Wax Paper and Ribbon: Sessions 3 and 4

underpainting (sessions 3 and 4)

oil on panel

See the previous post for this painting

My goal was to really work to get the large major areas of value correct in relationship to each other, so when I start with opaque paint at a more detailed level I'll know I am working within the correct general range of value as it relates to the whole painting.

I'm trying to keep the edges soft, because putting in a hard line can make problems later on if I want to correct something. I'm also keeping the paint very thin and in control. Any two values next to each other are kept very close at this stage, no big jumps. I've found that forging ahead to carve out the lightest lights is satisfying and gets instant "popping" results, but can make problems for me later. Therefore, the whole thing looks a bit dingy at the moment.

Sorry no video demo today - I've filmed it, but we're having technical difficulties.

Wax Paper and Ribbon: Session 2

preliminary drawing (session 2)
graphite on panel

Yeah I know, this one looks nearly identical to the previous version. It's hard to believe I put another several hours into it. But there are always drawing errors that dog me throughout the painting, so this time I'm trying to resolve the drawing issues as much as I possibly can.

Wax Paper and Ribbon: Session 1

Wax Paper and Ribbon

preliminary drawing
graphite on panel

I've started a new painting, this is the drawing I've done directly on the prepared wood panel.

I've been taught to do the drawing on paper first, but I've found that when I transfer (trace) my contour drawing to the panel, too much is lost. My linework is degraded so much that I have to spend a lot of time correcting on the panel anyway. So now I draw directly on the panel from start to finish.

The drawing lessons I learned from Juliette Aristides, Ted Seth Jacobs, and Tim Stotz are what I think about most while I draw.

First I rely on the block-in method as taught to me by Juliette. I use long, straight lines to find the major "tilts" of the contours - I try to make just 4-5 lines at first to summarize the entire composition, being as accurate I can with the overall tilts.

Then I break down these straight lines into smaller segments, and compare the drawing constantly to what I see in life, until I have a straight-line block-in that I feel captures the overall proportions and feeling of the composition. The block-in has to have the strength and harmony I see in life... if it doesn't I'm not done with it yet.

When I am happy with the block-in, I gradually switch to a more detailed contour, based on Ted's and Tim's methodologies. I think first about movement - looking for large, curving lines of energy and movement throughout out the composition. I watch for movement lines that flow through the entire setup, and look for "events" (folds, shadows, structures) happening along those lines.

Our natural inclination as humans is to simplify and straighten and align, so I constantly fight against those tendencies. Weird shapes are hard to conceptualize and something twisted and tilted inevitably ends up smoothed and straightened when we try to understand it. The key is to make shapes as unusual and specific as they are in life. As Ted says, "draw a portrait of every shape". I like that... a portrait is specific and unique, not generalized or simplified.

The other thing I do is "check the feeling" a lot. I stop drawing and ask myself, how does it feel? If the subject feels warped, crumpled, leaning or twisted, does my drawing feel the same? Feelings say a lot. I want drama and energy in my drawing, and I feel drama and energy when I see the light filtered through a twisted and crumpled piece of translucent paper. My painting will never be successful if I don't capture that feeling.

Next session I'll spend time refining the drawing further, and maybe move on to the first layer of the underpainting. If you are interested in seeing this painting progress, please subscribe to my blog for updates by entering your email address in the right column.

VIDEO DEMO: Wax Paper II

This movie is hosted on YouTube, which greatly degrades the quality. Click here to see a better quality version of the video demo.

Wax Paper II - SOLD

Wax Paper II (SOLD)
11 x 14 inches
oil on panel

After my last experiment with painting crumpled wax paper, I decided to really challenge myself and crumple up the wax paper and wrap it around a vase - and for a little extra snappiness put in a second crumpled piece of wax paper to kind of hang over the edge of the table and cast a shadow.

Yeah, I thought it was a good idea.... but I had no idea what I was committing myself to!!

Anyway, instead of taking process photos, this time I filmed the painting process. My husband helped me set up his super-duper professional movie camera to take one picture every 10 seconds for 60 hours. But it's going to take me some time to edit it into a nice little movie, so it will be a few more days at least before that's posted.

If you haven't yet, please sign up for my mailing list in the right column so you can be notified when I post the movie!

UPDATE:
> Watch the video demo of how I made this painting

Wax Paper I

Wax Paper I
11 x 14 inches
oil on panel

I began with a detailed contour drawing the same size as the final painting, and then transferred the drawing to the panel:

It was so much easier to do the underpainting having solved many of the drawing issues already. I used brown and black, and just used paint thinner to lift the paint off again for the lights and whites:

Stage 2 of the underpainting, still using just brown and black and thinner:

A first pass of basic color. I was worried at this point that I wouldn't be able to capture the feel of the wax paper's transparency, but I felt better when I refined the lower right corner of the wax paper shape and started getting a feel for it:

This is where I missed photographing a few stages. I worked especially hard on the ellipse shape of the rim of the dish, it's so easy to make a painted rim look distorted:

Now that the pitcher and dish were complete, I spent the last several days of work just focused on the wax paper, moving from lower right up to the top:
The completed painting:

NEWS: Two July Shows

I currently have 18 paintings on display right now. Nine are at my eye doctor's office, Dr Marcus, who likes to show a rotating series of art on his waiting room walls. My work will be on display through July and August, and the office is located at:
512 Westline Drive in Alameda, CA

My second show is at Frank Bette Gallery, also in Alameda, and there will be an opening with wine and refreshments this Friday July 11. I'm honored to have had all 9 paintings I submitted accepted to their group show "Still, Life". Frank Bette is located at
1601 Paru Street at Lincoln Ave, Alameda, CA

Oh and an update on the Stow Lake landscape I started last month.... due to the fog and also the smoke from forest fires, there hasn't been a clear sunny day in San Francisco for a month! Even when it is mainly sunny the light has a disturbing filtered feel to it, like we are living in air the color of weak tea. I'd like to paint outside again, but summer in San Francisco may not be the season. We usually have our nicest days in September, oddly enough.

Sneak Preview: "Wax Paper I" and Thoughts on Realism

Wax Paper I (detail)

11 x 14 inches
oil on panel
(work in progress)

This is just a cropped detail of a larger painting I am working on right now - so far 26 hours and counting. My good camera is broken so I've had to photograph the stages with my inferior "point-n-shoot", but the good camera is being fixed soon so when the painting is done and the camera is fixed (whichever comes later) I'll post the final painting and all the stages.

I decided that posting frequently was making me feel like I had to complete something "postable" every few days. Sometimes a little pressure is good, but sometimes it makes me rush my process. So I'll be posting less frequently, but when I do I'll have something substantial to show, and I'll still publish all the process photos.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts I've had rattling around my head about realist art - or maybe it applies to non-representational/abstract art as well:

When we look at a painting we are confronting a situation of real/not real. Our minds flutter between these two paradoxical concepts embodied simultaneously. This flutter quickens to a thrum, and it is in this space, the simultaneous holding of the paradox, that our beingness is felt.

When we create, we are experiencing beingness – the loss of awareness of self, the loss of awareness of past and future. Nothing but the present moment exists, a true experience of reality. This state is difficult to enter, but in recording it an artist shares the experience. Looking at a painting we get a glimpse of this state of being.

The act of painting elevates the subject. Mundane objects are infused with an epic, monumental quality. Like a scent that fills us with longing for a certain afternoon years ago, a memory, the shadow of reality, can often strike us more deeply than the original. Paintings are the shadow of reality, the record of a memory. Through painting we reveal a depth of reality in the moment that can touch us more deeply than the subject itself.

Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park

On the Bank of Stow Lake
9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas board
Session I, work in progress

My paints finally arrived successfully from France!! I don't know what that crazy "pick up your package at the post office in France" message was on La Poste's web site, all I know is the box arrived today!

I was so excited to have my paints and brushes back that I immediately strapped my paint kit onto my to my bike with bungee cords and rode over to Golden Gate Park a few blocks from my house.

In the middle of the GG Park is a circular lake with an island in the middle called Stow Lake, and I knew I'd find something beautiful to paint there. I just loved this spot with the trees hanging over a quiet patch of water.

I decided to spend a whole session on just the values, and save color for another day. It was a good approach for me because just working with dark and light feels simply like drawing with charcoal, which is a lot more comfortable. I'm hoping I can keep the organization of the composition and the feel of the filtered sunlight once I start using color.

Anyway, thanks everyone who wrote sympathy and encouragement for my temporarily lost paints, I was really upset to think they were missing and your emails really cheered me up!

Belgrave Ave Plein Air SOLD

oil on panel 5 x 7 inches

Today my friend Janell and I set up for side-by-side plein air painting. We painted in the neighborhood up the hill from my house, called Ashbury Heights. This yellow house sits on a sharp corner, where one fork of the street goes downhill and one goes uphill. My favorite part of the composition is the shadow the streetlamp cast on the pavement.

The weather here was amazing today, almost 80 degrees and clear skies, which is very unusual for us this time of year. Unfortunately, the 10-day weather.com report for Paris predicts clouds, showers and high-50's there for the foreseeable future. So my plein air painting opportunities may be limited!

Michael Grimaldi Workshop: "Curiosity"

Melissa Phase III
11 x 14
Oil on panel
Final painting

Melissa Phase III
11 x 14
Oil on panel
Color underpainting continued

Melissa Phase II
11 x 14
Oil on panel
Color underpainting

Melissa Phase I
11 x 14
Oil on panel
Graphic composition in neutral values

Today was the last day of my two-week workshop with Michael Grimaldi. I learned so much, even though after the long workshops with Ted it felt incredibly rushed to study for just two weeks. Watching Michael's demonstrations and talking with him about art made for an amazing experience.

Michael's favorite word is "curiosity". He feels an artist must be truly curious to evolve, and must be interested enough to pursue ideas, technique and personal expression in whatever direction moves us. He has no adherence to "the way to paint" and encourages students to develop their own methods. He references artists and art movements and films and philosophers constantly.

I am not very happy with my final painting. Today, the last day, I was rushing to complete the "final pass" of the painting, and to my dismay I find after looking at the photos of the stages that I like earlier versions better. But Michael's process and technique are with me, and I'm looking forward to doing a series of painting this summer to try to get better at the technique.

Next Tuesday I fly to London, and Thursday I take the Chunnel to Paris! I'll have my laptop and will be bloggiing while I study with Studio Escalier, so stay tuned. (Please sign up for my RSS feed or email notifications in the upper right column on this page to be notified when I update my blog.)

At Studio Escalier we will be working in the historic studio of the Romantic painter Gericault. When I was a student in Paris in 1992, I had a free pass to the major art museums of Paris (that's France for you - "les etudients des beaux arts" are allowed in museums for FREE!). So I would jump off the bus on my way home outside the Louvre, cut the long line of tourists, and go straight to my favorite paintings whenever I wanted. Gericault's Raft of the Medusa was one of my favorites, and I often went to the Louvre just to see it.

If I could have known that 15 years later I would be returning to Paris to study figure drawing in Gericault's very own studio I would not have believed it.

Michael Grimaldi Workshop: "Tight"

11 x 14
charcoal on gessoed panel

With the method Grimaldi is teaching us, this block-in line drawing is done in vine charcoal directly on the canvas panel, based on the thumbnails we composed yesterday. Eventually we'll do the final painting directly over our charcoal line drawing.

My favorite Grimaldi quote so far:
"The goal is to be tight, that's what we're going for. What we are not going for is to be uptight."

I really like that. Made me think a lot about that word, "tight".

"Tight" was the worst thing you could call an artist or a piece of art in my art school. "Don't be tight" and "loosen up" were the phrases drilled into us, and then we drilled them into each other. If you really hated someone's artwork, you'd say they were "too tight"; it was the most cutting critique.

It's interesting to now be part of an art world where it's ok to be "tight". The idea is that by practicing being precise and highly controlled, you learn to see the most subtle variations of value, color, form and proportion with a high degree of sensitivity - and you can always loosen up later. But the horror story repeated over and over back in my art school days was that if you practiced being tight you risked being unable to ever loosen up again. It reminds me of what mothers tell their children: "Don't make that face or it might get stuck like that."

I still don't know where I stand on it. I love seeing the expressive hand of the artist, the juicy brushstrokes and scritchy scribbles. I also love refined sensitivity and precision. I like to think there can be a happy marriage of the two. Tight but not uptight.

Michael Grimaldi: Portrait Painting Workshop

Portrait Study
charcoal and graphite on paper
about 4 x 4 inches

Two years ago, in Summer 2006, I set up an art studio in my loft, hired a series of models for a few weeks and started figure painting after nearly a decade away from art.

I was totally out of touch with the art world, and so I started poking around on the internet to see if any US galleries were showing figurative/realist work.

I immediately found Arcadia gallery in New York and was inspired, intimidated, and fascinated by the amazing work I found there. The painting "Nude with Tattoo" by Michael Grimaldi in particular stood out to me, and so I Googled his name to find out more about the artist.

One of the first search results was for a workshop Grimaldi had taught right here in my own back yard at Bay Area Classical Artist Atelier... but I had just missed his workshop by a few weeks! The BACAA web site said Grimaldi wouldn't be returning until 2008, so I had nearly two years to wait for his return.

In the meantime I looked around the BACAA web site and was amazed by all the incredible artists teaching there. So I signed up for a March 2007 workshop taught by Juliette Aristides, and began a new era of my art life. (You can read my blog post about that workshop with Juliette here.) I have since spent the last 14 months taking workshops with Juliette, Dan Thompson, and Ted Seth Jacobs.

Now, this week, the Michael Grimaldi 2008 workshop I have waited so long for has begun! The class is portrait painting, and we are starting with small thumbnail sketches to work out the composition and design of the final painting. Tomorrow I'll start blocking out the design and major proportions on my canvas. (The above sketches are charcoal on paper, each just a few inches.)

FRANCE
Two weeks from today I fly to France for a 3 week workshop at Studio Escalier. After the class Nowell is joining me and we'll spend another 3 weeks just hanging out in Paris. I'll be bringing my new pochade box, so watch for upcoming plein air oil sketches of Paris!

JULIETTE'S BOOK: CLASSICAL PAINTING ATELIER
Juliette Aristides' new book, Classical Painting Atelier has just been released and I just received my pre-ordered copy from Amazon today! I plan to spend the next couple hours poring over it before bed. From a quick peek it looks like a gorgeous follow-up to her first book, Classical Drawing Atelier. These are incredibly inspiring books, with beautiful reproductions by both classical and contemporary realist artists. I highly recommend them both for any art lover.

Rolling Hills of Marin County SOLD

5 x 7 inches SOLD
oil on panel

5 x 7 inches SOLD
oil on panel

I took a lovely daytrip up to Marin County (just north of San Francisco) for a drawing/painting date with my friend Kat. Kat took me to China Camp State Park where a short walk up a dirt path opened up to views of gorgeous rolling hills and eucalyptus trees.

I had a great day - it's rare that I make two paintings I am happy with in one day.

I have been having so much fun investigating all the "greens" of nature. I am discovering there is not much true green at all. Everything is fundamentally a cool blue or a warm brown, and only tinged slightly green. A little green goes a long way. I think every beginning landscape painter knows that horrible feeling when you try to emulate all the lovely grass and trees with vibrant greens and yellows right from the tube and YUCK, it just doesn't look right.

I've been using mainly cobalt blue, cad light green, mars red (which is a lovely rich red brown) and raw sienna (which acts like a brown-ey yellow ochre, I like it better than ochre). And a lot of titanium white.

These seem to act like perfect mixing primaries, especially for outdoors. The Mars red is red enough act as a compliment to the greens (so if a puddle of paint is too green, I mix in a tiny dab of Mars red to cancel the color and make it more neutral). The burnt sienna acts like a dark yellow and helps warm up my greens if I need to paint some sunlight areas (cad green with some burnt sienna with a ton of white). The cobalt blue and the sienna make a lovely dark shadow, and if I then add white I can get a nice subtle neutral gray, warm or cool depending on the ratio of blue to brown.

These are my main colors, but I also mix in a little magenta and ultramarine blue for the coolest and darkest violet shadows.

Fog City

5 x 7 inches
oil on panel

Today San Francisco was in signature form : Bright white fog alternating with deep blue sky, with a brisk wind to push it as fast as possible over our pastel-painted city. This is my attempt to capture it.

I am also working on a more ambitious landscape in the mornings of slanted shadows on a tree-lined path. It's taking me several sessions to capture it all but I'll post it soon.

Workshops and teachers are valuable, but really nothing beats painting and drawing every single day. I have learned so much in the last couple weeks of painting every day. I dream every night about brush strokes and the feel of a brush dragging paint. There really is nothing like paint.

Easter at Buena Vista Park

5 x 7 inches
oil on panel

I had a wonderful Easter morning painting these trees on the hilltop park of Buena Vista. There's a narrow sidewalk wrapping around the curved border of the park with a view of the city beyond and trees reaching out from the park overhead. If you look closely you can see the faint view of St Ignatius in the background.

I realized today painting for me comes down to just two things: Paint what I love to see, and look closely. Love and Look, essentially. When I am distracted by all the voices of my teachers in my head, when I am trying (and failing) to emulate painters I admire, when I am trying to paint like someone else instead of like myself, the painting fails (and I have no fun). But when I relax and just enjoy what I am looking at, the painting flows easily.

I have painted outdoors most days of the last two weeks. I wake up in the morning thinking about paint before I open my eyes. And when I do open my eyes, the first thing I do is look at the window to see the quality of the light. And then I jump out of bed and rush through my morning routine to get outside as soon as possible, while the shadows are still long and interesting.

View of St Ignatius SOLD

5 x 7 inches
oil on panel

After the first part of the day spent painting at Corona Heights Park (see previous post), I went to another location to paint the late afternoon slanting through the streets of my neighborhood and lighting up St Ignatius in the distance.

5 x 7 inches

oil on panel

The second painting was an experiment in making a more abstract image, just trying to get the colors and values and feeling of the view.

My husband took another picture of me painting. It was 65 degrees F at noon today and most people were in summer clothes, but when I stand still in the shade as the sun sets and the wind picks up I have to dress like I am in much colder part of the world. I'm seriously considering buying fingerless gloves.

Corona Heights Park

5 x 7 inches

oil on panel

These are the rocks at the peak of Corona Heights Park. I used flat brushes to paint this which I think helped established the planes of he rock.

It was a beautiful day but the wind picked up in the afternoon. I used a new shade umbrella that attaches to my easel for the first time, and I thought I might get blown off the hill! My husband was with me and took this photo of me painting. The view of San Francisco from the hill is amazing. Maybe next time I'll try and paint it.

Carl Street Vistas

Crepes on Cole SOLD

oil on panel
5 x 7 inches

Train Tunnel Color Study
oil on panel
5 x 7 inches

Sunset on Carl St
oil on panel
5 x 7 inches

Today I did all these studies while set up on one stretch of sidewalk. Just as I was done and packed up the sun started to set and I unpacked everything for one final sketch.

I'm so excited about my new plein air / open air pant box! I posted a picture below (you can see part of the train tunnel just to the right). It's perfect: there are compartments for my paints, my palette, my brush cleaner and even wet paintings. As you can see I hang my brushes off the side in my own adaptation. I love my "pochade" box so much, I just ordered a second tiny one, the little "Thumb Box" to bring to Paris with me. (I leave for Paris in less than a month!). I bought my wonderful "pochade" boxes at www.pochade.com.

Buena Vista Park

Buena Vista Park Tree Study
oil on panel
5 x 7 inches

It was a gorgeous spring day in San Francisco, but standing still in the shade, on top of a hilltop park in the wind, I got pretty frozen after a couple hours. When I finally packed up my fingers were almost too numb to manipulate the latches on my easel. But it was worth it, I think this is the best landscape I've ever done.

Prettiest Laundry in San Francisco SOLD

Laundry at Cole and Grattan Streets II
oil on panel
9 x 12 inches

Laundry at Cole and Grattan Streets I
oil on panel
9 x 12 inches

I adore this coin-op laundry. It's in a fabulous old Edwardian building, and the interior is painted an amazing turquoise that just sings. It's most incredible at dusk, when the sky is still a light indigo and the artificial lights inside make the windows glow aqua. I hope someday I am fast enough to capture this corner as the sun goes down.

As for daylight painting: I spent four mornings this week painting this corner - two mornings per painting. Enough time to meet and say hi to every dog, child, and art-friendly person in the neighborhood. Have I mentioned I love my neighborhood?

These are two very different paintings. The bottom one I did first, but after a while realized I saw a much more dramatic and interesting image in my head. So I started over and did the second painting (the top one) which I think is much more successful in terms of composition and color. I'd still like to try even stronger values, lights and dark... luckily with painting, there's always a "next time."

Everyone loves to see a painter on the street. People have good taste, too. When I feel confident that my painting is going well, lots of people confirm it with enthusiasm. But when a painting is in a "bad stage", no one says anything at all, at most a polite smile. Painting in public is humiliating and gratifying all at once.