PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 2, Toning Canvas

Many plein air painters like to paint on toned canvas or panels. This has the effect of removing the glaring white from the canvas, and giving a light-valued ground against which all the painting’s values can be compared. Some toned grounds are allowed to show through in the final painting, giving it an overall unity of color.

Some artists prefer to tone the canvas on location. A common method is to take a color or mixture of colors, often burnt sienna or some other warm semi-neutral, and thin it with solvent, then wipe the mixture over the canvas. The result is a thin wash-like layer of color that dries quickly in most outdoor conditions. It is even possible to rub out light areas of the painting, resulting in a toned value plan on which to build the painting. In order to use this method, it is necessary to either travel with solvent, or purchase solvent on location.

Aside from all other considerations about solvents, flying with solvent is problematic. Airline regulations prohibit flying with any flammable liquid, which is defined for airline purposes as anything with a flash point of 141 degrees or lower. Gamblin’s Gamsol, variously listed at 145 and 147 degrees, barely makes the grade as a flyable solvent. No other paint manufacturer’s product that I know of does.

Rumors abound about artists having their paints confiscated by the airline security. Maybe these artists didn’t pack their paints with the proper information. Whatever the reason, I know that most artist supply warehouses ship their Gamsol ground transport, and just avoid the issue, so I do too. I don’t pack solvent.

My preferred method is to prepare a gray-toned canvas ahead of time. This way, I can use the slower-drying oil painting ground, which according to some experts creates a stronger bond with the layers of paint above it, and which also keeps the oil from the paint from drying in, leaving the paint layer matte in texture and dulled in color.

To prepare your canvas or panel with oil painting ground, mount the canvas on boards or stretchers so that you have a stiff surface to work with. First seal the surface with a coat of PVA size. This is a thin glue-like substance that seals the canvas, keeping the oils of the ground or paint from reaching the fibers and causing their early demise from rotting. Let this dry overnight. Then, take your oil painting ground and mix in some gray or black oil paint to darken the ground to the exact value you want for your painting. Sometimes I use a black pigment, like ivory black. Sometimes I add a little quinacridone majenta to warm up the gray tone. Often I have a gray mixture of leftover paint from paintings that I can put into the mix. What you see is what you get, so balance the value carefully. Then scrape the oil painting ground over the canvas with a palette knife, and smooth the whole thing with a stiff brush, using random directions. If the canvas was previously sprayed commercially with gesso, usually one coat is enough. If it is raw canvas, two coats might be necessary. Depending on conditions, this might take up to a week to dry.  The illustration above is my canvas drying in 90 degree summer heat.  The canvas was dry the next day.



Video demonstration from Gamblin


You might prefer the simplicity and quickness of acrylic gesso. Skip the PVA step. Mix gray acrylic paint into the gesso, to reach a value at least one step lighter than the final value you would like. Acrylic paint mixed into gesso dries considerably darker than it appears when wet. Coat the canvas at least once if it is pre-primed, and at least three times if it is not. Some people recommend sanding between coats. For landscape painting, I don’t bother. Let the gesso dry overnight between coats.

If you’re joining me for the Maui Painting Retreat, pack about 4 practice pages or panels per day.  Practice panels can be prepared with the quicker acrylic gesson method.  For panels or canvas you might use for 

Now, your canvas is ready. Let’s pack and go!

MAUI PAINTING RETREAT 2011

Leave winter behind and paint the beautiful beaches of Maui!

This trip is designed to include painting instruction and some optional activities, allowing you to choose your own lodging and transportation at your preferred level of luxury.  Sign up early for some bonus options.

$375.00

Workshop Dates: 2/21/2011 - 2/25/2011

Location: Maui (Wailea and Kaanapali areas)

See FLIER for more details

OPEN STUDIO INVITATION

Karen E. Lewis

invites you to tour her studio dduring

PORTLAND OPEN STUDIOS

October 9, 10, 10-5

October 16,17, 10-5

4155 Calaroga Dr.

West Linn, OR 97068

503-699-0817

including

10 MAUI SUNRISES

(with 60 + plein-air paintings from Fall 09 to Fall 10)

Brand new works in oil on canvas, plus many other paintings, cards, prints and demos throughout the day.  

www.karenlewisstudiio.com

A CASCADE OF CLEARING

I want a space in which to place paintings in frames and evaluate them for gallery placement.  A nice-sized wall.  All the walls in the studio get full with paintings that are drying.  All the walls in the house have paintings that live on them (an ever-changing array.)  And the hall by the studio is full of newly finished work.  Where can I possibly do this?
In my office there is a bulletin board covered in thank you letters, postcards, and award ribbons.  It is surrounded by paintings made by my kids when they were small.  Do I need all this stuff?  No.  I put the postcards from friends into a box.  Put the best of the kids' goodies on a small wall by my door where I'll see them when I walk in.  Take a photo of the ribbons and throw them away.  Then pull the bulletin board off the wall.
So now I have my wall.  But the credenza is covered with project boxes and the file cabinet is piled to the ceiling.  Need to find a place to put this stuff away.  I dig into the closet.  This releases piles of stuff for goodwill.  Piles of unorganized office supplies. Stuff I couldn't use because I couldn't find it.  I put things in boxes and label it all.  It turns out to be a full day of sorting.
The next day is staging day.  I reward myself by setting up lots of paintings in my newly cleared space.

CREATIVE ENERGY

Thought shared by a friend:

When you don't have energy to do something creative in the studio, do something routine.  Cut mats, prepare canvas, and such.  Move forward.

Today I prepared canvas.  Thought about clearing a wall for pre-gallery selection and staging of paintings.

THE LIVING RIVER

This month,  I'll have a painting featured in THE LIVING RIVER juried art exhibit.

This is a benefit for the Mckenzie River Trust.
Jacobs Gallery
110 West Broadway
Eugene, OR  97401

For more information:
http://mckenzieriver.org/the-living-river-art-exhibit

BOOK REVIEW: GEORGE BELLOWS by Mary Sayre Haverstock

Book Review: GEORGE BELLOWS by Mary Sayre Haverstock.

(Merrell, 2007)
This artist’s biography is the most beautifully illustrated and presented book I’ve seen in years. The color images are rich with color and look as if they represent the artist’s paintings superbly. The story of Bellows’ life is engaging. Even more interesting are the shockingly honest portraits dotted throughout the book. There are also some elegant portraits, and I kept speculating that those in particular must have been commissions, in which the sitter had to be pleased with the results.

Probably the most characteristic of Bellows’ paintings are the boxing ring paintings, straining muscles recorded in paint. It’s hard to imagine how all that action could be captured with a painter’s painstaking brushwork.

A beautiful book, with pleasurable reading and thought-provoking paintings.

SUNRIVER MUSIC FESTIVAL

This year, I was invited to paint the poster for the Sunriver Music Festival.  You can check it out on their web site:

http://www.sunrivermusic.org/

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 11

Gruppe


“BASIC PRINCIPLES OF COLOR IN NATURE

“When you work outdoors, you only need to worry about a few basic concepts. 1. The nature of the eye, 2. The local color of the object 3. The color of outdoor light, 4. The color of the atmosphere itself, and 5. The effect of neighboring colors on one another.”

Wow! A lot packed into that. Probably, when he mentions the nature of the eye, he is talking about cones, creating colors with bias, and keeping the eye moving. 2-5 seem to speak about the influences that affect the appearance of color. Light, atmosphere, and reflected light all alter the appearance of local color to some degree. But why do we have to worry about all that? Isn’t observation our best guide to what colors are in our complex and changing environment? I’d be surprised if Gruppe meant artists to paint by rule rather than observation, and I saw no sign of the approach of rule in his book. Perhaps he just means us to be aware that all of these factors are present when we observe colors.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 10

Gruppe


“A NATURAL WAY TO SEE

When I tell you to look all over a scene in order to see color, I’m not giving you a professional “trick”. Think for a minute: how do you normally look at the world? You see color because you move your eyes, constantly giving them new objects and colors to look at. The cones are always stimulated. Staring at a spot–something you habitually do when you draw or paint-is an unnatural way of looking. So when you stare and paint, you lose the sparkle that comes with a casual glance. Train yourself to keep your eyes moving, to compare area with area–and you’ll find that there are no nondescript colors in nature.”

This bit is confusing. While I agree that natural seeing involve movement of the eye, and I agree that it is easier to see color when moving the eye, I believe that there is a difference between natural seeing and the way that an artist looks for color. It has something to do with the way the brain shifts from seeing trees and grass to seeing color shapes. So, while the cones may be more stimulated by keeping the eye moving, the artist still needs to be seeing things flatly, in terms of color and shape, and not allowing the brain to interpret objects. You need to be in artist’s mind.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 9

EYE FATIGUE


You might think that the best way to analyze an area of color is to stare at it intently.. But that’s just the wrong way to do it. The longer you stare at an area, the grayer it gets. Your eye becomes used to the color. It fatigues; your sense of color dies. The only way to judge the color of an object is to compare it with the color of objects near it.

"Let’s say, for example, that you want to determine the color of the sky at the horizon. It can be anything from purple to green. But to see it, you should first look over your head for a few second s at the color of the zenith. Then quickly lower your eyes. For a few seconds, you’ll see vivid color near the horizon. Then the color will rapidly fade. If you want to get the character of that day, you should paint the horizon as you see it for those few seconds. That’s why I constantly move my eyes over a scene, comparing values and colors. If I’m stumped by an area, I work on another spot; then, when I turn back to the trouble-some place, I’m usually able to see the color."

What can I say about these words of wisdom?  Keep the eye moving.  It really works.  The more I practice this, the more it helps.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 8

Gruppe


“If I am stumped by an area, I work on another spot; then, when I turn back to the trouble-some place, I’m usually able to see color.”

This speaks to eye fatigue. That is, the tendency of the rods and cones to need some time to recover. Generally, the recovery time is seconds, but I suppose that if you are painting an area of gray sky and it starts to look grayer and grayer, moving to some other area would help refresh the eye. Even more, it would let you think about something different for a while, which is helpful in any context when you are stuck.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 7

Gruppe:
“You might think that the best way to analyze an area of color is to stare at it intently. But that’s just the wrong way to do it. The longer you stare at an area, the grayer it gets. Your eye becomes used to the color; it fatigues, your sense of color dies. The only way to judge the color of an object is to compare it with the color of objects near it.”

This is one of those passages that continues to yield new meaning with every reading. Lately I’ve been looking closely at color fields, those large areas of color that at first appear the same, but reward further looking with variations. A large meadow, the sky, a road, a group of trees. The idea of not staring, but keeping the eye moving is very helpful. As you move your eye across the wall in a room, you begin to notice differences in the color as you move across the color field.

Another way to interpret this passage is to consider a color in comparison to things around it, rather than within itself. Thus, how light or dark something is depends on what’s around it. Colors can be compared to one another, giving more clarity to exactly what kind of blue is in the sky or what gray on the trunk of a tree. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have to watch out or our paintings will be 80 percent green. Comparing greens, however, gives us a multiplicity of colors.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 6

Gruppe:
"One of the first things I discovered was that the amount of color you see is a result not so much of what you look at--but of how you look at it. To help you understandthe idea, we should first examin how the eye operates.
"The eye sees through color cones. It has three sets of cones: one for red, one for blue, and one for yellow. From these colors, it creates everything you see in the world. For the eye to be excited and stimulated--and for pictures to have snap, the viewer should see a bias toward the red, blue, or yellow in your color. The eye should be able to dissect the colors. That is one reason black and the earth colors have little effect on the eye. Black, for example, is opaque. It's just a black and the eye can't decipher it, can't break it into recognizeable color parts."

Gruppe here is probably projecting his own explanation for the observations he has made in his painting. M perspective, based on my research into how the eye works, is that the eye is indeed much more stimulated when there is a bias in a color toward red, yellow, or blue. But this has more to do with how the brain interprets stimuli from the cones. Cones are connected in groups to the nerve cells behind the retina in such a way that the eye/brain is always making comparisons rather than measuring absolute levels of color. The brain also is more interested in variations and change in the environment. so a flat field of color is less interesting than a varied one, and a color with no bias toward red, blue, or yellow is equally stimulating to all the cones, therefore less interesting to the eye/brain. Because research is continually turning up new information, even this perspective may be outdated. But the useful part is: stimulate the eye/brain. Creat variation. Create colors that have bias.

Black may still be useful for creating contrast with another color. Black is also useful when the entertainment of the design is not in color, but in shape. Earth colors can be useful as long as they are varied and not used straight out of the tube.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 5

Gruppe
"Often you must sacrifice one set of relationships in order to emphasize another more essential one."

This speaks to the limitations of paint when expressing the varied and wide-ranging world of light. If you have nine values in which to express the world, you will need to simplify the complexity of what you see. Otherwise, you will run out of values. If the lightest color you have to express a light source is light yellow, then all other yellows must be subordinated to that one, or the light source won't appear to be light.

There's another aspect to the expression of relationships. Our brains are attracted to variety and contrast. If all relationships are expressed with equal emphasis, the painting that results is one of scattered interest. If essential relationships are expressed clearly and others are subordinated, then the painting shines with expression of the artist's intention.

It is useful, in either case, to know what your painting is about.

REVIEW: The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art, by Mark Rothko

REVIEW: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art, by Mark Rothko

This small, dense book is an interesting historical perspective, both in that Rothko views the artist’s place historically, and in the historic turning of art away from realism during Rothko’s lifetime. Rothko sees the artist as a sort of philosopher, an interpreter of the sensibilities of his time and life experience. He talks about the shifting attentions of artists throughout history, from the art of myth, to sensual art, to art of emotion expressed in light. We are left to speculate how he might have reflected on the abstracted forms of art prevalent in his later years, after the book was written.

Rothko’s prose is heavy, laden with undefined terms. Even when he does pause to define his language, his meaning is often unclear, as with his oft-used “plasticity.” A significant work of philosophy would require, I think, more exacting language.

An interesting glimpse into the mind of an artist at a crossroads.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 4

Gruppe
"When painting light trees like birches, don't darken the sky too much to show them up."

It would be pretty easy to overemphasize these contrasts. Along the Boise River, I notice that, while the trunks of the birches in sunlight arewhite, in shade they are darker, and the branches against the sky are significantly dark. The key here seems to be to observe the relationships, and not to exaggerate them out of proportion.

REVIEW: Edward Seago, by Ron Ranson

REVIEW: Edward Seago, by Ron Ranson
My favorite sort of artist biography: a bit on the artist’s life and perspective so I understand what I’m looking at, followed by lots and lots of high-quality color plates. Seago’s subtle paintings reward lengthy looking. His compositions are spare, neatly balanced, with exacting attention to values. He makes great use of balancing compositions, counterchange, and precise placement of a bit of more saturated color, leaving no question about what interests him in a scene.
These paintings are particularly interesting for me, because, while I enjoy and admire the subtle, grayed paintings, I find that I am emotionally drawn to those with more color in them. Value and composition make the paintings great. But color is what engages my heart.
Still, I am drawn to look at these paintings over and over. A lovely book to add to a collection.

TURNING FORM WITH COLOR

In this exercise, we practice, in a very simplified form, turning the form with color. This enables you to conserve values, which can be very useful in creating a unified design. We talked about coming up the color wheel as the form turns into the light.

BOISE RIVER

A classroom demonstration. This scene is, believe it or not, in downtown Boise. The river is in incredibly natural condition, and a trail follows alongside, where you can walk, bicycle, and sometimes even ski. One of the prettiest downtown parks I've ever seen. This was a cold winter day, and I was on a search for some color.

COLOR FIELDS

4 ways to view and paint color fields; portraits of a section of ceiling at LOAD:

Top left: Match the color mixing with a painting knife and lay it on the canvas in the general area it fills. You can keep it simple as in the example, or narrow the areas down to tiny spots.

Top Right: Fill the whole shape with a color to represent the general color of the field. Then look more closely at the field, and mix next to the original color so you can compare the color, mixing variations of the main color.

Bottom Right: Mix color to approximate the color of an area, and lay it on in dots, lots of dots where it is most prevalent, fewer dots where it is the least. Keep adding dots of color until the overall field approximates the color and variations that you see.

Bottom left: Scan the whole field. Note where a particular rainbow hue predominates and mix a fairly saturated mix of that hue. Grade it across the shape from most to least. Do this with other hues until the shape approaches the appearance and saturation of the observed color.

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 3

“If the values are wrong, the best color work in the world could never make the picture look true.”

Can you alter a value pattern? Lots of artists talk about doing it. Or moving a light object in front of a dark object. There may be ways of playing around with values in a realistic landscape, adding shadows here, eliminating shapes there, rearranging things, creating counterchange. I think here, that Gruppe must be talking about the precise relationship of values between distant objects and near ones, and between values within an object, so that the value relationships express a consistent quality of light within a scene.

In my personal experience, there are paintings that when I view them, the value/color relationships look spot-on. That isn’t to say that they are copied from nature (impossible, really, within the color space of paint), but that they are so internally consistent as to leave the impression of reality. Get even one of these relationships a little bit off, in comparison with the others, and the illusion falls apart. Gruppe here is saying that value is the most important relationship, color less important. It seems to me that color is an area where the artist can play a bit.

REVIEW: A. T. Hibbard, N. A.: Artist in Two Worlds. By John L. Cooley.

A. T. Hibbard, N. A.: Artist in Two Worlds. By John L. Cooley.
Another art book recommended to me in an artist’s blog. This one is an entertaining biography. My favorite parts are the color plates (I do love color plates) of some Hibbard paintings, and a chapter near the end of some Hibbard wisdom about painting.
“Avoid using Nature photographically. Many adjustments are necessary. They should make the painting more successful as a work of art.”
“Associate with your material, aesthetically as well as physically. It is impossible to do that in a studio.”
“Beware of too much studio landscape painting. Direct contact gives you the rare elements, moods of short duration.”
“Be prepared to change quickly the scheme of the landscape; or if necessary try to remember it.”
“Follow the weather. Know how it affects your painting territory so you can know what will happen to your material at various times of day.”
“The foreground of your picture should be a lead-in to what is beyond.”
“Too much white weakens your sketch. Get color and vibrate it, without overmixing.”
“Focus on a dominant part of your subject, whether sky, distance, middle distance, or foreground.”
“Too high a key in a picture often sacrifices color and strength, and the painting becomes diluted. We must lower Nature’s key which many times is quite beyond the capacity of pigment.”

GRUPPE ON COLOR, 2

“Reserve the lightest lights and darkest darks and bring values together.”

This is one of those bits of advice that you hear now and again, and no one ever explains why. Here’s one explanation that I’ve heard, and even repeated in those moments when I believed it (paraphrased): White has no color information in it. If you want the eye to be stimulated by color, you must put color in your whites. But if that were the case, why would watercolorists be repeatedly advised to save lots of whites, even to the finish of the painting? ??

The trouble with taking advice at face value is that the reasons for the advice get lost. Why would watercolor artists be advised to save whites, while oil painters are advised to get rid of them? One possible reason is the chalky effect that white can have on an oil painting, another subject which deserves some discussion... another time. Also, the white of watercolor paper is seldom a strong white, usually having a little warm off-white color to it.

Darks could be similar: in lending a warm or cool cast to the dark colors, you allow the eye some color information. Watercolors simply aren’t capable of making the strong darks that oils are, although sometimes artists get close. Even so, watercolor darks with no color to them, no warm or cool tendency, have a muddy look to them, and become unappealing pretty quickly.

So maybe the real reason to keep the pure white out of the oil painting and the deepest dark out of the oil and watercolor is that they just don’t look all that good.

What do you think?

REVIEW Twilight of Painting by R. H. Ives Gammel

I picked up this book (on inter-library loan, as it is out of print) on the recommendation of an artist whose blog I read regularly, hoping to learn more about the traditions of fine art.

Gammel's thesis appears to be that the academic painters of the 19th century (which term he goes to great length to define) and the impressionist painters of the 19th century (which includes anyone not painting in the fine tradition of painting handed down through the ages) had a falling out. The first impressionists, having been themselves trained in the academic tradition, had all of the fine art skills at their disposal and experimented in new techniques by choice. But when they went on to train their successors in (Gammel admits) the fine art of observing from nature and capturing the effects of light, they threw out the baby with the bath water and neglected to teach a full range of the painter's art, including drawing, so that the skills of the academic painter have been lost.

For me, a perplexing part of this book was Gammel's critique of the various art plates in the book, (which are, unfortunately, black and white.) Even allowing for difference in taste, I fail to see why this noodly lady:

http://art-quarter.com/beck/joe/aj/1/3/ingres-odalisque98.jpg

is a better painting than this:

http://artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=4889


or even than this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/2614520891_e557fc2c8d.jpg

It seems to me that most of the paintings he includes in his plates are examples of fine painting in their particular traditions, and only a few exhibit the flaws he claims they do. I would have liked better illustrations and better explanations so that I could have understood his point. If the tradition of fine painting has been lost, he failed to show me that it has.

The book is full of a great deal along this vein, which, now that I've told you, you don't have to read. Certainly, some lively debates could be made for and against many of his points. But ultimately, I think the embedded lesson is "don't neglect your scales," that is, don't neglect studying the basics of drawing and design and understanding value, and the technical manipulation of paint, all of which contribute to great painting in any style.

PEAR IN SNOW

It is actually snowing as I photograph this. The challenge here, of course is to convey that sense of near-white all around. The pear is slightly shadowed from being beside the house, therefore there isn't as much scattered light on that side.

ART SHOWS IN MARCH

I am in the middle of hanging three shows for March.

LAKE OSWEGO ADULT COMMUNITY CENTER
This is a show of works by my students in community ed oil painting landscapes class. Contact the center for hours when the room is open for viewing.

EXPOSE YOURSELF: A project of artists helping artists
8 large landscapes in a downtown storefront at 5th and Alder. Walk by and enjoy some sunny afternoon.

US BANK LLOYD CENTER:
8 smaller paintings in the US bank building. Banking hours.

No receptions, just art to go and see.

SUN CURTAIN

This painting is relatively high key, whether it looks like that on a monitor or not. I have the most difficulty with my photos when I look at them on my laptop. This is when they look least like themselves.

LIGHT EXERCISE, PEAR IN EARLY MORNING

Hard to see in this photo, easier to see in the painting, the light here was very violet, with cooler shadows. There are scattered clouds, and the early sun is pinking them up. Unfortunately, the pear again chooses to pose on its side, this time looking something like a lime. I'm going to have to hire a new pear.

LIGHT EXERCISE, PEAR IN WINTER SUNLIGHT

We had a lot of fun with these. A lot of the pears in class looked vaguely like avocados. I made sure to put the bud end on to avoid just this problem. But maybe, in reality, it is more a problem of inexact observation of shape, or the unfortunate pose that this particular pear insisted on--and it did insist!

EMILE GRUPPE’ ON COLOR, 1

Notes and thoughts on a classic title.
Here’s what I’ve been working on in the studio. It has nothing to do with the topic; just thought I’d share.
I’ve been reading and studying this book written and illustrated by Emile Gruppe’, and have found much worthy of thought and discussion. This will probably take many posts, so here’s the first.
Gruppe’ grew up with an artist father, and he also studied under two well-known landscape painters: Charles Hawthorne, and John Carlson. This gave him lots of material to discuss, and he quotes both these teachers throughout the book. The nice thing about Gruppe’s book, though, is that he is a much more accessible writer than Carlson, and much more forthcoming than Hawthorne. And he appears to have compiled the best of the ideas from both teachers. So, here go some of his thoughts.

Gruppe’: “Paint the tree in front of you. Note how it relates to things around it, interacts with the forest, branches react to each other within the tree itself.”

This idea has to do with painting the particular rather than the general. Of course, the most particular would be to paint every leaf and branch of the tree that’s visible from your position. And the least particular would be the lollypop. So... somewhere in between the two is a happy place (different for every artist) where observed particularities can be recorded, creating almost a tree portrait.

This thought seems to leave out a sense of design. That is, the artist makes choices. Which leafy masses are particularly characteristic of the tree? Which shapes serve the design of the painting? Gruppe’ seems to be responding to nature primarily as observer and less as designer. Again, there is probably a wide-ranging scale among artists, with the copyist (flesh-and-bone camera) at one end, and the highly abstract painter at the other (in which the inspiration of the tree may be barely, if at all discernable), and each individual artist falling somewhere in between. Interesting choices to make consciously.

Another dimension of this element that interests me is the ways in which a particular tree is a better representative of universal “treeness” than a very generalized lollipop tree is. For sure a lollipop tree includes the idea of trunk and leaf mass. But it leaves out many other ideas that are part of being a tree. It leaves out branches. It leaves out the broadening of the trunk where roots go into the ground. It leaves out any hint of growth pattern. And of course, it shows nothing of the tree’s interaction with its environment, which shows it to be a living, responsive thing. By painting the patterns of a particular tree, the artist expresses more about all trees.

CRITIQUE REVISITED

More on that troublesome painting. After posting my first revision, I get another critique, one that addresses my feeling of the clouds being too solid. I feel that I should do something about it. I want to do something. I go to the studio to see if the paint is still wet. It is, just. I can still fix it. But something makes me delay, and I go downstairs and spend two hours studying Spanish. After which there is no more time....
Okay, clearly I am avoiding the issue. Is this fear of digging into the painting, or am I avoiding changing what is really fine? I send this question out, and put it from my mind. Within a half hour, thinking no more about the problem, it is clear that the image on the canvas is keeping me from seeing what might be.
I get up the next morning (it is still wet... whew!) and scrape the troublesome cloud down. The ghosted first version retains my base design, while giving me clear space to apply fresh color and paint with a fresh mind.
This constructive/destructive/reconstructive process is something I rarely do, but it is surprisingly freeing

LIGHT EXERCISE, Pear 1

These light studies are a series that I set up outdoors in various light conditions, then imitated in class using cellophane to filter light color. It's amazing how well we can duplicate the lighting conditions with one color on the lamp and another over the box top to indicate sky color.
This pear is painted in lighting two hours after sunrise, with broken clouds on a winter day. In the class, we used magenta sky filter and yellow light filter, with the light placed distant from the box.

The colors of the photo aren't particularly true to the painting, but give something of the feel of it.

TREE PATTERN

Coming back to old photos is fun, when you come on one that still inspires.

STILL LIFE

Painting still life with some friends. Can you say STRETCH?

It's good to get out of the comfort zone occasionally. My tip of the day, To get rid of a really loud area, take your brush and smush it together. I can't believe it but it works!

RESPONDING TO CRITIQUE

Every once in a while, every artist runs across a painting with some element that’s just not quite right. This happens more often when you’re just beginning, and less and less over time. It still happens to me.

There tricks for getting a fresh look at your work– turn it upside down, let it sit for a week, and so on. When they all fail, sometimes an outside opinion helps. And sometimes it doesn’t.

I meet regularly with a group of professional artists for critique. These folks are really good at spotting composition problems. So when I was stumped over the painting currently on my easel (above), I took the problem to my meeting. I also got critiques from some other folks. Here is what people said about it (paraphrased, filtered and interpreted):
*The land and the lower clouds are really peaceful, but the swooping shapes in the upper sky are distracting. Take them out and the whole thing will be really peaceful.
*The sky is great. Leave it alone. On the land, the large dark shape is too busy and makes a big M. Maybe take it down a notch, or break it up some.

At first glance, these two comments look like they conflict. Someone must be wrong. Unless you put this in a greater context. The strong values and shapes in the lower land conflict with the strong shapes in the sky. One has to be the star. What should I do? I go back to my original intent: to express the movement of the large sky and relative insignificance of the land. The sky stays. I break up the dark shape and soften some of its edges. I lose a little of the depth in the landscape, but gain emphasis in the sky.

Then I punch some air into the middle bank of clouds and make them more irregular... the thing that was bothering me in the first place, which no one commented on.

So how do you respond to critique? Ask yourself how it fits with your original intent. Do you want to go in a new direction, suggested by the painting, or hold to your first idea? Knowing what your painting is about, that is key.

LIGHT BRACKETS

Photographing my art is always a chore. I have to drag out my lights on stands and clamps, lights that are stored in a precarious jumble behind a table. The cords are always tangled, and the light stands, being cheap ones, don't cooperate when I manipulate them. It takes probably an hour to set up all this stuff. So I only do it once every few months when I have enough paintings to make it worthwhile.

What if the key lights were set up all the time? My husband mounts two brackets on the walls at the far corners of the studio. I clamp two clamp lights to the brackets. The light clamps aren't strong enough, so I add a pinchy clamp from the hardware store that is so strong I can barely open it. Voila! Lights stored out of the way but also ready for use. All I need do is fasten the cords to the walls and it'll be perfect.

EDGES

Much studying of edges this year. I have been delighted with some of the discoveries. A carefully selected color on the tops of the hills helps them roll back under the sky. No need to blend; the color creates the proper edge.

An edge challenge here is in the water. Because of the way the hills slant, their reflections can't be painted in long vertical strokes, yet I still wanted the brush marks to be vertical. I started this reflection with the canvas on its side, painting the reflection like a butterfly wing. That took it out of the brain-interpreted image zone, reducing everything to colors and shapes. Then I turned the painting back upright, and went over all the brushwork with the same colors, using short bits of intermediate color to soften jumpy transitions. It worked pretty well, but I'll have to keep playing with the technique.

January Clearing: Reaping the Rewards

Now that the junk is cleared away in the studio, and road blocks are gone, the paint is flowing. Nothing like releasing pent-up energy. Even took my palette out of the garage freezer and moved it to the kitchen freezer. You wouldn’t think that would make much difference, but the process of putting on shoes to go out in the garage maze slows me down just that little bit. Even better would be a freezer in my studio. (Like that’s going to happen.)

These hills posed on the fly as we drove from Boise to Portland. I’m working on a series, and playing around with the color and movement.

January Clearing 8

The studio is now organized, drawers have been cleaned, I have more floor space, and I'm beginning to feel like I can breathe in here. I have a pile on my workbench of little jobs that haven't gotten done. The procrastination pile. Mostly these things aren't very important, but when they pile up, they become more so.

The same thing happens in my office, where I waste a lot of time shuffling low-priority papers. The answer to this is simple: Take a half hour each day to

DO THE THING THAT IS IN FRONT OF ME!

January Clearing 7

I pull out the drawer of dropcloths and sheets. Nothing in this drawer is out of place. I fold everything and put it back. Suddenly there is more room in the drawer. Somehow, putting things in order makes less of things. Why can't they just stay that way? Hurry. Which creates a mess, which takes time to straighten out. Interesting loop.

Painter's tape has migrated to three different locations. I put it all in the same drawer and find that I have lots. Sometimes a perceived shortage is merely stuff in the wrong places. Food distribution, perhaps? Water? I know, painter's tape isn't going to save the world, but I'm beginning to see a lot of parallels between the mess in my studio and problems in the outside world.

REVIEW Watermedia Techniques: Watercolor and Gouache

WATER MEDIA TECHNIQUES: WATERCOLOR AND GOUACHE by Stephen Quiller. (Crystal Productions)
This video is full of basic techniques, which Quiller demonstrates in clear, simple demos. It’s a real treat to watch Quiller make shapes with quick confidence using a two-inch wash brush. Grasses, trees, and wood grain emerge magically from the various brush angles and negative and positive shape making.
He constructs a painting, using the transparent qualities of watercolor, then builds translucent and opaque passages with gouache. Because gouache is made of the same gum arabic binder and handles similarly on the brush to watercolor, it is fully compatible with watercolor. It’s great for fine detail, and for creating highlights on a painting, similar to the use of “body color” in 18th century traditional watercolor. The combination of watercolor and gouache also allows the artist to build a painting from dark to light, as in oil painting. Underpaintings, and scumbling techniques become possible.
One interesting demo is a plein-air sketch in watercolor, followed by a studio painting in watercolor and gouache. It’s interesting to see how Quiller takes elements from the sketch and creates a dramatically different studio work, informed by the information he collected in the field.
An excellent video for exploring the possibilities of the two media.

January Clearing 5

Today I go through the photos. Not my digital photos, but the older ones, the film prints. There are a lot of them. I was as shutter-happy then as I am now, only now it costs a whole lot less.

The thing that strikes me about these old photos is that they aren't very good. I'm not inspired to paint from them. I am enjoying looking through them, but I can do that with the photo album, of which these are mostly duplicates. If I really need one of these pictures, the best of them are in the family albums.

I save the garden flower photos for a friend. I save the landscape photos for my oil classes, because you never know. For the time being, I save the wildflower photos for my watercolor paintings, though I may want to use my more recent photos. The rest go in the trash. My closet is pounds lighter.

I have just thrown away hours of (enjoyable) work. And feel good about it. Maybe the things we do in our lives are not as important as they seem at the time.

January Clearing 6

Came across lots of stuff. A small desktop easel, hasn't been used in 3 years. Watercolor paper that runs through the printer. Scratch tools for clayboard. Some of these will be useful for some other artist.

Cardmaking papers can go downstairs with the cardmaking stuff in the storeroom, which I get out once a year... what were they doing in my studio? Stuff seems to migrate into drawers and shelves where it cannot be found. Boxes multiply, almost like coat hangers. I am starting to let some air into the closet. My eyes begin to find useful things among the noise.

January Clearing 4

Side one of my closet. Mostly this was pretty easy. A few things in the wrong drawers, but mostly watercolor supplies.

Ran into the Gouache. Uh-oh. This is a problem. Quite a few tubes of buttery, filmy, rich-colored paint. When did I last use it? More than ten years ago. Does it fit into my current work? Not at all. If I keep the paint, it will be for play.

This is a tough decision. When I look at the paint, I have a desire to play with it. I spent good money on it. But I also have an oil painting on my easel. And a studio full of stuff on the floor that needs closet space. I decide to give the gouache away and to give myself a gift of space.

January Clearing 3

How to clear the studio? Some thoughts:
Useful for oil painting in current style: keep
Possibly useful for oil painting: maybe keep
Useful for watercolor painting in current style: keep
Useful for teaching oils: keep
Useful for teaching watercolors: keep some
Useful for acrylic collage: keep
Useful for plein air: keep
Haven't used in 3 years: consider clearing
Haven't used in 5 years: strongly consider clearing.

So... looking at boxes in the top of the studio closet:
Handmade paper: keep
Collage: keep
Texture tools: keep
Watercolor techniques reference cards: keep
Powdered dye: keep
Projector: 3 yrs. Think about this.
Roll of book cover: keep
Photos: need to go through these. I can't keep every photo I ever took, can I?
Chinese brush supplies: 5 yrs: This I can give away.

January Clearing 2

I have a bad habit of not being able to find a tool in a drawer, and buying a new one to replace the one I can't find. This fills the drawer with more stuff, and then I can't find a tool....
Remedy: take my brush drawer and remove all the brushes that I don't use any more. Perhaps my college student daughter would like these perfectly-good-used-but-not-my-favorite brushes.

January Clearing 1

It's pretty easy for paper to take over my office and studio, and even other rooms in the house. It comes in at the rate of about 15 pieces of snail mail per day, countless sales receipts, plus whatever e-mails or web pages I foolishly print. Resolved: if I can find the information easily on the internet, I do not need to store it in paper form in my house. If (as with magazine articles) I may want to refer to it later, it can be stored as a pdf on my computer. Resolved: Add as close as possible to zero paper files to my existing collection. Reduce the number of files in my house by one drawer each year, until I am down to... er... 4?

This will take some diligence. And some screening of existing files.