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Category: learn to paint

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John Constable, master of plein air

Reverse of Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead, oil on canvas by John Constable, about.1821-22. Recently discovered during relining at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
As everyone knows, the Barbizon and Impressionist painters invented plein air painting—except, of course, that they didn’t.
An Italian trip had long been a requisite of study for the best European painters. They went to study the masters of the Italian Renaissance, but also to draw and paint the artifacts of Imperial Rome littering the Italian landscape.
Among the values acquired in these southern trips was the idea that color was as important as line. This freed painters from a strict drawing-values-color methodology, which in turn got them out of the studio and into the fresh air. By the eighteenth century, oil sketching was widespread throughout Europe. There is a long list of painters who worked outdoors long before the practice was dignified with a name.
Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, John Constable, 1827. Don’t you wish you’d painted that?
One of the finest was John Constable. Recently the Victoria & Albert Museum announced the discovery of a Constable sketch in the lining of his Branch Hill Pond: Hampstead. The latter painting was being cleaned and relined in anticipation of a blockbuster Constable show scheduled for next fall.
Given that the V&A already owned an impressive collection of Constable sketches, I’m saving my pennies to go. (These sketches are published in John Constable: Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Hampstead Stormy Sky,1814, John Constable
Constable worked en plein air from his youth forward. His sketches are as free and fresh as those of any 21st century master, which should humble those of us for whom freshness is the only virtue in painting.
Most of his field brushwork is thin and dry, with a few points of impasto in the foliage or sky. (These spots are frequently flattened in his surviving canvases; Constable, like the rest of us, stacked his field canvases while wet.) He worked on tinted grounds ranging from brown to reddish-brown to pink. He allowed that color to show through as part of his work, and carried that technique into his studio paintings.
Weymouth Bay, with Jordan Hill, 1816, John Constable.
Constable used these sketches for color references, to record cloud formations and their patterns of light and shade, and to record the details of different species of trees. He often noted the location, the date and time, and the wind conditions on the back of his canvas. From this we know that many of these sketches were completed very quickly, often in the space of an hour.
Stonehenge, 1835, John Constable. Watercolor on paper.
At the end of his career, Constable abandoned oil sketching for watercolor, due in part to the privations of age and in part from an appreciation of watercolor’s spontaneity. Constable’s late studio paintings were criticized for “scattering his lights about in a manner that deprives it of repose, and renders it almost painful for the eye to look upon.” (Wilton) That increased reliance on white in his oils may have been related to his increased use of watercolor as a sketch medium. But it also put him squarely on-trend with what would follow, something his critics missed entirely.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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MacGyvered

One of Alexey Kljatov’s exquisite snowflake photos.
Albrecht Durer was renowned for his skill in painting detail. There’s a legend that he was once asked by the artist Giovanni Bellini for the brushes with which he painted hair. Durer handed Bellini an unremarkable brush. ‘I do not mean this, I mean the brushes you use to paint several hairs with one touch,’ Bellini answered. Durer proceeded to demonstrate that it was all in the technique, not the tool.
A still life by Alexey Kljatov. He moves a flashlight around and then meshes images in Photoshop to make this effect.
Macro photos of snowflakes popped up all over my newsfeed last month. These were shot by one Alexey Kljatov. Evidently, in Moscow when you decide to take up macro photography you don’t run down to 42ndStreet Photo and drop a grand or more on a new camera with interchangeable lenses. You buy a used Russian-made lens from an old film camera (currently available on ebay for about $25) and tape it to your decidedly down-range Canon Powershot, using a chunk of wood as a stabilizer and a black garbage bag to keep out light.
That’s an old Russian-made SLR lens taped to an ‘extension bellows’ taped to a Canon Powershot, all stabilized with a piece of wood.
Kljatov’s snowflakes are detailed, luminous, and, most of all, fascinating. A similar hack he did to take telescopic shots of the moon rendered weirdly wavery but inviting images of our planet’s closet friend. When he’s not outside freezing, Kljatov does a series of layered still lifes using a handheld flashlight and lots of hours on his computer.
The moon, shot by Alexey Kljatov. In this instance, he used rubber bands to affix a telephoto lens to his Canon Powershot.
Kljatov’s camera is a 2007-vintage, mid-range Canon Powershot. In fat, sassy America, those cameras (if they’re still around) are used for nothing more than shooting snapshots of the passing scene.
Every once in a while I stop at my local art store to ponder the locked case of $250 watercolor brushes by the counter. Is it really necessary to spend so much money in pursuit of creativity? Or is creativity to be found in the exact opposite of such luxury?

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Some words of advice for the young artist

Last week I wrote about a young art school graduate’s struggles to make a career. In response, some of my successful artist friends have offered him advice.
Brad Marshall
Brad Marshall is represented by the Fischbach Gallery in Manhattan and has been featured in American Artist. He says:
Patience is required for success in art. It is rare to come out of art school and meet success right away. I struggled as an illustrator for about 8 years, taken various supplemental jobs along the way. I eventually found a good job as a billboard painter. It was another 12 years before my spare-time fine art led me to get a gallery. Living in an active artist’s community like Asheville is a good start. The support and fraternity of other artists should not be underestimated.
Just keep doing art. You can always find a corner of your home to set up an art table. It might restrict the size you work in, but shouldn’t keep you from your art.
Amy Digi
Amy Digi is a member of the United States Coast Guard Artist Program and has pictures in their permanent collection. She has shown extensively in the greater New York area and elsewhere. She says:
There has been a major change in the history of art called the Internet, which has never been exploited before—so take advantage of it!!
Find all free sites. There are hundreds but the basics are Facebook, Twitter, and a blog. Most importantly, do not use these for personal information, but just business, like pictures of your art work. Buyers want to know you are not a Sunday painter.
Open a Paypal account so that after people look at your work they can purchase it easily. Paypal is free to set up, but they take a small percentage of each sale.
Make an appointment with a Small Business Administration (SBA) office and have them help you set up your business accounts. Once you sell work, you are a partner with your state, and they want their tax money.
I have a lot of sales and get interviewed from people solely from the Internet.
Michael Chesley Johnson
Michael ChesleyJohnson teaches workshops in New Brunswick and Sedona, Arizona. He is a contributing editor for The Artist’s Magazine and the author of many books and videos on plein air painting. He says:
Here are some words of advice:  Don’t let your feelings get hurt, and learn to roll with the punches.  Get some practical knowledge by finding a local ‘business’ art mentor who can teach a little about running a business, especially the marketing part.  Don’t just do art, but eagerly look to see what other artists are doing to make a living.   But above all, be true to yourself – the money will follow.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Nothing lasts forever

The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435), by Rogier van der Weyden. The majority of his work was probably destroyed; we can only guess at its extent.
I recently wroteabout the destruction of Egyptian antiquities during their recent political revolutions. This is by no means the only targeting of antiquities in the current Muslim insurgency. The demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001 is the most memorable example, but Hindu sites across Asia have also been targeted.
Iconoclasm—the deliberate destruction or mutilation of religious art and symbols for politico-religious motives—has a long and broad history. Sometimes this occurs to oppress a disfavored religion or ideology, and sometimes it occurs to purify a movement from within.
English Altarpiece (c. 14th century) destroyed during the Dissolution.
The Protestant Reformation, in particular, showed marked hostility to graven images—at least until it could replace the preceding genre with its own. As a fan of Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin and other Early Netherlandish Painters, I’ve often wondered about the destroyed altarpieces of northern Europe. There were certainly masterworks we will never know about; were there great painters also lost to history forever?
Bildersturm (or Beeldenstorm, if you’re Dutch) was a series of violent outbreaks against religious icons during the 16th century. In France, these took the form of unofficial attacks by Huguenots that were resisted by the Catholic majority. In Germany and England, looting was organized by the government (after forcible conversion of the population). In the Low Countries, the religious revolution was closely tied with the political revolution that was the Eighty Years War.
Relief in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht, damaged during 16th century spasm of Reformation iconoclasm.
Protestant leaders like Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin actively suppressed religious imagery within churches under their control. Martin Luther was less dogmatic, allowing artists like Lucas Cranach to create Protestant altarpieces to replace the Catholic ones. (These Lutheran altarpieces, in turn, were subsequently threatened by a wave of Calvinism a few decades later.)
In the Lowlands, the furor touched off on August 10, 1566, when the chapel of the Sint-Laurensklooster in Steenvoorde (now in northern France) was looted. This touched off a wave of iconoclastic destruction that rapidly spread north. Within two weeks, the attacks had spread to Antwerp, Ghent and Amsterdam.
Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists 1562, by Antoine Caron.
In England, Henry VIII had already looted the rich monastic properties of their treasure, but it took the Civil War and the Commonwealth to finish the destruction of English medieval church art. Between the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535 and the restoration of Charles II in 1660, almost the entire treasury of pre-Reformation art in England was destroyed.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Turkeys

He was a Friend of Mine, Jack Owen, watercolor on paper. A demon cat for all you cat fanciers on the internet.
Happy Thanksgiving!

I don’t feel like working any more than you do, but if you’re bored, here are some turkeys from the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA). I’m proud (and relieved) to tell you that no student of mine has a chance of ever being featured in their gallery.

 

Waterfall, Anonymous, oil on canvas. Best thing about this? It came from a flea market in Buffalo.

Trees, wheelbarrow, and birds, Anonymous, oil on artboard. I’m almost certain a tree that big would tip that wheelbarrow right over.
The Picnic, Anonymous. Move over, Manet. Le dĂŠjeuner sur l’herbe has been pwned. 

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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The high price of being female

We call this Paleolithic relief The Venus of Laussel but we really have no idea what it is. Perhaps it’s the world’s first self-portrait by an artist.
In the art world, it’s no big secret that there’s a high price to be paid for being a woman. The chart below was assembled before the recent $142.4 million sale price for Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” but the reality remains the same. Masterworks by female painters are consistently devalued in the marketplace.

Having participated in roughly a billion art shows, I can assure you that even if it’s getting better, it’s still very much a man’s world out there. On every level, paintings by male artists earn more money than those by female artists.
From the Economist, The Price of Being Female, May 20, 2012
I came of age during the Modernist era, which associated creativity with virility. It was not, in fact, until I was much older that I began to learn about great women artists like Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosa Bonheur, or Käthe Kollwitz. This shows you how pervasive was the myth that art is a man’s province. In fact, I would say that the question of whether women could even make good art was still an open one in the 1960s and 1970s.
A recent survey of Paleolithic stenciled handprints by Professor Dean Snow from Pennsylvania State University certainly undermines that view. After sampling a number of European caves containing Paleolithic artwork, he estimates that about 75 percent of the handprint art in them was done by women.
Handprints at El Castillo in Spain, among the world’s oldest art.
In human populations, there is general sexual dimorphism of hands—the most reliable part being that the ratio of the length of the second digit (index finger) to the length of the fourth digit (ring finger) is greater in women than in men. However, even this isn’t foolproof; in modern European populations, it is only true about 60% of the time.
“I thought the fact that we had so much overlap in the modern world would make it impossible to determine the sex of the ancient handprints. But, old hands all fall at or beyond the extremes of the modern populations. Sexual dimorphism was greater then than it is now,” said Professor Snow.
That in itself raises a fascinating question: what in modern life suppresses gender dimorphism? Is it our abandonment of traditional gender roles? That in turn comes back to the question of what, in fact, are our traditional gender roles?
A museum replica of cave paintings at Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France.
Paleolithic cave art has been presumed by modern social scientists to be talismanic, bringing good hunting to its creators. Of course, hunting is a traditionally male activity in a hunter-gatherer society, which means it must have been made by men. But is it true that men were the predominant hunters in Paleolithic society? And was primitive man as singlemindedly religious as we’d like to believe, or is it possible that the cave artists were decorating those spaces for the sheer joy of it?
Analysis of the cave art really tells us more about our own biases than anything.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Freedom from want

Freedom from Want, Norman Rockwell, 1943
This Thanksgiving Day the average American will consume more than 4500 calories, accordingto the Calorie Control Council. I’m all for eating right, but I think the capacity of our nation to throw an annual bash is an unequivocally good thing.
Thanksgiving is the most universal of American holidays—celebrated by people of all religions, by new immigrants, and by wanderers like my friend Martha in Edinburgh, who has located a 6 kg. turkey and a circle of friends to share her holiday.
Freedom of Worship, Norman Rockwell, 1943
Perhaps that’s why Norman Rockwell chose it to illustrate Freedom from Want in his Four Freedoms series. The painting celebrates family, love, and happiness. Critics who call it an illustration of American overconsumption perhaps don’t notice that there is almost no food on that table. There is no wine; there is only water in plain, clear glasses. The black suit and white table are almost Puritan in effect. What abundance there is comes straight from the hosts’ hands, and the joy around the table comes from each other.
Freedom of Speech, Norman Rockwell, 1943
The arresting composition may be why this painting is one of Rockwell’s enduring favorites. Many of his covers for the Saturday Evening Post were done as one-dimensional knock-outs, with no perspective to speak of. This view from the bottom of the table, with its luminous white-on-white table set starkly against Grandpa’s black suit, is a masterwork of composition. (Rockwell said that it was the easiest of the four paintings.)
Freedom from Fear, Norman Rockwell, 1943
Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms in seven months’ time, during which he lost 15 lbs. They were based on President Franklin Roosevelt’s Annual Message to Congress in 1941, which were dark days for those in opposition to Nazi Germany. As we take time from holiday preparations, it’s worth contemplating Roosevelt’s words:
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Catacombs of Priscilla

The orans posture (hands up, pleading) is a common trope in religious art, but the audience implies a preacher. From the newly restored Catacombs of Priscilla. (All images from the Catacombes de Priscilla website.)
Newly restored frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla have ignited a firestorm of speculation about whether the early church allowed women priests. I read these stories thinking this was another case of the popular press suffering from too little knowledge. Now I’m not at all sure they’re wrong.

The dominant cults of Rome at the time, including the Imperial Cult, honored women as members of the imperial family, priestesses, and goddesses. The Christian citizens of Rome would not have found a woman in the role of priestess to be particularly strange.
Among the images in the Catacombs’ Capella Graeca is a fresco of the Fractio Panis, showing six men and one woman breaking bread in the Eucharist. No, she’s not the central priest, but then again, is there one?
Paul—often cited as the authority for keeping women from religious roles—refers to Phoebe as a “deacon” in Romans 16:2 and clearly held Priscilla in high regard as a teacher and missionary.
That the catacombs are called after Priscilla and not her husband, the Consul Aquila, is in itself informative. The couple is mentioned six times in the New Testament. Acts 18 claims that the couple had recently come from Rome to Corinth where they met the apostle Paul (implying that Christianity had been taught in Rome before Paul got there).
Paul’s prohibitions against women preachers seem to conflict with his delight in the work of women like Priscilla. But this is just another example of the syncretic thinking of the ancients, which we moderns seemingly cannot embrace. It was Aquila who became a bishop in Asia Minor and not Priscilla, but Christianity had a way of adapting itself to the political realities of place. At any rate, they were both martyred, so for them it’s all water over the dam now.
A beautiful image of Christ with his lambs from the Catacombs of Priscilla.
The Catacombs of Priscilla are among many such catacombs in Europe. Generally, these were also used for religious services when Christianity was suppressed. In the case of the Catacombs of Priscilla, that was the mid-second century through fourth century AD, a time of intermittent but violent suppression of the new Christian religion.
This was not an insignificant site in the early church. Two early popes—Marcellinus (296 -304) and Marcellus I (308-309) and many martyrs are entombed there, and many other popes and martyrs were once there but have been removed elsewhere.

The previous interpretation of the frescos was that they illustrated the deuterocanonical story of Susannah. Why such a minor story would receive such treatment in such a prominent tomb is inexplicable, and the Fractio Panis, above, makes no sense in that context.

There are three major burial chambers in the Catacombs:  the “arenarium” or sand-quarry, the cryptoporticus, (an underground area to get away from the summer heat), and the hypogeum with the tombs of the Acilius Glabrio family, of which Priscilla was a member. 
It would be a pity to view the Catacombs of Priscilla only through the lens of gender equality. It contains some of the earliest known wall paintings of saints and Christian symbols, including the oldest known Marian paintings, from the third century AD.
Still, the gender equality question is fascinating, and this meticulous restoration brings the issue to light.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Beauty and the human brain

Polka Dot Shirt, mixed media on canvas, by Erich H. (Autism Services of WNY)
A recent report suggests* a link between autism and synesthesia,  a neurological condition in which stimulating one sensory or cognitive pathway triggers involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
The report is rudimentary in the extreme, being based on an online survey. This is no surprise, since the whole question of synesthesia is largely unstudied. That’s a pity, since managing neuroplasticity has so much potential for some of the most intractable diseases we humans face. Who knows whether the cures for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, or Huntington’s might be found in the ability of the brain to work along duplicate pathways?
Guitar, acrylic on canvas, by Erich H. (Autism Services of WNY)
When I read this story, my thoughts immediately went to a young man I’ve known since before he was in short pants. It’s no surprise that Erich can draw and paint beautifully. I’ve known his mother since she was in short pants and she’s a very talented woman. 
Batman and Tops with Hearts and Candy Bars, mixed media on paper,  by Erich H. (Autism Services of WNY)
I asked Erich’s mother if she thought synesthesia contributed to Erich’s painting ability, and she answered, “Possibly. He does have perfect pitch, too.”
Yellow Ceiling Fan on Black, mixed media on canvas, by Erich H. (Autism Services of WNY)
Erich is hardly alone in being a talented artist with autism. For the past decade, Autism Services of Western New York has run an art program for its clients. Not only are they exposed to various materials and resources, but their work is shown regularly in commercial and public venues across the greater Buffalo area.
If you’re interested in seeing their clients’ work in a real-world setting, check here for a list of venues. If you’re on Facebook, like Autism Services of Western New York on your news feed. 

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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The trials of a young art-school graduate

Meeting of Fronts, from Jeff Swartout’s senior show went to New York and was sold. Heady success for a young kid.

One of the groups affected disproportionally by the 2008-13 economic malaise has been recent college graduates. About half of them scrape by either unemployed or marginally employed. It’s always taken time for kids to find their niche, but it appears to have gotten tougher in the last five years.
Art students, however, have always expected to cobble a living together after graduation. Sadly, many of them leave their field, since it’s an unreceptive world that pretty much leaves the young artist to flounder without mentoring.

A cat, drawn in multiple poses by Jeff Swartout. Hard to take on big projects without the structure of a studio, but one can always draw.
I’ve watched the career of one young artist with considerable interest. Jeff Swartout is a 2012 graduate of Alfred University and a talented young painter.
When Jeff’s painting, top, went on to New York and sold in May of 2012, I was optimistic about his chances of success. “It was a hugely validating experience,” he said. In a normal market it would have opened the door to more opportunities, but that didn’t happen. “In the back of my mind I knew I wasn’t experienced enough to live on my own or make a living as an artist.”
Jeff has great painting chops, but he can’t really see a clear path forward. When I asked him where he wanted to be in twenty years, he answered, “I don’t know.”
“I could do anything and be happy as long as I’m learning something. The more I think about it, and look back on my past work, the more I think I want to pursue illustration/animation,” he said.

That confusion is common enough at that age, but it’s made more difficult because in our society, artists get almost no help in establishing careers.  However, even without a clear goal, Jeff knows the first step is to get out of Binghamton and move to a vibrant regional art market. His choice is Asheville, NC. “I just want to marinate in a different culture for a while,” he said. “I fell in love with North Carolina, felt inspired, and loved being so close to the deep outdoors. Plus, Asheville is such a cool and progressive city.”

And figure studies, done this year, by Jeff Swartout.
To that end, he’s working nights at Kohl’s and looking for a second job. It’s a good plan. Although we New Yorkers have been trained to think of Manhattan as the Center of the Known Universe, a good regional market actually makes more sense for an emerging artist.
Almost every college student expresses doubts about career choices, but the art major has the added burden of having spent his or her formative years hearing from almost everyone how an art major is a dumb idea. “Before college I had so many aspirations, and somewhere between my sophomore and senior years my motives changed. I’m still figuring out what the root of that is and if it’s ultimately helpful or harmful.”
But I’ve observed that most young people actually like what they’ve chosen once they actually start working. For one thing, work is a structured activity. Your job assignments take the place of your school assignments.
That’s a luxury artists don’t have. “Without a studio, peer review, or advisors to discuss my work with, I found after college that I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Jeff told me. “The motivations I had to draw before and after college were completely different because I got so caught up in assignments and projects that when I no longer had a prompts, I floundered.”
Jeff’s path may never involve a conventional job, but he may be getting to the recharge point all the same. ”I’ve recently inhaled a gust of inspiration, so perhaps that will change as I practice.”
Stick with it, kid. The world needs what you’re selling.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!