Painting demonstration at the Napa County Fair

I'll be giving painting demonstrations this Saturday and Sunday, July 2nd and 3rd, at the Napa County Fair. From 5 to 8 p.m. on both days, I'll be at the Calistoga Art Center, which is a part of the fair for the first time.

I'm still debating as to what I'll be painting... maybe landscape painting one day, maybe mixed media the next? Come by, and be surprised! (I hope in a good way.)

Another little review

Remember focal point?

No? Here's a review of my posts on focal points to date.... If it's new to you, start at the bottom and work your way up. Understanding how focal points work is essential in the process of painting, if you want to create paintings that work (in abstract work, too).

A little review...

Here's a collection of some of the posts I've written on different painting topics over the course of this blog. If you want to learn - or refresh your memory - about how to start a painting, you'll find some good information here.

Click here for posts on Thumbnail sketches

Click here for posts on Blocking in a painting

Click here for posts on Negative space

Happy painting!

By the way, my next Painting Landscapes workshop is this Saturday, June 25th, at the Calistoga Art Center, in Calistoga, California. It's the only time I'll be teaching it this year. You can learn more about it here at my workshops website, NapaValleyArtWorkshops.com.

Jackson Pollock dancing with the brush

Hans Namuth's photograph of Jackson Pollock at work

Inspired by Jonas Gerard's dancing to paint? (If you haven't been introduced to Jonas Gerard yet, see my post from December 7, 2009, Dancing with the brush.) We are lucky to have film of Jackson Pollock painting, too – see examples at Jackson Pollock 51, which you can see on YouTube.com. Although he did not paint with the same sense of joy you can see in Jonas Gerard at work, he worked spontaneously, dancing with the brush (or stick) and paint.

Ed Harris, from his film Pollock

The scenes of Ed Harris as Pollock, painting in the film Pollock, are wonderful to watch, too. Here is a scene on Youtube.com – the clip is called Jackson Pollock dancing colors – he is painting his first monumentally large piece, after having torn out the walls of his studio in order to fit the canvas. Harris gives the viewer a good sense of the visceral, subconscious, dancing quality of the act of painting as Pollock practiced it.

It makes me want to get out a very big canvas, and dance....

Spring 2011 painting class schedule

Just-Spring • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

We're into the second week of the March/April session already (remember, no class this Friday) – and here's the class schedule for the rest of this spring:

April/May: (Note the week off for spring break!)

Wednesdays: April 13, spring break, 27, May 4, 11

Fridays: April 15, spring break, 29, May 6, 13

May/June:

Wednesdays: May 18, 25, June 1, June 8

Fridays: May 20, 27, June 3, 10

Location:

The new Calistoga Art Center,

Napa County Fairgrounds, Cropp Building,

1435 North Oak Street, Calistoga, California

Remember scumbling?

Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Scumbling (sounds like stumbling, but with a "k" sound) is, for me, one of the most useful techniques an artist can learn. I've used it in several places throughout the painting above. It's a particular kind of brushwork – using it, you can create wonderfully magical effects. To scumble, you drag a dry brush lightly loaded with paint across another color.

Detail, Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

When might you use it? Anytime you want a transitional area between colors (in portraits, in landscape paintings, in painting skies, for example). Above, it not only helped create an atmospheric effect in the skies and distant mountains, but it also added a kind of laciness to the palm fronds. Scumbling is a way of blending color that allows the viewer to blend the colors with their eyes....

Want to learn more? Here are two earlier posts that discuss it thoroughly:

Scumbling shows how scumbling was used by Rembrandt and Modigliani in portraits.

Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe links to a demonstration of the scumbling technique that Blencowe uses to create a beautifully atmospheric sky.

Remember negative space?

Trees in fog south of Napa • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

It's good, every now and then, to review some of the basics that are critical in developing a good composition. If you have a tendency to think, when you paint, mostly in terms of the subject, and not so much of the space around the subject, revisiting the concepts of negative space will help your painting enormously.

And if this is new to you, you will be amazed at how an understanding of negative (and positive) space will change the way you see – and the way you paint.

Here are two posts from 2010 on negative space that will help.

Negative space – it's not just background

Karl Blossfeldt's use of positive and negative space

Winter is a wonderful time to practice seeing negative space. Take a look at the shapes of trees in fog – study the shapes of oak trees or grapevines without their leaves. Notice the shapes of the trees and vines themselves – and notice the spaces around them. In a painting, you can use the negative space to shape the positive space in ways that make both work better.

Painting a simple still life - IV

New Kid in Town, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The painting is finally beginning to come into its own. Here, I've worked on the edge of the box behind the left apple, thinned the vertical charcoal line, and brought a pale apricot-ish color into the background on the right. I've also brought more yellow into the background on the left, evening out the color somewhat.

I've used scumbling extensively. (To see a scumbling demonstration, see "Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe.") Not only have I used it to soften the shadows under the apples (I've also brought some of the red of the apples into the shadows), but I have also used it to soften the colors of the apples themselves, as well as their highlights. On the apples, I rubbed the paint around with the edge of a paper towel (and used my fingers - but please, use the paper towel - it may be less expedient, but it's just as effective, and much safer).

Where will the painting go next? When a painting gets to this point, it's wise to step back and consider well before each step – one little brush stroke may be all it needs. In my dialogue with the painting, my job here is to listen well. It may take the painting a while to speak to me, so need to sit and look and listen for as long as it takes. I'll let this painting tell me where it wants to go next – but I think I'm likely to tone down the intensity of the yellow in the background. I may also bring some layers of glazing over the apples - but we'll see.