Spring 2010 Student Show pics!

Left to right: paintings by Cindi Buell, Randa Durell (two), and Judy Revelle

Left to right: paintings by Dan Dinneane, Cindi Buell, Randa Durell (two), and Judy Revelle

Left to right, top: paintings by Emma Klement, Donna Hodges, and Brigitta Weiderhold

Left to right, bottom: paintings by Emma Klement, Diane Kuykendall, and Patsy Hahn (two)

Left to right, top: paintings by Brigitta Wiederhold and Pat Branstetter

Left to right, bottom: paintings by Pat Branstetter and Jennifer Deutsch

Top: paintings by Jamie Zukowski; bottom: paintings by Christina Amore

Left to right: paintings by Judy Revelle, Yvonne Henry, and Sally Briggs

Left and top: paintings by Patricia Campbell; bottom and right: paintings by Corliss Schloemp

Left to right: paintings by Kari Martin, Dan Dinneane, and Kari Martin

Left to right: paintings by Bret Lang, Nanci Smith, Jennifer Deutsch, and Cindi Buell

Paintings by Jay Hodges (from acrylic and plein air painting classes)

Left to right: paintings by Bret Lang and Jay Hodges

Left to right: paintings by Diane Kuykendall, Donna Hodges, Sally Briggs, and Bret Lang

Left to right: paintings by Brigitta Weiderhold (top and bottom), Donna Hodges (top and bottom), and Diane Kuykendall (top and bottom), from plein air and acrylic painting classes

Here are the photos of this spring's painting classes student show!

Angus Wilson's painting process – and a demo

Still from video – painter Angus Wilson talks about his painting process

Angus Wilson, whose colorful abstracted still life paintings can be seen at www.anguspaintings.com, will give a painting demonstration this weekend, Saturday, May 15th, from 2:00 to 5:00 at Galllery i Fine Art, 685 Cannery Row in Monterey, California. If you want to go, the gallery asks that you R.S.V.P. at (831) 375-1617.

Angus Wilson arranges the still life setup for a photo shoot

You can watch a three minute video interviewing Wilson, "The Painting Process – Angus Wilson," at www.galleryifineart.com/events.asp. In it, he talks about how he doesn't see himself as a still life painter. For him, "it's all about color and form and shape – and the fact that I'm painting flowers and fruit and tables – it's just an incidental detail."

In preparation for painting, Wilson arranges and rearranges the objects in various arrangements, photographing them from different angles. Then he chooses the photos he likes the best. He says he can usually create two or three paintings from each photo shoot. He's often scouting flea markets looking for interesting bowls and jugs and other objects he can use in his paintings.

Angus Wilson with a painting in progress

Here, you see a painting in progress, with a reference photo posted on the right, and his color plan beneath it. He has already decided on the colors he wants to use, and knows where he wants to take the painting before he begins it. At this point, he has drawn in his composition, and is blocking in the big shapes.

Closeup of Angus Wilson's painting in progress

At that point, he just paints - and concentrates on enjoying the painting. He's already made his big decisions beforehand. Enjoy the video!

Painting self portraits

Em (behind easel) and Judy (in front) paint, while Betty packs up to go.

Here are photos of some of the folks in the Wednesday class – most painting self portraits, all but one of them for the first time.

Cindi paints her first self portrait.

Dan, Jamie, and Diane paint, with collage pieces by high school students on the wall behind them.

Diane, an experienced painter, paints her second self portrait.

Trish works on a painting of a rose.

Em paints her first self portrait.

They did a great job! (Thanks to Dan for lending me his phone for the photos!)

Self portrait demonstrations

A week ago, I demonstrated painting self portraits in the Wednesday and Friday classes. In the Wednesday class, I was asked to paint myself smiling – a difficult thing, since concentrating on the work at hand draws one's face into a serious, often stern expression.

Karen Lynn Ingalls self portrait in progress ( photo courtesy of Christina)

The Friday self-portrait I spent less time on. It has a longer way to go until it is completed, but you can clearly see how I found my composition and blocked in the big shapes with color. I'm just beginning to define those shapes a little further on the planes of the face. For each of these, I used only a primaries palette – yellow, red, and blue – with white.

Secrets of color harmony - #4

John Singer Sargent, "A Parisian Beggar Girl"

Tone the canvas before you paint

While the first three secrets I've written about in earlier blog posts work across the board, this — and most of each of the methods to follow — is not something you need to do to make things work. They, however, are great techniques to try, and they will help create color harmony.

John Singer Sargent, "A Street in Venice"

Underpainting the canvas with a solid color will pull together the colors in your painting. What color to choose? Here, John Singer Sargent has used a creamy almost-mid-tone for A Parisian Beggar Girl and a darker ground for A Street in Venice. Notice how he has used scumbling across the surface, allowing the ground color to show through. The creamy underpainting of A Parisian Beggar Girl provides a foil for the subtle lavender brush strokes above it, the eye mixing it into the rough neutral colors of an old wall.

You could also consider something that will contrast with what you will paint on top of it. You might want to choose complementary colors, or warm/cool contrasts. Many landscape painters, because of the predominance of greens in their paintings, choose some kind of red, magenta, or burnt sienna.

Charles W. Hawthorne, "Portrait of Henry Hensche"

Charles Hawthorne, in his Portrait of Henry Hensche, has used a stronger set of yellow–purple complementary colors, with a vivid pinkish-purple underpainting, visible at the bottom of the painting and peeking out from underneath other places, contrasting beautifully with the yellows and greens of Hensche's slicker and the surface of the water.

Charles W. Hawthorne, untitled portrait

In this untitled portrait, Hawthorne used a faintly visible yellow underpainting to contrast with the strong purples that dominate the painting and and pick up and create continuity with its yellow highlights. In each of these paintings, the color of the canvas, toned before painting, creates interest, continuity, and color harmony. Try it sometime!