Good times in Charlotte, NC.

Well, after months of working on two large portraits for one corporate client, seeing the paintings shipped from your studio, praying they get there  (Airfloat Systems - the very best for art boxes!)  but you still never know. Fex Ex is great most of the time but I have also seen some boxes returned to me in terrible shape from competitions. I had one painting sent to the Royal Portrait Society in England lost in customs. No-one knew where it was...even with a tracking number! Numerous high anxiety transatlantic phone calls.

So it was a lovely moment to fly to Charlotte  a weekend or so ago and see these portraits unveiled in a delightful warm ceremony for the Reformed Theological Seminary, RTS, a group that trains ministers worldwide.

As I was sitting there at the unveiling surrounded by new friends I have made through the long process of making a portrait out of state, it reminded me of what an absolute privilege it is to be a portrait artist. To have someone place their trust in you to record an important person's time in place. I know it sounds cliched perhaps. But I take this honor very seriously. And it makes me feel humble actually.

I think of the greats that have gone before me, Sargent, de Lazlo, Rembrandt, et al, who  had many great unveiling's, more than I will ever have in my lifetime,  and SURELY, much better paintings than mine will ever be, but it is the same process we go through as a portrait artist today. A time-honored tradition that still exists. Ahhh.....pass the warm and fuzzies to me right now. A full plate of warm scones with lashings of Devonshire clotted cream

 But INCREDIBLE really when you think about it. We live in an age of fast-fix deliver, everything at the push of a computer Photoshop button. Great that this art form is still wanted, relevant, and appreciated.

It makes me want to work harder and get better. I will never be close to a Sargent or a  Rembrandt, or even modern masters Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A., www.everettraymondkinstler.com and Jeremy Lipking,  www.jeremylipking,com, but I think I still take pride in this incredible art form that I am lucky to be part of.

Food for thought -French sauces! A La Zorn.

So much discussion goes on in my teaching class about color! What palette is best? How do you get that green on the skin just there? And why did you put it there? How come we don't see it there? Should one keep it simple using a Zorn-like palette or not? 

I have students come in with a beautiful full rainbow palette and possess an equally lovely color sense and application that I admire. Then I find they have studied with Sharon Burkett Kaiser , www. sburkettkaiser.com, one of the best around, herself trained by Russian painter Sergei Bongart, www.sergeibongart.com, unfortuanately no longer with us. Then I have had others who simply were too dazzled by that full palette to know what to do with it. Others who were getting comfortable with their palette to be then completely thrown by all that Zorn black in front of them. I had this happen just last week in class and it was interesting as a teacher. Simple sometimes is complicated. 

Anders Zorn, 1860- 1920,  was a Swedish painter,  with a wow factor bar none. Great restraint and great juicy soft painting. He is credited for this very limited palette but anyone who paints knows he put other colors out there sometimes. You can only achieve a certain amount of blue tones with black and ivory white next to orange.

The main palette I use is the one taught to me by my teacher Mr. Everett Raynmond Kinstler N.A.  www.everettraymondkinstler.com, aformentioned many times in this blog!,   Still fairly limited at nine colors or so, but it does work so well around a light and darker value for each of the primary colors. Just look at his paintings for proof. There is no-one better for the study of color in this lifetime. Sorolla in the last!  And actually, I do think Ovanes Berberian, this lifetime, really rather damn good.

Mr. Kinstler's color palette is Permalba white, cad. yellow pale, raw sienna, cad. red light, alizarin crimson, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, burnt umber (I prefer raw umber), sap green OR chromium oxide green. I like c.o.green. NO BLACK.  As all my students know, burnt sienna and c.o. green make some beautiful shadow colors that you can enhance any way you wish, a bit of purple/blue here, a bit or orange there.

However, I have found much value to experimenting with the Zorn palette, yellow ochre,vermillion and black. There is a certain harmonious restraint that happens.  And also experimenting with other three color palettes around the primaries.

Look to the beautiful work of artist Dawn Whitelaw, www.dawnwhitelaw.com,  to see what can be done with a three color palette. Her landscapes are magnificent as is her portrait work. GREAT color! She studied with Mr. K. for many years and has really made his teachings her own. Impressive. I admire this lady a lot. She is also very generous with her advice and teaches much in demand workshops. 

But really, you can choose any yellow, red and blue, plus white and black and have some fun. But go steady with the black. See if you can tone down with compliments first before dipping into the big black hole. YOU will learn a LOT about color mixing and color temperature. I know I have during the last several years of experimentation. I can now see a color before me and KNOW which way it leans temperature-wise and how to mix it.

A recent thought of mine has been to use the Zorn palette most of the way through a painting, SEE THESE TWO IMAGES, and then add some brights on top around the color wheel theory, limiting your 'brights" to the color compliments. You have to tread carefully but it is FUN. And I kind of like how it looks.

It reminds me of what an a wise old artist/sculptor said to me over lunch recently: "A painter needs greyed color much like a french chef needs a good sauce as the base for his food". 

Let me know what you think???? Just the painting, not the sauce stuff. I know the sauce I like. Cream with peppercorns all the way.

I teach Thursdays at the stellar Los Angeles Academy of Fine Arts in Van Nuys, CA., www.laafa.org. Visit the site for  more information about its' curriculum, including an impressive atelier training program in the academic tradition which Zorn would have been proud of.

Ego-licious? Perhaps...

An art painter colleague told me last year that I would be judged on my life painting if that was all I showed. At the time I had a bunch of head studies on the wall done during my teaching class, naively thinking students would want to see what they would get in class.

I had always thought people would know the difference between an hour and a half head study demo in a teaching situation, or not, and a finished portrait, but turns out the guy was absolutely right.

I then put up a few finished pieces and actually  had people come up to me at the school and say, wow, I didn't know you could paint like that! A kind of back handed compliment if you ask me. The skill of a painter is surely in his or her fast life painting. Can't most people do something fairly decent over the course of 100 hours?

Anyway, I am being a bit ego-licious here, sharing with you a couple of the more finished commissions that were painted this summer, all 30'X40" I hope you like.  I didn't get to the beach much!

My Top Ten Tips for Painting From Life! And then some..

Here is my demo from my painting class at The Los Academy of Figurative Art last week. Painting time about one hour and a half hours. And yes, that is my hat!

1. Paint a model that interests you. Ask yourself  'what is your point of view'? before you start to paint. Talk to the model. Bored sitter, boring painting. Engage!

2. Work on a dry mid-toned canvas and a mid-value wooden palette. Think value first, color second. Most of the story happens in the mid-value.

3. Work dark to light, general to specific, thin to thick paint, broom to needle, brush.

4. Simplify what you see. Three values for the light, two for the dark.  Keep the value pattern of light and dark separate. These two families hate each other and don't like to mix.

5. Think sphere. The head is an egg. Paint it round. Look for the highlight plane,  large mass of light, transition, turning edge, reflection, cast shadow.

6. Stick with a limited palette of colors. Learn what they can do.  They are your keyboard so practise how to play them. Look at the color wheel once in a while. It is useful. Play with color temperature around the light source, warm versus cool etc.

7. Make two soups on your palette. One for the light, one for the dark side. Alter the soup a little this way or that by adding slightly different colors into it.

8. Repeat color wherever you can. A dab of purple here, well, why not a dab of purple there. Leads to color harmony even if it doesn't make sense at the time.

9.Think of your three best friends: time, distance and a mirror. Judge your canvas from a distance rather than pressed nose; look at your work in a mirror to see its' flaws; and take some time away from your painting, ESPECIALLY when the model takes a break. Art school coffee is there for a reason. 

10. Imagine yourself a sculptor...carve out those planes. Know the structure of features so you can rely on that knowledge. Learn the anatomy of the head AND from the neck down. Draw, draw, draw in between painting from life.

Portrait Painting A-Plenty

What a privilege it was to teach so many talented people at my recent one-day portrait workshop timed around my show "Something Wrong About The Mouth"! I was impressed with the talent in the room.

The day started with a talk about my five-value system, followed by a show-and-tell of the old Masters and how they used values. Color harmony and skin tones thrown into the mix. Students then did a quick one hour study in black and white copying an old master painting using five values. I was a little worried how this would turn out but everyone did a great job...see the picture of all those great little heads.

I then did a one hour features demo from my favorite model Cassie followed by a one hour demo of her head. Yes folks, the head was painted in just one hour so don't bug me about the flaws.

Then the class got to work doing their own three-hour study of the model. BRAVO to all. The different styles were impressive but that is what makes painting so much fun.

For those of you that didn't make the show, that didn't make the artist talk, that didn't make the workshop, I could say shame on YOU! Instead I will post next my TOP TEN list for successful painting from life.

American Artist Magazine features Hall Of Fame Series.

Check out the September issue of American Artist Magazine. I am thrilled that they have just published a great feature on the previously mentioned Hall of Fame Series painted for The Players's Club permanent collection in New York.

Mr Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A., painter of six American presidents now!, and a who's who of just about everything, asked 18 artists around the country to paint specific members of this prestigious great old theatre club. Mine was Norman Rockwell, and I couldn't have been more delighted to paint him and be asked. This was my second portrait for the club, the first being Rex Harrison, (My Fair Lady). Treasured memories and great to see it all recorded in such a wonderful way. Thanks to Mr. K. and AA! 

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.