Thankful

Turkey,
5x7
Pastel on paper
Johanna Spinks

Happy Thanksgiving All. Even if you don't live in the U.S., it is good to stop for a moment and think what we are thankful for...

Plus, I get to eat turkey and pumpkin pie today on top of all the over things I am thankful for.

Not sure I want to draw a turkey ever again though.

What about you?

How To Paint A Still Life?

How to paint a still life? Well, don't ask me. But this was my demo yesterday at my First Friday Studio Atelier Day.  If you want real specifics of 'how', pick up the phone or post here.

Come paint with me this September (12th through 16th)  at my Malibu Wine Country Workshop. Watch this space for details.

"Summer Glow"
Oil on Linen Panel
9" x 12"

$500.00 incl. shipping
SOLD

How to paint a still life? Well, don't ask me. But this was my demo yesterday at my First Friday Studio Atelier Day.  A most enjoyable day including lunch.

Come paint with me this September (12th through 16th)  at my Malibu Wine Country Workshop. Watch this space for details.

Tweak, tweak, tweak...when is a painting done.

Tweak, tweak, tweak. When is a painting done?

After the quick sketches I did in France, I allowed myself to take my own sweet time on this one while starting two new portrait commissions. It wasn't the easiest. The shiny fabric was dazzling, different types of colored glass from super clear to sea foam frosty, patterned and plain, and the petals of the flowers frilly and translucent. At one point, I thought I might have to give up. But one thing I know about myself as a painter, is if I keep showing up I will get there in the end.

I worked hard to get the flowers finished before they died. To paint a wet petal and leave it. I just don't like working from dead flowers or photos. Once the flowers were in the bag, (bowl?) I relaxed a bit.

I chose the color harmony very specifically around red and green, all leaning toward the cool side of those colors. I geared my whole painting to that backdrop which I bought especially for it. The glass ALL from thrift shops. The flowers from the local market. My focal point was the white flower bending over the vase, the three front flowers in the light with that swatch of fabric on the left. Nothing goes higher in value in the whole painting. I tried to lose edges as wildly as I could in places, carefully in others. Yin and Yang. That is always the delicate balance. Can't all be soft or it is too mushy like pea soup needing some crackers. Can't be too hard edged. I find that just deadly in anything.

This still life is 18 x 24. Fresh off the easel, it will be hanging wet at today's Open House in my studio.

Overall a painting, still life or portrait, is done for me when I have said/painted all that I could with the skill set I have today, not in 10 years. I kinda know now when I reach that point. It can be frustrating to know that you can't paint it any better today - but you will in a decade. Keep chewing at the old bone, like my mentor says.

This holds true for me in a two hour sketch or a still-life/portrait that took many hours.

Come and see this today at the Open House. See if I tweaked it more overnight! Anyone got any toothpick's? I have some bone stuck in my teeth.

LICORICE ALLSORTS and M&M's

AS a teeny tiny tot growing up in England we had a candy called LICORICE ALLSORTS, see top picture, and then think M&M's for the tasty American translation.  High- key colored delectable edibles.

I devoured these  treats with gusto as only a kid can and I still hunt them down at ex-pat British foodie stories All that neon-glo color! It EXCITES ME.  Grrrrrr...

But, truth be told, these color candies all tasted exactly the same. Pink interchanged with orange or blue. Basically color overkill with no subtlety of flavor which brings me to my painting journey, especially when I paint from life.

I was thinking about color overkill today. Why exactly did I liked the study I did in my teaching class at LAAFA this morning and why I don't like an awful lot of studies from thenot so recent past?

IN my adult art life one of the biggest problems I have faced (and there have been MANY), is having this urge to paint high key "raw" color.  Give me a hot sugar pink or ice blue and I wanna slap it down. Pure unadulterated art bliss. Just like those childhood candies. 

I see these beautiful tonal painters, Jeremy Lipking, la-di-da, but when that fuchsia pink is in front of me, well, padlock me down. I just don't want to grey it down at all.  Embarrassing in a Lipking workshop...I was there! Paint fuchsia on my art tombstone...may she R.I.P....Rest in Pink, the hotter the better. Quote me on that.

Look to Ovanes Berberian for an artist who I think does high-key color just right! (www.totalartsgallery.com). Not easy.

So I was somewhat pleased today when the model turned up in a Licorice Allsorts colored head wrap. Most of  the delightful Marina,  from my angle, was in light shadow. But in that light shadow, I still saw that sugar plum pink, candy apple green, and Dunkin' Donut blue. Don't you just marvel at blue icing? 

I held back deliberately. Kept it muted. I was so proud of myself.

 I prepare for my class, a combined still life and portrait from the model event.  I take in props, whatever it takes to make the class inspired to paint. This can take quite some prep. time which I don't think students always realize. 

At 7 a.m. today I was  mixing a rainbow of colors on my palette around the color wheel, mixed from only three primaries, (see palette picture), cad. yellow, magenta, cyan blue. Yes, the old printers' color wheel. Still-life was daffodils today. Now that it sheer 'yellow' magnificence and one has to be prepared.

I have a feeling of wonder when I see what just three high key colors can mix. It amazes me EVERY time. All these people who want the perfect answer to color...the perfect tube of paint to buy from the art store to get you straight in to art history?...

Try just experimenting mixing from any three versions of the primaries (red, yellow and blue) and see what can happen. See what you can learn about color from doing it repeatedly over a LONG period of time. See what you can learn about color from changing those three primaries, say, going toward yellow ochre, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue? Or vermillion, yellow ochre and black (Zorn palette).

Cut back to the candy chase...today I dipped into that Licorice Allsorts-esque  color wheel on my palette sparingly during my one hour of painting around teaching. It was there when I needed it which I surely did. But I kept it subdued.

Restraint, and an understanding of raw color,  used in just small tiny tot bites....ahhh...Now hand over the Licorice Allsorts. Prompto.

I'll get very gray otherwise.

 

Don't Count Your Chickens...

I know this is a portrait blog, and that is what I spend most of my time thinking about, portraiture - not this blog, but I was a little taken aback yesterday when I heard a still life of mine has been juried into The California Art Club Gold Medal Show for May 2009. The portrait I had entered which I thought the BEST piece I had done all year did not. And I just put it in a really expensive custom frame. Never count your chickens before they are hatched.

I should add that in reality I have long given up 'expecting' to get into any show. That way it is a bonus when it happens.

I enjoy painting still life. I am not saying they are easy but I find them a really nice break from the rigors of portrait commissions. And I look on them as a little treat to myself between said work. Sometimes a still life set up will stare at me for weeks waiting for me to get to it. And I will kind of talk to it, telling it to be patient. I will get there. Yes, I am certifiable it seems.

I also admire artists who paint still life so well. David Leffel comes to mind. About as good as still life gets in terms of a high level of Rembrandt understanding. Sad that so many Leffel wannabes are out there though.  I get annoyed when I see that. That applies to Richard Schmid wannbes too. I like all sorts of still life painting styles to from Wayne Thiebaud  and Duane Keiser (EBAY Painting a Day Maestro) to Laura Robb, magical soft, soft edges (www.laurarobb.com). One focal point.

In my teaching class at LAAFA, I suggest that an artist must paint it all. There is so much to learn from painting a still life. And if you can paint an apple really well around value, color, and drawing, you can start to approach the head with some understanding of the task ahead. My teacher, the marvelous Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A., (www.everettraymondkinstler.com) always says a portrait painter should paint landscapes and vice versa to really learn.

I don't feel I am very good at landscapes at all. I just don't really have a desire to paint them. But I make myself do it especially on trips. Easy then to squeeze something in. Especially when you have carried that darn heavy painting box (Guerilla Pochade)  through airport security and customs. You might as well get something out of it. I also paint them really small. Get in and out as fast as I can.

I post here the CAC Gold entry, Pansies and Pear, 16 x 20, and also a still life I just finished this week, Geisha and Mumms, 16x20.