It's all about seeing

In this New York Times essay, an aspiring writer turns to modeling and discovers the naked truth about creating and communicating.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/gesture-writing/?emc=eta1

Year of the Woman

The Artist's House Gallery's current exhibit features artwork of women by women artists.  Lea Colie Wight and JaFang Lu are both Studio Incamminati alumni and two of their finest teachers, and are featured in this exhibit which is currently running through April 28th.  First Friday is upon us, so be sure to stop in to view their work along with many others; it looks like a big show with many excellent works!  Friday can't come soon enough; see you there!

Year of the Woman Exhibit at Artist's House

Lea Colie Wight

JaFang Lu

This is one of JaFang's portraits that will be at the show.  I've always been a fan of this painting ever since I saw her paint it a few years back.  Great knit hat.

This drawing is by JaFang, but will not be included at Artist's House.  I included it because of how successful JaFang is with capturing the texture of the sun-aging skin and the simple shadow shapes.

This might be the first painting I ever saw of Lea's.  I've always loved it.  Great composition and pleasing harmonious colors.

One of my favorites from Lea!  The light pouring through the green window cascading onto the boats is hauntingly beautiful.

This painting by Lea is at the show...I love the story Lea is telling with this one.  The crossed arms fits right in with the pho hawk and leather jacket.  Rock and roll!

New Faces Exhibit Starting March 1st at the Artist's House

Greetings fellow art lovers!  We are beginning the last week of February, which means next Friday is first Friday.  What is First Friday you ask? Good question.  Many Philadelphia art galleries stay open later on the first Friday of the month, hence the name First Friday.  Next Friday kicks off a new exhibit at the Artist's House gallery in historic Old City featuring Caroline Weitzman and Portrait Society of America award winning, Kerry Dunn; both Studio Incamminati alumni.  Both are amazing artists in each genre; Caroline captures unique still lifes in vivid and beautiful color combinations, and Kerry, along with capturing an uncanny likeness of the sitter, also communicates their emotions and attitudes.  I can't wait to see the show next Friday and enjoy their artwork with them and with you.  Below are a few of my favorites.  At the very bottom will be links to their websites and the gallery's website.  See you there.

Caroline's work

Beautiful! One of my favorites of Caroline's

 I love Caroline's choice of  diagonal stripes.

Look at this awesome color block setup Caroline painted.  We 'peep' your creativity!

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Kerry's work

Kerry's White Roses.  Simply gorgeous!

Breathtaking painting from Mr. Dunn!

I don't believe this painting will be at the show, but I had to include it because it has always been one of my favorites.  What great attitude he captured!

Artist's House Gallery is located at 57 North Second Street, Philadelphia, PA

Caroline's website

Kerry's website

Kerry's blog

Artist House's New Faces Exhibit 

Alla Prima Demo

If you are like me then you probably love seeing other artists' demonstrations.  I especially enjoy trying to figure out what the artist is thinking about during the process of building a painting.  When working with a long pose or even spending multiple sessions with the same still life requires planning.  This is a muscle that I appreciate and am currently developing, but I also enjoy paintings that are completed in one sitting a.k.a.alla prima.  I remember one of my teachers saying, "Know what stage you are in and focus on getting the most out of that stage before moving on to the next one."  I find this discipline very challenging, but rewarding when I take the extra time to get it right.  Enjoy!

I've never painted on an oval format, but I thought it would be a nice element for the amaryllises.  I first started the grissaille focusing on the over all relationships of the shapes with a loose envelope, keeping in mind my focal point.  I didn't want the stem cutting right through the vertical center so I pushed it slightly to the right.

This is about an hour into the painting and I am focusing on angles, especially extending the lines and how they intersect with other shapes.  I am thinking about the gesture of the flowers, how they are moving and extending from the stem.  I am just as concerned with the abstract negative shapes as I am with the flower shapes.  I am also starting to separate light shapes from the shadow shapes.  I move the paint around until the shapes lock into place.

Keeping in mind how much daylight I have left I am content with my shapes so I  push into color.  I start with the easiest color to see which for this situation was the blue color on the amaryllis in the background.  Because I am seeing so many colors I edit what I see by asking myself, "What is the overall color in this area?"

I continue to spread my colors out to cover the entire canvas.  I am starting to think about the form of the flower, and not just about abstract shapes (i.e. "Which shapes or closer or further from me?").  In addition I am trying to reach my complete value range of colors.  Because of the whiteness of the flowers I am pushing more tinted pinks, purples and blues into the light masses...but not at the expense of value.  I am also finding variety with the yellow and greens of the stems.

Ok, it's make it or break it time.  I have about an hour and a half to express the forms of the flower.  I start to caress the paint over the forms, like I was an ant walking over the individual forms.  For me this is what I work for.  I love modeling forms, and tweaking value relationships.  I start softening and sharpening edges and trying to discover the variety.  I pay particular attention to form and cast shadows.  I am seeking harmony in the masses. 

Time is up!  Now I have to find an app that crops oval formats.

Daniel Sprick Workshop

Good Tuesday afternoon! Last week I attended Daniel Sprick's weekend workshop. Two days is not enough time with such a talented artist and teacher like Dan. But I'll take what I can get. Saturday, he demoed the portrait the entire day! What a gift, and yours truly took a boat load of notes. Here are a few of them:

- "Starts painting with vine charcoal linear drawing. Focused on composition and establishing the big shapes."

- "Explains the light on the form, direction and most brightest area. Illustrates the light on the most simple spherical form of the head. Emphasizes the edges based on core shadow and cast shadow."

- "Squinting a lot. Trying to have minimal accurate lines. Looking for harmony, and which lines he can unify."

- "Starts the color notes with the shadow first. Spends a lot of time cooling the shadow because of the 'hot' light."

- "Make a large batch of paint for the light notes. This value will be close to the final overall value. Starts laying in on the areas receiving the most light. Then he works the half tones by mixing the shadow color with the light color. Focusing attention on soft edge transitions (core shadow)."

- "Talks about seeing the human forms as basic forms (i.e. cylinder, rectangle) to understand how the travels, especially as the light transitions into the shadows."

- "Tools of the artist : 1. Edges (soft vs. hard) 2. Values 3. Temperature of color.

- "Establish the interlocking shapes of light and shadow while working the edges and halftones. The lights are mostly one mid-tone value. Starts modeling the light forms by noting the variety."

- "Dan points out that squinting is a good way to eliminate the detail. This is helpful when confused about what to do next."

- "Before moving onto color changes establish the value relationships, then come back to the area and change color in the same value."

- "Starts placing the dark accents 4 hrs. into the painting."

-"Still squint even while working detail"

Some great quotes from the weekend:

"It's like rowing across the Atlantic Ocean with two little paddles." A workshopper's commentary on Dan's brushes."

"Painting is a systematically controlled panic."

"Paint what you see when you squint."

"What will be the most effective decision to progress the painting?"


Here are some photos

Winter Still Life Workshop

I recently finished teaching a one-week still life workshop to a group of talented, eager and enthusiastic artists with varying degree of experience.  The workshop is basically a crash course of cramming 2 years of information into five days.  I had set goals for workshop participants.  They had also come with their own expectations.  We met in the middle ground.  Students worked diligently in incorporating what they learned in the workshop with their past training.  I can't praise them, as well as many students in my other classes and workshops, enough for being patiently learning, sorting through and working out the differences between my teaching and their own ways of working.  At the end, they have all made tremendous progress over the period of 5 days.       

The two main goals I set for them were “establishing overall value/color relationships for the painting in its initial stage” and “breaking down the established value/color relationships into smaller ones”.  The key words being “relationship” and "organization". 

Here are a couple examples of their work.  They were the best images I could take with my point and shoot camera under the incandescent light in the studio.  Unfortunately, the images are not showing as correct and  as much information as I'd like.  The paintings range from 3 hours to 3 days.  I'll update and add more images as I receive better and other examples of their work done during the workshop from students.

Alex

Alex became sick as a dog in the last day and half of the workshop.

Dale

Dale's epiphany - Paint the major color shapes as "big and flat notes of color" regardless of the material (glass or fabric) in the initial stage of the painting. 

Kym

Kym painting round objects with well calibrated color and value notes.

Melody

 Melody keeping the value relationship in check so all the elements in the painting can sing in harmony.

Patrice

Patrice pushing her painting further while keeping development of information/detail in the proper hierarchy.

Robin

Robin knows that this painting says it all.  She did a wonderful job on it.  I do need a better image (as with all the others images I have here)!

Suzanne

Suzanne

Suzanne does absolutely beautiful batik (a water based medium) paintings on silk.  Oil painting on canvas presents different challenges.  In the beginning of the workshop, she handled the paint carefully.  In the second half of the workshop, she freed herself up to fully explore the characteristics of the medium.  Results are good paint handling combined with beautifully related color/value relationships.   

Tim

I wonder if Tim took his frustration out in the selection and arrangement of his painting of "The Cast Iron Frying Pan"?!  He painted the rust on the pan beautifully. 

Forcing a smile out of Andy, our education coordinator, proved to be the hardest task I undertook during the workshop.

End of the Semester Level 2 Cast Drawings

So it's the end of the first semester for the Professional Program, and as promised we are checking in to see how Level Two finished up on their cast drawings.  Well, I am thoroughly impressed with everybody's work.  Great job you guys!

Barbara Zanelli

Carolyn Gabbe

Instructor Darren Kingsley

Daryl Burkhard

Grace Jackson

Mitsuno Reedy

Monica Bean

Shira Friedman

Chris Nixon

Thanks, Carolyn for the pictures!

Demo at the National Art Club

This past Friday, I participated in a group demonstration for Studio Incamminati at the National Art's Club in NYC. This demo was part of the show "The Artists of Studio Incamminati Exhibit" by the Founders, Instructors and Alumni. I joined instructors Leona Shanks, Lea Wight, Alisyn Blake, Peter Kelsey and Joe Dolderer. Leona and Joe demoed a color study approach, while Lea and Peter painted the model in full color. Alisyn demonstrated charcoal first and open grissaile second. I demonstrated 'duo tone' or closed grissaile. A good number of people braved the wet and cold weather, contributing to an interactive discussion between the audience and the demonstrating artists.  To our luck, we had a wonderful model, who sat so still it was like painting a still life.  Great painting with great artists and friends!

Some of the art

That's my pumkin

"Let's grab a seat"

The guys starting out their portraits

Leona blocking-in her grisaille for wonderful colors soon to come

Look at them knock out the early stages!

Lea and Alisyn's awesome paintings

Joe's, Peter's and Jason's paintings with Leona cleaning her palatte

Under watchful guise

Shot of the artists with Nelson after the finish.  Let's grab some drinks!

Here's a link for The Epoch Times' coverage of the event: click here