Pat Aube Gray - Art Matters

A Sea of Unpredictability

2009-07-29T15:46:00.004-04:00

Life as a visual fine artist is remarkably different from most other life pursuits. It is a path taken when the passion to create art and become better at it usurps even the most rational thought processes about traditional academic education; about steady, reliable income with reasonable expectations of financial growth; about licenses, degrees, certifications, or just the consensus of experts that our knowledge, skill and qualifications are sufficient to earn a living or gain entrance into specialized organizations; about acceptance and acknowledgment from experts in the field; about social interaction at our daily workplace.

The life of a visual fine artist is rewarding, satisfying, and, sometimes, necessary. Like many other endeavors, it has its good points. We enjoy what we do. We can do it anywhere. We can do it in our pajamas. We enjoy the process. We can often make money at it. We can teach it, earning extra money, and enjoy sharing our knowledge. We can listen to music while we work, we can decorate our homes, we can make gifts and donations of our life’s work. Our families can be with us. Our friends, relatives, clients, teachers and our peers pat us on the back and tell us how “good” we are.

But the life of an artist also has its not-so-good points. Art is one of the first products to suffer in a recessionary economy. The quality and beauty of our work, even for the most successful and skilled artists, is always subjective, always in the eye of the beholder, and subject to trends and fads. While some may think our work belongs in the Metropolitan Museum, others, including jurors, newspaper critics, gallery owners, and art collectors (and even some relatives and “friends”), may tell us to keep our day jobs. We may get into a juried exhibition and win a ribbon and not even make the cut with the same art in the next one. We may apply to one prestigious organization and be welcomed with giddy gratitude for “someone like you” being willing to participate, only to be rejected by another for work that is not to their standards, or lacks maturity and depth. The style and quality of our work may earn us a highly touted exhibition in a reputable gallery, while an equally successful venue nearby wouldn’t consider showing our work. A piece of art we consider our best work sits on a gallery wall without notice, while one we didn’t want to sign our names to receives a stream of accolades.

While our real “mission” is to make art, selling it, having it positively judged, and having it accepted and praised are integral factors in the measurement of our success. Confidence, a positive spirit, and motivation can be difficult to maintain in this sea of unpredictability. One week we are on a high due to an acceptance or award, and the next we are trying to understand why our work was declined. We have difficulty assessing the quality of our own work. We fully understand that each juror who views our work will have a unique opinion, we understand that we are at the mercy of that one single person, yet we can’t help but feel inadequate if our work is not “accepted.” Now we may even consider going back to our day jobs! Or, in an effort to preserve our psyches, we may decide that the juror doesn’t know good art when he sees it!

So how do we cope with the emotional roller coaster, with the ups and downs of our careers, with the less than steady incomes? The answers to that question are as different for each one of us as the art we produce. I believe it is important that we support one another, not just with praise, but also within our organizations, with critique groups, with educational opportunities, with shared information about techniques, tools, methodology and theory. And, yes, help with constructive criticism or suggestions. Read, share with your friends, and comment on each other’s websites, newsletters, blogs, facebook entries, and photos. The more we put art in the public view, the greater the number of artists we promote. The more the public views our art and reads artists’ comments, the more aware and, hopefully, appreciative they become. Maybe they will even become collectors.

When our muses are sitting on our shoulders and we are free from insecurities, we are able to paint with excitement and vigor. But even on less inspired days I believe we must continue to work hard, remaining vigilant for that elusive sensibility that will allow us to move closer to excellence, and tune in to the satisfying realization that the artistic hunger of our souls is fed by every mark we make.

Completed Oil Still Life with Progress Photos

2009-07-29T14:56:00.009-04:00

Oranges, Pear and Eucalyptus, (Almost There), 16 x 20, oil on Panel

This painting was started in April the week that Charles Walls was a guest instructor in my teaching studio. This was the first painting I had ever done on Ampersand's gessoed panel and I absolutely LOVED the surface! I only got as far as somewhere between the first and second photos that week, and worked on it many more hours than I thought I would have to in the following months! But I was very happy with the finished painting, which was sold before I finished it! I just love it when that happens!

Because the surface of the panel is relatively smooth (do not confuse this surface with Ampersand's clayboard surface or much earlier version of this panel), toning it first helps give the paint a little more to grab hold of. As you can see in the first photo, the background, for example, is still rather transparent. There are a few more layers on the final version, but the luster of the finished painting is wonderful! (I used M. Graham's walnut alkyd medium, which also adds to the quality of the finished surface.)

You might note that there is a fourth branch of eucalyptus in the finished work. The actual set-up contained only three, but the space between the eucalyptus and the highly lit pear really bothered me. It was as if there were no connection between it and the remainder of the subject matter and tended to lead the eye up and out of the picture plane. Adding the fourth, rightmost branch, directed at the pear and catching some of the light, helped to tie it all together nicely. As artists, we must continually reassess the painting in and of itself, regardless of what the actual source displays. However, I must admit that a more thorough assessment of the set-up in the first place may have revealed this shortcoming!

Oil Still Lifes, Still a Work in Progress

2009-07-29T14:09:00.011-04:00

Time for Tea (Just Started), Oil on Panel, 24 x 18, Pat Aube Gray

I have wanted to paint a still life revolving around tea, and this is my first attempt to do that. I started this painting when Charles Walls was a guest instructor at my teaching studio. These were all objects that I brought from home and set up for the concept Walls was teaching, that of of using depth and aerial perspective in a still life set-up. I did not get very far on this painting that week, but worked on it a good bit at a later date. As you can see, it is far from finished. These photos were shot in a very dark environment, so they are very grainy. Hopefully the photos of the completed painting (if and when) will be much better!

The Homestead, Watercolor, with Progress Photos

2009-07-29T13:45:00.004-04:00

I truly enjoyed painting this commissioned watercolor for one of my favorite collectors. (It was of particular interest because I was teaching a weekly class in linear perspective at the same time I was working on this.) This was her grandmother's antebellum home, located in Athens, GA, and my client has amazingly detailed memories of the house and playing there as a child. Sadly, the home burned to the ground in the recent past, but this painting will serve as a lasting reminder of family ancestors and a cherished childhood.

3 Portraits Accepted in Portrait Society of Atlanta Exhibition

2009-05-27T20:10:00.006-04:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

I am pleased to announce that the above three portraits, "Katie", "Ben" and "Chance," have been accepted by juror, Michael Del Priore, into the Portrait Society of Atlanta's Spring Members' Exhibition. Membership in this organization is national in scope, and some of the nation's best portrait artists are included in their ranks. Today I delivered the paintings to Mable House Art Center in Mableton, GA, the venue for the show. The show opens June 1, 2009 but the opening reception and presentation of awards will take place from 7 - 9 p.m. on June 6, 2009 and is open to the public. There were some outstanding paintings standing against walls waiting to be hung, so the competition for awards is keen. This will be an exhibition worth seeing.

I retrieved these three paintings from my client's home on Sunday. It was the first time I have seen the paintings in their "home" and the first time I have seen all three together, as they were painted one per year. It was really a strange feeling seeing them that way, as each one gets so much of my personal attention and hours and hours and hours of work. Seeing them together in their completed state, not having seen them two of them in quite a while, gave me a "first impression" of sorts. I was actually astounded at how "alike" they were, in style, in finish quality, in feeling, though each child's distinct personality was present in the paintings. Perhaps the strangest sensation was that of recognizing that they actually looked like they had been painted by the same artist. I don't know why I found that so surprising, but I really did. I remember years and years of wondering when my "style" would surface in my work. I think perhaps it has!

Michael Del Priore is the juror who awarded my painting, "Nicomas", the Second Place Award in the 2003 Portrait Society of Atlanta's Fall Exhibition. My understanding is that he will be presenting the awards himself at the reception on June 6th, which is unusual. Though I have met him before, I look forward to seeing him at this exhibition. And maybe I'll see you there as well!

The Magnificent Seven

2009-04-15T23:56:00.006-04:00

On what can only be described as a less than desirable plein air day, seven of us, myself included, braved blustery, windy, cold and uncomfortable weather to paint at this incredible site today. As I said in my earlier post, photos lie, and the farm across the water was oh, so much closer to us than the above photo depicts. Okay, I will upload another photo to show you what it really looked like.

Now click on it to see it larger! As if this wasn't great enough, cows suddenly appeared, as if on cue and out of nowhere, mooing to beat the band, and almost in rhythm with the harsh honking of the Canadian geese that flew, swam, fought, and did some other things (tsk, tsk) right in front of us both in and along the lake's edge. What a fabulous site! Did I tell you we were on National Forest land and only about a mile from my studio? (If this had not been National Land, I think we'd have lit a bonfire with all the dead wood on the ground!)

The Magnificent Seven, as I will now call ourselves, endured the weather today under-dressed (can you believe the forecast was wrong?) and with only one coffee run and search for more outerwear. I am ashamed to say that this girlie group voted, while I was on the coffee run, to return to the warm studio to eat lunch as opposed to sitting at the freezing cold concrete picnic table on site! Oh, ye of little endurance! (I jest, of course. I was secretly thrilled!)

I'd show you the paintings we produced, but nobody stayed around long enough to take pictures of them once they were through! Perhaps I'll post them at a later date!

Oh, yes, and the Magnificent Seven included Henne Karavitch, Judy Holland, Terri Reilly, Dru Sumner, Amanda Fullerton, Susan Williams and me.

My Doctor and Her Grandaddy

2009-04-15T23:18:00.005-04:00

My Doctor and Her Granddaddy, Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 25 Sold
Copyright Pat Aube Gray

Yes, you read that right! That adorable baby is now my doctor! Following the recent death of her beloved "Granddaddy", I was commissioned to paint this portrait from the doctor's favorite (obviously old) snapshot! The doctor is partial to watercolors and this painting lent itself beautifully to that medium.

Painting portraits from photos is something one should seriously undertake only after drawing and painting from life, and then only when painting from the person is not feasible. (Posthumous portraits, of course, fall into that latter category.) Photographs flatten form, alter values, diminish truths, and are subject to the quality of the camera, the digital resolution or film development, the color calibration of developers or computers & monitors, the lighting, and the expertise of the photographer. To drive this point home in a class recently, I gave students multiple photographs of the same subject, each developed, photoshop enhanced, and/or printed differently so that they could see that the resulting portraits from each one of these photos would be vastly different. I then posed the model, the subject of those photos, on the model stand. They were immediately able to see not only the difference between the photos themselves, but also the difference between all the photos and the model!

Once you have painted from life long enough, you understand what will be lacking or altered in photos in comparison to the actual subject, and you learn to make appropriate corrections when painting. Creating the illusion of depth and three dimensional form in a two-dimensional medium is a practiced skill. In today's world, time constraints often disallow the luxury of having a subject sit for us. So if you really want to paint portraits, it behooves you to paint from life whenever you can to prepare you for that inevitable commission you will have to execute from a photo.

And speaking of portraits, next week I will be attending the Portrait Society of America Conference in Reston, VA. I missed last year's so I am really ready to attend this one. It promises to be a great conference, with many portrait demonstrations and guest speakers. This is something I look forward to and always hope I will be a little more enlightened when I return home. Following the Conference, I will be teaching a five day portrait workshop in LaVale, MD.

Successful Workshop with Guest Instructor, Charles Walls

2009-04-13T21:19:00.010-04:00

Charles painting his second great demo of the workshop

Tom Paul and his "first-ever" still-life

Kathy Fain, a long-time student of Charles Walls

Elaine Wiley having a great time painting

Susan Deryke took still-life very seriously

Anne Armstrong quietly pursued perfection in her own private corner

Dru Sumner and her perception of deep space

(L-R) Elaine Wiley, Anne Armstrong, Kathy Fain, Charles Walls, Dru Sumner, Susan Deryke Missing from the Photo - Tom Paul

On occasion, I invite guest instructors to hold a workshop at my teaching studio located at Carriage House Art Center in Blairsville, GA. Happily, Charles Walls accepted my invitation to do a still-life workshop in March, and it was a successful week for all who attended. Charles has studied in New York, primarily with Peter Cox, and more recently with David Leffel, becoming a devotee of the latter's philosophies and visual language of light and space, concepts he presented throughout the five day workshop. Two painting demonstrations, one on Monday and the second on Wednesday, successfully (and beautifully) depicted, first, the concept of light and objects moving across the picture plane from left to right (see Tom Paul's painting above) and, second, light moving across objects that moved from front to back in the picture plane (see all the other paintings above.) Thanks, Charles, for a great week!

Class Demo and Plein Aire Landscapes

2009-03-17T01:22:00.015-04:00

Plein Aire Painting: Park Bench, Downtown Blue Ridge, 11x14 Oil on Panel, Custom Framed, $450
Copyright Pat Aube Gray

Plein Aire Painting: West Main St., Downtown Blue Ridge, 8 x 10 Oil on Panel, SOLD
Copyright Pat Aube Gray

Creek at Cartwright's, Oil on Canvas, 11 x 14, custom framed, $750
copyright Pat Aube Gray

In a recent class for oil painters, I painted the demonstration, Creek at Cartwright's, above. The primary emphasis for my students was the aerial perspective, which allows us to see the depth and distance in the landscape, and the strong value contrasts and color intensity in the foreground of the painting. I painted this scene in watercolor years ago, also in a class, but I found I liked it far better in oil. I was particularly pleased with the impact of the reflected light on the tree on the right as well as the realistic look of the little land mass stretching into the creek.

The top two paintings were painted in plein aire (outside, on location) in downtown Blue Ridge last weekend. The Southern Appalachian Artists Guild organized this paint out for both Saturday and Sunday, with paintings turned in mid-day Sunday for an Exhibition. The work completed was really nice - very professionally executed art in such a short span of time. Many of the pieces were sold, including my West Main St., Downtown Blue Ridge, the middle painting above. A big thank you to Marsha Savage for her work in organizing this event.

On Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, I am taking a group out to paint on National Forestry land right on Lake Nottely. Across a very narrow strip of water there is a farm with great red-roofed barns and a farmhouse with the mountains behind them. I have wanted to paint this place for years and I now have my chance! I am planning five such outings this year (April, May, June, Sept., and October); I arrange for a picnic lunch and beverages and we always have a great time! Look forward to photos of paintings in a future post.

Artists Doing Great Things

2009-03-10T10:18:00.009-04:00

Sketch done in Walnut Ink made at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas School
copyright Pat Aube Gray

A little more than a week ago I drove to Asheville to meet my friend and good watercolor artist, Carol Parks, for what I thought was to be a day of visiting galleries. Carol and her husband, John, have been in many of my workshops and we share a passion for good art. They have been attending life drawing sessions recently at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas in Asheville and Carol surprised me by arranging for us to have a tour of the facility. By its name, I did not realize that this is actually an art school. It is a non-profit organization founded several years ago by North Carolina native, Ben Long, an accomplished artist and painter of frescoes and winner of the First International Leonardo da Vinci Award in Florence, Italy. Ben apprenticed under Maestro Pietro Annigoni in Florence, Italy.

We were met at the entrance by "Gully" (I wish I had gotten his full name), a gracious young man with a most beautiful smile and warm and paintable face. Gully both works and is a student at the school and had arranged for us to meet Ben Long as well as several other faculty instructors including John Mac Kah, whom I had known previously, Mark Henry (a great pastel painter), John Dempsey, and Rebecca King. We were treated to a couple of great cups of coffee and a wonderful round table (literally) discussion in the library with Ben, Mark, John, Gully and Chris Holt, a student, that lasted for several hours.

The school is located in the old industrial area of Asheville, in recent years a haven for artists and their studios. The interior is what, as a teenager, I imagined an art school, an atelier, to be like. With bare floor studios lighted by skylights and otherwise naturally lit by old factory windows high on the wall, easels, pedestals, skeletons, plaster casts, still life setups, and beautiful art set the stage for master-apprentice style learning, as used by the Old Masters and in many of our modern-day ateliers. Students here are taught how to make their own materials including gessoed panels, grinding pigments for paints, ink made from walnuts, picture frames.

The mission of the full-time school is to preserve and develop the traditions and techniques of the old masters in representational art that span the periods from classical Greek to contemporary realism. The curriculum is designed so that graduates of the school will possess solid refined drawing and painting skills in the four genres of representational art: figure, portrait, landscape and still life. Students are immersed in anatomy classes, drawing, and then, when they are ready, in painting. Instructors work alongside students in producing works, a boon to students able to observe the professional artist overcoming the challenges of the work.

A real surprise for me in the library was one of Gully's drawings, a wonderful charcoal portrait of Carol's husband, John Kidd. John has been sitting for the life drawing sessions and Gully really captured him. A great drawing of a great guy... and by a great guy!

We visited the individual studios and saw students, each with their own still life set-up, painting in oil; the room where students gesso panels, grind dry pigments and make walnut ink; the classroom where anatomy is taught, complete with muscular and skeletal diagrams and drawings on a chalkboard; the studio full of plaster casts from which students begin to draw from a 3-dimensional object as in nineteenth century European academies; and the gallery of very impressive faculty and student work. I could not have been happier!

At lunchtime, Carol and I ran out to see one downtown gallery and returned in time to visit Rebecca King's portrait drawing class. The students were all doing a great job drawing in charcoal alongside Rebecca, who was in the midst of a wonderful three quarter charcoal drawing of the model. I was graciously invited to join in but declined due to time constraints.

My thanks to Carol, Gully, and the faculty for a wonderful and most memorable day (and for the walnut ink!) I would encourage any student looking for full time art instruction in the academic tradition to consider the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas.

Turning Myself Around

2009-03-08T14:15:00.007-04:00

Pam, charcoal on paper, 16 x 13, copyright Pat Aube Gray

Each Tuesday night artists who belong to my "Studio Club" come to my studio and draw or paint from a model. Following a family tragedy in 2007 followed by shoulder surgery, it was well over a year before I was participating again on a semi-regular basis. I found that my interest in this had waned, even though, as a portrait artist, it shouldn't, and working from the model used to be one of my favorite things to do. At the start of 2009 I vowed to participate regularly once again and get myself back in the swing of things.

Well, I was there, but my ability to do well seemed to have disappeared! Whatever I once had I didn't have anymore! I was painting in oils and wiped clean my canvas repeatedly, seemingly unable to produce anything the least bit satisfactory.

Trying to work my way out of this block, I decided last week to draw instead of paint. I love to draw and thought it might make a difference if I changed mediums. To further distance myself from what I had been doing unsuccessfully, I also decided to draw in charcoal, something I rarely do. (I usually draw in graphite or conte pencil.)

I am happy to report that this seemed to do the trick. Getting out of my element, so to speak, working in a medium that I still have to "work out" because I am not used to it, forced me to concentrate on the medium and not on the actual drawing process. So the drawing ability, which is more or less second nature, kicked in while I focused on the use of the charcoal. I think I wound up with an acceptable rendering of our model, Pam, and, hopefully turned myself around!

Oranges and Sycamore

2009-03-03T11:33:00.005-05:00

Photo of Actual Still-Life Set-Up

Oranges and Sycamore, 11 x 14, oil on archival linen board, copyright Pat Aube Gray

I have completed this still-life which I discussed in a late January post, "The Value of Light." I changed the backdrop and table cover considerably from the set-up for two reasons: 1) I wanted my painting to differ from those of students painting the same subject, and 2) I wanted to do away with the fabric folds to simplify the composition. In the January post I discussed the value of the light in the composition so I won't repeat myself here. You may note that the color in the pitcher is played up considerably in comparison to the real pitcher as I felt it added to the color harmony by playing up brighter orange tones that can also be found in the oranges. I also painted some orange into the brown section on the right side of the little ceramic piece, once again for harmony but also to play the orange tone against its blue complement for added impact. (Click on the images above to enlarge.)

I am very happy with this painting and hope that you like it as well! It is available for sale at Carriage House Art Center.

I've Received a Blog Award!

2009-02-11T23:44:00.012-05:00

Sara Jacobs Chambers has honored me with this special " I love your art blog" award! As the recipient, I have to list seven things that I love and then pass the award on to seven other artists whose blogs I admire. (See who they are below.) Thank you, Sara! I truly appreciate it.

Sara is a wonderful artist who resides in New Mexico. She uses pastels, oils and other media to produce vivid , bright and bold colorful compositions. Today I saw on her blog the most delicate of floral images that were just wonderful. See them for yourself at Sara J Chambers Art and Philosophy. I will add her site to my links and perhaps she will do the same for me!

So... seven things I love:
1. My family, my dogs, and special friends.
2. Beautiful art.
3. Painting snow.
4. Living in the North Georgia Mountains.
5. Learning.
6. Yarn.
7. Writing.

My first award will go to California artist Sadie Jernigan Valeri. I have watched her develop as an artist only through her blog for a long time now. I love the beautiful classical work she is doing and reading her informative and interesting posts, and I admire her pursuit of excellence through extensive study with many of today's top artists and contemporary masters. Kudos to Sadie.

The second will go to Indiana artist, Jacqueline Gnott, whose highly praised and poetic watercolor floral paintings have graced my emails and given me pause on more than one occasion to marvel at the beauty of her work. She also has a good sense of humor and, through her blog, I've also learned that she really loves her dogs! Thank you, Jacqueline, for your daily inspiration.

I will dole out my third award to United Kingdom artist, Paul Foxton, whose blog/website (not sure which it is, but I am subscribed to it) I came across quite by accident when he had done a painting of an old iron that was so very well done. More than that, I found that this man writes so much and so well about the process of his art, about the ruminations of his mind as he is learning or realizing new things about drawing or painting, and about methodolgy, technique and theory that I am enthralled. I have never seen an artist's site where there are more reader comments! Thank you, Paul, for all your insight!

Number Four shall go to Katherine Tyrell of the U.K. for an incredibly informative blog filled to the brim with information that is thought provoking as well as informative and useful. Links on this site have taken me in many different directions, to new sites and some previously undiscovered communication wonders of the internet. Be sure to visit Making a Mark. I promise, you will not be sorry!

Karin Jurick of Atlanta, GA gets my vote for a blog that is a marketing marvel. I have been following her blog for about two years now. Karin is steadfast in her painting (she is as prolific a painter as I've ever seen), the quality of her work is consistently top-notch, she markets herself (vis-a-vis her paintings) fantastically well, she has gotten into several top galleries in a very short period of time, she has acquired a great following and her blog is well done and published almost daily! As for her work, it is executed in intense color with a mimum of strokes and is always eye-catching!

Well, I am lacking two blog awards, but will have to get to them when I have a little more time.
I should mention that I do not personally know the above artists nor do they know me. They have just caught and kept my interest for a long while.

And now I'm off to the studio for what I hope will be a full day if painting!

The Value of Light

2009-01-28T10:58:00.020-05:00

Having just completed eight days of teaching a workshop on still life painting, the value of light has been very much discussed. Good paintings are a combination of good drawing, good composition, good use of color, good control of edges, good handling of the paint, and, very importantly, a good value scheme. Value is an element of art that refers to luminance or luminosity - the lightness or darkness of a color. Most beginning painters readily grasp value differences in monochromatic drawings or paintings, but they may have a harder time understanding value in color. Still harder is recognition of the fact that like objects, say oranges, may have different light values (those values that are in the light and not in the shadows) depending upon their distance from the light source, the focus of the light source (where the light is actually directed), and the quality of the light (how strong or weak it is) hitting each object.
In the above still-life setup, the orange on the left is receiving very little light; you can tell it is receiving light by the fact that it casts a relatively dim shadow and has a highlight, albeit not very bright. The two oranges on the right, however, are receiving strong light, as the hooded light was aimed directly at the peeled orange, which is receiving the very strongest light; the right-most orange is in the range of this strong light, but it is a little further away from the light and back behind the direct focus of the light. The light was set up this way deliberately to make the peeled orange the focal point of the painting. The painter must be sure to diminish (darken) the light values of the right-most orange in comparison to the light values on the peeled orange, and must diminish them considerably on the orange on the left if (s)he wants the peeled orange to remain the focal point. If the light values were the same from orange to orange, it would not be possible to follow the path of the light through the painting and all three oranges would compete for attention. If you look at the photo, you should be able to tell that the peeled orange is the focal point. It is important to note that if the peeled orange wasn't peeled, the lightest value would be lighter and the highlight would be stronger than on the orange to the right of it and even more so than the orange on the left.

Workshop Paintings (click to enlarge):
Rene Abney
Gretchen Wurth
Mary Bryson

Carol Parks
Bhupinder Obhrai
Molly, Carol, Mary Working
Molly, her painting, her setup
Mary Bryson

Sorry. I am missing works by Bert Schafer and Charley Kelso

2009 Class & Workshop Schedule Available Now

2009-01-06T01:34:00.004-05:00

I have just completed my schedule for the year 2009 for classes and workshops. I am excited to offer many new classes this year, including ongoing drawing classes, workshops on that bugaboo, linear perspective, and many painting classes and workshops in several media. I have a guest instructor from Atlanta, Charles Young Walls, in March, and I will be teaching in Maryland at the end of April. I hope to see you in one or more classes this year!

You can download the schedule by clicking in the upper right hand corner of this blog.

Happy Painting!

"Alexandria" Completed

2008-12-20T20:07:00.004-05:00

I am very happy to say that my painting of Alexandria is complete and has been delivered! Delayed for several reasons, including my inability to paint because of my shoulder surgery for almost a year, I have worked many, many hours to complete it before Christmas. Alexandria hangs beside a portrait of her brother, Jonathan (the boy with the skateboard), featured in an earlier post. One of the most time consuming parts of this painting was the skirt, with all those folds! I faced a few challenges in this painting which, fortunately, I overcame. I am now very happy with the result as are Alexandria and her family.

I am having a lot of family here for Christmas and hope to enjoy my time with them. I wish all my readers a wonderful Christmas, some of you a great Channuka, and all of you a healthy and happy new year. Keep your loved ones close and treasure your moments with them.

Still Life in Oil Workshop

2008-12-18T00:55:00.003-05:00

What a great still life class we had in early December! Seven students and three set-ups (sorry, one is not pictured) provided an interesting and challenging four days...yes, for them! Still life painting is sucha wonderful training ground for all genres of painting. Painters included Susan Deryke, Henne Karavitch, Sharon Mullings, Susan Phillips, Linda Rubenstein, Dru Sumner (recently married and name may have changed!) and Bert Schaffer. Great Group!

A Completed Portrait

2008-11-26T15:49:00.004-05:00

Portraits such as this one take me soooo long to complete, and I am always happy when I call it done and paint my signature on it. Someone just asked me the other night how I know when to stop, how I know when it is finished. The answer is straightforward. When I can't find anything to do to it that will make it better. Now that doesn't mean that I won't see something later that I might have done differently. As Burt Silverman once said, "The dynamic of a painting does not end with the signature." As you grow as an artist, and let's hope that we are growing every day in some way, you will see things differently, may learn something new that you could have applied to an old work. You may have reached a greater understanding on resolving particular problems in a painting. But for me, once it is done, I rarely, if ever, go back to an old painting. If anything, I might repaint it (not a portrait), applying the newer philosophies or techniques to a new work. Then I have the advantage of comparison.
I hope you like this painting. Chance is the third grandchild I've painted for this client, with one more to go. (Chance's cousin, Ben, is in the right hand column of this blog.) But I have another portrait in the last stages (Alexandria) and will have that finished by next week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cane Hollow Farm

2008-11-20T00:11:00.015-05:00

Outbuildings, Oil, 9 x 12
Cane Hollow Farm, WC, app.15 x 30,

I don't know what it is about a particular image that draws you in, that ignites a spark of creativity, and beckons you to return to it repeatedly. I have a photo on my computer that I took some time ago of a particular group of farm buildings and each time I see it, I am drawn to paint it. First I painted it on a small 9 x 12 canvas in oil (Outbuildings, shown at top)as a demo in a workshop, using only a palette knife, and I stayed fairly true to the proportion and the scene as it appeared in the photo. I did, however, push the autumn colors beyond what appeared in the photo. The second time I used the image as source material, I altered the concept, changing the weather to a blustery winter day, with snow and stormy grey clouds, painting in oil again but this time on a 12 x 24 canvas. (That painting is almost complete and not pictured above.) Last week, during a watercolor workshop, I once again used the photo as inspiration, this time painting in watercolor on 300# rough paper (Cane Hollow Farm, bottom photo). I used a landscape format, larger than the one before it, using a 15 x 30 sheet. Again I painted a winter scene, but used a limited palette with what I felt was a pleasing mix of warm and cool colors. I added a typical white Georgia farmhouse to the scene as well as a dirt path or roadway, and kept the painting quite simple.

A funny aspect of this is that I could not remember where I was when I had taken the photograph and it was really frustrating me as I was working on the second painting. A couple of weeks ago I went to visit friends. Across the road from their house is a wonderful huge pasture, usually filled with cows and an inviting vista. With the trees bared once again in preparation of winter, I was able to see some barns in a clearing and thought, "Gee, that looks like that gambrel roofed barn in my paintings. Oh, and that other building looks like..." Yes, indeed, there was the image I had photographed, probably two years prior. And it held the same excitement for me then as it did when I first snapped that picture. I have no doubt I will paint these buildings again!

A Wonderful Exhibition

2008-11-17T23:56:00.007-05:00

On Saturday my husband and I went to the Atlanta Art Gallery to view their current exhibition, Jacob Collins and the Water Street Atelier. The show contains the works of many artists, all of whom are or have been students of the famed Brooklyn Water Street Atelier founded by Jacob Collins in 1994, when he was thirty years old. Frustrated with the lack of traditional academic training in the art schools at that time, Jacob founded this school in his studio, hoping to attract like-minded artists/students, those interested in preserving, or at that time, perhaps more appropriately, resurrecting the teaching methods of the Masters and the Academies found in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. With good draftsmanship the foundation for good painting, students would work first in pencil or charcoal only, replicating sculptural casts. Next they would draw the human form from life and only when they had mastered this could they begin to paint.
Thus began a new generation of artists in the United States, artists whose high degree of excellence could not be ignored by the modernist art establishment. Classical Realism slowly crept back into the galleries and museums, and while it is still not held in the highest regard in all circles, it has certainly gained a very strong foothold in the art world of the 21st century. Today there are ateliers and more formal academic schools throughout the country, offering students the kind of educational foundation that can lead them to greatness.
It has been my great honor to have met and spoken with Jacob Collins, to have attended a round table discussion with him, and to hear him speak and present an incredible slide show of his work. I have also had the privilege of interviewing and writing articles about two of the artists in this show, Juliette Aristedes and Patricia Watwood. Juliette runs a four year atelier at the Gage Academy in Seattle and has recently published two wonderful books, both based on the classical academic tradition, one on drawing and one on painting. (Look them up in my Art Matters Amazon Bookstore in the right column of this blog.)
I strongly recommend that you visit the Atlanta Art Gallery in Buckhead to see this show. You will not be sorry that you did. I am posting a few images from the show here to entice you, but you can see the catalog and view more images at their website.
Seeing a show of this caliber just makes me want to paint better and better! I hope it will do that for you, too!

Great Landscape Workshop!

2008-11-08T01:15:00.004-05:00

Boy, did everyone do a great job on these paintings! This was a really great workshop a couple of weeks ago. These photos were taken on the last day, Critique Day! Everyone made great progress and really produced some great paintings! A round of applause for these beautiful art works!

Recent Plein Air Outings

2008-11-08T00:53:00.006-05:00

I've gotten to go out painting on location several times in the past couple of months. Top photo is of a small 5" x 5" painting of students painting at Meeks Park in Blairsville. Third painting is the same day, as I turned and faced the opposite direction. This, too, is a small painting, about 5" x 4" I think.
Second from top photo is from a great day at Crane Creek Vineyard, where we were served a wonderful lunch with some wine in the pavillion. The two bottom photos as well as the Crane Creek photo are from a day at Vogel State Park with the AFAL sponsored workshop with Anita Louise West, based at Carriage House. These photos are not the best and I apologize for that!

You fight the elements when you paint on location. At Crane Creek we persevered on a very unseasonal cold and windy day with plenty of rain! At Meeks Park, the insects and the wooly worms were in great abundance, and I got some nasty bites on my neck. First time I didn't have my insect repellant with me! At the Lake at Vogel State Park, we had gale force gusts of wind that overturned easels and paintings. I had to scrape the dirt, grass, and bugs off my lake painting when it dried! But it was fun nonetheless!

Finishing a "Finished" Painting

2008-09-28T23:17:00.009-04:00

A student recently brought this painting to class (done outside the class) for a critique. First, though, he added two additional elements to it to try to balance the composition - the palette knife on the lower left and the tube of paint on the lower right. This did not really do the trick. The apple, because it contained the strongest light int he painting, is the focal point, located in the left third of the painting, not a good place for a focal point to be. The lighting on the vase is inconsistent with the level of the light on the apple. One brush, which enters the vase at the lower left "corner", would go through the outside of the vase if it followed the path indicated by the top of the brush. The student wanted to just paint over this painting with a new one. Instead, I asked if I could show him how he could improve this painting before he covered it up.

I modeled the apple a little better by adding form shadow to the right dide and bottom of the apple, which not only improved the roundness of the apple, but also decreased the amount of light in the left third of the painting. I added a stem and its shadow. I painted over the palette knife and the tube of paint with the color of the table and increased the light on the table as it approached the vase. My purpose from here on was to change the focal point from the apple to the vase, which would make the focal point more appropriately placed.

I corrected the middle value on the vase as it turned out of the light into the form shadow on the right and I lightened the light value on the left third of the vase. I then added highlights to the main body of the vase and made these, as well as the highlights on the neck of the vase, much lighter and more intense than the highlights on the apple.

I moved (repainted) the errant brush into a position that would allow its handle to stand upright int he vase. I also added slight highlights to the brush handles to add to the effect that the light was hitting this area of the painting strongly. I also added a reflected light on the right edge of the vase.The last thing I did was add another green apple, totally in shadow, to the area behind and to the right of the vase, to balance the composition. This is not a great painting, but it is much improved from its original state. And now it will lie beneath a hopefully successful new painting for many years to come! My thanks to my student for allowing me to demonstrate this.

Portrait in Progress

2008-09-21T23:10:00.008-04:00

I am currently working on two portraits, going back and forth as necessary to keep working as paint is drying. I don't usually do this but I really must complete these, so I am putting in every effort to complete them as soon as I can. My clients have been incredibly understanding of the delays and I don't want to keep them waiting any longer than I have to.

The work in progress I am showing on the left (detail above) shows the painting with only the face in a greater state of completion than the initial block-in. The painting on the right is at its current stage which includes a more complete upper half background, the hat and right arm with more work done on them, and new paint applied to part of the shirt. When I view images on the computer I get to see them in a new light, so to speak, and areas that need more work become more apparent to me. For example, I want to lighten the boy's upper lip on his right and darker side. It is a little too dark, I think. If you click on the image of the more complete detail above, you should see what I am referring to.

I will post some new photos as I make more progress.

Exhibition at Chateau Elan

2008-09-04T00:16:00.002-04:00

Today I was in Braselton, GA at Chateau Elan Winery and Resort, where I hung an exhibition of paintings by yours truly as well as paintings by six of my painting students: Carol Parks of Asheville, NC, Riki Fiebel of Hayesville, NC, Ginny Urani of Murphy, NC, and Sharon Mullings, Gene Lawrence, and Henna Karavitch, all of Blairsville, GA. A special thank you to Henna, as she is responsible for our being asked to show our work at Chateau Elan. All of the paintings I've posted to my blog of late were included in this exhibition and I am very proud to say that the paintings by these other fine artists look wonderful on the wall in the Winery's art gallery! If you are in the area of Chateau Elan, you might enjoy a visit to see the exhibition and enjoy a little wine-tasting to boot! Unfortunately, I used my sister's car to deliver the paintings and had left my camera in my car in the garage! When I get back down there I will get some photos and post them here. The paintings will hang there until the end of October.

Now that this deadline has passed I will be back to my portrait commissions, which have suffered serious neglect while I prepared work for this show. But they are in progress and I will resume work on them immediately...right after my weekly class! I'll post some progress photos shortly.