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)

"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.

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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!

Conch Shell - FINISHED!

oil on panel, 9 x 12 inches
See previous post about this painting

(detail)

Over the last month blogging has taken a backseat to finishing the final paintings for my upcoming show at M Gallery in Florida, also setting up my new studio, starting private classes and workshops at the new studio, and teaching MFA candidates one day a week at the Academy of Fine Art.

Phew!

Oh, and I also started an amazing, inspiring ecorche class (sculpting all the bones and muscles of the human body in clay) with Andrew Ameral, master anatomy teacher from the Florence Academy.

So yes, I have been very busy, but really never happier!!

Pewter Pitcher

oil on panel, 8 x 8 inches

My favorite little pitcher, it was such a joy to do a study devoted to it alone! So many lovely oranges and lavenders peeking through its patina....

This painting and 5 others will be at my show at M Gallery in Sarasota, Florida for the month of March, opening March 5.

Be sure to check out the workshop I am offering in Sarasota to coincide with the show, and my other upcoming classes and workshops!

Sterling Boat: FINAL

Sterling Boat

oil on panel, 9 x 12 inches

See the previous post about this painting here

Finally finished! It ended up taking about 16 sessions over the course of a month, for a total of 68 hours, including the initial contour drawing. Thanks to everyone who has followed along the last few weeks as I posted all the stages of this painting, it been an interesting experiment to document the process so closely.

Here's a slideshow of all the stages of this painting:

Click slideshow to see it larger in Picasa

This painting will be in my March show at M Gallery in Sarasota, Florida. The show will coincide with my painting workshop, March 22-26, also hosted by M Gallery.

I've just added Still Life Painting classes to my San Francisco teaching schedule. I'm thinking about offering a drawing course for absolute beginners later in 2010, if this is something you'd be interested in please email me.

Finally, my new studio is coming together and I'm looking forward to posting photos soon, stay tuned!

Sign up for my mailing list to be notified when I post photos of the new studio, new artwork, and upcoming art classes.

Sterling Boat: Session 12

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - work in progress

oil on panel

See the previous post about this painting here

Sterling Boat - PREVIOUS DETAIL

Tiny, tiny differences between the two, I just made this section more crisp, maybe you can tell if you compare the two shots closely. I won't even say how many hours I spent today on this one segment of wax paper, except to say it was my longest single session on this painting so far.

Wax paper in the light - the whitest, brightest parts, is always the hardest this for me to paint. I think it's because white oil paint has a different texture than the transparent paints in the shadows. White pigment is thicker and more grainy, so it looks like crusty paint even when other parts melt into a convincing illusion. And I'm always wishing it could be brighter to match the dazzling highlights I see. I always despair over these bright white sections in all my wax paper paintings.

In contrast, the strip of painted wood shelf is super easy, it flows out in a flash - I can spend hours to create the illusion of a square inch of wax paper, and only minutes for a square inch of painted wood.

What I like best about this section is the filtered cool light that shines through the paper and onto the edge of the shelf, illuminating it with a little pale glow within the cast shadow.

I listened to an audio book while I worked today, I usually listen to NPR podcasts - Fresh Air etc. But something about listening to one long narrative all day really enhanced my focus and I barely stopped painting for even a minute all day. It was great! I think I'll keep doing that. Maybe the podcasts changing subject so often is messing with my concentration.

Sometimes I listen to music while I paint, but usually the verbal narrative in my own head starts to get distracting. I have a bad habit of ruminating on unpleasant thoughts while I paint, so I need something innocuous to occupy my verbal brain while I work.

Are all artists like this? Can you work with focus for hours in silence, or with music? Can the music have lyrics or do you need it to be instrumental?

Making art while surrounded by chatter reminds me of art class as a young kid. Art class in elementary school was the one class where the teachers usually let kids talk while working, and I would always work silently but enjoy the chatter of schoolkid gossip all around me.

Sterling Boat: Session 11

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - work in progress

oil on panel

See the previous post about this painting here

Sterling Boat - PREVIOUS DETAIL

I spent most the 4-hour session today on the seashell, but I think you can see the most difference in the before/after shots if you look at the edge of the painted wooden shelf.

The seashell is challenging because it is reflective, translucent, AND colorful. I'm trying to show a shiny surface that also has depth, because the light both bounces off and penetrates the surface. So there's a lot of fiddling, pushing the values and hues around bit by bit. Slow, slow painting.

This is where glazing makes a big difference because I can layer transparent films of color into a couch of slow-drying oil medium, and make tiny adjustments.

Also, thinning the paint with oil makes a cleaner edge, because the texture and goopiness of the paint is reduced. Just like how melted butter can spread in a thinner layer than cold butter simply spread thin.

------UPCOMING CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS-----------
I teach Classical Realism drawing and painting classes and workshops in my north light San Francisco studio. I also offer workshops at other locations in the US. Please visit my Teaching page for more information and to register!

Sterling Boat: Session 10

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - work in progress

oil on panel

See the previous post about this painting here

Sterling Boat - PREVIOUS DETAIL

The painting is coming down to the final stages, I'm hoping to be done in just a few more sessions. This is the stage of the painting when it gets hard to record the difference with a camera. I'm sorry to say the differences between the two above shots represents a solid 6 hours of work! The refinement is subtle but significant in real life, but almost impossible to see by the time the camera has degraded the images.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts today called "On the Media", and they were talking about the evolution of the book (OTM Episode: Book 2.0) now that we are crossing over into a digital era for reading. They interviewed writers and book publishers and future-thinkers who all had opinions, ranging from "it's not a book unless it has paper and glue and survives being dipped in the bathtub" to "the age of paper is dead and everyone will be reading in an entirely different way in 5 years."

One of the future-embracers was positing that the way writers WRITE will change in the new era, and floated his vision of a writer writing a novel live, online, with a real-time audience who will be intimately involved in the writing process, and that the whole process of creating a book with be collaborative and public. To which I though AAACK!!!

The interviewer suggested that many writers feel that solitude while working is integral to the process, and that some writers would not WANT to write if it had to be a public, collaborative process. The book-futurist (sorry I don't have his name, I don't take notes on my audio sources, unlike my husband who wisely documents everything he hears) said something to the point of "well, writers will just have to change they way they think about writing".

Writers will just have to change they way they think about writing. Wha????

As a an artist, I am probably on the leading edge of those who feel comfortable being public with my process - between my blog posts, my videos, and my teaching I try to make my process as transparent as possible, mostly for my own benefit of processing what I am learning, but also because some of you out there seem to enjoy seeing the thoughts behind the work. And yet, if I were forced to both share my process and allowed my visitors to comment on my decisions in real-time as I made them, and also modify my painting as the comments poured in, I would probably put down the brush and find something else to do!

I might be the extreme though, in that I shy away from collaboration, but some artists are more open to it. Personally, I need to be handled very carefully when I am in "work mode", as anyone who worked with me as a graphic designer can attest, I am not at all a "team player" when I am trying to be creative!

What do other artists think? Could you work with an audience? Even performing artists - could the musician practice with an interactive audience, could the actor rehearse with an interactive audience? Does it sound like a nightmare to you, or does it sound like a revolutionary frontier for artmaking?

------UPCOMING CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS-----------
I teach Classical Realism drawing and painting classes and workshops in my north light San Francisco studio. I also offer workshops at other locations in the US. Please visit my Teaching page for more information and to register!

Sterling Boat: Session 9

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - work in progress

oil on panel

See the previous post about this painting here

Today was another 4-hour session and I worked mainly on the spout, handle, and top edge of the pitcher. I managed to take a better photo and so I replaced the photo in yesterday's post too so the color is easier to see. (I didn't send out notifications about yesterday's post because the photo was so bad, so if you are just seeing it today that's why).

In yesterday's post I mentioned "value bracketing" and got a lot of questions about that.

What I mean by value bracketing is taking the time in the first stages of a drawing or painting to block in the value range of each particular area, and then as the drawing progresses, to stay within that initial value range without fail. Some artists assign numbers to values and codes to color, to identify a range and remember to paint or draw within a particular bracket.

For an example of two different areas I mentally bracketed in my current painting, you can see these two areas of wax paper in my current painting are in completely different value ranges:

Top left corner - DARK value range

Low middle area - LIGHT value range

As the painting develops there will be days when I am working on one of these small areas for a whole session, without ever comparing it to another area, so it is tempting to exaggerate the value range in a given area. If I am not disciplined to stay within the value range I've already determined is appropriate, I will make the lights too light in the dark areas, and the shadows too dark in the dark areas.

In the light area of my wax paper in the cropped detail above, the shadows in the creases of the wax paper are bare whispers. In real life it looks like there are huge differences between the shadows in the creases and the bright highlights of white light reflecting off neighboring areas. If I attempt to "copy" that value jump I see, I will make the shadows far too dark and I will destroy the illusion of light in the whole piece.

Our eyes can perceive a much wider range of color and value than paint can ever depict. For example, pure white paint directly from the tube is nowhere near as bright at the lightest highlights on my subject. That's why even the most hyper-realistic painting is still just an illusion, a mere hint of what our eyes can experience in real life.

To capture the sensation of seeing a subject, the artist must preserve the feeling of the whole - how every part relates to every other part. This is so easy to destroy as we zoom in and work closely, because we lose context and we forget that the individual parts, no matter how detailed or realistic, are merely supporting roles to the whole effect.

So I try to depict each edge of each shape with only the smallest value and hue shift I can manage. If I copy the big "jump" I see between two neighboring patches, I will destroy the unity of the painting.

------UPCOMING CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS-----------
I teach Classical Realism drawing and painting classes and workshops in my north light San Francisco studio. I also offer workshops at other locations in the US. Please visit my Teaching page for more information and to register!

Sterling Boat: Session 8

Sterling Boat - DETAIL

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - previous stage
See previous post about this painting here

Today I worked on the wax paper - another 4-hour session. It shows how the wax paper slowly starts to look like transparent crumpled material, instead of only gradations of paint.

Painting is 99% drawing by the way. I never believed it more than I believe it now. If you want to be a better painter, study more drawing. I am amazed by how the same principles I teach the most beginning drawing student are the principles I must hold as my mantra all day every day: Look for the large shapes, bracket the values, work large to small and from shadow up to light...

It even applies to color, because you can't build a believable range of hue without understanding value bracketing.

Drawing is learning when it is appropriate to focus your decision-making on a particular scale: solve large problems first and smaller problems later. Use the problems that appear at a small scale to find solutions to the larger-scale problems.

Learning to draw is the discipline of ONLY tackling the problems you can solve at THIS stage of the artwork, without getting distracted or confused.

I've come to believe that drawing (and artmaking in general) is about organizing your thought process, and nothing else at all.

Sterling Boat: Session 7

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - work in progress

9 x 12, oil on panel

See the previous stage of this painting here

I finally got in a nice long 6-hour painting session today, and it was so exciting to finally be working in color.

It took me a while to get used to painting in color over the more fully realized grisaille (monochrome) underpainting, and after the first hour of working in color today I wiped my work away and had to begin again. But then I started getting a feel for how opaque/transparent to work and everything started to flow.

The photos actually reduces the color a bit (and darkens everything). I repainted the pedistal base of the silver pitcher in color, but in the photo it still looks monochromatic.

Once I get everything to this level of detail, Ill make a final pass with the super tiny brushes, which gives a painting the extra snap of realism. I'll probably spend another 8 sessions or so on this painting.

Now I'm off to cook the dishes I'm bringing to my mom's Thanksgiving spread tomorrow: ratatouille side dish, traditional stuffing, and cranberry sauce...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sterling Boat: Underpainting stage 6

Sterling Boat - work in progress

9 x 12, oil on panel

See the previous stage of this painting here

Today I worked on the wax paper, and although I refined every bit of it, from this photo you can barely see a difference from the last stage. But this level of refinement will really help when I move to the color stage. This session was a little over 4 hours.

Sterling Boat: Underpainting stage 5

Sterling Boat - work in progress - DETAIL

Sterling Boat - work in progress - PREVIOUS DETAIL

Sterling Boat - work in progress - DETAIL

Sterling Boat - work in progress - PREVIOUS DETAIL

See the previous stage of this painting here

I worked today on the reflection of the seashell, and also the handle and the spout of the gravy boat.

I ended up redrawing the shape of the handle significantly. I sort of knew the drawing wasn't right when I was working in pencil, but I had wrestled with it a long time and I finally gave up. But when I started refining the paint today, it I realized I couldn't live with the errors and and ended up rethinking all the contours -- which is far more frustrating to do in paint than in pencil. But I'm glad I took the time to do it because the handle now feels more structured and believable.

The spout was much easier, because I worked and worked to get it correct in the previous pencil drawing stage, so it only took about 30 minutes to refine the painting. Which is a good thing, because with the early winter nightfall these days I am always racing to finish the day's work in last few seconds of workable light every evening.

Studio Hours

In the comments of my previous post Rahina asked how long I spend per session. I realized that's a great idea to note, so I'll start mentioning that when I post. Today I spent 4 hours painting. I rarely paint less than 4 hours in a session and I generally aim for 6.

Once I am working I don't look at email or answer the phone and barely take a break at all. But it's almost like being under water, to ignore absolutely all distractions for several hours, and so part of me resists the initial plunge. Once I'm in the studio though, I always wonder what took me so long to get there.

When I am not in the studio I am preparing lessons for my students, looking at blogs of fellow artists, planning my dream studio, writing up course descriptions, shopping for art supplies, preparing submissions to galleries or contests, shipping artwork, and, of course, blogging. I am amazed how much work there is to do for this art life, and it turns out I am the strictest boss I've ever had. But I love it all, so it doesn't feel like work.

Coming soon.....

I have some exciting studio news I'll be announcing in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Sterling Boat: Underpainting stage 4

Sterling Boat - work in progress - DETAIL

See the previous stage of this painting here

Painting in grayscale at this level of detail feels more to me like drawing than painting... maybe that's why I enjoy it so much.

Sterling Boat: Underpainting stage 3

Sterling Boat - work in progress

9 x 12 inches, oil on panel

See the previous stage of this painting here

I've continued to develop my underpainting. I'm always anxious to jump ahead into the color stage from here, but I am disciplining myself to stay with values for a while longer. It just makes the rest of the painting so much easier if I develop the underpainting as much as possible before moving ahead.

I'm thinking about adjusting my underpainting medium - it dries too fast, and now that I am working on my underpainting longer, I'm realizing I begin to race just to paint faster as the medium dries. It's got more thinner in it than the oily painting medium, and it pretty much sets up in a day. So after 6 hours of painting, my paint begins to get sticky - ugh.

Ecroche in Oakland, California:

There's an amazing ecroche class being offered in February 2010 by Andrew Ameral. The SF Bay Area is so lucky to have Andy, he's returned from teaching at Florence Academy for 7 years. Anyway, ecroche is building a model in clay of a flayed human figure, starting from the bones and layering up through the layers of muscle. I am so hoping to be able to take the class!

--------TEACHING-----------
I am planning my teaching schedule for 2010 so take a look at my teaching page and sign up for my mailing list to be notified when I post new classes and workshops.

Sterling Boat: Underpainting stage 2

Sterling Boat - work in progress

9 x 12 inches, oil on panel

See the previous stage of this painting here

Today I worked on the grisaille stage of the underpainting, which is a value-only underpainting. The previous stage uses raw umber and ultramarine to make a neutral color grey, and uses the white of the panel for the lights. This is called an open grisaille, because the white of the panel shows through.

This second stage is a closed grisaille. I use the same raw umber and ultramarine blue for the neutral dark gray, but I also use flake white (cremnitz white) for the lights. When it is done the white of the canvas will not show at all, the surface will be covered by paint.

I used to only paint an open grisaille layer, and then go right to color. But I have found it saves me a lot of time (and anguish) in the later stages of color if I take the time to make a complete value painting in closed grisaille first. The open grisaille is just too transparent and textured to behave well as an underpainting for my needs.

I also spent some time wet sanding this layer with my underpainting medium before I began painting. This removes dust that may have embedded in the previous layer as it dried, and makes it easier to paint on the dry surface. Putting down a layer of medium to paint into is called a "couch".

--------TEACHING-----------

I am planning my teaching schedule for 2010 so take a look at my teaching page and sign up for my mailing list to be notified when I post new classes and workshops.

Sterling Boat: Underpainting Stage 1

Sterling Boat - work in progress

9 x 12 inches, oil on panel

I worked up the preparatory drawing for this painting a few days before I left for my trip to New York, and varnished it before I left, so when I came back to the studio today it was all dry and ready to start the under painting. Might be hard to see yet what it is - it's an antique silver gravy boat and a seashell perched beneath a 'wave' of wax paper.

I'm not videotaping this painting like I have previously, but I took photos while painting today. The first layer of under painting is just quickly roughing in all the values, I spent about 3 and a half hours today. Today is probably the only day I'll cover the entire surface in one painting session.

stage 1

The initial contour drawing took about 8 hours over 2 days. I started the basic block-in drawing on trace paper but completed the final refined linework directly on the gessoed panel. Then I varnished it with a mixture of damar, turp, and a tint of titanium white to seal the drawing and the porous gesso surface. This makes a nice surface to paint on - not too thirsty, not too slick - and also prevents the graphite pencil from mixing with my first layers of paint.

stage 2

I start the underpainting in the darkest black areas and work in steps up to the lightest lights.

stage 3

stage 4

stage 5

The painting is still rough and brushy at this stage. The paint texture is hard to control at this point, and I'm just massing in values, so I try not to spend too much time worrying about unwanted textures.

--------TEACHING-----------

I am planning my teaching schedule for 2010 so take a look at my teaching page and sign up for my mailing list to be notified when I post new classes and workshops.

Two Small Paintings

Beach Stone and Wax Paper

oil on panel

5 x 5 inches

Wrapped Bottle

oil on panel

5 x 7 inches

See preparatory drawings for these paintings here.

I finished these 2 small paintings today just in time for my open studio this weekend! It was fun to work small, I'm hoping to do a whole series of these.

My studio here in San Francisco will be open to the public this weekend:

October 17-18

11am-6pm

Carl Street at Cole Street

N-Juda MUNI line

Public transportation highly recommended as my street will be CLOSED to cars for a block party on Saturday.

Hope to see you there!