I’ve kept this (almost daily) blog focused on drawing and painting, but of course much else in life continues to impinge directly or indirectly on my efforts to concentrate.  A partially torn tendon (so says the MRI) in my right shoulder constantly aggravates.  I’m sure it is in part due to 40 years of erasing the blackboard, before technology made that activity unnecessary, and partly due to the fact that I’m right handed.  I’m trying to arrange my studio so that I can continue painting in a better ergonomic fashion.  I hope I succeed.  Physical therapy for this ailment is interesting, but so far not much has changed.

In addition, I’ve spent a lot of time attempting to solve the crisis in the Middle East, for reasons I don’t want to go on about here.  I have not yet succeeded, as you might suppose.  If I do you’ll see it on the nightly news!!  Most of that work is going on in my head and in my journal.  A visit to that part of the world should soon appear on my agenda.

Now it’s time to take Rebecca to the bus station for her 3 day journey south.  I will continue this later today if time permits.

Greetings North Hero Artists,

We will resume our class on June 2.  Several have already signed up, and I am again asking that you register if you are interested in attending.  As of today we are up to eight.  There is room for a few more.

While it is always best to draw from life, there have been a number of requests to revisit the grid exercises we did previously, as well as techniques and methods for using photographs as compositional aids in drawing and painting.   These exercises can be informative.  To that end, please bring large (8×10 inch) photos, preferably those you have taken yourself, for the June 2 class.  These can be figurative, landscape or still life.  If you are bringing pictures of family or friends, try and have the face as the major object in the 8 x 10 photo.  If this is not the case, the main features may fall within just a few grid lines.  If you don’t have any photos of your own, you can use magazines to get some large photographs.  TRY TO BRING BLACK AND WHITE IMAGES RATHER THAN COLOR IMAGES.  THE LATTER CAN CONFUSE YOU WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO DETERMINE VALUES. Also, images taken in natural light, with lots of lights and darks are best.

The exercises will be focused on shape and value analysis.  I suggest you work in charcoal or soft pencil (a hardness of 2 or 2.5).   You can also create value with cross hatching of ink lines, or with ink wash.  However you choose to do it, we will want to work fairly large, so bring your drawing boards or sketch pads so that you can be working on paper at least 16 x 20 inches.   I will try to keep you focused on shapes of differing values rather than on lines, and also to have you constantly draw the abstract shapes you see in your subject rather than the named parts.

Bring:

1. a large straight edge (ruler)
2. tracing paper if you have it
3. large sketch pads
4. charcoal, pencils, and/or ink pens
5. gummy erasers
6. pencil sharpeners
7. tape if you are going to use drawing boards
8. charcoal fixative if you are going to use charcoal
9. tissues if you are going to use charcoal

I look forward to hearing from you if you will be attending, and will update you all with a class list this coming weekend.   If you know Linda and can contact her to confirm whether she will be coming that would be helpful.  She does not have email.

The top image is layer two on the direct color start. The background is just the white canvas (with gesso). The bottom image was started with a wash of yellow ochre, followed by a quick sketch in pencil followed by a value study in burnt sienna. For the original photo, see the previous post of a few days ago.

I check occasionally on Google Analytics to see where my readers are.   The map of the world shows folks from everywhere, but most, I think, are from brief views resulting from Google searches of one kind or another.   When I was a guest blogger for Norma, I got hundreds of hits on my own site for a few weeks.  Now it’s down to about seven per day, mostly from Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New York and Florida.  About a dozen other states show up as well, in addition to countries like India, Germany, Netherlands, China, etc.  Below are the towns in California and Vermont which have readers returning over and over again.  Of course I’d like to get a comment, but most are just taking a look. Are you painters, art enthusiasts, students, old friends?
California

San Francisco
Redwood City
Artesia
West Hollywood
Alameda
Sonoma
Hawthorne
Monterey Park

Vermont

Winooski
Westford
Williston
Shelburne
Richmond
Colchester
Hinesburg
Wolcott
Jonesville
Manchester
Burlington
Jericho

Here are two different ways of beginning that I’m trying this week. The top image is a burnt sienna value study, blocking in the shapes of this unhappy dog, looking under a fence. This is a quick pass, done in only 5 minutes on top of a pencil drawing done from a photo. The bottom image is also the beginning of a value study, but with color, in an attempt to capture some light. The colors were mixed from zinc white, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and a very small amount of permanent rose. All were mixed with equal volumes of linseed/marble dust putty. I’m hoping the bottom image will get more and more abstract around the focal point of the face. You can see the intention by looking the the penciled lines which are the basis of the shapes to come. I’ll post more as the week and the work progress.

On another subject, the class in North Hero is now officially on, so if you are reading this, email me to register. More about the content of that class in a few days.

I like the light in this photo, and will be working at trying to caputre it in paint in the coming weeks.  The yellow will be Indian yellow, the red permanent rose.  It was taken about 20 years ago in our back yard in South Burlington.

I am always interested in viewers reaction to content. What flies in Jerusalem certainly doesn’t fly in Vermont. What flies in the big city also doesn’t work here either.  It’s often the case that geography and place that have the biggest impact.   People react to images they “know”. So often I pick subjects which I relate to, and try to make art out of them.  If others like them, fine.  If not (because of the subject) that’s fine too, because I like them.  I took a photo of a dog in Oaxaca, which I return to often, so it is the fourth painting to be started in the past 10 days. Three are completed, so I’m ready for this one. The photo is below. You will also find it in the photo section of my web site.  Another one I will begin this next week is a photo I took of my daughter when she was a small tyke. I’ve painted it before years ago.  It’s due for a re-run.  I’ve played with it in photoshop so that I can break it down into color spots (see the bottom image below).

My great grandfather immigrated to this country from Prussia around 1860, winding up in Santa Cruz, California. This is an oil portrait finished today from a small black and white snapshot taken of him around 1930. It is 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas.  I used only ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and zinc white, with equal volumes of Tad’s linseed oil/marble dust putty.

With the portraits I’ve been doing this past week, and another I started today of my grandfather Aaron, I’ve become enthusiastic about color spots and how they create form when viewed from a distance. I can see it happens because perception from a distance involves a visual scan of the whole image. So forms appear from connected colors which aren’t perceived up close. It’s kind of magical (dare the scientist use that word!!). One way of seeing how this works is to use the cutout filter in photoshop on a regular photograph. This filter lumps together a limited range of colors in the image into shape categories. Up close it looks abstract. Back up and the image jumps out at you. I’ve been using this filter to help me. But of course it doesn’t require software. The impressionists did this all the time. Check out the picture I took at an Impressionist museum in Paris a few months ago: colors spots to form. Can you find the color spots from the top image in the bottom one? (I did crank up the contrast in the top image a bit). Now I’ve just got to practice, practice, practice. If you look at the painting of Rebecca in the previous posts, the spots are larger but the principle is the same.