Still life painting at Gabriel's studio

Back to oil painting!!

A new eight week session at Gabriel Lipper's studio has begun. This time we will be painting "ala prima" (all at once) one small still life in each of our eight 3 hour classes. We are to bring our own set-up so on the way out the door last Friday morning I grabbed an eggplant, an onion and a half a lemon from the 'fridge and off I went. This was step number one towards a really bad painting: not thinking about what I was going to paint. Why I thought this combo would work is beyond my second-thought self. Even adding a metal pitcher from Gabe's stash did not help and down the hole of frustration I went... I didn't like what I was painting and it looked that way!

 On the way home I realized under this muck was a perfectly good canvas primed in red and I would use it to make a better painting. I snapped a photo and scrubbed it all away. Whew.


On Saturday I went to watch Gabe do a demo for an art event.

On Mother's Day after a nice chat with my daughter and making a rhubarb pie, I began again.

 Establishing the planes of the pear and napkin folds with changes in value and color temperature.

Checking the values.. see how in the painting the pear is much darker than it really is?

 Hmmm. That hard horizontal line of the napkin right above the pear was not working for me.

Is this better? Sort of looks like a pear that sprouted plaid wings. Dennis said it looked kind of desolate, when before it was sort of "cozied" into the napkin.

I tucked the pear in again but darkened the background to soften the horizontal line.

 

Signed off! I enjoyed doing this painting; I hope it shows.

And here's the lesson about that distracting napkin shape applied to the painting of Dennis and Liam:

Here's the last image I posted for that painting. I've been working on it but the changes didn't warrant posting. I'll update you on this work soon.

See how distracting the peach color of the chair is? I didn't, until Gabe encouraged all of us to look for shapes in our paintings where there was too much contrast in value or color in places that weren't important to the center of interest.

 

Changing the chair to melt into the background allowed the faces to be more important.  Just like changing the background to minimize the contrast with the napkin helped bring focus back to the pear. 

I hope you are enjoying these "learn-along-with Leslie" posts. Let me hear from you on my Leslie Lee Art page on Facebook. (and please hit the LIKE button!)

Until next time...

What happened to May?

Oh the Month of May that went away! It was a busy time, mostly due to getting ready for and attending Ceramic Showcase, a show Dennis and I have done every spring for over 25 years. Since I'm not doing ceramics anymore I participate by painting with under-glazes on cups that Dennis has made. In this photo they are not yet fired.

 It's a lot of fun to do these and they are very popular, priced at $40 to $50 each, so I know people are appreciating the paintings and not just looking for a coffee vessel!

Portrait expanded

Looks like I missed posting what happened in last week's class. I was busy re-working my application for the Hallie Ford Fellowship which was due last Tues. Considering who was selected last year I may never be "out there" enough to be in the running for these things but it didn't cost anything to submit and it was an online application which made it easier, so why not? Composing my Artist's Statement did make me think long and hard about what I do and why, especially when it needed to be condensed to 2000 characters. In fact, it's so short I will share it with you:

"I have been a professional artist of all my adult life. I was the last of four girls and the Wild One so my parents let me choose my own route. I chose “artist” early, made lots of messes and continued on to earn a BFA in graphic design at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri returning to my native Portland, Oregon to begin my career.

 When I married and was temporarily relieved from having to earn a living I began taking classes in ceramics, which had been a favorite medium as a child. Having time for this steady focus propelled me into 25 years as a ceramic sculptor, recognized in 1994 by a Ceramics Monthly cover story.  By then I had (re)married a potter whose home we later sold to build new ecologically conscious studios and a home in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley.  In the middle of this adventure I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. During chemotherapy I did not have the strength for clay work and began painting, which was the silver lining of my cancer experience.  I never returned to clay.

As a painter my aim is to draw the interest of the viewer with appealing imagery which then invites, through metaphor and allegory, considerations of the individual, the family, society and the natural world. My interests range from confronting global concerns, to simply capturing beauty I think may be overlooked. I paint from life or use reference photos I have taken myself. The stories are always my own.

The success of my work lies not in my competent handling of oil paint (so far I am self taught with much to learn), but rather because people react to how my images illuminate their life experiences.  Nothing delights me more than to have a viewer interpret a painting in a different way than whatever inspired me.  I have witnessed hearty laughs from some and spontaneous tears from others viewing the same image. I am fascinated by this universal/individual response which I intentionally go after by providing not the script of a story, but the seed of one."

So I suppose my desire to start a story is what has moved this painting of Dennis and Liam away from a straight portrait and into something a bit more intriguing.  Remember when I said I liked the dots that showed up in the background from lens flare? That sparked an idea of having images floating around in all that darkness in the background. Somehow the long neck and face of a giraffe wanted to join in and the title "G is for Giraffe" presented itself. So then where are ABCDE and F?  Ape, butterfly, cat, dog,elephant, frog all heading out after their page was turned.  Here's how the idea got onto the canvas, sans ape.

 White chalk was used to sketch out the animals. This was about the 4th try.

 Next I sketched them in with paint so I wouldn't loose them.

 I also worked on the baby's face, added his hand and clarified his stocking feet and the folds in Dennis' jeans.  This is where the painting was before class today.

This is where I ended up after class. Gabriel and I discussed the fact that the baby's face had been brought out of shadow and was now competing for attention, which is a problem with double portraits. I had raised his hood to do this, so I brought it back down which also helped the proportion of his head and cast shadow again.

Then Gabe had me mix a gray that looked dark on the palette but light against the background. This gray is my "white" for the animals. It's a cool color so we warmed up the darker colors with ocher so I'd have two temperatures to work with in defining the animals. My goal here is to have the animals be "there" enough to make someone seeing this painting from a distance want to view it closer. It might then take much longer to get the alphabet bit - a fun surprise, I hope. 

These last photos were taken in natural light on the porch, so they look different than the shots taken in the studio.

This child is not Liam. With luck I will still find him in there somewhere.

It's supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow so my gardening plans  may be out for the day and more painting in .

Portrait of Dennis and Liam con't

 

Here's what happened today. This looks much more like Dennis, having shortened his jaw. The poka dots are from the photo but I kind of like them... hmmm...

Values are looking good.

Liam's face was also too long.  Checking against my reference I could see how the nose and mouth needed to be moved up.

Still not there, but moving in the right direction.

Parting shot until next time.

Classes with Gabriel Lipper

You know how sometimes you just can't figure out what's keeping you from getting where you want to go, doing what you think you want to do? I have a have a dozen, maybe more, paintings started and sitting around in my studio staring at me. I put them on the easel and look at them and put them back where they were. What have I been waiting for?
Evidently this is what I was waiting for: classes with Gabriel Lipper. I've been spending too much time alone with only my inner critic to guide me and even though I've been aware of this guy for a few years I did not investigate if he taught classes until recently. A week after I inquired a new session started with emphasis on portraits and there was room for me!

Gabriel's studio is a big barn of a place he shares with a couple other artists and this is where he teaches classes on Friday Mornings from 9-12. It's messy and full of works in process and finished which he readily talks about if it pertains to the issue at hand. Gabe is gabby and full of life and experience and knowledge, and for the first time ever in a painting class I feel like I'm learning something every moment I'm there. The other students are a good mix - some older, some younger, some more advanced than me, some not. It's great!

I have never been able to paint alla prima (all at once). My colors just got muddy and the brush strokes lost. In this class we are not finishing a painting all in one session but the approach is as if we were. For the first time I am experiencing the truth that color can be almost anything if it is the right value, and that changes in colors of the same value but different temperatures can define a change in plane.  This is especially important in painting faces.

But enough bloggety words - you came for the pictures!
Here's my reference photo of Dennis reading to our grandson:

 

The first issue at hand was to change the composition so that Dennis' head was not popping off the top of the  frame. I chose a canvas that was a taller proportion so there would be more room at the top. This brought his face down where the top third and left third of the canvas meet - a good spot for the focal point. Adding more dark also adds to the feeling of the two of them in their own private pool of light, which is why I snapped the photo in the first place.  

This is a complicated  picture and I wanted to get on with the painting rather than spend two days trying to freehand the sketch, so I traced the general "map" of the photo :

Then I photographed the sketch and reduced it to a 5 x 7 image so I could use it in the little image projector I have.  (Last Thursday morning I woke up at 5:50 am and realized that if I didn't get up and project this image while it was still dark I would not have my canvas ready to paint for  Friday morning's class. So up I got! That's another great thing about taking a class.)  After projecting the basics it was easier to do the detailed drawing that would be the foundation for the painting. Even so it took me most of the day to do this:

In class on Friday I first fixed the drawing with spray on fixative and then gave the whole canvas a thin coat of blue gray acrylic for a quick drying tone. Knowing that most of my colors would be warm it seemed like a cool undertone that would show through here and there might add some "snap". I made it as dark as I could and still see the drawing.

As soon as the acrylic was was dry I started painting and this is how far I got in class last Friday. Gabe was encouraging me to find the planes in the face and define them with changes in value and temperature without trying to match the subject's actual color. This was another photo reference I took of Dennis that gave me more information than the first photo with the deep shadows:

    

When I got home I also took a B&W to see if the values really were working. They are...sort of.  and then I painted some more:

After lunch and a half hour nap I went back to it.

Needed another reference for the hand. Good thing I live with my model! The cat is playing Liam's role.

...and then I was pooped!! The plaid shirt really wore me out.
This doesn't look much like Liam, and Dennis sort of looks like our friend Bjorn,  but I have confidence that I'll find them eventually.

I'll give you an update soon. Since I'm doing this for class I will have to follow thorough on it and will share it with you.  An THEN I'll go back to the other paintings with new eyes and you can see how I finish those as well.

Sarah

Sarah was expecting her first baby to arrive in a week when I took this photo of her in her new hat at my daughter's house. I thought it was interesting that after I got home I felt more compelled than usual to print out the photo and get going.  I enjoyed communing with Sarah for most of a whole day as I started the painting.  The next morning I thought about her and what I wanted to do with the painting throughout my yoga and meditation. Just as I finished my practice my daughter called to say that Sarah's baby had arrived and all was well! No wonder I was so intent on her!

So- I think I will just run these photos without much comment, starting with the reference photo. Hope you enjoy the process. I enjoy your comments.

 Number 6 of six quick shots. I knew this was the one I was looking for.

 Darkened in Photoshop to see the shadows better.

This is a 16 by 20 canvas (...I think)

 Day one finished the under-painting establishing the values.

Because it's obviously winter, I wanted the light to be cool. 

This meant the shadows needed to be warm and it all felt a bit counter-intuitive at first.

 Color change is from shooting in daylight and then under lights.

 End second day.

 

Back to daylight.

End of third session.
I kept the file size on these photos fairly big so you can click on them and then zoom in to see the brushwork

 

OK- Here's a really big correction. Look at the eyes. See in the picture above how the eye on the right is higher and closer to the nose than it is in the picture on the right? This is a mistake I make again and again and it makes faces really wonky. At least now I know to be on the watch for it.

 

 More paint on the surface, leaving the brush stokes. More contrast and sharp edges where the hat is in shadow against her cheek. 

Hopefully this all brings focus to her face rather than the hat where I kept the edges soft. That hat is tough competition!   End of 4th session.

Just a little time today but more detail and highlights in the features. I like the way her eyes are sparkling now: A Mama-to-Be - "glowing".

Wish me luck as I continue.