes, it is cutesy. But that I should really do it. Not for gain. Just because...

Well, I woke up in the middle of all this yuk stuff, in the middle of intense deadlines, and just did it in five hours. Because I kinda had to.

I like it. My agency hates it. 

But that's fine. If I keel over tomorrow which is highly possible, at least I did something that I knew needed to be painted. It will be in our family forever as a moment in time that mom bothered to paint finally.

Most of all my daughter likes it....and that is the best. 

I will be taking the time from now on to make that phone call. 

Yes, You Can Draw With a Brush!

An artist has to be fair to his models, especially if you're their mom.  Equal canvas time (blogtime?)to each so to speak. So here is my other favorite model, my  younger daughter Rosie although she is an old soul and far wiser than me.   You will see her in quite a few of my paintings. 

This was drawn from life as a demo in my portrait teaching class at The California Art Institute http://www.calartinst.com/ on Tuesdays, using black oil paint and guouche, drawn with a bristle brush on Canson paper, a technique I first saw on the streets of Barcelona. Those portrait street artists are amazing and charge so little. Humbling.

On my second trip to Spain years later I determined to spend as much time as it took combing the sidewalks to find an artist who spoke english and would be willing to share the technique. Fuelled by frequent Sangria pit-stops I found my gal. So...YES!

You can draw with a brush!

Hush to all you nay-saying-charcoal pencil purists. Those street guys know their stuff.