And Black

Alright, I added black to my palette. There!  In addition to those other new colors  mentioned last week I’ve also added black.  I know, I know, ya never use black. “You can mix GREAT! darks with out using black”.  Right?    Right!.   But one can mix great darks using it too. Sargent used it. Velazquez used it. David Leffel uses it. Jeff Watts uses it.

And boy oh boy does Jeff Watts use it! I may be overstating  just a bit but sometimes it seems like every other trip to the palette finds Jeff digging into that huge pile of black. Jeff also puts his black right next to the white and normally has a little bit of gray mixed in between the two.

The detail above is from a 5×7 inch piece I did the other night. That dark color is mixed using black and bright red. Almost edible. It’s a combination I see Jeff using all the time and I did this little painting just so I could mix some of it.

I’ve watched, over and over again, Jeff ’s Gesture Portrait  video. I’m trying very hard to emulate what I see him doing.  As best I can I use the same tools, color, brush work etc. so I can more readily get a feel for what he’s doing and his thought process. It’s working. I’m having a great time and I can already see it coming around to my way of application. As it should I suppose.

A huge perk from doing these things is the mixing of new color I’ve not gotten into before. Flesh tones intimidate me. At least they did until recently when I heard Mr. Watts describe the process. He says mixing flesh tones “is the easiest thing” in the world to do. Red, yellow and white. Any Red, any Yellow and White. I’d never heard it said. Go figure.

He’s right. It’s pretty easy.

Happy days!!

EW

And down the road we go.

This painting was done from a photo I took last year in S.E. Colorado. It’s near mesa De Maya and Willard Loudens place. I liked the view down the road and the distance. Beautiful country indeed.

My palette has changed a little since starting work on the gesture portraits. It was very simple before and even with the addition of some new color is still pretty simple.

The before: Titanium White, cadmium yellow pale, cadmium orange, bright red, ultramarine blue, sap green, yellow ochre pale, burnt sienna.

The after:    Titanium white, cadmium yellow deep, cadmium yellow pale, cadmium orange, bright red, alizarin crimson permanent, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, sap green, yellow ochre pale, burnt sienna.

Basically what I’ve added is  another yellow, another  red and another blue. Cadmium yellow deep is a warm yellow while the cadmium yellow pale is the cooler of the two. Bright red is the warmer of the two reds and ultramarine blue is the warmer of the two blues. I’ve considered for a while adding enough new color so I’d have a warm and a cool in each of the primaries. Finally I had an excuse to do it and I am finding I like how it’s working.

What it’ll do tho is change the color a little in my landscapes. I’m thinking so far I can use the same palette for both the landscapes and the portraits and get away with it just fine.

This piece seems to have started the way most of my painting start. Middle distance goes in first. (see #2 above)

Next I moved to the top of the painting. (see #3 above)

And painted back down the canvas into the foreground.

And of course the hard part goes in last.  Go figure. I don’t know how many times  I attempted to paint that darn truck. I suppose I could call this stage of the painting the “paint and wipe” stage. But….. after a while there appeared a pick up truck I could live with and the piece felt  finished.

The Bronco game is calling me.

Happy days!

EW

Triple Stack

I saw this approach on another blog a few days ago where the artist cropped an image and then blew up the crop. She did it a couple of times until anyone looking at the piece got a close up of part of the original painting. What I got from it was a chance to get nearly nose to nose with some of the brush strokes in important areas. Neat idea. So here is my version to get you up close.

This image took me  a while longer than the half hour Jeff Watts takes to do his “gesture portraits”. I suppose in time I’ll be coming in closer to that time but for now all that seems important is getting a feel for what I’m doing, then getting my times down later. That and I don’t want a bunch of half finished paintings cluttering the place up.

A little more in your face and giving you a better idea of the surface of the painting and the brush work. This piece is pretty rough. The paint was applied with an old cheap brush giving each stroke a sort of stringy textured appearance.

Some of you may have a way to blow this view up even further. If you can, give it a shot and see the abstract quality of a very small area. It gets kind of chicken scratchy at that point. Have fun and we’ll see ya next week. Who knows what will crop up between now and then.

EW

Don’t Confuse Em

That’s what they tell me. “Don’t confuse them!” What they’re tryin to tell me is “Stick to the landscapes, everyone already knows yer landscapes.” I guess if I throw something else in the mix I’m gonna confuse everybody. Folks are gonna walk away scratchin their heads mutterin something about how confused they are and Geez Louise! that Eldon has gone like totally nuts. Well Nuts is as Nuts does. 

I can’t believe anybody followin my stuff is that soft headed. So……….I’ve taken to the task of learning this portrait thing and I’m gonna post at least a few of em. The painting below is  7×5 inches and it took me about 45 minutes.

A little while back I purchased a video by Jeff Watts. Jeff demonstrates what he calls “Gesture Portraits”. He gives himself a half hour or so to paint a small gesture of someones face not worrying about a likeness but getting the essence of his subject onto the canvas and of course making it look way easy.  He’s good at it.  He demos nine little paintings that are totally beautiful. It seems in the video he is working from photos as all we get to see of the model is a still photograph. There is something caricature like about all nine of his paintings. Each subject has his/her own peculiar props and he seems to endow each of them with their own quirky little personality. And as such I’m not sure I’d go 100% with the gesture portrait title.  Caricature may be more like it. (personal opinion)

The piece below is 16×12 inches. It’s a little big for a gesture portrait and I set no time limit so I  don’t believe it really falls into the gesture category. It’s a pretty nice piece tho. It’s done from a photo I took of a little girl at the quick draw in Estes Park a couple of years ago.

Still….no matter what ya call it I find what he’s doing hugely exciting.  There’s nothin stuffy about these lively, energetic gestures so I’m going to follow his lead and see if I can learn something that’ll translate into something that looks like Eldon Warren did it. So far so good! This post contains the first couple for me. Cross yer fingers that this gets easier.

EW

A Progression

This is the start of a landscape I’ve been trying to get to for a while.

What I concentrated on most with the upper area was painting space and getting the landscape to go as far into the distance as I could get it to go. I began with the darks of the pine trees close up and painted them lighter and a little more gray as they went back into the picture plane. Beyond that, in the row of trees further back and the hill sides, I painted with a lot less detail and a lot of grayed color to keep things going away into the distance. I brushed in the sky and clouds even more pale  but fairly light as the sky in that area holds the light source for this piece.

Then I pulled back and painted the brush along the river banks. The color here is warmer and I’ll keep painting warm as I get back closer to the foreground. The red/brown shadows of the pine tree are my first intrusion into this area.

This bright blue (cobalt + white) area in the water is warmed with a bit of alizarine crimson and brushed in pretty quickly. This passage is going to give me something to paint into (wet into wet) with some of the sky color a little later.

I also darkened those shadows on the water cast by the pine trees. The light source is behind the trees and the trees are casting a shadow onto the water. When the light source is directly behind an object, in this case the pine trees, a shadow is cast into the foreground. The shadows cast on to  water blocks a reflection from the sky and lets someone from this point of view see down into the water to the bottom of the river bed. The color here seems to be very warm and rusty. Also I laid in the foliage lower right keeping the same concept in mind of warmer color up front, cooler in the distance.

Here is where I began painting wet, lighter color into the water. I’ve also started painting in some reflections and color from the sky. The shadows on the water were a little hard edged so I took this opportunity to soften edges and get them to become more a part of the surface of the water.

Next the base color for the sand bar. I’ll use this base like I did the blue in the water. I’ll paint back into it wet in wet and develope the textures and shapes of the rocks in that area.

The above three details show how I worked my way across the sand bar. Up close it simply looks a little lacy but takes on shape and detail as the viewer gets further away from the piece. I used a round to do the detail in this are. (I’ve only recently found that a flat isn’t the only brush in the world.)

Now the painting is more or less complete. I’ve finished the sand bar and placed a few details in the trees such as the trunks and a few branches. The trunks on the left and close up are warmer and a little more distinct than those on the right. My center of interest was put in last.

Happy Daize!!

EW

Druuuuum Rolllll!!!!!

Introducing!!   Debra!

And what she does when she’s being creative.

Debra is my wonderful wife. One of her favorite pass times and method of relaxing is to do wire wrap jewelry. She’s been doing it for about five years now and is getting pretty dang good. Most of the time she uses copper or silver wire to wrap anything from glass beads to semi precious stones. She buys the stones already finished and puts a nice wire wrap design on it. The pink stone above is a died stone and the necklace portion is made with pearls, lapiz and died shell.

And she digs tools.

And on the American Impressionist Society front Mitch Baird won Best of show!!   AIS <—– This is a link to the online catalog. Congratulations Mitch!  His piece, “Morning Ensigns, Italy” is one heck of a painting. The judging must have been tough because there was a lot of really great work. Scroll down a ways in the catalog to see my personal favorite “Coyote Valley” by Nancy MacDonald.     Sweet!

I’m working on a piece right now that I’ve been photographing as I go. I’ll post a progression as soon it’s finished. It’s about there so it won’t be too long. Perhaps tomorrow.

Later! 

EW

American Impressionist Society

Hey! The American Impressionist Society show is being held in Denver this year at Saks Galleries. I managed to sneak one in and delivered it today. The opening is this next Friday, Oct. 23rd from 5 to 8 p.m. The location is:  Saks Galleries, 3019 E. 2nd Ave, Denver, Colorado. I know all the folks around here close have seen my stuff already but beyond that it would be a great opportunity to see some of the best impressionist work from around the country. There were nearly 700 entries and 189 pieces were juried in so the show is no doubt going to be a good one. So….. I’m looking forward to seeing a bunch of you locals and near locals at the show. Quang Ho is judging.

For all of you but  especially for those way outta town the link above will take you to the Saks Galleries web site. In the lower left corner of the opening page is a big white dot with the letters AIS inside.   Click on that for a preview of the entire show. I’m impressed.

And below, offered as a bit of proof that I’m getting back on my feet after surgery and getting something done in the studio are a couple of paintings. One is a plein air that kinda went south the day I did it and the other is a remake of it  I think to be nearly finished.

First (some of you may remember this one from an earlier post) the not so great plein air:

And following is the 18×24 piece done from the plein air.

A big improvement so I guess the time spent in the field wasn’t a waste. The original had a couple of people in it so I put them in here as a matter of following my own lead. I’m not sure though if they are actually right for this piece. What I’m thinking of is to paint them out and place in a few cows instead. There’s something peaceful (for me at least) about looking into a pasture and seeing a few cows just grazing away, quiet, no cares, no hurry, nothing but time. And the evening is my favorite time of day.

EW

What an opportunity!!

I’mmm Baaacck!!  Sorry I missed doin the blog the last couple of weeks. I had to have a small surgery and now that I’m back to normal, (mostly), I’ll get back to buggin everyone on a weekly basis.   So…..

Before I get to talking about opportunities I want to pass on this link to everyone. Meet Aliaena!! <–click,  my friend and fellow artist  from Paris.  Aliaena has recently painted in a place where Van Gogh painted. How many of us painters would love to do that? Huh? And she recently posted her experience on her blog. Please do yourself a favor and click the link above and see just how a day can go in the life of a plein air painter.

How many of you know of a painter named Malcolm Liepke? He’s the painter that paints those lovely olive skinned beauties with the “come hither” eyes,  nice red or nearly res noses and ruby lips that….    never mind.

Anyway he paints a lot of  these ladies, (and guys too), in bar scenes or restaurants. Most of the time someone in the piece is smoking something and waiting on some other bar fly to show. And you know it aint gonna happen. To boot they’re looking mostly under age and oughta be sent packin for mama and home. The above painting was painted as tongue in cheek as I possibly could following Malcolm’s lead. The girl has a healthy green tint in her skin, a nice red nose, full ruby like lips and should prolly be sent packin. I can think of several reasons why.

Now I know I’m not anywhere near the painter of  these olive skinned beauties as Malcolm. Someday perhaps but it won’t happen over night and I’ve got nothin but time.

What does that have to do with opportunity? Well the current down art market and slow sales has given me the opportunity and the time to work on some of these other types of subject matter and I’ll be paying a lot attention to several portrait painters in the process. Mostly, and in no order of any kind of importance:  Malcolm Liepke, Jeff Watts, Dan Beck, Morgan Weistling and David Leffel. I’ve collected a few DVD’s and books by some of these guys and I aint afraid to use em. So, come next spring let’s see if this opportunity of a little bit of slack time pays off.  I’ll keep ya posted.

And this guy with the back pack is some more of kinda sorta the same. But not to worry, I’m not going to stop doing what I’ve been doing all these years  because I still love to get out and paint en plein air. I love how beautiful the world can be and will be a landscape painter forever. And who knows? Maybe I can merge the two and add yet another dimension to what I already do.
EW

Additions

These three paintings are the latest additions to my collection. They are, in order of appearance, works done by Dawn Normali – Estes Park Colorado, Barbara Muir -Toronto Canada, and Josh Been – Salida Colorado.

Get up close to this one of Dawn’s and you’ll see some of the juiciest paint you can imagine. Thick, wet, imaginative brush strokes seem to be Dawn’s trademark. This is the second piece I’ve gotten from Dawn and the technique is much the same in each. What do I admire most about Dawn and the work she does? Dawn isn’t afraid to put it down and leave it down. No hesitation.

Dawn is in process of setting up her own Word Press Blog. I’ll post a link when it’s up.

Barbara Muir describes herself as a  portrait artist. She is from Toronto, Canada and has been a good friend for quite a while now. Her subject matter, though,  goes a long way beyond portraits  as you’ll see when you visit her blog, Barbara Paints. Barbara’s use of color never ceases to amaze me. It’s pretty easy to get into one of Barbara’s pieces and feel what she’s saying about her subject. She also paints a lot of herself into her work. The result is simply a happy thing all around.

I got this piece from Josh Been this past summer when Debra and I took a mini vacation to Salida.  Besides the use of grays in this painting I’m drawn to the brush work. The energy shown in the brush work indicates the painting was done rather quickly and a lot of attention was paid to edges. I’d love to just sit and watch Josh handle edges. Get in close and take a look, you’ll see what I mean. When you’re looking at edges look  mostly where the light and the shadow meet.

And…what’d I do all week?                           Nothin! …..other than goof off and drink some really good wine from New Zealand with friends, go to bed early several times, take some naps, and purchase  a tube of white paint.  (Along with a bunch of  small and trivial, sometimes totally boring,  activities to numerous to mention. ) Say that three times fast.

Night all,

EW

Some Guy’s Epiphany

A while back I was thumbing through an art magazine and ran across an article some guy (I don’t remember who it was) had written about an epiphany he had just had about making a painting more  interesting by using a small bit of bright, not necessarily pure, color surrounded by a lot of grayed color. He was wondering how this idea had eluded him for so long. His muse had finally given in and the light came shining through. He suggested a few ways to mix and gray a color.

1.   Mix a color with it’s compliment.

2.   Add white and or black.

3.   Add some of your  junk paint from your palette. (Richard Schmid would cringe)

4.   Mix or buy a gray and add this to the mix.

Well this didn’t fall through the grate to the alligators. It stuck and I’ve been thinking about it since.

This is the result. I’d hoped to see just how gray I could make a bunch of color and get away with it. It’s a pretty good start but I don’t think I’ve  pushed it as far as it’ll go. Not yet. One thing for sure the concept is a good one to knock around. It’s a bit different for me since I’ve always been more concerned with light than color.

I looked for quite a while before finding reference material that would lend itself to the idea and it’s a little bit of a backward process for me. Normally I find a subject then decide how I’m going to deal with it. Deciding the concept first then finding subject matter helped me keep things in focus and moving in the right direction.

G-Night everyone’

EW