Posts Tagged ‘Oil Paintings’
Underpaintings
This past spring I attended a workshop near State College, PA. One thing the instructor, Susan Nicholas Gephart, tried to teach us was the importance of an underpainting and the effects that can be created by different kinds of underpaintings.
Three of her favorite acrylic colors for underpaintings are Iridescent Copper Light (Fine), Interference Violet (Fine) and Dark Ultramarine, all by Golden. She especially likes the copper because it gives a luminous color to landscape paintings when it shines through the oil top coat.
Working Wet-Into-Wet
Probably one of the greatest challenges for the artist who does oil paintings is working wet-into-wet. Because oil paint dries slowly, the artist must often apply paint over areas that are not dry – thus, wet-into-wet. Imagine drawing the scene with thin paint, then applying a heavier coat on top. Too much blending overworks the colors and creates “mud”.
Two things can help: Start with thinner layers and gradually work to thicker layers. “Thin” does not mean thinned with solvent or medium. Oils straight from the tube are considered lean or thin. If too much solvent or medium is used, the paint becomes slippery and it is harder to get a fresh stroke to stick to it.
Also, don’t overwork the brushstrokes. If you do not want the colors to blend, apply the stroke and leave it. Only a single stroke or two is permitted before the new color will blend with the under layer. It also helps to use a softer brush with a lighter touch.
The Plein Air Artist Workshop
It was by chance that we met – Anna and I. I had taken my car to the car shop for an oil change. She was already waiting, and the man behind the counter pointed out that we were both artists. What ensued was a conversation that changed my plans two weeks hence.
Anna is an Art teacher at a local high school and was awarded Teacher of the Year for 2010 – 2011. She has been mentored for several years by the Coordinator of the Hameau (pronounced Ham-O ) Farm Studio Artist Retreats which meets twice each year near Belleville, PA, southwest of State College, in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. Another retreat was coming up in about two weeks and she gave me the information.
The retreat is a week long retreat for plein air painters of all genres and the Coordinator of the retreat is Susan Nicholas Gephart, Central PA Pastel Society President and Instructor at the C. Barton McCann School of Art. She and her assistant, James Farrah, well known Phoenix, AZ, oil painter and watercolorist would both give demonstrations and advise and help students. The cost would be $90 per day plus $25 per day for food. Overnight cabins were available at no extra charge but they had no electricity or running water. When I presented the information to my friends, Betty and Suzanne, they seemed favorably inclined but wanted time to consider, and wanted to pay for a motel room rather than opt for the free cabins. (to be continued)
Beauty of Nature
Are you looking for a way to enhance the rustic theme in your home? Bring the beauty of the outdoors inside with an inspiring deer art oil painting. Deer are one of natures’ most treasured and beloved animals because of their innocence, majesty and beauty. Now there’s no better way to commemorate the deer than by bringing it indoors, where you can enjoy it day after day, for years to come.
Nature enthusiasts and deer lovers alike can include the elegant artwork of these great animals with one-of-a-kind deer art. It represents an artistic and unique way of adding nature element to your home interior. This abstract oil painting is a great way to bring nature into your home and create the same atmosphere as the great outdoors without having to leave the comforts of home – true beauty of the deer all year long.
Plein Air Painting is for Me (part 2)
Many opportunities for travel have presented themselves to me since I began painting. I have ridden on horseback to paint the mountains of Montana, loved the trees in Mexico that are trimmed to look like huge barrels, and a wide variety of trees in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Maryland. In traveling throughout the country, I have noticed that different areas have trees unique to that area, except for pine and oaks which seem to be prolific everywhere from Florida to Montana.
Another benefit of being a plein air painter is that I meet such wonderful and interesting people. I have met them during those travels and workshops as well as when I am at home doing shows and hanging art in my local library and art galleries.
When a painting is finished and hangs on my wall I look at it and am in-the-moment with it. I remember the day precisely when it was made, the temperature, the work I did to get there, the fun I had painting it, and the problems I had finishing it or whether it just painted itself. And when it sells, I’m rewarded monetarily for doing something I love!
Plein Air Painting Is for Me
The fact the I am a painter is a miracle! All my life I have studied the sciences and never took one art lesson until five years before I retired. Now, however, I love painting en plein air (French for “open air”), traveling and meeting new people.
When I was a child, we lived on a small acreage with a wooded area on a back corner. Occasionally, I visited that area and enjoyed seeing the different plants and shrubs and how the sun danced on the leaves. Perhaps that is when I learned to love trees. Much later I had a wonderful opportunity to take free art lessons at the nearby university. After I moved away, I went to the local gallery and continued with lessons. Several years later I moved to Maryland where I met plein air painters. We actually took our easels out to a field, set up, and I was overwhelmed! What do I put on my 8” x 10” canvas from that vast array of scenery? At the same time, I was hooked! It was exciting to be out of doors. As the poet said, “It doesn’t matter whether I got bee stings or sunburn, lost my brush or my picture didn’t turn out well, I still had a great day.” Now I enjoy beautiful trees everywhere, but when I want to paint, I look for those which grew in an irregular fashion or have seen many years of wind and storms, perhaps losing limbs in the process. Those are the ones that speak to me so I set up my easel and we have a face-to face conversation.
Little Bets
Peter Sims wrote a book, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries. The idea is “fail often in order to succeed sooner.” When students are encouraged to do many small works, they can get through with the bad ones earlier and can get on with the ideas that work better for them sooner.
Suggestions: Prepare a large number of small supports. Choose a motif that appeals to you. Start painting everything that comes to mind, no matter how glib. Don’t get hung-up on out right duds. Go from one painting to the next – don’t waste time. Ideas breed ideas. Keep your strokes fresh, creative and confident. Always be in a state of acceptance and rejection. Steadily sort your work.
This reminds me of the teacher who divided her art class in half and said one half would be graded on the best painting they could create. The other would be graded by the pound – the more paintings, the higher the grade. The best paintings of the class came from those graded by the pound – they had painted the most!
The Workshop in PA
It was great to see Betty and Suzanne again. I showed them the paintings I had created over the winter and told them about a workshop I had just learned about.
When I took my car in for its oil change this past week, I had the pleasure of meeting Anna, a local art teacher. She told me about a wonderful workshop called the Haneau Workshop she will be attending in Belleview, Pennsylvania, near College Station, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. The workshop is May 9-15 and is for plein air painters. The cost is $90/day plus $25 for food, and overnight cabins are available at no extra charge. One can go for 1 day or for the whole week. The web site is http://www.snicholasart.com and Susan Nicholas Gephart is the artist and the one with whom to speak concerning this event. Her phone number is 814-360-2116.
When we spoke with her today, she made it sound like a wonderful place for plein air painters with much land available from which to choose a site for painting. My friends will think about all we discussed, but I think we will be making a trip to PA in about 2 weeks!
My Group
Now that I’m back in Maryland, my group will start meeting again on Mondays to paint and talk about painting. Tomorrow, it’s the latter.
We met as students of John Losonczy, art teacher at our local gallery several years ago. For a while we met on Mondays at Val’s extra house in addition to class time on Thursdays. Eventually Val needed the house for something else and our teacher had a terrible accident and was no longer able to teach. However, some of us continued meeting at my house.
At this point, Charlotte takes care of her grandchildren and Lee has moved away. We had a new member for a while -Leslie – but she is a practicing physician and when she stopped working, she took many workshops and now is far superior to the rest of us. We still paint with her sometimes, but most of the time it is just Suzanne and Betty who come on Monday. Tomorrow the three of us, dedicated plein air painters, will meet for the first time in a long while, discuss what happened over the winter and plan for our painting escapades in the coming weeks!
John Carlson’s Technique
The book I mentioned yesterday went on to discuss Carlson’s approach to painting. When starting an oil painting, Carlson encouraged his students to relax and “give nature a chance to sing to you.” Analyze the idea, not nature, then paint the idea.
Take a long time to compose the picture because the composition will either make or break the painting. Make changes as they suggest themselves. Turn your back on the scene and compose your painting in its entirety. In that way you will be likely to conceive the picture as you feel it. Afterwards, consult nature as much as you like for facts of color, texture, etc. This checkup will encourage you to fill every part of your canvas with interesting material.
When I paint, some scenes appeal to me, some don’t. When planning it on canvas, I try to follow the rules: don’t put the tree in the middle, cover the entire canvas, even allowing the picture to flow off the edge. If I have a really interesting spot or focal point, place it where the lines of the “tic-tac-toe” game would cross. Sometimes I even draw a sketch in my sketch book if I need to rethink the placement. I get excited about my picture and hope my feelings will transfer to the painting and eventually to the viewer.