learn to paint Archives | Page 12 of 76

June 4, 2015

Friends

Olana Overlook, 6X8, Carol L. Douglas

Painting at a site for the first time is kind of like dating in middle school—you’re drawn to flash. It takes a while to see the quality in the quieter subjects. This is the third retreat I’ve painted at Olana. I’ve gotten the big vistas out of the way and am starting to be drawn to deeper, more intimate views.

Compared to my mid-Hudson pals, I’m still at a disadvantage. “That’s a lovely little tree,” I said to Jamie Grossman.

“I know,” she answered. “I’ve painted it three times.”

Garden Lane, Olana, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas

In July, I’ll be back at Olana for the Fourth Annual Plein Air Paint Out and Festival. In some ways, yesterday’s painting was reconnaissance.

Since I am tired and rusty, I figured that getting all my gear down to mid-Hudson and actually set up would count as success. Actually painting anything would be a bonus. I opened the cooler in which I keep my paints—only to find that I’d brought my framing tools instead.

You can improvise a lot in painting, but paints are a necessity.

Coreopsis, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas.

Immediately several people jumped forward to offer me theirs. Turns out I had enough loose paint on my palette for the day. But it’s heartwarming to know I have such good friends.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

June 3, 2015

Oh, happy day!

Overlook at Olana, 9X12, by Carol L. Douglas

There is a limit to the mileage you can get out of caffeine and vitamins, and although I haven’t hit it yet, I sense the end is near. And yet today is one of the maddest, gladdest days of my painting year and it’s dawning spectacularly. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Sketch for south façade of the main house at Olana, Frederic Edwin Church, c. 1870, watercolor, ink and graphite on paper.

Every year, the chapters of New York Plein Air Painters congregate at Olana for a one-day paintout and picnic lunch. Olana is the palatial home of Hudson River School painter Frederic Church. It overlooks the Hudson, with fantastic vistas in every direction.

Olana is not just your typical rich man’s confection of Victorian whimsy. It was designed by architect Calvert Vaux but the influence of the artist is apparent everywhere.

Painting at Olana with Nancy Woogen, right.

In the fall of 1869 Frederic and Isabel Church returned from an 18-month-long trip to Europe and the Middle East. Impressed by the architecture they saw in Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus, they envisioned a home that would incorporate Moorish elements.

The facade at Olana.

As many times as I’ve looked at the house, it never fully registered to me that the cornices were not tiled, but stenciled. Church translated the tile work he saw in Islamic mosques into stencil patterns, which he used inside and out. Hundreds of his pencil and oil sketches for them survive.

June 2, 2015

You’ve got mail

Hard to see how one can have a mailbox here. Where does it go?

Since my husband had already field-tested my router in Rochester, setting up my internet connection was basically plug-and-play. That was a pleasant surprise for my overtired brain, which was expecting the usual scramble of crossed wires and endless holding for technical support.

The house is 125 years old, and the center of this bedroom floor has never been finished. I’m afraid I might break with tradition, though.

My New Year’s resolution was to unsubscribe from every email advertising list, and I kept it. Still, there were 444 messages in my inbox when I got back on line. Amid the detritus, I found this one about my workshop: “I’m interested in joining you in Maine but the form I have has your Rochester address on it and from following your blog I know you’re moving. Where should I mail it?”

I always was a sucker for a cute wood stove.

This has me flummoxed. There is no mailbox at this house, and my pal from West Rockport told me she doesn’t have one, either. I’d just buy one and put it up, but there’s a sidewalk running along the curb. I can’t see any way a person in a mail truck can lean over far enough to shove the mail in a box. Nor am I keen on going into town every day to get my mail.

This morning’s project is to sort out the mailbox issue and to ponder a life where it’s easier to get email than physical mail.

My pizza-baking daughter is coming to visit later this month. I may not have my studio set up, but I’m ready for her!

This afternoon I head down the road to Olana for the annual New York Plein Air Painters retreat and a nice chin-wag with my pal Jamie Williams Grossman. That beats the heck out of setting up housekeeping any day. I know where my paints are. If I can find my clean clothes, I’m golden.

Addendum: The post office supervisor is going to check this out and then get back to me. In the meantime, they’re holding my mail for pickup. They couldn’t be nicer folks.

June 1, 2015

Receiving angels

My studio. Clifford doesn’t stay here but I have to remove some doors before he can be moved. Wish you were here.

Since Friday, I’ve loaded half my earthly belongings on a 16’ rental truck, hooked my Prius up to it on a trailer, driven a gazillion miles, unloaded the truck and trailer and returned it to a rental center in Waterville, ME. It’s no surprise I’m moving slowly this morning.

The only way to live like a vagabond is to organize the hell out of your life, and that’s what I usually do. When you’re 25 and moving into your first home, you have a strong back and lots of young friends. When you’re my age, you have a weak back and you realize, sadly, that your friends are all in the same boat.

My business life, still shrink-wrapped.

But I have a husband and children, and they have friends, and the combination got that truck loaded and out of Rochester. The problem was on the Maine side, where it was down to me and a crusty old codger who busted up his back as a stone mason. It took us five hours of brutal hard work to get the heavy stuff off the truck and into either the studio or the garage.

That’s my modem and router. I decided I needed coffee before I got it working, which is why this is late. Coffee, food, internet: McDonald’s.

When I suggested he ride to Waterville with me to turn in the truck, he told me he was going home and taking a nap instead. “You can’t get they-ah from he-ah,” he told me in his broadest Maine accent.

This, my friends, is about a thousand pounds of paper and steel. Unloaded by the crusty old codger and me. Youth and talent are no match for old age and treachery.

I can’t back the Prius off the trailer without a spotter. It was a Sunday, the rental place was locked up tight, and the only people around were hanging out the windows of the bar across the street.

“Just gun it and pray like mad,” my friend had suggested as he drove away.

I sloshed around in the mud, disconnected my car, pulled out the ramps, checked to make sure everything was neat. As I was about to take a deep breath and follow his advice, an old beater driven by a young gearhead pulled into the lot.

It’s a darn good thing I pulled out my stuff for Olana before I left Rochester.

“You work here?” I asked him. Well, he didn’t, not exactly, but he guided me off the ramp anyway.

‘Lean less on your own understanding and more on God’s provision’ is something I give lip service to, but am not very good at. But, boy, it’s nice when it works.

May 28, 2015

Gonna take a sentimental journey

We’ve had a lot of good times in this studio, including swing-dancing model Michelle Long.

I am frequently asked, “How do you feel about this move? Are you excited? Sad to leave?” I have loved the 21 years I’ve been in Rochester, but I’m ready to move on. Most of my thinking has been practical, not reflective.

Now my studio is dismantled, just a heap of boxes.

Except today.

I was packing my studio with my younger daughter when a Taylor Swift song started playing. If you’ve raised teenagers, you know they tend to play songs until they’re burned into your mind, and this one reminded me powerfully of her teen years. “I don’t want to leave,” I sniffed at her.

“Get real, Mom,” she said. “Of course you want to do this.” And she’s right, but I have had a lot of fun here.

The girl, making me cry.

On that note, I received a lovely note today from a student. I almost declined to take her because I didn’t feel I could accomplish much in the few weeks she had to work with me. And yet, she has turned out to be an amazing pupil and painter.

“I made a list of things I learned in your class,” she wrote. “This is not exhaustive, but some highlights.”

Charcoal is a wonderful sketching medium, great for roughing in tones, and very easy to rub out if you aren’t pleased with the results.
Don’t hold your paintbrush like a pencil, hold it out closer to the end and magic happens. (Okay, maybe not magic, but the results are much better.)
How to mix reds.
How to mix greens.
How to organize a palette.
All about easels.
How to fold a plastic bag.
Buy paints by pigments, not by their “lipstick” names.
Warm light, cool shadows or cool light, warm shadows.
Paired primaries—learn them and love them!
Don’t belly-up to your painting. Stand back. And sometimes, step back.
How to build a painting: establish a tone study on the canvas (using a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna), then block in colors, and then develop them dark to light.
Be brave about putting marks on the canvas. And keep putting marks on canvas, or paper, or whatever.

No student every did more color exercises in my class than Matt Menzies. Matt, I’m throwing that big palette away today.

She learned all this in about 18 hours of instruction time.

Which brings me to my Maine workshop. If she could learn so much in just a few half-days, imagine what you can do in an intensive week of study. I have just a few openings left, and I strongly encourage you to register now.

Marilyn Feinberg, Kamillah Ramos and Zoe Clark, on a warm summer day painting at Irondequoit Bay. All three of them left Rochester before me.

May 26, 2015

Doggone brilliant

Portrait of a Jack Russell, by Joaquín Sorolla (1909)

A reader sent me this Portrait of a Jack Russell, by Joaquín Sorolla (1909). She knows I have an ancient Jack Russell and love Sorolla’s treatment of white and black.

Some of the tones Sorolla used to make white fabric and dog in the painting above.

This painting has no white in it whatsoever and most of the black is modeled with browns and plums, but we understand the dog to be white and black, seated on an off-white drapery, with light coming from the left.

The human mind interprets these colors to be black and white because, in fact, when we look at a black and white object in light, we see neither true black nor true white. Every object’s local color is tempered by the color of the light reflecting off it.

Some of the tones Sorolla used to make the black fur in the painting above.

Remember that color is composed of three characteristics:

Hue: the position on the color wheel, like red, blue and yellow;
Chroma (Saturation): how strong or weak the color is;
Value: how light or dark the color is.

The painting in gray-scale loses depth, because it is modeled with hue as well as value.

In gray-scale, the lighting on Sorolla’s dog is far less striking. That is because Sorolla uses the color of light to define shapes. His light is warm and his shadows are cool.

I used Photoshop to make a rough hue map of the painting. It is clear that hue is driving this painting at least as much as value is.

Hue map of Sorolla’s painting, above. Clearly the light is coming from the left.

May 26, 2015

The genius of routine

The Red Truck, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas

I believe that creativity rests less on freedom than on structure. I’m not the only person who’s discovered that genius requires discipline: from this Navy SEAL asserting that everything starts with making your bed to Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, the idea permeates current thought on the creative process.

Portrait of the Artist’s Studio. If you’re looking for the exotic air of the sereglio in my studio, you have come to the wrong place.

Writers and artists are frequently asked how we make meaningful work while earning a living. Currey set out to amass as much information as he could find about the routines underlying successful careers in the arts. Several of his common themes resonate with me.

A workspace with minimal distractions. People often want to stop and see my studio, and they’re always disappointed. It is not an ‘arty’ place. It’s a practical workspace, not much different in form from my wood shop. My most successful artist friends concentrate on having their stuff where they need it, even when the space is tiny and appears to be overflowing.

For me, the most difficult part of working out of my house is that I’m easily found.

I walk every day, unless the temperature drops below zero and the wind is blowing, or the snow is too deep.

A daily walk. I actually take two walks every day—the first one first thing in the morning, the second in late morning or at lunch time. This is a lifelong habit. Walking is my time to think, reflect, and pray. I rapidly sink into ennui when deprived of it.

As time-consuming as it is to walk several miles a day, my productivity actually drops if circumstances keep me from exercising.

Accountability. Unlike a writer, the visual artist can’t count brushstrokes or square inches of work. But we can assure that we work regular hours. I have noticed that this helps me get in the groove of painting faster. I’m convinced that the brain recognizes routine and appreciates it.

This is jeweler Jennifer Jones doing some of the busywork in her job—sorting findings by color.

A clear dividing line separating our important work and busywork. Most artists spend half their work day doing things like marketing, accounting, taxes, inventory control, etc. Unfortunately, we use our computers for that, which sucks us inevitably into the world of email and Facebook. Our ancestors may have spent a ton of time doing busywork, but at least it didn’t ding at them morning, noon and night.

I’ve noticed that I’m doing less sketching since I’ve gotten a smart phone. It’s too easy to pull it out to check messages and then get drawn into it.

A supportive partner. My husband and I have been happily married for almost 35 years. About two years ago, we had a heart-to-heart talk about my career and where it was going. It was obvious that getting out of Rochester was the next logical career step for me. He never hesitated. “Go,” he said, and I am. That’s amazing loyalty and support.

It used to be that painting en plein air saved you from distraction. Sadly, we now carry our distraction around with us.

Limited social lives.You know that arty guy you see at every opening? I wonder when he has time to get any work done.

Most successful artists I know are to some degree antisocial, and yet our work is essentially communication. People don’t just feel that they know us, they do know us, and we have to honor that. But like anyone else working for a living, we need time to actually get stuff done. I love teaching art and talking about art, but during the day I want to be busy making art.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

May 25, 2015

Field sketches

Sketches by C. Leroy Baldridge.

Cyrus Leroy Baldridge (May 27, 1889 – June 6, 1977) was an artist, illustrator, and author. During WWI, he traveled through occupied Belgium and France as a war correspondent and illustrator.

Sketch by C. Leroy Baldridge.

Returning to the United States, he was called up to the border when Mexico’s revolution spilled over the border. In 1917 he joined the French Army as a stretcher bearer. With the entrance of the United States into the war, he transferred to the American Expeditionary Forces.

Sketches by C. Leroy Baldridge.

There he joined Stars and Stripes, the American Expeditionary Forces newspaper. His work appeared in every issue from March 1918 until the armistice of November, 1918.

Sketches by C. Leroy Baldridge.

May 22, 2015

Shell game

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1563

From: “Hunter College Art & Art History Department”
Date: May 21, 2015 at 2:33:12 PM EDT

To: undisclosed-recipients:

Subject: Course Updates: Renaissance Art and Art of Africa

Dear all,

Unfortunately “Renaissance Art I” has been cancelled. If you are one of those preregistered for this course, please get in touch with me asap so that we can find you a replacement.

And on a more positive note: the “Art of Africa” course will be taught by Dr. Gary van Wyk. Please see the description, below. Again, email if you would like to enroll in this course.

St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, Giovanni Bellini, 1504-07

That note was received yesterday by a Hunter College MA candidate in Art History. Whatever the relative merits of African vs. Renaissance art, the latter is fundamental, not just for art historians, but for literate citizens of the western world in general.

The School of Athens, Raphael, 1510

This gap is not just about a class: if there is no Renaissance painting class being offered at the graduate school, there is nobody to advise a student in writing his or her thesis. That means Renaissance painting is effectively off the table as a concentration. In turn, that student is at a disadvantage in seeking work focusing on Renaissance art.

“The course will explore post-colonial and postmodern positions on Africa in the art world, with special focus on the School of Dakar and the Negritude movement (Senegal), the Nsukka School (Nigeria), and the Resistance Art Movement in South Africa,” reads the course description for Dr. van Wyk’s class. “The course will consider contemporary artistic and curatorial practices that re-frame Africanity in today’s global context, including the current Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor.”

In Manhattan’s art world, Renaissance art dwarfs any contemporary African collections. Hunter is setting its students up for irrelevancy in the very job market in which it is located, which is also the most important art market in this country.

But there is another problem here, common to public universities. Required classes are often not available, leading kids to take longer to finish degrees.

The Ghent Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck, c. 1432

While about 80 percent of undergraduates earning degrees at private colleges and universities finish within four years, at public institutions the rate drops to 50 percent.

That can make a public school education less of a good deal compared to private colleges. Not only must the student shell out more tuition than originally anticipated, he or she loses a year of earnings in the bargain.

Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter, Pietro Perugino, 1481

May 21, 2015

Redeeming the day

East Main Street, Rochester.(Photo by Douglas Perot)

It’s just ten days until my move to Maine, and it’s a pretty ragged time. The Volunteers of America truck will be here tomorrow, my house looks like the aftermath of urban rioting, and I figure I’m about three weeks behind on my to-do list. Everything, in short, has been going as well as can be expected.

Rochester, struggling? Yeah, that’s one reason. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.)

Then a series of cascading events hit yesterday:

My Prius was hit by a flying traffic cone, shattering the front bumper;
Our Civic needed $500 worth of brake work to pass inspection;
I dropped my mobile and shattered the screen;
An hour after the Civic got new brakes, it blew its muffler.

Rochester. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.)

Of course, all these things needed attention before I leave town. The only solution was to throw money at the cars, but after dropping a thousand dollars on them, I wasn’t keen to spend more on a new phone.

I’ve enjoyed my weeks of packing and sorting, oddly enough, and didn’t want my good mood to fizzle. “Lord, don’t let this steal my enjoyment of this day,” I prayed.

Rochester. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.)

I called Verizon; they wanted $180 to fix the screen. A used replacement was about $200, only marginally less than a new one. We watched a Youtube video on fixing it ourselves, but the replacement parts were $33 plus tax with two-day shipping, and when and how I’d do it remained up in the air.

Just to tell myself I’d checked off every option, I called an independent repair shop. Run by two nice young men, the Wireless Wizard fixed my screen for $70 including tax. The young man who helped me told me he’d worked at Rochester General Hospital before he and his brother rehabbed their first office space on East Main Street two years ago and opened for business. They moved across the street two months ago, and have just added a nail salon next door to their shop.

Once a star in Rochester’s firmament, East High now graduates about 39% of its students. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.)

My last studio was almost across the street from their shop, so I know the neighborhood well. There are parts of Main Street that are almost genteel, but that block is struggling. Any new enterprise that moves in is a triumph of hope over experience.

At N. Winton Village, East Main becomes almost genteel. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.)

Seeing a new business succeeding in Rochester cheered me up a great deal. Having my phone fixed at a decent price cheered me up even more. The day was redeemed.