Silver Pitcher with Apricots

11 x 14 inches, oil on panel

I decided to try a longer painting, so I have been working on this one for about a week now. Working over dry or semi-dry paint has different challenges than working wet-on-wet in a single session. It was nice to have the time to refine things a bit more, but I found a whole new set of things I need to learn.

Luckily I am about to begin a marathon of painting workshops. Tomorrow I start a 2-week figure painting workshop with Dan Thompson at BACAA. Later in August I'll be taking a two-week still-life painting workshop with Juliette Aristides, up at Gage Academy in Seattle. I'm really excited about everything I will be learning this month from these two amazing artists.

Here are the process shots taken over the last week:








(Yes, that's me reflected in the middle, with my white painting apron on.)

Cast Drawing, Sessions VIII and IX

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, 18 x 24 inches

It's done! It took nine sessions for a total of 36 hours. You can see the last session, and every previous stage, by clicking back through the previous posts.

Onion on a Paper Bag SOLD

11 x 14 inches, oil on panel

Process shots:


I spent a lot of time on the underpainting to get the proportions right. The bag leans so far to the right, and we often want to "straighten" things out. Drawing is basically just making your brain stop editing what you see.


I quickly put in the basic colors of the onion first, with saturated, clean colors. I knew I'd spend a lot of time on the complicated bag, and I wanted the onion to be fully incorporated even if I neglected it while the bag developed.


I blocked in the basic structure of the bag with flat brushes. I just bought some new long-bristled Princeton brushes I like, in both flats and filberts. I use a large sable filbert for the background after I have blocked in the color with a bristle brush.

I used smaller filbert bristle brushes, and in some cases a small flat bristle, to refine the various planes of the crumpled bag. At this point I am very happy I spent so much time on the underpainting - the basic shapes are right so I can focus on color rather than drawing.

After a lot more refining, this is the final. It took about 8 hours to complete.

I experimented with Prussian blue instead of my usual Ultramarine, it was a nice change for me. The whole palette was:

Cad Red Medium
Cad Yellow Deep (an orange I love)
Cad Yellow Medium
Sap Green
Prussian Blue
Raw Umber (just for the underpainting)
Mars Black (yes, I just started using black last week for the first time ever)
Titanium White

I used to get really frustrated where a light area meets a dark area - because so much white mixed with so much dark (blue, umber, black, or all three) makes a really chalky, ugly midtone. So I have started pouring a ton of color into my midtones and it has really helped.

Two Onions

8 x 10 inches, oil on cradled panel

This would have been a whole lot easier if I had just painted the onions, and left the silver platter out of the composition.

Silver Pitcher & Plum - SOLD

1o x 10 inches, oil on panel

Wow, today was a blast. I went out this morning and bought a bunch of fruit for still lifes at our little neighborhood grocery store, and then checked out a little antique shop around the corner. I ended up buying about 5 different vessels, including this amazing globe pitcher and the little pewter pitcher.

With all the new props to play with my still life just fell together, and over the next 5 hours or so this painting just fell out of my brush.

I'm trying with these recent paintings to let objects melt into the background and into each other, finding as many instances of "passage" as I can, while still retaining the structure of the form. This is the most successful I've ever been at that, and I'm really happy with the painting.

Here are the process shots. I included a shot of the block-in this time, which I usually do in the first 10 minutes and never photograph.

Green Vase with White Roses

10 x 10 inches, oil on panel

I decided to try my hand at a flower arrangement, a subject I've never painted before. Maybe I'll do a longer painting like this one sometime, there isn't time in one day to capture all that detail. But it was fun to experiment with an impressionistic style.

Process shots:

Teapot and White Flowers SOLD

8 x 10 inches, oil on cradled panel

My mom gave me this teapot as a birthday present this year because I said I want to start a collection of teapots. I love the color of this one. Anyone know what these flowers are? They look kind of like roses, but they have no thorns.

Here are the process shots:

Peach on Green SOLD

8 x 10, oil on cradled panel

This painting was a real breakthrough for me. I finally started to feel like my recent investment in intensive drawing study is showing up in the painting.

I had fun with the colors in this one, the pale lavender "fuzz" around the edge of the peach was so satisfying to paint. And the red/orange fruit on the pale green cloth just pops.

"Cradled panel" mean the wood panel has a lip around the edge on the back, so the panel is easy to hang and has a nice hefty depth (about an inch). I need to buy a bunch more this size and larger, it was a much better size to paint on than the tiny panels I've been using.

Friday Cast Drawing - Sessions VI & VII

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, approx 18 x 24 inches

This is the result of the 6th and 7th sessions, see the 5th session.

I think I have just one more 4-hour session on this drawing to complete it - I plan to develop the fabric of her dress and her hair a bit more.

Daily Painting - Brown Bag Fruit SOLD

I don't know if it's the new art studio, my new flat brushes, different lighting, or a new book on oil painting I skimmed last night, but today was the first day in a long time when painting for me felt has purely enjoyable.

I just plopped these plums on top of the paper bag they came in, and suddenly realized I loved how they looked all nestled in there. The brown bag itself was a great opportunity to try for planes and structure. It looked a little plain, though, so I added the red strawberry for balance and color interest. Then the painting itself just happened. I wish every painting day was this easy.

My New Art Studio

My new studio, affectionately dubbed "le shed", is officially done! This morning I woke up like a kid on Christmas, so excited to paint in my new space. It's small, but everything fits, and it was totally comfortable to paint in.

Daily Painting - Bud in a Bottle

6 x 6 inches, oil on panel

Drawing with Dad - Final

This is the 4th and final session drawing my Victoire de Samothrace statue with Dad (see the third session). The detail in her draperies could take weeks longer to finish, but we decided to move on to something new.

­Friday Cast Drawing - Session V

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, approx 18 x 24 inches

This is the fifth session on this drawing - you can see the 4th session here.

I worked a lot on the face - if you toggle back and forth between the two you can see the difference. I was unhappy with how "old" the drawing was looking, and I realized I had made an error which was elongating the face.

So I ended up redrawing the mouth significantly higher, as well as raising the bottom of the nose a bit. I also slimmed down the sides of her face and arched the eyebrows a bit more, and so now she is starting to look as youthful as the sculpture.

How much longer - so far this is a 20-hour drawing. I think I need to spend at least 3 more sessions, or 12 more hours.

Painting News
I have officially forgotten how to pant. At least, I've forgotten how to paint alla prima - single-session wet-on-wet paintings. I just keep making mud. I even switched to watercolor, hoping a change in medium would shake things up a bit, but no luck; nothing worth showing here is coming out of my brush these days. Maybe it's all these 20-hour drawings? My brain is just so slowed down and paying attention to details that I can't seem to capture anything quickly. I keep trying though. All these drawings I've been doing are just exercises to become a better painter, so hopefully the painting skills kick in again soon.

Art Shed News
The final day of construction on Le Shed was TODAY. In fact, the last worker stayed late and just left at 9pm tonight. I have the painter coming tomorrow (I negotiated and got a major break on the price I was complaining about last week). So the art studio should be done NEXT WEEK. Only several weeks behind schedule...

­Drawing with Dad - Session III

This is the third session, see the second session here.

Announcement #1
So as I've mentioned, my Dad has been going to art school at Academy of Art University after retiring from a very successful career as a software engineer. But he has been really excited about the classical method I have been teaching him recently, and last week he decided to take a year off of art school and join me in classes and workshops at Bay Area Classical Artist Atelier. I am thrilled!

Announcement #2
The BACAA website has been redesigned.... by me! The goal was to make it easier to see the classes and workshops offered, and make it easier to sign up for them, but also create a beautiful "Renaissance" feel - check out the new look at www.bacaa.org

Caroline's Profile - Session IV

Pencil on paper, 11 x 14 inches

This is the finished drawing of Caroline. To see the previous session click here.

I built up layers and layers of cross-hatching to build up the tones - if you click the image you can see a larger version that shows more details (the photo is slightly blurry, but you get the idea). I have never cross-hatched so much in my life!

I am happy with the drawing, it is a real advancement for me, probably the best drawing I have ever done.

Art Envy
Sometimes I find an artist who makes me green with envy. Nathan Fowkes is one of those artists. He combines rock-solid drawing skills with highly expressive marks, both in his drawings and his painting sketches. I found his blog four days ago and I have gone back every day since to drool over the work. He has another blog just for his landscape sketches, which he says he does in 20-40 minutes. Daunting.... and yet inspiring.

Art Shed News
My little art shed is allllmost done. Of course the final details are taking forever to wrap up. As a final step I got a quote to paint it. Maybe it's San Francisco, but I never imagined it could cost so much just to slap one color (white) on the inside of a 100 square foot room, and another color (to match the house) on the exterior. Holy cow. Now I have to decide if I want to do it myself, or go looking for other bids. My housepainting experience is nil, but maybe it's not very hard?

Daily Painting - Apricot

6 x 6 inches, oil on panel

The Daily Painters have a goal - 2000 painting in 30 days! I'm taking the opportunity to get back into my daily painting routine with 4 -5 new paintings a week from June 15 - July 15.

Read the press release here: 2000 Paintings in 30 Days.

Also, check out DailyPainters.com.

Caroline's Profile - Session III

Pencil on paper, 11 x 14

I didn't get much done this third session (see Session II), partly because during the pose our class took some time away from drawing to participate in an online chat with Dan Thompson through American Artist Magazine.

My favorite Dan Thompson quote from the chat is "I have to go through a period of awkwardness before a period of revelation". You can see the full transcript of the chat here. And you can see Dan's website here.

The classical realism school I attend, BACAA, is hosting a workshop with Dan Thompson July 30 - August 10. You can register for the class at the BACAA website.

Friday Cast drawing - Session IV

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, approx 18 x 24 inches

This is my 4th session developing my cast drawing. See the third session. I'm finally starting in on the shading. I heard recently that some teachers of the classical method require their students to spend an entire year practicing the block-in, no shading at all!

I'm in the newspaper!

San Francisco Examiner, Peninsula Edition, Page 4, June 9th, 2007

That's me working on my cast drawing! A "community beat" photographer dropped by our class and asked to take some pictures for the paper. Too bad he spelled my name wrong! Also, he mentioned the school where I take classes, BACAA, but not the web address, so here it is: www.bacaa.org

Drawing with Dad - Session II

This is the second session, see the first session.

Today is my birthday! What better way to spend the day - Dad took me out for sushi, and then we came back to the house to work on our drawings. We worked on developing the block-in for quite a while, then moved into the shading, which is more exciting. But it does reveal mistakes.

As I tell Dad, we have to be disciplined and go back and check the proportions over and over. It's easy to correct them now, but much harder the further we develop the drawing. For example, I found that I'd incorrectly placed the the ankle of the forward leg, and therefore the dramatic twist of the statue's torso was being "unwound". I moved the whole leg to the right by almost half an inch, and the twisting gesture of the pose came back to life.

I'm learning to always be ready to do major surgery to make a drawing as strong as possible. Why be happy with a "sort of right" drawing? Drawing is an investigation, we may as well do what it takes to record the form accurately.

Dad and I are very similar - we focus very intensely and we forget to take breaks. After hours of drawing we look up with a start and realize how late the day has become. We've decided next time we'll set a timer to remind ourselves to take breaks - this particular model does not need any rest, but we do.