Pink Flowers, Oil Painting

I worked on this painting a little more in class Wednesday, Using Golden’s palette of colors and Liquin as my medium.

I’m trying to paint in a brighter more vibrant fashion.

Pink flowers, oil painting in progress

Here I am three session into a still life assignment for class.

Oil Painting Study of a White Bag

Our Wednesday night art class assignment was to paint a shopping bag and a box, using only three colors red , blue ,yellow and white of course.


I’ve painted bags in class a few times and they can be frustrating with all the crinkles and folds, but it really is a good practice to develop an eye for seeing values.

Happy Trees

This weeks assignment was a landscape, which I decided to put down quickly and aggressively to capture the movement of the trees and sky.


I started by washing the whole canvas with a thin layer of burnt sienna, then I pulled out the drawing with a rag

Once satisfied with the composition I put in the trees with heavy paint using a palette knife.

With a mixed blue and a big hogs hair brush I put in the sky, the cloud is titanium white blended into the blue sky on the ends.

I washed a thin layer of paint in the foreground, then whipped it with a rag and the back of a brush.

Golden Palette of colors, no tube greens here.

This weeks class assignment was to do a landscape study from a photograph.

I used a calendar picture of a hiking trail. To liven up all that green I added the woman from another reference picture.

I mixed all the greens from the Golden Palette of colors, no tube greens here.

I wasn’t interested in rendering an exact copy of the photo, I liked the color and composition of it but I wanted to put my own twist on it. Thick and sloppy palette knife paint in the foreground, with thin washes of Liquin diluted paint added in to get a water color affect.

After it dries I’m going to try to get more detail in the woman’s face.

     

Art Class Portrait Study

We were fortunate to have a student in class bring in her brother-in-law ( Ray ) to model for the class. One long 2 hour pose, he was great...didn’t move an inch..... best model I ever had ! Lol ! Unfortunately I forgot my camera and this was all I could get down in 2 hours.

Baseball Glove Oil Painting

 I worked on this painting some more in class on Wednesday night. Ray Horner /jedi master suggested I move away from the dark side and paint a little bit lighter. So I got out of my dark comfort zone and started to lighten it up a little bit.

It was the general consensus of the class that I put down the brushes, sign it and call it a day. But I want to think about it for a while before I sign it. Because the house rules are “ After you sign it, you can’t keep working on it.”                      

Baseball glove oil painting

I found some time to work on this painting yesterday, and got up early this morning to correct the shadow under the foreground base ball. I moved the ball from one side of the glove to the other for a better composition, but I just couldn’t get the shadow right. I was making it to big and the ball looked like it was floating in the air. After beating up the canvas for a while I decided take a picture of it and work it out in Photoshop. I’ve done this before and it can be a real time and paint saver.

I’m thinking about putting in a few baseball bats to add interest to the composition, but I don’t want to over do it. I’ll just leave it alone for now. I want to bring it back to class Wednesday for a critique.

Wednesday night art class

Here’s a study in progress of a few baseball gloves that a student had in the trunk of her car. I like painting spontaneous stuff because it makes you think. You never know what’s going to come up in art class.

We started with a small thumb nail sketch to develop the composition, then our instructor Ray Horner told us to start with a blue under painting and work out from there, allowing the under painting to show through.

I have to say it helped a lot by setting up a good mid tone to work from. Pulling out lights in the beginning with a rag / brush and adding dark’s as needed all along blending into the blue and shaping the painting.

If you notice I moved the lower baseball to the other side of the black glove because I thought it gave for a better composition.

I took some reference pictures of this still life in class and I would really like to bring the painting to a finish. If I can find the time this week I may work on it at home, but with " Superbowl Sunday " coming up I doubt it.

Still life in progress

This is a still life that I started in class and continued to work on at home from a reference photo I took .

I wanted to have less negative space in this painting so I adjusted the composition a little by cropping out the flowers from the white & blue vase along with altering its opening from the original.

I have the green vase going off the left side of the canvas to suggest it’s mass, as I didn’t want this to be the perfect still life where everything fits on the canvas perfectly.

I’m experimenting with an additional element in this painting in an attempt to create a feeling of movement. I’m still not sure how far I’m going to go with the white moths but I loosely added them into the scene to see what they would add to the piece. Eventually I’ll add more detail to them and I’m considering having them hover all around the angel figure.

Wednesday night oil painting classes

Wednesday night oil painting classes started up yesterday and it was nice to see all my artsy friends again.
It was interesting to find out that I wasn’t the only one feeling a little guilty for slacking over the summer. But all and all the group was eager to paint and happy to be back in the structure of a class room. I find when it comes to oil painting, watching other people working hard is contagious. We started with a simple still life to shake off the rust!

Painted in Less Than Two Hours

Art instructor Ray Horner was kind enough to put together a video of me at work in his class at the Arts Guild of New Jersey. Titled “Painted in Less Than Two Hours” the short clip is an example of the results of alla prima painting. Where subject matter isn’t as important as the quick and spontaneous brush strokes of painting wet on wet in rendering a fresh interpretation of the subject, in this case Ray’s Jacket.

Thank you Ray for taking the time to put this video together. Once again you have demonstrated your generosity in supporting your students far above and beyond the call of duty.

Art study of random objects found in the class room.

Oil painting study, old tools

Wednesday Night Oil Painting Class

Last night was our final class at the Arts Guild of Rahway until the fall.

With no air conditioning it’s probably for the best, although if anyone would like... maybe we can get a kiddy pool, hibachi and some coronas an have a tailgate pleinair painting session in the parking lot this summer ! ( Jersey style Ray! )

Anyway.... I’d like to thank Ray Horner and all my art buddies for there positive uplifting energy and support. I’ve learned so much from everyone.

I wish you great success in all you endeavors this summer and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again in the fall !

Artists need to be around other artists to grow

A good friend of mine in art class....... “ and a very talented artist I might add ” has decided to paint her passion..........Food !

Why not ..... they say to paint what you know and love... right ?

Tonight she’s painting a bowl of pasta and I have to say it looks good enough to eat. Even after she dropped it down a flight of stairs at the end of class ! Lol !!

I haven’t discovered my passion for a particular subject matter just yet, but she’s got me thinking about it.

And as simple as that may sound...... it’s one of the best things about working with other artists.

People freely sharing there thoughts, knowledge, ideas and maybe even a passion or two. I don’t get that in to many gatherings these days. Most of my friends just want to get drunk and watch football.

Ok ...there’s nothing wrong with that ( I love football) but at the end of the day it’s not going to make me a better artist.

Artists need to be around other artists to grow. The support and encouragement shared between artists is a necessity to endure the pitfalls of self doubt.

Take away this positive influential camaraderie and one can easily become discouraged into isolated artistic stagnation. .....(Haha ....I laughed when I read that back !) ...But its true.

Trying to Make Sense of Modern Art

We had another discussion in art class this week about Modern Art. Who defines it and most of all, why are some absurd works labeled genius by art scholars.

Two works come to mind, the Crucifix in urine and the Virgin Mary painted in feces.

My first thoughts were dear God why? What would possess a person to do something like this ?....I really do want to understand Modern Art, but stuff like this is just confusing and difficult to comprehend.

So I sat down and put some thought into this one, as it would have been narrow minded of me to just rant on about how much I hate them. So without Googling any answers I’ll start with what I said when I first viewed them. “Dear God why! and What would possess a person to do something like this !?”

Well......are they making a mockery of my religion?..are they mad at God...did they loose there faith... are they cursing at God ? What would possess someone to curse God.....Have I ever cursed God for anything ? Let me think about that for a moment. If I did I certainly didn’t mean it.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who hit there thumb with a hammer by accident and had some choice words for God. I can’t be the only one. Of course we don’t really mean what we say.......still sometimes the pain pushes those curse words out.

Could that be what’s going on here? An expression of pain? Pain deeper then that smashed thumb, deeper then a broken heart piercing the very soul and shattering all faith. What king of hammer can shatter a persons faith?

You only have to turn on the news for a few moments so see all the suffering in the world. Murder, rape , child molestation, war, cancer, aids...it just doesn’t end. How can God allow all these horrible things to happen, it makes no sense.

So as these horrible cruelties of life unfold unto us all. I have seen that for some people as well as myself, our faith in God deepens. We put our trust into God to help us through our grief and to help us live with the sorrow.

While others are stripped of there faith and as crudely as the words are spoken after the hammer strikes the thumb, they curse God and abandon religion as they feel that they too have been abandoned.

No expensive oil paints on fine linen could support the raw emotion of the loss of a child, parent, sibling or dear friend........ the materials had to be as crude, shocking and repulsively imaginable to put the viewer into that precise moment when the heart is broken and the faith shattered. So in closing I’ll ponder these two quotes by Ellen Key and Louis Kronenberger and continue to try my best to view Modern Art as open mindedly as I can. I may not always like what I see, but I do want to understand and respect the artists intent.

The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.
Ellen Key

In art there are tears that lie too deep for thought.
Louis Kronenberger

Creative ways to learn how to paint better

I’ve noticed a difference in the way the women in art class address color in there painting compared to my work. They usually jump right into the bright colors and they seem to have an understanding for what colors work well together. My paintings are usually on the dark side and I often struggle somewhat when it comes to picking out the colors, this usually means wasting time and paint from changing color schemes . Looks like the ladies have the edge on color from reading those fashion magazines and shopping for cloths .They know what they like and what works well together.
I’ve been putting in some time lately studying color and I’ve really taken a liking to Golden’s palette. I’ve just ordered large tubes of Quinacridone magenta, Napthol red light, Hansa yellow medium, Phthalo green(blue shade), Phathalo blue (green shade), Yellow ochre, Titanium white and Zinc white. So far I can get all the colors I need without getting overwhelmed from the countless number of paints I’ve been bringing to class. I’ve also subscribed to Vogue magazine and have been taking notes on color and composition in there photography. I’m always looking for creative ways to learn how to paint better and at first thought subscribing to a magazine that I have no intention on reading may sound wasteful...but there’s a wealth of information on combining colors and composition that it would be a mistake not to take advantage of it. Just for kicks I’m gonna try to paint a loose reference of a pick from the magazine and maybe you’ll see what I mean about color and composition. I'll start with a light sketch .

Personal still life’s.

Ray Horner suggested painting his shirt, as he hung it up ever so artistically on the corner of a green louvered door in class. Personal items make for good subject matter and it’s an intimate way for an artist to put a part of his life and soul onto the canvas. So as I took on the challenge of painting all those fabric folds of Rays shirt, I started thinking about the many personal items of my own that I’ve been meaning to paint but just haven’t gotten around to. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum and continue on with some more personal still life’s.

Wipe it off, Scrape it off or Paint right over it.

The apples in this painting weren’t working for me so I painted a wine glass over them. I love the freedom of oil painting, because your never really committed to a mistake. You just wipe it off, scrape it off or paint right over it.........Now you just can’t say that about all the other mistakes you make in life... now can you?