Friday Still Life Class

In addition to my Tuesday evening Still Life class, I teach on Fridays. Fridays are usually pretty quiet and only a couple of people can attend. So, whenever possible, I paint along with the students. Here is a photo of this Friday's session, with the set-up, Maryellen's painting and my own. We had a wonderful time, and when we stepped out of the studio door, we were greeted with SNOW! I guess it's time to get those snow tires back on the car!

Sequences

I thought you might enjoy another sequence. I actually started my blog with this sequence. This painting is of my daughter Priscilla, and it was painted at my storefront from life, while I was holding Violet (now 6 years old). It is a fast, direct painting, or alla prima painting.

As you can see, I started this painting the way I always do, by getting the pitch and finding my general light and shadow planes. I never start with a tight, finished drawing, but rather with the general shapes, deciding what is essential, what is not essential, and where I want my light effect. This allows me the ultimate freedom to "find" the figure, allowing her to imerge out of a nebulous fog, where I can change and edit as the painting progresses. With each pass, I try to tighten up my drawing, but never sacrifice the illusion of depth or light. I am a realist, but I do not want my paintings to be primitive (showing every little detail which flattens the illusion) or photographic (like HD TV, which over-sees, or has hyper-vision, and loses the magic).

Making Changes

I decided that the leaves I painted in...just didn't work. So, I completely scraped out the leaf on the right, and repainted the background. Then, I scraped out most of the leaf on the left, and I painted another leaf that leaned away from me and towards the background. As I start to refine my painting, I tighten up my drawing.

A little more work on the still life

I babysat for 2 of my grandchildren today, so once again, my studio time was very short. The weather is turning colder, and the grape leaves on the vine by my garage are starting to fade with each frost. We haven't had a real hard frost yet, but that can happen any day. I decided that I had better try to paint some of those leaves, before there were none to be painted. My original set up had just the right ones, but they had wilted before I had a chance to paint them in. These new ones weren't the same, but they would do. I mix up more green and quickly painted them. I also picked a few more leaves from my apple tree, because the ones in this set up had curled and drooped. I began to develop my grapes a little more, too.

Painting from life, with real fruits (vegetables, flowers, etc.) that are not quite "still" means that your painting takes on a more organic air, with changes and developments that force you to go with the flow. Being willing to adapt and flexible enough to make the changes is fun. Keeping everything unified is the goal. Hopefully, I will get to work on this tomorrow.

Still Life Sequence

We have a grapevine that grows along the side of our garage. Most years, we get a frost before we actually get grapes, but this year the frost held off. I started this painting late in the afternoon under natural light, so I had to paint fast. I thought that you might enjoy seeing the sequence. This is painted on a gessoed panel. Jack made a batch of panels for me for Mother's Day. They are slightly absorbent.

I start very loosely, with big general shapes. So, in the first photo, the big blob could have been anything, but what I really saw was a big dark mass, or value shape, against the background. the following photos show how I worked into the mass, developing my forms. I generally work from my middle values, and with each pass I go a little lighter in the lights and darker in the shadows. The whole time I am drawing with the brush and trying to maintain an illusion of depth and bulk, as well as thinking about planes of light.

This is as far as I got today before the light faded. If I can get into the studio tomorrow, I will continue. When I set up the arrangement, I had grape leaves, but they wilted long before I got them in, so I will pick more and try to recreate what I originally envisioned.

Old Storefront/studio - classes

When I had the storefront/studio (2001-2007), I offered some weekly classes, as well as an occasional workshop. I had a head studies weekly class with a model, and the last picture here shows one of my demos. This man just happened to walk in my store one day, and I asked him if he would pose for a class.

The top photo shows they way I normally looked at the store...with a smock. Basically, I painted in my little back room (see older posts), but when someone came in the store, I came out to show them around and invited them to see what I was working on. It was fun.

The second photo was from one of my 5 day workshops. The workshops usually included still life, outdoor landscape painting, and sometimes included one day with a model.

In case you haven't noticed, I am rather small, and I often use a step-stool when I teach. This will put me at the same height level (or eye level) as my student.

The young student took several classes as part of his high school requirements.

More Pictures of the Old Storefront - Violet

Before Violet, my first grandchild, was even born, she came to the gallery. She visited often. I believe that children should be exposed to art from an early age. They should visit galleries, museums, and art studios. Museums should not be places where only adults venture. Painting (and drawing) is a visual language that allows us to express ourselves beyond words. Children can learn to appreciate the work and study that goes into creating paintings by watching artists at work. In order to cultivate a society that appreciates art, we need to teach them, starting at a young age, to see beauty in design and color, as well as to value skilled craftsmanship.

More Pictures of the Old Storefront/Studio/Gallery

Here are a few interior pictures of the front room. The large painting on the bottom photo is one of Jack's large studio landscapes. It was painted from his plein air studies, and it was on the cover of American Artist magazine in February 1991, where we had a feature article (our 15 minutes of fame). To the right of the painting is the magazine cover, and I will try to take photos of the whole article and post that for you. Looking at the photos now, I wish I had the hanging system then that I now have in my new studio. It would have made switching painting for display much easier.

When I first opened the studio/gallery, I only showed my paintings and Jack's paintings. We are fairly prolic, and we had more than enough paintings to fill the walls. But after a while, I decided to show some other artist's work, too. The third photo down shows a painting by Elizabeth Torak, and the forth photo down show 2 of Elizabeth Brandon's paintings ( the 2 paintings above the table - she did the covers for Cook's Illustrated for many years) and 1 small vertical painting by Ann Scanlan (lower right).

Drawing in the Old Storefront

My storefront was located in Jeffersonville, VT. It is a rural community in northern Vermont that is located near a ski resort. Many tourists came through looking for "local art", and they wanted something affordable.

Being an artist is not an easy way to make a living, but I believe that everyone should have something "real", not just a poster to put on their wall. So, I offered head studies from life. These were drawings in pastel/pastel pencil that were done in about 30-45 minutes. The customers would come in and sit by a window, which gave me a dominant light side and shadow side. I would sketch them, as we chatted, and I sold them unframed. Although I did not charge a lot for these sketches, I came to think of it as drawing practice. People paid me to practice....I just didn't get to keep the drawing. :D

Painting in Small Spaces - My old Studio/Storefront

From 2001-2007, I rented a storefront on Main Street in Jeffersonville, VT, which occupied the entire downstairs area of the building. It was my studio/gallery where I painted from life, taught classes and sold my paintings (and my husband's and a few fellow artist's paintings). My storefront was one of 4 galleries that were located on the road, but I was the only one that was an Open Studio/Gallery that was open year round.

Although I painted throughout the store, most of my paintings were done in a tiny, unheated back room, that had acted as a storeroom for the stores, and at one point, post office that had previously occupied this storefront. This back room had shelves all around and a north-facing window. I blocked off the bottom section of this window with foamcore, so that my light could come in at a slight angle. All of my props were stored on the open shelves, and I often used the shelves themselves for my still life table. If I wanted to do a larger painting, I had to set up a table (and sometimes a small dresser which contained more props and draperies).

The room was very small, and it was impossible to step back far enough to get a picture of the painting and the set-up together. To analyze my paintings (because I usually step back to check my painting as I paint) I began using a reducing glass, which gave me the effect of stepping way back. In the first picture which shows the room, my painting in progress, and a bit of the set-up, you can see part of the door on the left. In that photo, you can also see the ceiling, which was made of wooden slats. If it rained for more than 2 days, water would begin to drip along the slats onto me, my work, my props, etc., and I would have bowls, buckets and various containers catching the water that plopped around me as I painted. The longer it rained, the further in the rain would come along the slats. My other concern (besides water) was that the paint chips rained down. I had the suspicion that they were lead chips.

I painted here almost every day, and anyone could come in and watch. Customers were usually surprised to find an artist actually painting from life, and it was a great teaching opportunity.

The 2 paintings that are shown in this post were 24"x30" (top painting) and 20"x24" (bottom painting), and these were about as large as I could go. Both of these paintings sold at the storefront.

Painting Demo Under Artificial Light

Every Tuesday evening from 6pm-9pm, I teach a still life class. Because it is an evening class, we paint under artificial light. These lights run parallel to my skylights along the north side, so the light mimics the natural light. The previous post shows these artificial lights above the skylights. I usually set up several still life arrangements on the east and west sides of the studio, and the students are free to choose an arrangement. Most students stand to paint, so I have the arrangements raised to under eye level. For the students who are seated, lower arrangements are set up. In these photos, you can see some of my other arrangements.

This past Tuesday night class, I painted a demo of my geraniums. It is painted on a gessoed panel that is 14"x18". In the top photo, you can see the start, with the gesture indicated, and the background started. The following pictures show the general mass into flat value shapes for the leaves, pot and blossoms. Once these were in place, I started adding planes of light, and I began modeling in the light, as well as in the shadow, always keeping in mind where I was on my value scale. With each pass, I tried to get a little tighter, drawing into the mass. I talked the whole time, and students were free to ask questions. I think that demonstrating is important, and I feel that students learn a great deal when the demonstration is interactive.