All Things Fine Art

"Fall Harvest", 16x20" oil on linen, $875.

 

On Saturday, April 1, 2017 my annual Buffet Brunch and Demonstration was held in my home and working studio. My good friend and artist, Carmen Dykema, volunteered to be my hostess. Photo credits of the demonstration below also go to Carmen and fellow artist, Gail Bohner. Guests had a great time renewing friendships and meeting new artists from across mid-Michigan while enjoying a tasty meal.

 

MENU

Smoked Alaskan Sockeye Salmon

Four types of Quiche

Fruit plate

Bagels and Coffee Cake

Yogurt, capers, tart cherry preserves and cream cheese

Coffee, tea and bottled water

 

THE DEMONSTRATION

The theme for this year’s demonstration was Ma, the Japanese term for space as it refers to pauses or intervals between “things”. I emphasized this concept of irregular placed spaces between shapes from left to right, as well as, in creating the illusion of extensive depth on the land and in the sky from front to back. In another life-time, my training as a former ballet dancer taught me the significance of quiet pauses and transitions in creating the stage for the important passages. Without these quiet moments, a performance would appear choppy and exhausting in its extreme. This applies to painting, music and, in fact, all of the arts. Ever gone to an action movie that is almost all action and no quiet moments? If you have then you know exactly what I mean.

 

The following series of images will show you the step-by-step approach I took from laying in the large shapes (beginning with shadows) to refining. Unfortunately, time constraints did not allow me to complete the painting. By-in-large, most of the demonstration time was spent on the sky leaving the foreground land mass less finished. The final version of ­­“­­­­­­­­­­­­­Fall Harvest", completed later in the studio, is shown at the beginning of this post.

 

The references I worked from and the 16.20" Centurion XL linen support toned with Cobalt Violet. I chose this violet color

as it would visually vibrate with the blues and gold tones of the opaque light struck passages in the finished painting, helping to create color harmony.

 

My palette showing pre-mixed paint puddles for large shapes. These are modified as needed during the painting process.

The cloud and land block-in of cool neutral shadow and mid-tones with pigment thinned with Oil of Spike Lavender.

Stage two establishes the source of light, i.e.: the sky. By establishing it now, I am better able to judge the values of the light struck areas to be painted next.

 

This image shows the initial stages of blocking in the light struck areas with the darkest light on my palette. I will continue adding lighter versions as needed. I am careful not to paint the clouds to light or "white".

 

As I bring forward the lights in the clouds I also begin working the foreground landscape to make sure they are relating in value and with color harmony to each other. Throughout, in every stage of the painting process,  I focus on the spacing of negative and positive shapes both horizontally and vertically on the picture plane for pleasing visual pauses or transitions. Note that my brush work in both the sky and the land are still "rough". I will finesse the edges and do any necessary blending and detailing later as doing so at this stage would be detrimental to the overall success of the painting.

 

Once all the shapes and their relationships of value, color temperature and intensities, are broadly stated correctly, I select clean brushes and then and only then begin the process of more accurately defining each of the large shapes.  It is now, while the paint on the canvas is still wet that I begin to pay close attention to creating (or adjusting) appropriate edge treatments and blending only where needed. Normally, if my painting session is interrupted for any length of time, I scrape back all passages that still require further work leaving no ridges to contend with in the next painting session. They can easily be restated.

 

The demonstration comes to an end with a question and answer period. See below.

 

The final, finessed painting, is shown at the beginning of this blog post. Thank you for joining me. I hope this was of some help to you as you walk your creative path.