Plein air in Maine II

Morning at Songo Lock, Sebago Lake, Maine
9x12 oil on panel

I worked on this painting for 3 morning sessions. Next time I'll try a lighter underpainting, as the overall cast looks very dark. But I really enjoyed painting the lichen on the trees, and the lilypads on the water surface. Whenever I start a painting outside I have grand plans, but then realize the level of study I'd like to explore would require several sessions per square inch on the canvas!



Study of Trees at Songo Lock
9x12, oil on panel

This one was a quick alla prima study, done in a couple hours. I just started from a point of interest and worked outwards. I realized I should have started with at least a light color wash to knock back the white ground, as I ended up trying to figure out how to fill in background around brushstrokes I liked. A great learning experience.

I am painting on New Traditions Painting Panels
http://www.newtraditionsartpanels.com/index.html
I like the portrait grade linen, oil primed, mounted on gator foam.

I am also loving my Open Box M, it's a fantastic, lightweight, and flexible plein air easel and palette for use with a tripod. This is the one I have:
http://www.openboxm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=OBMIPAPS&Product_Code=480&Category_Code=PPHp

Plein air painting in Maine

I think the landscape of your earliest memories makes an indelible impression, so I am thrilled to be painting on the shores of a lake in Maine!

Yesterday I did a pencil drawing in the morning just to get comfortable working outside again. Then I found a spot in the afternoon for a multiple-session painting and started a monochromatic under painting.













This morning I found a new spot and started a morning painting. My plan is to work on each of them for the rest of the week.







It's been hot, but since I am usually freezing when I paint outside, sitting still in the shade for a couple hours and feeling warm is perfect painting weather. Mosquitos have not even been that bad, only 3 bites so far!

We are staying at my friend Kyra's summer house for the week, and she and Nowell also have projects they are working on a few hours a day, so it's a productive vacation for all of us!

The Hudson Fellowship is going on right now, you can see what they are up to on their blog:
http://grandcentralacademy.blogspot.com/

Also you can see all my posts from last year's Hudson Fellowship here:
http://sadievaleri.blogspot.com/search/label/Hudson%20River%20Fellowship

Ecorche: Upper arm and some deep leg muscles

Bones and muscles, anterior view
Graphite and colored pencil on vellum, 8.5 x 11 inches
Ecorche/Anatomy class with Andrew Ameral

Ecorche drawing homework: Andy gave us a photo of a living model, front and back views, and we had to draw an overlay of the skeleton, and then another overlay of the muscles we have studied so far. Oh, and label them.

Bones and muscles, anterior view
Graphite and colored pencil on vellum, 8.5 x 11 inches
Ecorche/Anatomy class with Andrew Ameral

I did the drawings copying from Richer's anatomy book and handouts Andy has designed for the class.

Below is the current state of Sid. The class has been going nearly every Saturday for 5 months now, and tragically I am going to miss the last three classes due to a previously scheduled vacation. I'll get more muscles done on the upper legs in class next week, but that's it. Luckily Andy has given me the opportunity to finish up later.

I have learned so much from this class and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to take it!

Seashell's Dream

Seashell's Dream

8x8 inches, oil on panel

Just finished this little painting today after working on it on and off over the last month or 2 between other projects. I painted it over about 7 sessions. It developed a bit differently from my usual process for still life, because instead of doing a drawing first I just jumped in with a color oil sketch the first day, and just kept adding refinement and detail each session.

Oil Sketch of Ward

Oil Sketch of Ward

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas mounted on panel

I had fun with this fast oil sketch. Very different from my usual methods, but satisfying!

Whatever the method or technique, the success of the piece relies on only one thing: Looking. Even though this was a fast sketch (fast for me - done over two sessions) I tried to discipline myself to make each stroke slowly, and look at my subject before making another stroke. 

I did this sketch at my Tuesday evening model share at my studio. The next set of 4 sessions begins August 3rd, I hope you can join us! More information about my classes and model shares sessions here

Mary with Silver Dish

Mary with Silver Dish
16 x 20 inches, oil on panel

Detail

Detail of shoulder

I've posted a slideshow of all the stages, from drawing and under paintings to the final.

(click slideshow to view larger in a new window)

Ecorche - Shoulder/Torso muscles

Ecorche / Anatomy class with Andrew Ameral

I'm still working on my ecorche, yesterday I added the muscles of the scapula and also finally some major surface muscles - the pectoralis and the latissimus dorsi. Next is the deltoid - it's fun to see "Sid" start to flesh out a bit!

Tuesday Model Session: Study of Melissa

Study of Melissa

16 x 20, graphite on paper

Tuesday evenings I open my studio to long pose model sessions. I did this drawing of one long pose over 4 sessions.

The open model sessions are $80 for a series of 4 consecutive Tuesdays, $22 if you'd like to drop in and try one session before committing to a series of 4. The next series begins next Tuesday, June 15th. For more information and to sign up for upcoming sessions, visit my Class Schedule.

Winged Victory Drawing Demo Recap

"Victory in Chalk"

Charcoal and white chalk on toned Ingres paper

16 x 20 inches

This is the sketch I did for my drawing demo at my San Francisco studio earlier this month. The evening was so much fun - I was very nervous the days leading up to it, and I wondered why I had planned such a high-stress event for myself right in the middle of my teaching semester... but once I got started talking and drawing it was a breeze!

We had about 28 guests in my studio, lots of snacks and wine, and during the breaks there was lots of mingling and a warm buzz of conversation.

I gave my condensed lecture on "Observing The Nature of Organic Form: Tapered, Spiraling, Interlocking, and Convex", which is my humble abbreviation of the amazing principles I learned from my master teacher Ted Seth Jacobs and also from his students Tim Stotz and Michelle Tully.

Thanks to everyone who came out, and extra special thanks to my mom, dad, sister and  husband who all helped me set up the studio and greet guests - I am so lucky to have a supportive family!

To be notified when I host a drawing demo again join my email list, or follow me on Facebook!

Ecorche: Neck and face muscles

I have begun to add face and neck muscles to my ecorche skeleton. I've also added the shoulder girdle bones - the clavicle and scapulae -  since I last posted photos.

The bones are difficult because the forms are so intricate and precise. And beyond all that... the muscles are just impossible!! All those layers of overlapping and interlocking forms, all squishy and stretchy..... Andy makes it look easy!

Odalisque Drawing

Mary as Odalisque

16 x 20 inches, charcoal and chalk on Ingres toned paper

I realized all the figure drawing I have done in the last year has been as demonstrations for my students, so it's been wonderful to get back to figure drawing just for myself! This was done at my weekly Tuesday evening model session at my studio. We have a great little group started, and there is still room for a couple more, hope you can join us! (see my teaching page for more info)

I am also offering these upcoming workshops:

Figure Drawing Workshop, June 21-25

early bird special: $600

Still Life Oil Painting Workshop, June 28-July 2

early bird special: $600

Artist Daily Interview

Courtney Jordan, editor of Artist Daily, the website of American Artist Magazine, interviewed me recently for the website newsletter and blog.

Courtney studied art history and loves still life painting, so we had a fun and wide-ranging discussion. I don't know how but she managed to beautifully organize all my rambling tangents into a lovely cohesive narrative about my process for choosing my subjects. Read the article at the link below:

Artist Daily: Meeting your Artistic Match

Ecorche Skeleton

An update on my ecorche done in Andrew Ameral's Anatomy/Ecorche class.

Most the skeleton is at least roughed-in and now we have started adding the major muscles of the face - and even an eyeball!

 

The right half of the skeleton will be refined and stay exposed. The left half will have all the muscles.

Therefore, I have only carved the ribs on the right side where they will be seen!

The whole skeleton! The legs and arms are still very rough but it's mostly there. The whole dude is about 30 inches high.

He needs a name. Yes, he is a he. Any suggestions?

-----------------
Now offering Summer Specials on my Figure Drawing and Still Life Painting June workshops at Bay Area Classical Artist Atelier. Visit my Teaching Page for more info.

Ecorche Drawings:Master Copies

Ecorche after Prud'hon, 8.5 x 11 inches

graphite pencil on mylar

One of the reasons I decided to take Andrew Ameral's anatomy/ecorche class is I hoped it would help me learn to draw from my imagination. The drawings here are my pencil copies from Prud'hon academies, but I drew the bones on trace paper overlay completely without reference.

Ecorche after Prud'hon, 8.5 x 11 inches

graphite pencil on mylar

Not that these bones are perfectly correct, but I could never do anything like that before.

I am almost done with my clay skeleton and this week as a class we will be moving on to the muscles. I'll be posting photos of my skeleton soon.

First Place Award for Still Life at the Art Renewal Center Salon

My painting Bottle Collection has been awarded First Prize in the Still Life category at this year's International ARC Salon.

I have been poring over the annual catalog of this competition for years. Last year to have my work included in the Top 100 was a dream come true. This year's recognition is beyond my wildest expectations.



See my First Prize Still Life listing on the Art Renewal Center website

See all blog posts about the making of this painting

"Bottle Collection"
18 x 24 inches
oil on panel

"The Cabinet" Prep Drawing and Open Grisaille Underpainting

"The Cabinet"
12 x 16 inches, oil on panel, work in progress

See previous post about this painting here

It feels so good to be working on one of my still lifes again! This is the "Open Grisaille" underpainting - essentially just Raw Umber and turp, an initial pass at roughing in the basic values. I tell my students that at this stage you just have to accept some ugliness, it's impossible to make this thin, brushy layer look pristine.

Some artists do this stage as a "wipe-out", where they tone the whole panel and then wipe away the highlights. I don't do this because I find it wipes away my drawing too much, and lacks a certain level of precision. This layer is painted very thin, and I tell my students to think of "kissing" the contours with the tip of the brush, to avoid a hard, unthinking swipe along those carefully-drawn contours.

12 x 16 inches, graphite on panel, preparatory drawing

I started the drawing on Mylar drawing vellum (I like a brand called "Dura-Lar" - be careful not to buy the clear acetate in the similar packaging though). Then I transferred the blocked-in drawing to the panel before refining it. I always do the last few hours of refining the drawing directly on the panel, to avoid that dead "traced" look. That way every contour has been drawn from life right on the panel. I use the Mylar stage of the drawing for blocking in proportions and finalizing the composition.

The contour drawing is hard to photograph because the final lines are so thin and light, so I had to tweak the photo quite a bit in Photoshop, which is why it looks somewhat "dirty".

Once the drawing is finished I seal the panel with a coat of Dammar with some turp mixed in. This protects the drawing from being wiped away, and also makes the panel less "thirsty". Now it's a perfect surface to paint on.

-----------------------
Teaching schedule:
I'm always adding new classes, open model sessions, workshops and demos to my Teaching Page!

"From the Cabinet"

Here's a sneak peek at my new still-life setup - I am so excited to be starting a new painting again! Sometimes I agonize over setting up a composition but this one fell together easily, probably because I have fun new props to play with, courtesy of Susan Foster who generously let me take my pick from her fabulous collection of still life items. And I finally got to incorporate my treasured quail feather, which I have been meaning to paint for a while now. I am almost already regretting it already - those stripes are going to be a challenge!!

This is a new look for me - rich deep reds and soft greens, an antique aqua-colored ink bottle and some twisty dried twigs and fiddleheads... I think of it as a sampling from a 19th century "Cabinet of Curiosities".

The familiar item is my lovely little golden seashell. While blocking in the composition and then all the natural forms I am reminded that EVERYTHING is based on the most ancient of symbols, the mysterious spiral!

EVENT: Live Drawing Demo May 7

Join me at my San Francisco studio for a live drawing demonstration May 7!

I'll be lecturing on classical drawing methods and demonstrating techniques for capturing accurate proportion and glowing light.

An enlightening evening for both artists and art-lovers!

For more information about the Demonstration please visit my new Events page.

Also, I have added a new Figure Drawing class to my Teaching page: Six Sundays starting May 16th. For more information about upcoming classes visit my Teaching page

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 :)