"New York Flower Market on a Rainy Day" (oil on stretched canvas; 9" x 12")

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For a flower lover, there is no place like the New York City Flower Market.  The entire block of West 28th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues is green, colorful and perfumed with greenery and gorgeous flowers.  If you visit it on a rainy day, it is a little subdued, but you get a fabulous, sky-reflecting, wet pavement to tone down too much color!

"Art Date with Monet's Water Lilies" (oil on stretched canvas; 9" x 12") sold

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Paris is a city of museums.  During my short visit while back, I have checked out several and wished I could have stayed longer to visit more museums.  The Musee de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.  The museum is most famous for being the permanent home for eight Water Lilies murals (Les Nympheas) by Claude Monet, which wrap around a white oval room.  A perfect setting for a romantic art date!

By the way, "Art Date" is an infinity painting.  It keeps going!

From the left

From the right

"Kids" (watercolor on Strathmore Aquarius paper; 14" x 20") sold

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Can you feel the bright sun and warmth of the day, when I saw the scene at a petting zoo in Oregon?  I will tell you how I created the glow.  You first treat the Strathmore Aquarius paper with gloss medium, which makes it slick and nonabsorbent. (Aquarius is the part-synthetic paper which, although light-weight, doesn't buckle when wet.)  Paints puddle and float; so let them mix on their own and dry naturally.

The beauty of the technique is that paints can be easily lifted to reveal the glowing, pure white of the paper.  But painting on such a treated surface is also tricky, because you can inadvertently lift the previous layer while glazing--use a light touch!

I like to use granular paints like French Ultramarine and Holbein's Mineral Violet; you can see the effect of granulation clearly in the background.  After it dried completely overnight, I lifted the sun-struck areas and painted the boy who is feeding a pony and three goats.

"Kids" was published in How Did You Paint That?: 100 Ways to Paint People and Figures in 2003.  It also won an honorable mention in The Art League show in 2003 and an honorable mention in the Potomac Valley Watercolorists Invitational Show in 2004.

"Southern Gentleman" (oil on linen; 14" x 11") sold

"Southern Gentleman"
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Rob's first day demo, grisaille

Rob's palette

Rob adding "finishing touches" to his demo of the Civil War private

Detail from "Wayne as a Civil War Private"

Last weekend I took a workshop with Robert Liberace at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA. I signed up for the workshop--"The Painterly Sketch: Advanced Alla-Prima Portrait"--last September, because this popular teacher's workshops fill up fast.  His regular classes on Fridays at the Art League School are so hard to get into that one has to camp outside of the school building on the first day of registration each term. 

Alla prima, or "premier coup," is a way of painting that involves the direct application of color without an elaborate underpainting.  Great painters such as Frans Hals and John Singer Sargent, or the contemporary master Richard Schmid, are often linked to this direct, daredevil approach to painting.  The promise of learning to paint like Sargent, my hero, in three days was irresistible; I have been waiting for this workshop with eagerness for months.  In particular, the workshop with Stephen Early in January was so exhausting and, I must say, tedious, that I was looking for a different approach more suitable to my temperament. 

My head is still spinning with what I have seen and done for the past three days in Rob's workshop.  This is how it went.

On Friday, Rob did a quick demo of a model dressed as a Civil War private.  He started with a grisaille in burnt umber on a mid-gray toned canvas.  It perhaps took about one sitting session of 20 minutes or so.  With a relatively limited, modern palette of burnt umber, cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cadmium scarlet, permanent rose, alizarin crimson, manganese violet, diozaxine violet, phthalocyanine blue, cobalt turquoise, viridian, phthalo green, and two whites (titanium and lead),  he proceeded to "finish" the demo within an hour. 

Get in and get out.  That is the motto in alla prima painting.  It is assumed that you are an advanced figure painter with a deep understanding of anatomy and a proficiency in color handling and drawing.  Not a method appropriate to anybody else.  Below is my first foolhardy attempt, which took about two hours.  Yes, just that much amount of time is what I had and will have on each painting for the rest of the workshop.  Rob's critique was kind, but blunt: dark shadows in the head were not dark enough with the result of a chalky-looking painting.

"Steve as a Civil War Major" (18" x 14")

Rob's grisaille demo on the second day

Finished grisaille demo of a Revolutionary-era sailor (the "C" on the right is a cartoonish way of drawing a nose wing to be avoided at all costs)

My grisaille warm-up exercise on the second day

There was a good reason for my wimpy shadows.  Because I didn't have burnt umber on my palette (I acquired it for the last two days), I unsuccessfully tried to do a grisaille with burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.  I pretty much skipped the crucial step of grisaille--painting executed entirely in monochrome or near- monochrome, usually in shades of gray.  Apparently I wasn't the only negligent student.  So Rob started Saturday's class with a grisaille demo and made us do a twenty-minute warm-up exercise in grisaille, which we wiped off at the end of the session. 

I was concerned about the burnt umber underpainting turning the shadows too brown in the final painting.  So, on the third day, I asked the teacher whether this bothered him.  My question was met with his response that brown was not a bad color for shadows.  He even added that, if he had had his own school, he would have made a burnt-umber grisaille mandatory!  That is how strongly he felt about the grisaille.  During the process, the painter becomes acquainted with the features of the model and lays down the solid foundation for the later stages of the painting.

The second day color demo: "Steve as Revolutionary-era Sailor"

"Dominique in Turquoise Dress" (18" x 14")

Now it was our turn to paint.  I was, however, torn between the desire to watch Rob do a color demo of the model in a Revolutionary-era sailor's costume and the urge to get my own painting done.  The former won out as always.  I was there to observe a star in today's figure painting in action.  Whether I came home with a masterpiece at the end of the day was neither possible nor important.  As a result, I suffered much from a rushed feeling, which I wasn't supposed to, but couldn't help. 

The practitioners of alla-prima painting work slowly and deliberately.  Their brushstrokes may appear bravura, but they were not painted in a slapdash manner.  Rob did not smear paints here and there just to cover canvas as quickly as possible.  No, he painted methodically with knowledge and conviction.  Unfortunately, I didn't because I lacked either.

The third day color demo of a hand (the upside-down "U" on the left bottom is a way of drawing a curve to be avoided at all times; instead use a series of straight lines)

The third day demo of a more controlled alla-prima portrait, grisaille

Finished demo: "Dominique"

On Sunday, the last day of the workshop, Rob did a hand demo in the morning and a more controlled alla-prima portrait demo in the afternoon.  So I again had about two hours left for my own painting of "Southern Gentleman."  I did get wiser, though.  I brought a smaller (14 x 11" instead of 18 x 14"), better (double-oil-primed linen instead of cotton) surface to work on. 

The wing of the model's nose turned out a wee bit too big.  Rob recommended some surgery.  The streaky hair was also problematic.  Overall, however, Rob was impressed with my final effort; so was I.  He liked the way I handled the forehead of the model and his costume. He said something about "sophisticated"!  I was in heaven.  I am hooked to alla-prima figure painting.

After Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (colored pencil; 8" x 6")

After Vermeer's" Girl with a Pearl Earring"

Vermeer by Pierre Cabanne; Prismacolor pencils; and my Canson Mi-teintes sketchbook

After Vermeer's "The Milkmaid" (detail)

After Vermeer's "Girl with a Red Hat"

After Vermeer's "Girl with a Flute"

I can't sleep on the airplanes.  Unable to settle into a comfortable position, I keep shifting my body.  My neck, shoulders, and lower back become all knotted up and achy.  I get myself caffeined up to compensate the increasing fatigue.  Both flights for my recent trip to Kauai were long and tedious.  I usually bring a book or two to read.  For this trip, I had something better to while away the time as a captive in a tight space on a noisy plane.

In Lisa Semerad's portrait class last summer, I learned a time-honored technique of using black drawing tools with a white chalk on a toned ground for figure drawing.  Many great masters, such as Da Vinci, Rubens, Watteau, and Degas, had used it in their studies for paintings.  I learn at their feet with reverence, and had spent many hours copying their drawings in the past. 

My teacher for the trip was the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, whose exquisite, domestic interior scenes of the 17th-century-middle-class Delft have captivated art lovers for centuries.  I love his exceptional sense of light and quietude.  A small book by Pierre Cabanne with lots of reproductions of his paintings was the first item I packed for my art survival kit.  I made a small sketchbook with Canson Mi-teintes paper and also equipped myself with several Prismacolor pencils (white, three shades of grays, black and burnt ochre).  These colored pencils are waxy, dust-free, and don't smear. 

Although one can never have loads of fun during an air travel, I still managed to spend several enjoyable hours until I couldn't see anymore with my watery eyes.

"His Best Friend" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

sold

The reference photo for "His Best Friend" was black and white.  In the picture, the man was walking two dogs.  I got rid of one dog with an awkward posture, and kept just one.  The title obviously comes from the phrase that a dog is a man's best friend.  The rest was up to my imagination. 

I decided that it is to be an autumnal scene in late afternoon light.  The distant trees on the far right was painted in dull violets, whereas the sun-struck area of the tall trees in the center is bright yellow organge.  The man and his dog are rather far away in the middle ground from the viewer, so they are painted small and gesturally.  Even so, the eye goes straight to them, doesn't it?

"Kids at Sunset Beach" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

"Kids at Sunset Beach"
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"Moonrise" (oil, 8" x 10")
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"Central Park Reflections" (oil, 12" x 9")
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I am fascinated by water's ability for reflecting things above and around it.  Especially when there is no strong breeze, water acts as a lovely mirror.  At sunrise and sunset, when the sky takes on those ineffable hues of pale yellows, oranges, pinks, mauves, subtle blues and violets, water becomes the enchanting bridesmaid who accompanies the beautiful bride--the sky.  Throw in some magnificent clouds to the mix, we are in heaven on earth!

"At Founders Park" (watercolor with white gouache; 9" x 9")

"At Founders Park" on my sketchbook page

Rick's demo of a "poster" figure study

My attempts at "poster" figure studies

Sunday's schedule was even more rigorous. For three hours, we had a model for our "poster" figure studies. Rick Weaver's main concern was most students' obsession with line drawing. We try to draw as precisely as we are capable of, then "color in." He would rather have us think in terms of color shapes. Color has four properties: hue (red, blue, yellow, etc.), chroma (color intensity), value (light and dark), and temperature (warm and cool). And the same color will appear differently, like a chameleon, depending on what surrounds it.  To paint in color is to play with fire.

Rick's answer was to do a series of "poster" figure studies.  The more, the better.  If you look at Rick's demo carefully, you will find eight color shapes: light and dark shapes for the head, hair, shirt, and background fabric.  We were told to "match" the overall color for each shape, being mindful of hue, chroma, value, and temperature.  Within each shape, there is a myriad of nuanced colors.  Forget those and come up with one color that describes the shape.  One should be able to tell the picture across the room as a woman with brown hair wearing a green shirt against an orange backdrop with a strong yellow light.  We did three of these quick studies.  The model came prepared with changes of clothes.

Rick doing a demo at Founders Park in Alexandria, VA

Rick's unfinished landscape demo

The view of winter bushes I chose to paint

After a quick lunch break, we went outside for a landscape exercise.  This is what I was hoping for, but didn't expect to happen.  How often do you get a perfect weather for outdoor painting in early December?  The fortune, however, favored us.  The warm late afternoon sun cast long cool shadows.  After watching Rick do a quick demo, we were given 45 minutes to do a plein-air landscape sketch.  Yes, really.  I painted the above scene, sitting on a small sketchbook, as the grass was wet and I didn't come prepared with a stool.  It took three minutes to set up the gear.  It would have taken 30 minutes to settle down to paint in oil! 

We returned to the classroom for the final parting words from Rick and goodbyes.  He said: do "poster" studies like a musician practices scales.  I took the workshop to learn to use watercolors like oils.  I learned that, and much more.  Thank you, Rick.

"Sarah" (graphite and chalk; 16" x 12")

Today was the last session of Lisa Semerad's figure drawing (short pose) class at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.  To top off our nine-week forays into the fascinating world of figure drawing, we were assigned to a two-hour-long pose with just a bit of instruction about different kinds of paper and drawing tools.

I chose a warm, mid-toned Canson Mi-teintes paper, since it seemed to match her skin tone fairly closely.  Getting the pose down wasn't hard.  The challenge for me was to get hatching right.  Last week, Lisa showed the different types of hatching--simple, contour, planar, and cross--and told us to practice at home.  Have I done that?  Of course, not. 

And working with white chalk as well as graphite made things really exciting (i.e., confusing).  The paper provides the mid tone; graphite pencils, darks; and white chalk, the highlights.  If you mix graphite and white chalk, you get a disgusting blue gray!  They don't come into contact, excpet where there is an abrupt change of planes from dark to light.

Two hours was a long time for us, a luxury--enough time to get the drawing right, add values, work the environment which the model occupied into the composition, and fiddle.  The model's right knee got a whole lot of white highlights, for instance.  It comes forward too much.  Oh, well.

"Helen" (NuPastel on newsprint; 18" x 24")

A Thursday, another figure drawing.  Today's theme in Lisa Semerad's class was foreshortening.  Look at how short the forearm of the model's right arm appears, compared to the upper arm.  Or the right calf and right thigh, neither of which are quite visible.  Nevertheless, the thigh appears much longer than the calf.  It's all caused by the phenomenon that the true lengths of things in perspective are not what they appear.  We just have to take the leap of faith and draw what we see, not what we know.

Actually I had it really easy with this graceful pose from where I was standing.  That's why Lisa tried to move me to another spot where everything was foreshortened!  I refused although I was flattered by her high estimation of my drawing ability.  By the way, the above pose was one hour long.  Two more classes left before the end of the term.  Am I ready for the figure/portrait painting workshop with Steven Early at the Art League School in early January?  Aargh....

"Katie" (conte crayon on newsprint; 18" x 14")

This fall I have been taking a figure drawing class with Lisa Semerad at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA as part of my figure/portrait self-education program.  Although I pompously said "self-education," there is no substitute for good teachers, books, and models, when it comes down to learning to draw and paint figure/portrait.  So I should have said "self-guided".  My apologies.

Today was the fourth week, with the focus on the head and torso.  The model arrived a little late; then about five minutes into posing, she passed out!  Lisa, an experienced teacher, took it in strides for this sort of thing happens in figure drawing classes once in a while, as tired models rush from one job to another, sometimes with an empty stomach.  The poor model was later struck (gently) by an overhead clamp light, too!  It's fortunate that it was not Friday the 13th, only Thursday the 13th.  I am grateful for the models who pose for really modest monetary compensations.

The above drawings were all ten-minute poses, no time to develop facial features or hands.  The top one was the second of the series and is my favorite.

"Golden Girl" (oil on canvas; 18" x 18") nfs

nfs

Some paintings I do to sell; others for entering juried shows.  And there are paintings just for myself.  "Golden Girl" belongs to the last category.  The girl who is holding something in her right hand is my daughter when she was ten.  She had just found a piece of sea glass and was showing it off.  We were at Glass Beach in northern California.  Yes, Glass Beach--I didn't make it up.  Apparently, there used to be a bottling factory nearby and lots of broken glass made into the beach, hence the name.  The time of the day was obviously the sunset.

Reference photo

I had this girl when I was almost 40.  She was my dream child come true--healthy, happy, affectionate, and bright.  She just became a teenager this summer, and well....  She has changed quite a bit since I took the picture above.  Although I wouldn't change anything about her for the world, I still miss her when she could sit on my lap, be a flower girl, and pose for the camera gladly.  I miss those days. 


So I painted "Golden Girl" to remember my daughter at the age of ten, just as I painted her when she was a preschooler.  She was about three when she posed for a photo in a rose garden in Portland, Oregon. Of all the beauties I saw that day, she was the prettiest in my eye.

"Pretty in Pink" (watercolor, 17" x 12") nfs

I will probably do more portraits of my daughter, perhaps as a young lady, definitely as a bride, and hopefully as a new mother with her baby.  I am thankful for my family and my ability to immortalize their likeness in paintings.

"Orange Sail" (oil on stretched linen, 14" x 11") sold

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It is chilly today; the weather forecast is threatening snow tonight.  Time to look at a summery painting to cheer up.  A photo I took years ago became a reference for this studio painting.  It must have been a perfect day for the couple who sailed on the Potomac that day.  The river never looks this blue; its colors are a range of grays, to put it politely.  The sails were really those bright oranges--one of my favorite colors.  Orange and blue are complementary colors, so together they vibrate.

"First Snow, Lake District in England" (watercolor on paper, 21" x 29") sold

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The snow from the last week is still on the ground, so snow is on my mind as well.  "First Snow" is a large painting on a full sheet of watercolor paper.  The scene is the Lake District in the northern England, and I imagined it must be the first snowfall of the season.  Children are going home from school.  The white in the middle ground slope is the untouched paper.  With watercolors, you've got to save the whites with determination; once it's lost, you might as well start all over.  I don't generally use making fluid, but there is no harm in using it if you prefer.

The painting received an award in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Show by the Baltimore Watercolor Society in 2005.  It was also juried into the Art League International Landscape Show in Alexandria, VA in the same year.

"High and Mighty" (acrylic collage on paper, 11" x 7 1/2") sold

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You might be surprised to learn that the woman walking the dogs in this semi-abstract collage is the super model Kate Moss.  Or could you tell that from her strutting gait?  I had a lot of fun assembling the pieces of paper painted in acrylic and gluing them onto the support of watercolor paper in Susan Herron's class at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.

In Susan Herron's class, several years of painting clicked and I finally began to see and paint like a real artist.  She is one of the most generous and innovative teachers whom I had the good fortune to meet.  Despite some personal tragedies, she continues to be a warm, positive human being and popular teacher.  I may have never attended an art college, but will hesitate to call myself a self-taught artist.  I have had numerous influences--direct and indirect--in my art education, and Susan has been one of the former.  Thank you.