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.

And Yet Another Huge Flower!

2008-09-02T23:25:00.004-04:00

Iris, Standing Tall, 30 x 22, Watercolor, copyright Pat Aube Gray

I am not really sure what is driving my muse these days, but large flowers are uncharacteristic for me. I completed the painting of this huge iris this morning and you may recall that back on July 13, 2008 I posted Brooke's Texas Rose, another full sheet of watercolor paper occupied by a single oversized yellow rose. (It is simply coincidence that I named the painting for my daughter Brooke's love of Texas, the yellow rose tattoo on her leg, and the fact that it was her birthday!) When my other daughter, Kerry, died last year, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the flowers we brought home, some of which I identified with her natural beauty. In particular, there was a huge, and I do mean huge, white rose, glorious in its fragrance, its size, and the singular beauty of it, and it became a symbol for me of my daughter's natural grace and simple elegance. I vowed then to someday paint that white rose, or one like it, in memory of Kerry. I have not yet done it as I am simply not ready to, I am afraid I could not do it justice, and I have not come across another rose that has the magnificence of that one. Perhaps these other flower paintings are baby steps leading me toward the white rose, or perhaps they are the result of a deeper appreciation for and connection to the simple, yet elegant beauty that we sometimes take for granted. It is interesting to me, too, that I have chosen to paint these flowers in watercolor instead of the oil I have used so much of late. But these subjects beckoned me to watercolor and the attempt to achieve the luminosity inherent in sunlit flower petals. Kerry's favorites were sunflowers, with roses a very close second. Do not be surprised to see more flower paintings...a giant sunflower, perhaps?

Cobalt Mister

2008-08-18T13:03:00.004-04:00

Cobalt Mister, Oil on Canvas, 11 x 14, copyright Pat Aube Gray

I found this cobalt blue glass mister at the flea market and couldn't wait to paint it. I chose two other glass pieces for the composition and cut the daisies and rubeckia from my garden. The mister was the last thing I painted and by the time I got to it, the water inside had condensed and form the littel rivulets you see in the painting above the water line. I thought it would be more challenging to pull that off, but I just painted what I saw and it worked! (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

I'm off to a Workshop with Yuqi Wang

2008-08-03T12:07:00.001-04:00

This coming week, Monday through Friday, I will be in Atlanta for a workshop by the internationally renowned master painter, Yuqi Wang. I had seen Yuqi's 2000 grand prize winner at the American Society of Portrait Artists conference in NY and was in awe of it. Last year I met him at the Portrait Society of America conference in D.C. and we spent many hours talking about painting. I am very excited to have this opportunity (he says this will be his last workshop) and promise to report back upon my return. Be sure to click on the link to his site in this paragraph to see his wonderful work.

2008 Kerry Aube Lingle Memorial Sunflower Award

2008-08-03T11:52:00.007-04:00

On Saturday night, August 1st, on the occasion of the opening reception of the Atlanta Fine Arts League's 2nd Annual National Exhibition, the first annual Kerry Aube Lingle Memorial Sunflower Award was presented to a painting in the exhibit. Matt Lingle, Kerry's husband, along with Tom and I, selected Lavendar and Lace, a beautiful painting by Charles Walls, a member of the League, and we three presented the $250 award accompanied by a beautiful certificate designed by Fran Milner, a friend and also a member of the League. (In years past, Fran was the editor of the Folio, the Portrait Society of Atlanta's news publication, and Kerry, my daughter, was the graphic designer, so they got to know each other well.) Charles was out of town so his wife, Heather, accepted the award on his behalf. As stated on the certificate, the award was created in memory of Kerry's giving nature and her love of creativity. This was a very special evening for us and, for me, a very special way to honor my daughter's memory.

Pet Portraits

2008-07-16T20:07:00.004-04:00

Edie, 17 x 21, Watercolor on Paper, copyright 2008 Pat Aube Gray
Click on photo to see enlargement.

Unfortunately, this is a posthumous portrait of Edie, an adorable long-haired dachsund who succumbed to cancer. Edie was the much loved pet of my doctor, and Edie's death was very upsetting to her. I hope that this portrait will serve to keep Edie's memory alive every day that it hangs in the doctor's home. Edie was so loved and so missed that the family has already brought home a new long-haired dacshund to love.

I used hand made watercolor paper by Twin Rocker, a paper I learned about years ago form Stephen Scott Young, a fabulous and very successful watercolorist. It has a harder surface than Arches, for example, and I really enjoy working on it. Hot pressed paper is too hard for most of the work I do, but this cold pressed paper seems to be just the right degree of hardness. Lifting is fairly easy, but you can still glaze with it and not lift the layers below. I recently watched a video about Twin Rocker and found it very interesting. A young couple started the company and has found a niche in a market rife with machine made products. They make many different kinds of paper, in many different sizes, some with deckled edges such as the piece I used for the above painting. For more information, go to www.twinrocker.com

New Beginnings

2008-07-16T16:38:00.003-04:00

A New Day, Oil on Canvas, 12 x 24 copyright Pat Aube Gray 2008
Click on Image to enlarge.

I began this painting in my palette knife workshop and finished it afterward. The only part of this painting that was done with a brush is the interesting vent on the roof and my signature! I had been wanting to paint on a 12 x 24 canvas and this barn with the long range mountain view and a sunrise was just the right image for it. The clarity is lost a little in the photo you see here, but if you click to enlarge it you can see more detail. I am particularly pleased with the color harmony in this painting. Hope you like it,too!

Brooke's Texas Rose

2008-07-13T20:12:00.003-04:00

Brooke's Texas Rose, 22 x 30 watercolor on paper - copyright Pat Aube Gray

While working on oil portraits and waiting for paint to dry, I have been working on watercolors in my home studio. This subject is one I have wanted to paint for a long time. We lived in Texas for six years many years ago and have some very happy memories there. My daughter, Brooke, consistent with the contemporary practice of women getting tattoos, actually had the yellow rose of Texas etched on her leg. So in her honor, and in memory of our days in Texas, I named this painting Brooke's Texas Rose. This painting will be included in my upcoming exhibition at Chateau Elan Resort & Winery Gallery in Braselton, GA.

Painting with a Palette Knife

2008-06-17T10:12:00.005-04:00

Outbuildings, 9 x 12, oil on canvas, copyright Pat Aube Gray 2008

I had a great time these past three days in a palette knife oil workshop I held in the teaching studio at Carriage House Art Center in Blairsville (www.carriagehouseartcenter.com). Had a great group, including several returning students whom I have not seen in a while, so it was a little like old home week. Everyone did a great job on their paintings, some jumping right in with the knife and others, perhaps at first, a little intimidated by the lack of control over a knife versus a brush. But by the second day, the paintings just emerged beautifully under the more confident hands of these good painters. As for me, I painted the small demo seen above, entirely with palette knives, as a demonstration during the workshop. Everyone worked from my photographs and most were summer scenes. As with the painting above, dealing with so much green in hte summer can be a challenge. There are actually many other colors besides green in the grass and foliage than perhaps can be seen here. I did get a decent start on a second larger painting and hope to finish it this week.

Recent Works

2008-06-12T15:15:00.008-04:00

I have been spending the last several weeks working on new websites for myself (www.pat-aube-gray.com) and also for our gallery (www.carriagehouseartcenter.com), so I have not had much time to post here. We have hired a former employee, Sarah, to work in the gallery/frame shop and that has relieved me a great deal. So within the next couple of days, I will be painting most of the time and teaching part of the time! With three commissions to complete and a show at Chateau Elan coming up in September, this is a must!

The only paintings I have been able to do recently have been plein air pieces, when I have gone out with my student groups or the Plein Air Painters of the Southern Appalachians (PAPOSA). The two paintings (above and below) at Butternut Creek in Meeks Park in Blairsville are pastels on paper. One was painted in the morning and the other in mid-afternoon. It is amazing how different the same basic subject matter looks at different times of the day and those differences are readily apparent in my two paintings.

The third piece, an oil, was painted at Crane Creek Vineyard on a rainy, cloudy day. Again the effect of weather and a different quality of light is apparent in the painting. Sometimes I will "doctor" a plein air piece up a little back in the studio, as I did with the pastels because my painting time on location was short (one in the morning, one in the afternoon.) But I worked on the same painting all day at Crane Creek under a cloudy sky, so the light did not change very much. Even though I would like to beef this one up a little with more color variation and a few dark accents and light highlights, I decided to leave it as I completed it that day. I think it is truer to the scene and the weather than if I tweak it. All three of these paintings are available at Carriage House Art Center.

Plein-Air Painting This Past Week

2008-04-30T23:52:00.008-04:00

Click on Photos for a Larger View

Wow! I've been painting on location twice in the past week! Last Wednesday a group went out with me from my studio to a local park in Blairsville and we had a great time! It was a beautiful day; I couldn't have asked for better weather. Painted one picture in the morning and another in the afternoon, with a wonderful picnic lunch in between! Everyone left with some great paintings, all in oil except mine. I chose to bring pastels with me that day and I must admit, it is much easier than dealing with oils outdoors. I will complete the paintings in the studio and post them at a later date.

Today I went with four other painters to Jackrabbit Mountain Park in the Nantahala Forest to paint on Lake Chatuge. It was a beautiful setting, but we are having what is called a "dogwood winter." It was cold and windy with the dogwoods in full bloom! This was the first paint-out for the Plein Air Painters of Southern Appalachia (PAPOSA), a newly formed casual group of artists who love painting on location. It was a great day and more are planned! If anyone is interested in joining PAPOSA, email me and I will get you the information.

Students Learn About Values in Color

2008-04-20T13:28:00.008-04:00

Oddball, oil on canvas, 9 x 12, copyright Pat Aube Gray

One morning each week, two lovely ladies come to my studio for semi-private lessons. Beginners in oil painting, the two are eager to paint more exciting things than four colored balls on a table, but I find that the color of all the values found in a colored object is difficult for some students to see. Mention shadow and they reach for greys and browns instinctively, instead of the darker values of any given color. For example, the form shadow on the yellow ball is a dark version of yellow, not just any grey or brown. So for this painting, I set up four different color rubber balls and all three of us painted them, with mine being a demo for them to watch as they painted. It was a good lesson and they each did a very good job!

Note that since the balls are rubber, they do not have really strong highlights, such as pool balls might have, for example. Hard, shiny objects reflect light and have strong highlights. Think of chrome bumpers, automobile finishes, apples, shiny table tops, etc. Soft objects, like rubber balls, peaches, and fabrics absorb light rather than reflect it, so the highlighted areas are softer and not as dramatic.

I decided to include the sku label on the yellow ball in my painting. My students were timid in that regard and left it off. SO both I and the yellow ball are "oddballs," hence the title for the painting.

Click HERE to bid on this painting

Sunday Greetings!

2008-04-20T13:10:00.006-04:00

New Salem NY Rock Fence, Copyright Pat Aube Gray

Good morning! I painted this scene on location in 2006, but without the light. It was my last painting in an afternoon of work at a wonderful farm in New Salem, NY, established in the 1700's. All I did initially was record the shapes of what I saw and just indicate where the sun was hitting and where it wasn't. This week I overpainted my underpainting with color and light. It was a wonderful scene and makes for a pleasant painting, don't you think?

I was in NY that summer taking a portrait workshop for two weeks with the inimitable master, Daniel Greene. A wonderful experience and I left with a definite realization that sometimes I settle for less than I should and could do! An invaluable lesson for me! Over the weekend, between sessions of the weekly workshops, I went out with other artists to paint en plein aire.

Click HERE to bid on this painting

Pat Aube Gray - Art Matters: 2008 Class & Workshop Schedule

2008-04-11T17:11:00.000-04:00

Pat Aube Gray - Art Matters: 2008 Class & Workshop Schedule

2008 Class & Workshop Schedule

2008-04-11T01:37:00.004-04:00

Enamel Pot & Eggs, copyright Pat Aube Gray 2007

Finally my Studio Class & Workshop Schedule for the balance of 2008 is completed and available for you to download! Go to the very top of the right hand column of this blog and click on the link that will take you to my new website, where you can download a printable schedule! Though the website is still not complete, I am happy to say that this portion is up and running. I apologize for the lateness of this schedule, but there really were mitigating circumstances.

I continue to paint in absolute comfort, though I am still in the demo and small works stage. I have two portrait commissions I must do, one is in progress and the other is at rough-in. I find that my motivation to paint has only just returned since the tragic death of my daughter nine months ago and it coincides well with the now painless use of my right arm and shoulder.

Several months ago I digitally recorded (audio only) a class lecture I gave spontaneously on aerial perspective. The digital audio file has been uploaded to my computer and I am able to email it. If you would be interested in receiving it, just drop me an email at patzg@aol.com and I will be happy to send it to you.

Hope to see you in the studio!

New & Exciting!

2008-03-29T16:26:00.003-04:00

Please note that I have added something new in the right hand column that I am very excited about. You can now order Art books, my favorites and yours, by clicking on my Art Matters Store, a direct link to purchase through Amazon.com! Please browse the books - I recommend every one that is listed on my site.

At last! Pain-Free Painting!

2008-03-29T16:12:00.004-04:00

I am so happy to report, after six months of physical therapy following surgery, that this week I was able to paint at my easel for several hours with no pain in my right arm and shoulder! I didn't have to lower my arm once due to pain! It has been many many years since that was the case. Hooray!
The painting at left is in progress. I hope to finish it within this next week and will post the finished product for you to see. It is from a photo I took while walking this path at the John C. Campbell Folk School in NC when I was teaching there.
I am trying out some new paint and so far I absolutely love it. It is made with walnut oil instead of linseed oil as the medium (binder), which does not yellow like linseed oil does. The paints are pigment rich and soft and creamy in consistency. If I continue to like them, I will order them for our store. Once I decide, I will also share the brand name with you.

A Happy Valentine

2008-02-15T15:50:00.005-05:00

Ashley is a beautiful young woman, but in just two and a half hours' painting time, this burnt umber and yellow ochre underpainting was as far as I could get. I really like the method I used of wiping out the lights from the toned canvas. This was a good likeness and the model really liked it. Her boyfriend surprised her with it for Valentine's Day!

I am still having a difficult time painting at the easel, such as I did here, but I am trying. I hope to be getting more art posted in the not too distant future.

11 x 14 oil on canvas

SOLD!

Delivered for Christmas - Click Each Image to Enlarge

2008-01-02T23:17:00.000-05:00

Graphite Portraits (Almost Always) In Progress

2007-12-05T23:49:00.000-05:00

I always seem to see drawing or painting parts that need revision when I am readying photos to upload to my blog or website. Below you will find photos of the three drawings (portrait commissions) I am currently working on. First you will see a new photo of Reilly, with very very minor, but necessary, changes to his right eye and his mouth. I will post the first photo next to it so that you can detect the changes I made. Next will be Monica, almost finished. When I looked at the photos in photoshop, I realized that Monica's upper lip on her right side has too hard a top edge; it definitely needs softening ans transitioning into the fleshy area above it. I also want to deepen the value of the inset on her shirt - it is too light and too close in value to the skin tone right above it. I will post this again once I have made those and any other revisions I determine are necessary.
The last drawing is of Clara, and as you can see it is still underway. Perhaps you can tell that the values are heightened or deepened in stages. Right now, her eyes look very dark and hard edged. I will be softening them but also adjusting other values which will make the eyes appear not quite so dark in comparison. This drawing is not complete in any area. It is a work in progress and I work back and forth into and out of areas of the face, adjusting one value in relationship to another.
These drawings are done in graphite on a Strathmore plate finish paper - one I have never used but wanted to try. The plate finish is much harder than the medium textured drawing paper I usually use, so I have to work harder at keeping pencil lines in tonal areas from "looking like lines."
Click on a photo to enlarge it. Please feel free to post comments or questions!

Reilly, Revised at left

As originally posted on 11/15/07 below

Monica, In Progress

Clara, In Progress

"First Painting After Surgery"

2007-11-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

Golden Field, copyright Pat Aube Gray

I put the title of this post in quotation marks because that is the name employees gave this painting when I put it in for framing! And then they called the next one I completed, not surprisingly, "Second Painting After Surgery."

"Golden Field," the correct name of this first watercolor, was completed as a demonstration of a foreground treatment in a watercolor workshop in late October. I sprayed water and used salt for texture in this piece. It was painted out of my head (aren't they all?) but certainly based on the recent local landscape I get to see every day in these beautiful North Georgia mountains. It is approximately 14" wide x 21" high and is painted on Arches 140# cold pressed paper. The painting is SOLD.

"Scenic Highway in Autumn" was also begun in the above mentioned workshop as an exercise in contrasting very strong darks and intense lights to achieve drama and I completed it after the workshop was over. A spray bottle helped me keep the painting wet as I worked it and I employed spattering toward the finish. I used a photograph I had taken several years ago as a reference for this 21" x 14" watercolor also
on Arches 140# cold pressed paper. This painting has been beautifully framed and is available for sale at Carriage House Framing & Gallery in Blairsville.

Scenic Highway in Autumn copyright Pat Aube Gray

My shoulder is no longer hurting when I draw or paint on a table or in my lap. I have done two small oils, one also a demo in a class, and find that I still have difficulty holding my arm up while painting at the easel. But I am in physical therapy now and hope that it won't be long before I can paint with less pain and more agility.

Back to the Drawing Board

2007-11-15T14:58:00.000-05:00

Reilly, graphite on paper, 11 x 14

While recovering from shoulder surgery that I had in August, I found I could draw in my lap. I completed this drawing of Reilly over a 3-4 week period, doing as much as I could at one sitting. I have since completed a couple of watercolors and in the past ten days have done a couple of small, loosely rendered oils. Hopefully I will be back to blogging soon. I am in physical therapy right now and assume that will speed up the use of my painting arm.

Dedication

2007-08-28T01:03:00.000-04:00

Kerry Aube Lingle
February 7, 1965 - July 11, 2007

It is with incredible sadness and great anguish that I resume posting to my blog with the news that, Kerry Aube Lingle, my cherished daughter, passed away on July 11th. You may recall from my last post on July 2nd that she had broken her ankle. On July 5th she developed a blood clot which went to her lungs (pulmonary embolism) and stopped her heart for 27 minutes. She was on life support for six days.

Kerry is a very talented and creative graphic designer and was thrilled when I started this blog. From this day forward, I dedicate this blog to her, as she was very often the wind beneath my wings. I may not post too often for a while, but I am trying to resume some aspects of my former life, though it is with tremendous difficulty.

My sincere thanks to those of you who have offered expessions of sympathy.

Finally, a New Post!

2007-07-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that my last post was on June 12th and it is now July 2nd! MUCH has happened since then and I have been very busy. I have had several diagnostic tests and have found that I have a very significant tear in my right rotator cuff and must have surgery. And yes, that is my painting arm. My son has been staying with us for the past several weeks and is probably staying on a semi-permanent basis. His three teen-age kids were also with us for a week during this time. My sister arrived while all of them were still here and Tom was out of town for 2 weeks! I have a new employee at the frame shop/gallery and my talented student, Alexandria, is with me three days a week. I have just completed my portrait of Jonathan (photo below) and am now working on the next. And then last week, my wonderful daughter, Kerry, who wears an artificial right leg, fell and broke her left ankle! Need I say more?

Now back to Art Matters! Below is the completed painting of Jonathan, the early stages of which I have posted before. His mother and sister love it and the father will be surprised! Click on images to view a larger version.

Next I want to do a little bragging about Alexandria, who will be a senior in high school come September. When she first came to me last year, her drawings were very typical of almost any sixteen year old. Her interest was in drawing faces, but those she had previously produced were flat and cartoonish, lacking form and antomical accuracy. After only one three hour lecture, with little thumbnail demos in explanation of form and values, dimension and structure, etc., Alexandria's true ability was immediately apparent. She was instantly able to grasp the concepts and apply them to her work. In a rush to paint, her first painting was actually a portrait and she did a very good job. Then on to a still life from a setup, which is now framed and hanging in her parents' home - it was that good! We are now back to the basics, using the atelier concept of drawing first, painting later, as drawing is the foundation for all two-dimensional art. In addition to drawing from life, I have Alexandria copying from Charles Bargue plates, the same as those used in French Academies during the mid nineteenth century.
When you see the photo below, I think you will agree that she is making great progress!

Graphite on Toned Paper, highlighted with white charcoal, 18 x 24

I have a couple of small paintings completed and will most likely post them tomorrow. Until then, have a great evening and remember that Art Matters!

Reclining Nude, Backlit

2007-06-12T23:27:00.001-04:00

It has only been in the last couple of years that I have done any life drawing from a nude model to speak of. While I love to do figurative works, my concentration has always been on the clothed figure, finding challenge and interest in the selected clothing and folds, and textures of the materials. But I do enjoy the challenge of the human form, with all its subtle tonal and temperature variations. This one is graphite on a grey paper, with the backlighting heightened with white charcoal.

Click HERE to bid on this painting

Fantasyland!

2007-06-09T00:18:00.001-04:00

This is one of the students in my Thursday morning class painting a fantasy image on a pretty large canvas! The dinosaur is hidden by the artist, Sharon Mullings. It was a small class of painters who don't need minute to minute instruction, so I decided to paint along with them, parking myself behind Sharon and painting her without her knowledge at first! When her husband came to pick her up at the end of the class, he said, "Everybody will know who that is! Those are your legs!"

5 x 7 on Ultra Panel

SOLD

Silk Amaryllis - Oil on Sanded Wallis Paper

2007-06-07T23:31:00.000-04:00

Jessica was painted at a weekly life painting session held at my teaching studio, where several artists come to draw or paint from models. I don't teach at these sessions; I get to paint like everyone else! I loved this set-up with the large silk amaryllis, which adds interest to the composition and inspired the red and green complementary color scheme. I really enjoyed painting this one, which I did on 11 x 14 sanded paper made by Kitty Wallis. Though the paper was developed for pastel work, it is wonderful for oils as well. The paint is absorbed into the paper and dries quickly, but does not sink in as one might expect. The finished painting has a wonderful surface, almost like moleskin. You have to use old brushes, though, because this paper chews them down to nothing in no time!

Click HERE to bid on this painting SOLD

More Portrait Parts

2007-06-07T23:04:00.000-04:00

I'm making some good progress, though not as quickly as I'd like. Life seems to get in the way of painting time way too often!
In case you don't know, if you click on the photos you can see an enlarged image!
The hand is still only roughed in and while the head is more than roughed in, it is certainly not complete. I glazed over the too-red hair underpainting with its complement, green, to dull down the red some because I find it way too distracting and throws off my choices for other areas. But it is still far from done as well.
I opted for a green shirt instead of the blue he actually was wearing for three reasons: it is more compatible with what his sister is wearing, it is more harmonious with the painting, and knowing where it will hang makes this the better color. Shirts are still not complete, but made a giant leap here.

Working on the Boy

2007-06-03T11:04:00.001-04:00

I've worked now on the face as I don't want to put a ton more effort into the clothing and the background until I am comfortable that I have a good likeness going. This is only the first round of working on the head. That will continue throughout the painting process until it all fits together well and the boy looks like he could turn and talk to you. His hair is merely blocked in with mixtures of burnt sienna, burnt umber and some yellow ochre. But his hair, though it has some red in it, is not nearly as red as it is in this underpainting. I will work next on his hand and get the clothing going and also start to put some of the detail in the background, a few more trees between him and the distant hedgerow. In case you can't tell, that's a skateboard he's holding onto. Most important thing in his life right now!

With the exception of modifying the background as I work on the boy's painting (to keep them well harmonized), I won't begin the girl's head and body, etc. until I feel the boy is 99% complete.
See the last post for the last pics I posted of the two paintings.

Your comments are welcome - click on the word comments below.

Portraits in Progress

2007-05-31T20:39:00.000-04:00

Each canvas is 48"x32"

I haven't posted in a couple of days because I have been working diligently on my portrait commissions. As you can see, they are basically roughed in, with the background suggested but by no means finished. This isn't a stage normally shown to anyone, as it might scare people off, especially the client! I like working this way when working from a photo as it is similar to the method I use when working from life. I have done studies of these kids from life and photos prior to beginning these paintings.

Because these portraits are going to hang side by side, I am painting the backgrounds so that they look like one is a continuation of the other. They can, of course, always be hung in separate areas of the home.

I would love to squeeze in a couple of small ones, but can't do it right now. Be sure to comment or ask questions below. Thanks!

Game Over - Original Oil by Pat Aube Gray

2007-05-26T00:42:00.000-04:00

What could be better after a great game of golf than a tall glass of cold beer?

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas
copyright 2007 Pat Aube Gray

SOLD See my other paintings at auction at www.ebay.com

Boiled Egg & Salt - Oil on Canvas

2007-05-24T21:31:00.000-04:00

What fun I had painting this wonderful ceramic set I found at an antiques/old stuff shop! With my love for painting eggs, the dainty little set found a perfect home in my studio! Painted on a 6" x 6" gallery wrapped canvas (sides are painted), you have the choice of hanging it as is or you can frame it for maximum enhancement.

I almost want to keep this one!

Click HERE to bid on this painting

Here's My Bargue Arm!

2007-05-20T00:37:00.000-04:00

Note: If you haven't read my previous post, you might want to do that before reading this one so it will make more sense to you.
Once I scanned this drawing into Photoshop and brought it up right next to the Bargue Plate image, I could see several errors immediately! It is easier to judge when looking at two images, identically sized, right next to one another than it is with two different size images, one from a book and one in your drawing pad! Have a look for yourself, compare it to the one below, and feel free to "critique" me in the comment section at the end of this post. Just click on the little envelope and tell me what you see!

2007-05-19T23:07:00.000-04:00

I didn't do any painting today; instead I spent most of the day drawing the head to toe "cartoons" I will transfer to two canvasses for the portraits of siblings, a boy of 12 and a girl of 17. "Cartoon" is the word used to indicate a line drawing, one with little or no shading to indicate form. I draw on tracing paper, where it is very easy to erase and correct, and when I feel I have the drawing the way I want it, I transfer it to the canvas by applying graphite to the back of the paper in the areas where my lines are. Then I lay the paper right side up on my canvas and redraw over the original lines, pressing fairly hard, so that the graphite on the back of the tracing paper will transfer to the canvas. This gives me a very light line drawing on my canvas. I then go over that in thinned paint, usually burnt umber. When I work from life, I eliminate this step and draw with a brush, again with thinned paint, but I lay in masses in the appropriate values, light middle and dark. Tomorrow I hope to begin painting using my "cartoon" as my guide, but I will immediately lay in my dark values with thinned paint (monochrome)just as I would if I had drawn in paint.

Last night and earlier tonight I worked on a drawing from a book of plates (lithographs)by Charles Bargue. Bargue's original drawings and their reproductions, from life and/or plaster casts, were used in academies and ateliers in Europe as a mainstay in the drawing education of thousands of art students when actual plaster casts might not have been available. (A plaster cast is merely a sculpture made of plaster, sometimes of individual body parts, sometimes of heads, busts, etc.) I was recently fortunate enough to find a book of these reproduced plates and have been using them for drawing practice for myself as well as for students.

The particular plate I am attempting to replicate is that of a man's arm, shown above, with the muscular form very much in evidence. (Note that the top image, the line drawing, is a "cartoon", as described above.) I belong to an online group of artists in which one artist challenged another to a "Bargue-off" ( a competition between the two to see who draws the best Bargue reproduction), with a third well known artist and art educator to do the judging. The plate chosen was the one of the arm I am now drawing. Though I am not in the competition, I decided to see how well I do in comparison to the contestants, as their finished drawings will be posted on the group site.

The drawings are to be done in graphite (my favorite) with no mechanical aids whatsoever, no grids, no tracing, etc. One may use a pencil or knitting needle or ruler as a plumb line or to gauge distances, but that's about it. The only other tool will be an eraser. The drawings in the competition must be completed within 10 hours.

I opted to draw my Bargue arm with a single pencil (not with a range of say H and B pencils) and an eraser, using nothing more to guide me than my eyes. I chose to do this because I always strive to see better and gauge lengths and spaces by sight as well as I can. That helps tremendously when working from life. I have worked on this drawing for approximately 4 hours thus far and should have no trouble completing it within the prescribed time frame. Tomorrow I will photograph my completed drawing for comparison to the Bargue plate! NOW I am really challenging myself!

Back to the drawing board! Good night!

Kissin' Cousins Original Oil on 6 x 6 Canvas

2007-05-17T02:08:00.000-04:00

Copyright 2007 Pat Aube Gray

A still life with fruit seems so mundane, but it is not as easy as it looks! And making an interesting composition can be challenging. I broke a "rule" by having two objects "kissing" instead of one being in front of the other. But I decided I liked it this way and went for it! I like this painting not only for its composition but also for the complementary color scheme of yellow and all those violets!

Click HERE to bid on this painting

Almost Deserted - Original Watercolor by Pat Aube Gray

2007-05-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

This was something new for me - a watercolor on the recently issued watercolor canvas board! It was certainly different than painting watercolor on paper, which I usually do, but it offered its own benefits and shortcomings. It is more difficult to glaze on the board as the underlying passage easily lifts when glazing over it; alternatively, it is easy to lift color and therefore change or correct a passage you already painted with no unsightly residue of what was there before. It is difficult to get rich darks; I managed to get dark accents, but not in the richness I generally like to see them.
This 9 x 12 sunlit watercolor is varnished and can be framed without glass!

SOLD
Click HERE to bid on this painting

New Painting Today - Enamel Pot & Eggs

2007-05-13T21:49:00.000-04:00

Today's painting is on a 6 x 6 gallery wrapped canvas. I just loved this old little enamel pot when I saw it in an antiques shop! I often look for interesting objects in thrift stores as well. And eggs are one of my favorite subjects to paint!
The cerulean blue color of the pot was perfect to set against an orange-colored tablecloth. Hope you like it!

SOLD

Back from Portrait Society of America Conference

2007-05-10T23:25:00.000-04:00

Wow! What a great conference in Reston, VA! I drove up on Thursday of last week and returned on Monday full of inspiration and motivation to do the best work I can! There was an oil portrait demonstration by the preeminent Everett Raymond Kinstler, 80 years old and as witty, talented and skillful as ever! (His portraits in the National Portrait Gallery of Tom Wolfe, Gerald Ford, and others are some of the best offered there!) Scott Burdick, the young and talented artist who, together with his wife, Sue Lyon, travel extensively, particularly to places like Tibet and Nepal and come back with fabulous paintings we see in all the art magazines, did an alla prima painting that was wonderful. Something very different for the Society was a watercolor portrait demo by the renowned Charles Reid, which was really interesting to watch. Robert Liberace, the young and oh, so talented young man whose drawings are reminiscent of DaVinci and Reubens, gave a marvelous slide show presentation.
Between seminars and presentations there were portfolio critiques, book signings, vendor exhibitions with great deals on supplies. After hours found many members, yours truly among them til the wee hours, talking and talking and talking about art! Everyone is so willing to talk about techniques and ideas and suggestions to improve your work. It is invigorating and exciting all at once. And certainly rubbing elbows and being on a first name basis with many of the world's great contemporary masters pumps you up so that you can't wait to paint and then come back again next year!
Each year the Society has a portrait painting competition that yields incredibly beautiful work. Of 1600 entries, only ELEVEN (11) finalists are chosen. This year's finalists' works were superb! They aren't posted yet, but they will be soon at www.portraitsociety.org if you would like to see them.

The Odd Couple - Now Available at Auction

2007-05-02T14:54:00.000-04:00

I completed this 12" x 12" painting in Mid-March and wrote about it in a March, 2007 post to this blog called "Freedom of Expression." Scroll down to the archives and click on March to read about the joy I experienced while painting it! I believe it is dry enough to varnish and can now put it out for bid.
I find still life painting to be very rewarding. It is almost like painting a portrait because there is such a concentration on depicting form and the magical effects of light. I also believe still life is really a reflection of the artist more so than in portraits, figuratives or landscapes. The artist personally selects the elements of the painting and arranges them in a composition that pleases her. The objects selected and the mood, lighting, and positioning all reflect the artist's tastes and aesthetics. Self expression in realism!
I hope you enjoy this painting! Feel free to comment!

SOLD

New Painting For Sale - "Ripe Red Tomato"

2007-05-01T02:17:00.000-04:00

Photo: Ripe Red Tomato, Oil on Canvas, 6" x 6"

This is, I hope, the first small painting of many to be sold online as a daily (or almost daily!) painting in an auction environment! SO many artists are producing paintings on a daily basis and selling on ebay and also through their blogs, which is what I certainly hope to be able to do. Tonight I listed this happy little painting on Ebay. SOLD

2007-04-28T22:56:00.000-04:00

Today's Happenings

2007-04-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today I took new photos of two portraits, Corporal William G. Taylor, seen below in my post of March 30th titled "Art From the Heart", and Katie. Both of these photos have been updated here tonight.
I spent a good part of today cleaning up my home studio, having just finished two new commissions, these not exactly fine art, more of a commercial nature. But the one with all those little portraits was quite time consuming! Worked in acrylic on this project. It was fun! The other resulted from a client seeing the sign I painted of our Carriage House logo, a realistic horse and carriage, complete with riders. You can see the nature of the client's business in this oil painting on wood. (Images above.)
I am ready now to do some really small oil paintings with the idea of selling them at auction, perhaps on Ebay. These will be good buys for anyone interested in bidding! I plan to begin tomorrow. See you then!

Getting a Likeness Versus Capturing Emotion

2007-04-19T23:39:00.000-04:00

Photo: Alexandria, graphite on paper, 8 x 10
After years of drawing and painting faces, since I was a child, in fact, I find it relatively easy to achieve a likeness of the person I'm "doing." Not as simple, however, is capturing the emotion I believe I see in that person. In the first place, my interpretation of what I see may be erroneous. A subject may appear to me to be serene and at peace when, in fact, melancholy may be the source of a still and quiet stare. Secondly, subjects holding a pose for an extended period tend to lose themselves in an emotionless limbo, one in which the brain seems to power down to a mindless state.
A physical likeness is essential in executing commissioned portraits, but when one is able to reflect some of the subject's inner vision, strength, or soulfulness, there is a vitality and reality to it that does not otherwise exist. There are several facets inherent in achieving this, including the pose, the lighting, the medium used, the tilt of the head, the direction of the eyes (up, down, askance, looking straight at the artist), how open or closed the eyes are, the posture of the model, the body language, the set of the mouth and the open or closed lips, how relaxed the model appears, etc. Sometimes the outcome looks mechanical; other times I feel I've captured what I was after.
The head study above, which I just completed about a week or so ago, is one in which I was satisfied that I had gotten not only a good likeness, but also a sense of the serious intelligence of this young girl as well as her sensitive romanticism. I hope to express in paint what I feel I found in graphite. I would love for this to be my version of the Girl with the Pearl Earring, after Vermeer!

Administrative Arts

2007-04-15T23:17:00.000-04:00

Photo: My students in a recent workshop in palette knife painting at my studio

If you are reading this and/or enjoying my blog, then I assume you might be interested in receiving updates as I post them. Even if you have been notified before or asked to join the Patzart Group, please now just use the simple subscription form to the right and you will be notified via email when an update has been posted. And I thank you!
It would seem, at first glance, such a simple thing. Create a blog, email your friends, your students, your family, your patrons, your collectors et al and share with them your latest paintings, your thoughts on art, your painting or drawing tips, etc. Another one of those half-day jobs that turns into days of trial and error and, in the trials, causing those on your email list to never want to hear from you again! First, email lists that contain a large number of email addresses, as mine do, don't get past my outbox (on several different mail services, e.g., aol and gmail) because the mail police are afraid they might be spam. So I spent hours of entering email addresses into address book "groups", which "they" told me to do, only to then have the whole group rejected as a security risk.
Google then said to create a google group (not within the mail service) and I would then be able to email everyone in the group with one email. They have a system wherein you can either add email addresses or you can invite people to join the group. I tried to add my list and the numbers were too high. So I had to let them invite the people on my list, which then causes these people to have to join, and fill out paperwork, etc. I am so sorry!
So now I have been researching ways to make this simpler, to communicate with those who have shown an interest in my work, in my writing, in my teaching, in my thoughts, to market to those who may be future collectors, to share with other artists. And I found Feedblitz, a subscription management tool that will make all this manageable. I welcome your subscription in the upper right corner and you won't have to join any groups or go to any further trouble. And if you wish to unsubscribe at any time, they make it simple for you to do that, too.
Being an artist is not only about making art, but also about public relations, marketing, advertising, selling, branding, getting your name out in the public eye, giving back to the community through donations, teaching, maintaining your professional relationships, etc. All of the latter takes time away from the former, but one without the other is fruitless. So there is art and there is business, and better the twain shall meet.

Art From the Heart

2007-03-30T22:59:00.000-04:00

Following the events of September 11, 2001, friend and fellow artist, Lisa Gleim, participated in a project in which artists painted portraits of firefighters killed on that horrific day and donated them to their families. Later, she proposed the idea of painting soldiers from Georgia who had died in service of their country in either Iraq or Afghanistan to four friends, Geraldine Zaki, Leah Henry, Fran Milner and me. Together we formed the Atlanta Fine Arts League (AFAL) in 2005 to spearhead this noble project, which we call Art From the Heart. While the AFAL has taken on a life of its own in the past year which I will discuss in another post, Art From the Heart remains our primary current objective. Approximately seventy Georgia soldiers have died thus far while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Portrait artists have been ready and willing to step up to the plate to do their part and many portraits are either complete or in the works. The paintings are being donated to the families of our fallen heroes. We will paint two in cases where there is, say, a surviving spouse and parent(s). We are having a little more difficulty finding ways to contact all of the families. If anyone reading this knows such a family, please ask them to email atlantafineartsleague@yahoo.com and tell us of their interest.
We ask the family to provide us with photos, details about their loved one, and to describe the soldier's personality to us. Since we are unable to meet the person, knowing something about him or her is helpful. Paintings are being given to the families as they are completed and, if they so choose, they will be included in a special exhibition of all these portraits to be held at the Patriots' Museum in Atlanta in the fall of 2007.
There is a great deal of emotion for the artist in painting these commemorative portraits. Talking to the family and becoming involved in their pain as well as their pride gives us just a small sampling of what they have endured and the loss they have suffered. There is also, however, a tremendous feeling of satisfaction in being able to give something that you hope will be treasured for decades to come by those who have endured such pain.
So now it is time for you to meet "my soldier," United States Marine Corporal William (Billy) G. Taylor, killed in action November 30, 2005 at the age of 26 in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Fellow marines with whom Billy served have left messages for his family on the Fallen Heroes website, and they remember the great love Billy had for his little daughter, Leah. Billy's mother, Catherine Krattli, has told me of his Indian heritage; she is Aztec and Yaqi and his father was Cherokee. Billy joined the Marines after 9/11 feeling it his duty to protect his daughter and his country. He served for two and a half years in Washington, DC, standing guard at the funeral of Ronald Reagan when Former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara paid their respects. He was a member of the Marine firing squad for funerals and, as he participated in the 21 gun salute at one, he became the focus of the eye of a National Geographics camera for a special on how each branch of the military bury their dead. Billy was known for his contagious smile. His mother misses him every day.
It is now Sunday, April 1, 2007, and I am adding to this story. Yesterday I met Cathy Krattli and Leah in person for the first time. Though the painting was still wet and I couldn't give it to her, I did bring the completed portrait (finished the night before) for her and Leah to see. It was a very emotional event for me and what an amazing story I have to tell.
Cathy and Leah were in Blairsville to perform with their native American group, The Drum, at a newly opened store here selling native crafts. When I arrived, they were already performing, the men sitting and the women standing in a circle around a large drum playing and singing Indian songs. There was a chief in full native regalia who spoke, sang and danced around the group. Between songs, I met Cathy for the first time and we hugged and I spoke to beautiful five year old Leah, Billy's daughter. I told them that I had the painting with me if they would like to see it. Of course they did and I retrieved it. At the next break in their performance, Cathy and another woman in The Drum, herself a veteran, Leah and her stepfather, Mike, came over to see the painting. Cathy's response was astonishment, saying that it was Billy, that it looked just like him, and tears came to her eyes. I asked Leah if she knew who was in the painting and she answered, "Daddy." That's when I started to cry. Cathy, a Gold Star Mother, said she wanted to show the painting to the other members in the group, most of whom were veterans, and asked if I could wait for the next break in the performance. I waited, of course, and the next thing I knew the chief handed Cathy the microphone, the painting was shown to the band members and the audience, the project was explained and I was told they wanted to give me a special blessing. Cathy explained that this is done by only the women in the group and is usually reserved for other women. (Little did I know what was coming.) I had to stand in the middle of a circle formed by the ladies and the painting was placed right side up atop the drum, facing the sky. The women then beat on hand held leather drums with sticks with padded leather ends on them and sang, in beautiful melodic voices, a lovely song in a language I didn't understand. I was facing Cathy and could not help but say as she was singing that Billy had her eyes, which I knew well from painting them. She choked up a little during the song. It was a very emotional event.
Billy's step-dad, Mike, commented on Billy's mustache in the painting. "He was always working on that," he said. It is amazing how a little thing can bring back a flood of memories.
I am very thankful that now I,too, have a wonderful memory to cherish.

Freedom of Expression

2007-03-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

I had just completed my latest of five portrait commissions last week, feeling relief from the stress of months of painting with the hope of my clients' happiness. It is amazing how the final analysis that there is no more you can do to make the painting better, that it is now time to sign the painting and call it complete, and that all your current deadlines have been met lift a major weight from your shoulders. One would expect that a day or two away from the studio would be welcome, but instead, a couple of lemons on my kitchen counter, brought home by my husband for lemonade, provided the inspiration for a small still life painting. I have been itching to paint some still life paintings for quite some time and I immediately grabbed the two lemons, an orange from the refrigerator, and two over-sized marbles I purchased for just such a purpose. I knew the blue marbles would be a perfect complementary color foil for the orange. I returned to my studio, set up the tablecloth, the subjects and the lighting and painted for hours. I had to make myself stop painting to make dinner, although I'd have kept on painting if not for a hungry husband. (I'm the cook, he's the dishwasher - that's the deal!) Next day I was back at it, just as eager as I had been the day before!
One can love the process of painting regardless of subject, and one can prefer certain subjects to others. But the process of painting to please no one but yourself, to produce an effect you envisioned with no other opinion or outside influence, with no approval necessary save your own, allows for a freedom of expression without equal. It felt great after so many recent commissions, especially knowing there are currently four plus one pending ahead of me.
I have titled this still life painting The Odd Couple, referring to the marbles. I hope you like it as much as I do! And if you don't that is perfectly okay, too!

Learning by Teaching

2007-02-09T09:52:00.000-05:00

It is still early in 2007 and already I have taught a six-day workshop in oil portraits in North Carolina, five three-hour sessions of my weekly classes in my teaching studio, and I have attended one four-day workshop! I have six more painting or drawing workshops and those weekly classes scheduled to teach for the remainder of the year.
A schedule like this is very time consuming, not to mention that it seriously cuts into what might otherwise be painting time. So I often question why I keep doing it!
The first answer is, of course, the most obvious. It helps pay the bills. There are times when painting sales and commissions may be slow in coming, and teaching helps fill those gaps. While I keep my class and workshop prices as low as possible, the income is still a necessary addition to the income stream. The other reasons I continue to teach are far less tangible. I have given much thought to this and have found that I have really learned by teaching. I have learned about my own philosophical and analytical thinking every time I have to explain a particular aspect of painting to a student. I must think, question and explore while I am painting and read constantly to stay abreast of other artists, their art, their methods and their styles. I have to understand color and composition well enough that I can explain them to students in ways that will be meaningful to their progress as painters.
I love learning so this is wonderful for me. And I truly love imparting what I know to others hungry to know it! There is nothing as gratifying as seeing a student in an A-Ha! moment only to go on to improve their work with his or her newfound knowledge.
The last, but certainly not least, aspect of teaching is the forging of wonderful friendships with those whose interests are well aligned with mine. There are a good number of students who have taken my classes or workshops for years and my life would not be the same without them. I thank them all.

On Painting Snow

2007-02-01T09:29:00.000-05:00

Note: I started this post on February 1, 2007 and am just finishing it on April 15th!

With my weekly painting class cancelled this morning due to snow and ice that fell overnight, blanketing these mountain roads and fields with both beauty and treachery, I thought I would take advantage of the time and write about painting snow. I am looking out the window behind my computer desk as I type. If it weren't for the icy cold rain and sleet that is still falling, not to mention the warm and comforting fire in the fireplace, I would be out painting or, at the very least, photographing the snow-covered hills, trees and pastures. I LOVE painting snowy winter scenes complete with the leafless skeletons of the deciduous trees, the snow laden evergreens, snow drifts and white topped fences, houses and barns!
In all of my drawing and painting classes and workshops, I stress the importance of value. In the language of visual art the term refers to how light or dark any color is as well as to the all the greys (neutrals) in the range from black to white. Painting snow, in light and in shadow, provides ample opportunity to maximize the effects of value for greatest impact.
Using color with white to add interest to the snow, cooler tones in the shadows, warmer tones in the light; pinks, greens, blues, yellows mixed with white add interest and intensify the effects of light on the snow.

2007 Class & Workshop Scedule

2007-01-29T16:44:00.000-05:00

My schedule of art classes and workshops has been released for 2007 and can be found at http://carriagehouseframing.com/2007ClassSched.pdf

In Praise of Those Who Do

2007-01-29T16:24:00.000-05:00

It is embarassing to say that I have not come remotely close to fulfilling the promise I made to myself three months ago to post daily to my blog site. Yeah, sure, I have been incredibly busy, trying to do the work that keeps the light bill paid, but I am sure I could have eeked some time out for this, too. I can only promise to try to do better.
Fortunately, I can say that I have completed a number of paintings, including the 15 foot by 6 1/2 foot pastoral landscape mural on an interior wall and several commissioned portraits, have taught a couple of workshops and attended one, and even managed to spend some time with my sister over the holidays.
My inspiration to post today comes from visiting the website and blog of another Georgia artist who is putting out a painting almost each day and who is really taking her career in a wonderful direction. I admire not only her work, but also her strong work ethic and energetic marketing, not to mention her productivity. I must owe my shortcomings to a lack of diligence and/or procrastination, though I would protest that I work too hard to be guilty of that. I may, however, be insufficiently focused! I will work on that!

A Post A Day

2006-10-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

An artist I know has committed herself to completing a painting each day, and she has accomplished that for the past year. What great discipline and resolve she must have. While a loosely painted, simple and small painting would not be that time-consuming, and would certainly get the motor running in the right direction, I don't believe I can make that promise to myself at this time. I would like to do that, and possibly I need to "just do it", as Nike says, but at this point I will only commit to trying to post to my blog each day! My first step.
Right now I have on my schedule four commissioned portraits, an almost-complete 15' x 6' oil mural painted directly on the wall, a landscape drawing, and one hundred (100) unique Christmas balls (that's right - each different from the others), all of which must be completed by mid-December at the latest. As I write I am waiting for my printer to cough up the images I need as references for one of the commissions. I am thrilled to have all this work. (But I do long to paint a still life - any takers? Just not for Christmas!)
Painting portraits, figures, and still life subjects is really my passion, though landscapes do often inspire me. They also sell best off the gallery walls, so I do my share of them as well. Whatever I paint, though, I am passionate about painting from life, whether I set up objects for a still life, pose a model, or paint en plein aire (on location). Photos lie, flatten forms, diminish value contrasts, and are generally just not as inspirational as the real thing.
I teach drawing and painting and that, too, takes up a lot of my time. Next week, in fact, I am conducting a 5 day watercolor workshop for intermedaite to advanced students. My weekly painting classes, one for children and one for adults, will end soon and that will finish up my class and workshop schedule for this year. My 2007 schedule will come out soon and be posted on my website (www.pat-aube-gray.com).
The printer is completing its directed tasks, so I will turn my attention to a portrait. Until tomorrow...

2006-08-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

Also accepted into the PSA Fall 2006 Exhibition is Ben, oil on linen, 24 x 30, shown at right. The third painting, K.J., oil on canvas, is not shown.

2006-08-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

The Portrait Society of Atlanta opened its Fall 2006 Members Juried Exhibition on Saturday evening, August 19, 2006 at the Mable House Cultural Arts Center in Mableton, GA. All three of my were entries accepted by juror Bart Lindstrom. At left, Juel & Juanita, Oil on Linen, 20 x 24. The others were Ben and K.J., both in oil.

Artists and Self Portraits

2006-08-23T00:37:00.000-04:00

The last person I thought I'd ever paint was myself, but the desire to be a part of a self-portrait exhibition exceeded my lack of self-esteem in the looks department, and, voila, here I am, looking just like me!
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30, Self-Portrait

New to the Blogging World

2006-08-23T00:10:00.000-04:00

I have created this blog on the advice of a learned friend, who suggested that I can exhibit myself and my art here in much the same way as I do on my website, but with an easier to update format.
I am a visual artist. I draw, I paint, I teach. My genres include landcapes, still lifes, figuratives, and, especially, portraits. My passion is to draw or paint from a live model, with a likeness very much a part of what I strive to accomplish.
I also like to write, and I do so both professionally and for my own edification.
More to come...