Still Life Painting Workshop Recap

I had a wonderful time teaching my still life painting workshop, graciously organized and hosted by M Gallery in Florida. We painted at Susan Foster's incredibly idyllic and perfectly appointed studio.

After blogging about all of my workshops over the years, it was an amusing switch to teach the workshop myself, and have my students do the blogging! Two of my students, Loriann Signori and Deborah Elmquist, both accomplished painters themselves, wrote several beautiful posts describing the process and philosophy I teach. Check out their links and enjoy their paintings!

The challenge of running a workshop based on the way I work is to condense what is usually at least a 60-hour process, down to 15 hours of demo time for me and 15 hours of painting time for my students. Therefore, I had each artist paint a teeny tiny painting, 5 x 7 inches. Even given the Florida humidity, which unexpectedly slowed the drying time for each layer, every single artist did a formidable little painting!

I had a truly enjoyable time, and I feel incredibly lucky that "work" for me is hanging out in a beautiful studio with a highly skilled group of artist students, all eager to learn.

During the week I also had the supreme pleasure of meeting two artists I have long admired, David Kassan and Susan Lyon, both of whom were also invited to Sarasota, Florida for demos, teaching and exhibition.

Below is the demonstration panel I painted during the workshop, it's 6x8 inches:

Pencil drawing blocked-in on trace paper or mylar

Pencil drawing transferred to the panel and refined.

"Open grisaille" or sometimes called a "wipe-out": raw umber and turp

"Closed grisaille", or "dead layer" painted with grays mixed with:
flake white, raw umber, ultramarine blue.

Full color, work-in-process. Would need another week to finalize!

Ecorche - Skull Refined

Ecorche class with Andrew Ameral

As Andy says: "Really nerd out on all the little details"! It was fun to spend the day doing all the tiny refinements that make the structure of the bones feel both delicate and strong. I was thinking, just like with painting, it's so important to notice the difference in edges - sharp versus rounded, and everything in between.

Home-Cooked Gesso Part II

My materials for making home-made gesso

I previously wrote a post about making my own gesso. This new post shares my notes based on my most recent batch: This week I prepped over 30 very small panels for my students.

The instructions below are based on the recipe and steps outlined on the Sinopia website, but I added all the tips and tricks I discovered along the way (my notes are in italics):

Ingredients:

• Double Boiler, or 2 nested pots on a portable electric burner
• Metal mixing bowl and wooden spoon
• Rabbit Skin Glue (dry crystals)
• Sinopia brand Titanium White pigment
• Small power sander
• Bag of marble dust. 
• ArtBoard brand panels
• housepainting brush
• large tupperware container with lid

I bought everything at a hardware store and art supply store; the pots and bowls I stole from my own kitchen - not to be used for food again.

Preparing Glue Size (Rabbit Skin Glue) DAY ONE AND TWO

• Soak one measure (by volume) of glue to 12 measures of cold water
• I used 1/4 cup RSG to 3 cups water in a big tupperware container I do not plan to use for food again
• Allow glue to soak preferably overnight
• The next day it is a gelatenous substance.
• Heat glue mixture in a double boiler bath - I don't have a double boiler, so I just nested two pots together which worked fine: I boiled a half-pot of water on a portable electric burner in my studio, and nested a smaller pot inside. The smaller pot is non-stick. The glue melts and becomes liquid very easily.
• Apply glue while warm with a flat brush - I used a housepainting brush, but a softer art brush is probably better.
• Be warned: this is makes sticky mess, since you need to cover the panel on all sides and there is nowhere to hold onto it. I discovered this method works best:
• Hold the panel from underneath on your fingertips, like a waiter holding a tray, and then brush the glue onto the (top) painting surface and edges.
• Lean the panel against a wall, so just the top edge or corner is touching, and them gently brush glue on the back side. (I scored and folded foamcore to protect my wall and floor)
• Usually two layers are enough to seal the wood effectively. It dries fast, in about an hour or less I could do the second coat. Then I let the panels dry overnight.
• At this point it is advisable to adhere a piece of fabric (thin muslin sheeting) to the panel to help stabilize the ground and to protect it from joints in the panel that might show in the gesso. (I did not do this - I like my painting surface to be very smooth and I didn't want the cloth texture.)
• The left over glue-size then gets used for the chalk ground.
• NOTE: The RSG turns to jelly again if you let it cool, it firms up quite a bit of you leave it to cool overnight, but you can re-heat the next day, it works fine.

Chalk Grounds: Ingredients DAY THREE, FOUR, FIVE....

3 parts of glue size (by volume) (I made extra RSG and used 3 cups)
1 part chalk (I used 1 cup)
1 part pigment (white, english red, umber, etc.)
I found it needs more pigment, otherwise the gesso is too watery and transparent. I ended up using more than 1.5 parts.
I used Titanium because I did not want to deal with the health hazards of sanding the lead-based "Flake" white

Chalk Grounds: Directions

• Measure out the glue size solution into a metal container (I did not understand this at first - but it is to help measure correctly, since it is hard to know how much is left over in the double boiler once you have used it to coat the panels. I used a large metal mixing bowl.)
• Add the dry ingredients
• Stir well but do not whisk to prevent air-bubbles (I used a wooden spoon, worked great)
• Place container in a double-boiler bath (see my nested pot solution above)
• Apply warm mixture with a broad brush (I found it's better if the gesso is only slightly warms - when the water in the bottom pot is not full boiling, just simmering. The gesso is a bit thicker and covers more when it is only slightly warm, not hot.)
• Allow layer to dry to the touch and recoat. (I found it did not dry fast enough to re-coat within a few hours. I ended up letting it dry overnight between each layer. I also sanded between before each subsequent coat with a small handheld power sander I bought for less than $40 - so worth it!!)
• Note: When applying layers of ground, brushstrokes should be applied in one direction for every coat. Reapply subsequent layers in a perpendicular direction to the previous application. Yes this is true - otherwise deep grooves can develop which are hard to sand away.
• I ended up doing 3 coats of gesso on most panels, and 4 on a few of them. It ended up being a week-long project, spending about an hour per day.
• The gesso cools in the pot and gets quite firm overnight. I just left it in the double-boiler and re-heated the next day, it turned back into brushable paint very quickly and the texture was fine. Sometimes I added more pigment or RSG as it warmed, depending on whether it seemed too thick or too watery.

A note about my sander: I used a handheld Black and Decker sander, bought for less than $40. It had a micro-filter feature for reducing dust which worked quite well. I'm not a power-tool kind of person, but it was amazingly easy to use. Highly recommend!

Hope you find this useful! I know I'll be referring to these notes when I prep my next batch of panels, hopefully not for a good long time :)

Ecorche: Ribs

After refining the basic "flattened egg" shape of the ribcage, I was finally able to etch the ribs and carve them out a bit. The hardest part was getting the distribution and spacing correct: 10 attached ribs, 2 floating ribs, each spaced equally apart! A hint: The 8th rib at the back lines up with the 5th rib at the front.

The skull has been refined a bit - I look forward to "nerding out" on the details!

More info about my ecorche/anatomy class with Andrew Ameral:

www.ameralart.com

Ecorche: Spine and 2 more Skulls

Skull Proportion Studies

8 1/2 x 11 inches, graphite on mylar

I drew these skulls from life but first I constructed them based on rules of proportion. Now I have a bunch of questions for my anatomy teacher Andy (www.andrewameralart.com), because they still don't look quite right. I think in the upper left study I somehow inadvertently moved the top of the zygomatic arch up too high. And the lower one has some unidentifiable problems!

It's strange working with skulls... playing with proportions, both the drawings and the clay model of the skull just look warped and non-human, but as I adjust them they suddenly they start to approach a look I call "skullish", meaning suddenly they start to look like skulls.

I think we all have a template for what a skull looks like. I have noticed that at a certain point, the skull "locks in" (or at least gets closer) to the idea of a skull.

Spine Studies

8 1/2 x 11 inches, graphite on mylar

These spine studies are after Richer. His anatomy diagrams at first looked cold and a bit boring to me, but the more I copy them, the more I am impressed by the enormous amount of very precise information he packs in: gracefully at that, and with highly economical linework.

I spent a couple hours just blocking in these spines, but I got overwhelmed to think of drawing every little spinous process. I think I'll just draw ONE vertebrae from several angles!

Ecorche Drawings: Pelvis, Shoulder Girdle, Skull/Rib/Pel combo

Two views of the Pelvis

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

More studies for my Ecorche Anatomy class with Andrew Ameral. Two solid studio days of just drawing bones, what fun!

Side view of the Pelvis

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

I'm also continuing to refine my clay figure, but it's coming along very slowly! I have massed in my ribcage, pelvis and spine, but I won't bother to post photos till they are more developed. Will hopefully post some photos of a prettier skull this weekend.

Shoulder girdle studies

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

Studies of Skull, Ribcage, Pelvis relationships

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

Most these drawings are copies from anatomy books (sometimes composites from several), only the pelvis drawings are from life.

M Gallery Show Opening

I just got home from Florida, where I attended my show opening Friday night at M Gallery in Sarasota. This is me and Nowell outside the gallery on opening night.

These are my 6 paintings hung for the show, all together representing nine months of full-time painting. It was a treat for me to see them framed and hung as a group.

For more information about the collection visit my page on the M Gallery website.

The evening was truly enjoyable and the turnout was high for this sunny First Friday (after several unusually rainy months in Florida). The gallery estimated they had 500-600 visitors!

UPDATE: My fellow exhibitor Michael Lynn Adams has written up a nice post about our opening on his blog, click here to visit it.

I'll be back in Sarasota to teach my Still Life Painting workshop March 22-26. The workshop is filling up but there are still a few spaces available! For more information about the workshop please visit my Teaching Page.

Study of Ward

Study of Ward

16 x 20 inches, graphite pencil on paper

This is the demonstration drawing I did during my most recent "6 Sundays" figure drawing class with 6 private students at my studio. The "moon" in the upper right corner is the remnants of my lecture on how light and shadow behave on a sphere.

We all had a wonderful time studying the figure in a long, multi-week pose under cool north light.

I am offering my next Classical Long Pose Figure Drawing class at my studio in San Francisco beginning May 16th, 2010. Please visit my Classes and Workshops page for more information.

I am also planning to set up a long pose model share, full time for 2 weeks, probably in July. If you would be interested please email me to let me know: sadiej@gmail.com. This will be an uninstructed workshop, limited to a small group, with the option to draw or paint. More information coming soon!

Also, I leave tomorrow to fly to Florida for my opening at M Gallery in Sarasota, where I will be showing 6 paintings.