Cold Feet? Birthday Bash Demo..

The lovely Sara Streeter

My demo for LAAFA's 10th Anniversary Party
The demo will be auctioned off by LAAFA to raise money for its' art programs

My portrait demo last night at The Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art's 10th Anniversary Party, at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.

Painting the legendary model Sara Street is always wonderful. Seems like she and I have been treading the L.A. art boards for quite a while now! And my feet were freezing on those boards last night. Great buzz last night. 

Congrats to LAAFA. I remember when you had just begun.

Catch my new teaching class there in January. http://laafa.org/

Tuesday: Portrait/Figure, Santa Monica location

Thursday: Still life, Van Nuys location

You can also find me at the newly vamped California Art Institute in West Lake Village, CA, every Wednesday morning. http://calartinst.com/

You can also attend my monthly studio workshop day in the beautiful Malibu Highlands, Friday January 11th. email me johanna@johannaspinks.com

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/

Blocked In? 365 Days of Drawing...

One thing I regret in this daily drawing challenge for 2010 is there is no consistency on my part in terms of subject matter and drawing medium. That was not my original plan for the challenge.

When I look back over my picture file recording it all, I regret it is so "all over the place". However, experimenting with different approaches has left with me new found techniques that I really enjoy. The Bic pen and the white chalk drawings on toned ground are appealing to me. The earlier mixed media on paper I like but don't seems to want to do so much of now.

I was exhausted late afternoon yesterday wondering what's next? What on earth am I going to draw today. I popped in an art video of a guy painting flowers and it suddenly came to me.

Why, I will just start a large floral still life, 22"x28", right now, of some purple and yellow pansies in my garden that I have been admiring for weeks. It wasn't sunny but I set up my landscaping gear in my driveway and got going. I took my time on the drawing and arrangement of tree trunk and flowers. Shown here, is as far as I wanted to take it on the first round. Blocking in the big shapes, against a WHITE ground, unusual for me, hoping to add luminosity to the white and yellow flowers as the painting builds.

Come back later...back to break-dancers today. Dear, oh dear.

Darling Dixie..

One of my favorite students, and a talented painter herself, Dixie, is returning home to Texas after a year studying at The Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art in Van Nuys http://www.laafa.org/

DIXIE, now a grandma,  had a life-long dream after a long graphic design career, world travels,  and raising kids, to immerse herself for a whole year in fine art instruction at the best school she could find.

She did her research from afar and LAAFA was her chosen school. No small wonder as the faculty is great and I am proud to be part of it. So she packed up her home, rented an apartment here and came out west with her cat.

She signed up for as many classes as she could fit into a week studying with many teachers at the school. See her journey on her blog at...http://dixiekeestudio.blogspot.com/2009/04/old-dream-comes-true.html

Dixie is one reason I like to teach. Gracious as a student, patient with herself, and always thoughtful about the process... and very fun! 

I got to paint her at my studio this week in Oxnard, a three hour head sketch,  as a kind of 'farewell 'til we meet again' moment. 

It sure was fun. 

Dixie said while I was painting her, she is going to hang my head sketch 'pride of place' at her memorial. NO PRESSURE or anything. See, I told you she was funny!

Safe travels dear Dixie and PAINT PAINT PAINT every moment to delay getting to your memorial! 

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.

 

PAINT BY NUMBERS?

I heard recently a major museum is doing a show of those retro  'paint by number' oil paintings that you buy in a cardboard box complete with little tubs of garish paint as small as pill boxes and a few K-Mart quality brushes.

I think this is a really good thing. I have always been intrigued by these kits and even did a couple when I was a kid. The painting appears like magic before your eyes. They are quite marvelous really if you don't want to be bothered spending a lifetime on the annoying skills needed to really paint. Sucks that one has to learn to draw and paint and color theory is for the birds.

I was reminded of this magic on a very recent trip to Raleigh, N.C., for a portrait artist meet/greet with scores of reps hosted by my  Southern portrait agency.

All was just lovely. Basically a weekend long portraitfest to sell yourself and your portrait work. Nothing wrong in that! Lucky in these times really. Chit-chat flowed along with the wine and southern charm until I got to the afternoon 'paint from life' session. There I was painting in front of 25 of my peers, some of THE  very best portrait painters in the land, and being watched by artists who chose not to paint, and oh, only about 40 agency reps from around the country.

It suddenly dawned on me, one false move of the brush, and there might be no more bookings in my future. You are only as good as you last head study let's be honest. And a bomb in front of this crowd would be of Titanic proportions. I have often been told I look a little like Titanic Kate Winslet  ( I wish!)  but I didn't want to be at the helm of this collision. The pressure felt a little 'on' to be honest to avoid the artistic iceberg that could possibly be ahead of me.

I started out pretty good, but then lost my navigation, only to regain course toward the end after a serious self-talk about what was needed. I LOVE those kind of talks! That is of course the joy and pain of life  painting. Things can go south real quick especially when you are in THE South. Why do we do it? There are easier ways to paint. Numbers, projection,  and tracing are all out there but I want to be an artist who relies on a skill that has been built up through repetition and training.

It got me to thinking about how a paint by number deal would be very cool for life painting. Someone should invent an acetate -type thing you can place over the model's face, number it, and then transfer your numbers to your canvas! Bingo.

And then I realized, I pretty much DO paint by numbers when I life paint and it was actually this approach that got me through the icy bumps on this afternoon. My paint by number system is this...three values for the light side of the form and two for the dark.  Period. It is what I teach at LAAFA like a BROKEN record.

Concentrating on this simplicity got me through and has done many times before. I have a feeling it will do so in the future too. Structure and simplicity of values....value one for the lightest plane, value two for the mass of light, value three for the transition/halftone, value five for the turning edge of the form, and value four for the reflected light.

Just like those painting kits, keep it simple stupid. Now, heck, how come a museum isn't calling me for my version of paint by numbers? It really has to happen especially as I can't rely on my aging Winslet looks anymore.