Turning Myself Around

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

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!

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

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

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!