Staying Connected

This is the first little study I've done for a new series I will call "Staying Connected". I took the photo for this study down in LA a few weeks ago. When I got home and took a look through the photos from the trip I realized that just about everybody in the photo's was on their cell phone. Crazy huh? 
Anyway, this is just an idea right now, but I'm enjoying the idea. Don't know if the idea will come to completion, but I hope so. 
I've been talking about the importance of studies with my students. In my intermediate classes I am teaching them the importance of the study process in making a large painting. I have learned the hard way that it will always pay off if you take the time to draw your sketches in order to create a successful design before starting any painting. Before I was doing this I was just too darn excited about getting started and I didn't take the time. But I was only creating problems for myself and in the end would decrease the chances of a good outcome. So now I do the sketches. When I am designing the painting during the sketching process I  look for a beautiful dark and light pattern. This is what makes the painting strong in design. Next is the color study. I paint a very small color study before I start the large piece. It is important that I stick with the value plan established with my sketch. Don't forget to do this.
So again, the sketch will establish the light and dark pattern for the piece. Very important. Use the color study to set your idea or "concept" while also keeping the value in tact. 
What I learned from this study is that I like the value sketch much better than the finished piece. Now I'm re-thinking the final piece and I will probably not go for that much color. You'll just have to stay posted....
This process will set you up for success...!

School of Light and Color Plein Air Wednesday

Last Wednesday at the School of Light and Color it was a beautiful day to paint outside. Nine of my brave students faced the challenge for the first time. They all did great! I wasn't sure what the weather was going to be like so I set up a still life outdoors.
I demo'd this piece, but finished it at home from a photograph. It would have been much better for me to finish outdoors in life, because you canNOT see the color in a photograph. In addition the values are not the same at all. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
As in last month I took some wonderful pics in the Los Angeles area that came out well, but it was impossible, of course, for me to paint on the spot. (I was on a family trip).
So when we have to paint from photographs we do. It helps if you have spent some time painting outdoors. After I spent a lot of hours out there (and painted a lot of failures), I began to understand the differences in painting outside and painting from a photograph. Because I spent those hours outside painting, I can now judge better what the camera missed, and adjust. But it is very difficult (if not impossible) to do this otherwise. If we don't learn from experience, we have a tendency to copy the photograph. When we copy a photograph, it looks like a copy of a photograph and not a beautifully constructed painting.

Kathy finished up and was heading out, so I asked if I could take a picture. Beautiful painting Kathy!

Looks like we might be painting chickens and hens in the near future!

Now that everybody has had a taste of plein air painting, I am inviting you to join me at the Horton Iris Farm on Friday April 20th for a demonstration and instruction. Please email me and let me know if you are interested as the class is filling fast!

In my next post I'll share with you a study from a photo in LA. I'm considering a series called "staying connected", because almost all the people in my photographs have an iphone in their hands......

Red Light, Red Light, Paris

Finished one up today. I've hardly had time to paint with my schedule lately. Good family time has taken priority, classes too. Last Thursday seventeen of us visited the Edgar Payne Exhibit at the Crocker Art  Museum. We sketched, we studied, we put our noses in up close. We talked about the large value shapes, paying more attention to the dark value patterns. These are the things we've been talking about in class and this was the perfect opportunity to bring the point home.
We also purchased Payne books. The Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Payne is extremely useful for those painters who want to paint landscape paintings and/or plein air paintings. I learned from my teacher Brigitte Curt to do an exercise using the thumbnails in the back of the book. Sketch from the thumbnail sketches in the book but sketch each one three times, changing the composition to work in different ways. In this exercise you will learn to compose a landscape while also learning how to design....
Go to http://classart.org/E_PayneExercise.html   for
 a more detailed description.