Oh my dears, what a fantastic time I have been having. I spent a week painting in San Antonio with the fabulous Kathryn Stats, turned right around and went to Arkansas on a campout/paintout trip with some of my favorite peeps.
This was the very first painting that I did, as the sun was setting on our first day, of some boats at the marina across from our campground on Lake Dardanelle. It sold to another painter and very dear friend who was also there for the week.
I surely would have spent another couple of hours playing with this but here's my new MO: quit while you're ahead. *sold
I'm leaving for San Antonio for a week to paint once more with landscape painter, Kathryn Stats. My focus for the rest of the year will be toward the outdoors but I still have a lot of figure work to share with you. I chose Anita to be the perfect bookmark till I get back; she just looks like San Antonio to me.
My intent with this study was to paint in a fairly high key and yet still show that the light was cool and bright, leaving distinct warm shadows.
I was nearly done with the painting when I left the portrait group so I finished up when I got back to my studio, with no model. Because of that, I quit thinking "Anita" and just focused on my goals for the painting. I do like the look that ended up in her eye; I think she's remembering the Alamo. I just saw Pee Wee's Big Adventure, so now I know there's no basement at the Alamo. To be honest, I don't know if I'll even have time to visit the Alamo while I'm gone, so I might have to just remember it my own self! See you soon :-)
This is Chelsea, the same Chelsea from a couple of posts ago. She has naturally curly hair that also looks very natural straight, so when she came to the studio one day with curly hair, I was taken aback for a moment! I very much love the curls.
This may look like all my other studies but the approach is so different that the whole thing feels different to me.
I spent a week painting with Clayton Beck and he really pushed me to see the darkest lights and the lightest darks in my subject. That's what I was concentrating on while painting Chelsea.
They should hook an artist up to a brain machine while he's working and look at the activity. Choosing and mixing paint, listening and talking, seeing really hard and translating very quickly... it's a 3-ring circus between my ears when I'm working!
There's more to come, I've been learning a lot.
James' Game of Risk has been selected for the Grand National Exhibition in New York City, sponsored by the American Artists Professional League. This organization has existed since the 1920's and was founded "to advance the cause of the fine arts in America through the promotion of high standards of beauty, integrity and craftsmanship in painting, sculpture and the graphic arts (and) to emphasize the importance of order and coherent communication as prime requisites of works of art through exhibitions and publications."
The exhibition opens in November.
I'm so thankful to organizations like this who have kept representational art alive long enough to see a real revival. There are a few who have held the torch all by themselves for a long time. I wish I'd known them all along but I'm glad that I know them now. Thanks for visiting :-)
Chelsea and I worked very hard our first day together. We had many plans but our plans were altered when the studio was invaded by college men who evidently are very interested in the creation of art. There can be no other explanation for their hovering and hanging around.
The canvas is 20x16 and the image is larger than life. I did not intend to make the face so large but I think that my subconscious wanted to study this lovely face. Sargent says to begin the head smaller than life since the tendency is to enlarge it as you work. I think this is an interesting psychological phenomenon.
I met Chelsea recently at an art show and was simply struck by her enchanting eyes. I feel fortunate that she is available to model and I hope that I will be able to do her beauty justice as I become more familiar with her lines.
Well anyway, I appreciate your stopping by to visit :-)
I haven't been posting much because I've been working on larger paintings and have been very focused on that~ I hope you'll forgive me.
I'm in 4 groups that meet together to paint the figure: Mondays and Fridays are 3-hour poses, Tuesdays are ballerinas, Saturdays are nudes. I am also in a group with my friends who plein air paint when possible. These groups generate lots of sketches and a few finished paintings.
This is one sketch, from last Tuesday, that I brought back and finished. The model was in front of a white wall but when I got to my studio, I hung a paisley pillowcase on the wall with thumbtacks and loosely used it's pattern for my background. My studio light and our group's light are exactly the same so it was an easy insertion. The model actually held multiple short poses and this "long pose" I believe was only 60 minutes long. She was quite lovely and I think she inspired everyone there. Thanks for visiting!
Here's another very cool thing that I discovered by accident: out of the 415 paintings juried into the show, they picked 3 to represent it on the banner for Greenhouse Gallery's homepage. I had to access the site to verify the price of one of my paintings and when it opened, VOILA! there was James!
It was a moment when, I was so surprised and thrilled that I just spontaneously yelled, "HEY!" to no one, and only scared the dog and the bird. But HEY! I still showed them! I don't know if it will stay up but so far, it's been the only banner, and it's been up since February.
I know I have some show week to go but it's going to be really, really hard to top what's already happened.
Thank you for stopping by and hopefully sharing my joy. You can view the whole show on line by clicking here: http://www.greenhousegallery.com/ but if you find yourself anywhere near Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio, it's much, much better to see it in real life. They did a fantastic job of hanging and lighting all those very different paintings. It's a delight to walk from room to room and see what's coming in from all over the world (15 countries represented) in representational art. I'm so proud of us!
The current issue of American Art Collector magazine features an article about the Salon International at Greenhouse Gallery, including a quarter page image of the other portrait that was in the Salon: Rainy (top right). I can't tell you how cool something like this is.
I wanted to buy a magazine ad but just couldn't $wing it, if you know what I mean. Then, a couple weeks ago, a friend texted me and said, "Congratulations for being in American Art Collector!" and I said, "I'm not in American Art Collector." She said, "Yes, you are!" so I had to run out to the mailbox to get my copy and VOILA! Rainy was on page 123! I hope you can read the column. There were a couple more pages so if you want to read more, you'll just have to buy a copy!
This is the best start of Show Week EVER! On the left, Daniel Greene, the KING of portraits is holding my painting of James and saying something that I didn't hear because of the rush of something in my ears. He liked the Rainy painting as much as James but said that he couldn't give more than one award to any artist, so he gave the Merit Award for Portrait to James. Then, in the photo on the right, he said something right to my face but I don't remember what it was.
The reason that this means so very much to me, winning an award for a portrait from Mr Greene, is that I first learned how to pose and light and drape a model from watching his instructional VHS tapes back in the 90's. He was my teacher without ever knowing it!
And further, as I've developed, I've moved away from the more tight and linear style that he practices and prefers, so I was pretty sure he was not going to like what I brought. I am so happy and so honored that this great man looked at, touched and then awarded my work. Thank you for visiting the blog of the most grateful artist on earth!
Here's the last of my NanoNudes.
This one was accepted into the 6" Squared show in California and is presently being framed for that show. If you want to see the show when it starts, I'll attach a link on my blog for it. It is Show Week, after all!
Tomorrow is the awards banquet for the Salon International; Saturday's the opening. It will be judged by the respected Daniel Greene, whom I've been studying since I started. Just having my work scrutinized by him is an honor, I have to tell you. There are only a few "Bigs" in our generation and he is one of them. Last year's show was judged by Everett Raymond Kinstler, another "Big."
Boy is my life blessed! Thank you for visiting my blog~ see you next week~ wish me luck!
Regina the Reject. She even looks a little miffed! I need some critiquing on this one. I don't have any answers but I think I do see two areas of weakness in this shot of the painting: along her back it looks like her body has a force field around it; and where her leg meets the foreground, I think it could be a stronger transition. Those would be pretty easy fixes. Maybe there's more I could do.
There's something about digital photography that just brings out the worst in a painting~ or at least my digital photography! It's like all the nuances are gone. On all these figures, there is the most subtle play of temperatures and hues in the skin but from here it just looks all one color: paste white.
On the other hand, digital photos would be good for seeing the flaws in a painting before it's posted.
I entered three paintings in the Randy Higbee "Six Inch Squared" show in California. They all go together but only two of them made the cut; one was rejected. They had 1200 entries but only accepted 400 so I guess there are a lot of artists out there right now feeling my pain.
These 6x6 inch paintings are a real challenge! This little figure is less than 4 inches tall. Faces and toes are a chore to not over-work. I really love to look at the mere suggestion of a face but I haven't been able to pull that off yet; I cannot leave it alone until I see something real. I think that if I do enough of these, the sheer volume will force me to simplify. And hopefully make shorter work of them! Anyway, I hope you like getting back to comfy canvas after so many days on perilous paper!
Look how tired she is. She's been waiting all this time. This lady is the last of the lasses on paper, but the figure theme will continue till the end of the week, as we transition into Show Week, aka: the Week I Lived to See. There was some question about whether or not I'd be here for it, after pulling several all-nighters (a feat for springy-er spring chickens than myself) :-). But I got paintings for 3 shows delivered in 3 days, I slept 12 hours last night and still had a nice 2 hour nap a little earlier today when I logged in to blog. Sleeping sitting up is another activity that isn't for older people. Which again brings me to our lounging lass...
Hahaha, the disaster is only on paper, though.
I've never actually received complaints on my blog before this but I've had more than one request to drop the nudes on paper posts and resume the comfy canvas collection. But the whole point of a blog is to record, like a diary, passages and growth as it happens, right? Isn't "blog" a "web log"? And I know from being in the military, you have to put the good, the bad, AND THE UGLY in the log!
So, courageously, I present yet another nude on vellum. It's small and I don't care, I like it. It's really, really hard to do and to have it turn out looking like the person is an accomplishment that I am not ashamed of.
And there are only a couple more to go now because this is Show Week. I have been pulling all-nighters and varnishing and framing and I drove to San Antonio and back yesterday to deliver the first paintings to one of 3 shows that are due within a 3 day period. Tomorrow, I'll be shipping 2 paintings to California and delivering my own and another artist's paintings to our show in downtown Houston. If you're in the area, shoot me an email and I'll let you know about the show dates and the evening reception; I want to see you there!
Posts
This is Chelsea, the same Chelsea from a couple of posts ago. She has naturally curly hair that also looks very natural straight, so when she came to the studio one day with curly hair, I was taken aback for a moment! I very much love the curls.
James' Game of Risk has been selected for the Grand National Exhibition in New York City, sponsored by the American Artists Professional League. This organization has existed since the 1920's and was founded "to advance the cause of the fine arts in America through the promotion of high standards of beauty, integrity and craftsmanship in painting, sculpture and the graphic arts (and) to emphasize the importance of order and coherent communication as prime requisites of works of art through exhibitions and publications."
Chelsea and I worked very hard our first day together. We had many plans but our plans were altered when the studio was invaded by college men who evidently are very interested in the creation of art. There can be no other explanation for their hovering and hanging around.
I haven't been posting much because I've been working on larger paintings and have been very focused on that~ I hope you'll forgive me.
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