Her Thoughts Elsewhere

 "Her Thoughts Elsewhere"

12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Available here

I've been painting this model, Miranda, for many years now. In fact, she was the first model I ever painted in Eugene - my first nude model since the MICA years. I never posted that painting online. When I made it, I wasn't even sure that figure painting was going to be a real part of my "work." 

Well, it was.

And in the name of see-how-far-I've-come, I'm finally going to post it:

"Seated Nude, Red"

16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas

January, 2011

Funnily, these are the only two unsold paintings of Miranda that I have: the first one and the most recent. 

 Here's a work-in-progress on the new one:

Limited Palette Portrait Painting

 "Beth"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

 This is my two-hour demo from Limited Palette Portrait, which I taught right here in Eugene over the weekend. Below is the progression - I tried to snap a picture at each model break, so every 30 minutes. It went through an ugly stage just before the end, eh? 

 

The limited palette we use in this class is also called the Zorn palette - cadmium red, yellow ocher, and ivory black - plus white. We started the weekend with a simple color chart. 

As one of my students recently described it - the difference between just mixing up the colors on your palette, and actually painting them on the chart is like the difference between driving through a neighborhood and walking through it. I love that analogy! 

 

If you'd like to try walking through this neighborhood yourself, you can find my color chart template here.

Two intense days of painting for my students! I saw a ton of progress in a short time - their work speaks for itself!

Color Mixing For Painters

 

I  seem to be blogging about nothing but teaching lately - probably because I've been lucky enough to be doing a lot of it! Last weekend found me in Shreveport, Louisiana, mixing up a storm of paint, and enjoying some real storms, some serious humidity - and serious air conditioning.

This workshop, "Color Mixing for Painters," is designed for beginner/intermediate students, but I firmly believe that exercises like these can benefit painters at every stage in our development. I know I get something out of them each time. 

Grayscale value studies help us practice seeing the relationships between adjacent values.
You can watch a short video of my demo (on the left) on YouTube.



 Translating those values into color is the next step - and if you're familiar with my painting and teaching, you know how much I love using apples for studies like these! Check out this incredible student work:

 

 

 Thanks again, Shreveport. I will be back!

A Lovely Evening for a Portrait Demonstration

"Robin"

12x16 inches, oil on canvas

I love painting in front of an audience. I just searched my blog post history and turned up about ten instances of me painting out-and-about somewhere and gushing about it. Am I a show-off, or what?

In the last few years, I've painted for audiences at a gallery, a hotel, an art society, a conservatory, an art supply store (or two), and a church - oh and another gallery. 

Last week, I visited Shreveport, Louisiana, to teach for the third time. The evening before the workshop, I gave a portrait painting demonstration. The best part was that my subject was the teacher who organizes all of my workshops there. Her students loved watching her suffer under the pressure of my unflinching gaze.

...or maybe they were just enjoying the wine and good company!

 

Regardless, it was a blast. And check out that room! We were lucky enough to be hosted for the whole weekend by The Artist's Collective, a new gallery in Shreveport. Great spot for an art gathering, perfect place for my workshop.

 

 (The aforementioned unflinching gaze, in action)

A Portrait Commission

 

"Untitled - Portrait Commission, May 2016"

18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

It's cool how one thing leads to another, isn't it? The woman who commissioned this painting saw my portrait of a friend of hers, and decided I'd be just the artist to update a very sweet wedding-night portrait of her and her husband of 38 years! 

I really enjoyed spending time with these two, in their sunny living room surrounded by enormous house plants and blooming orchids. We had three in-person sittings, and then I completed the painting from photo reference.

I started getting to know them with a quick sketch:

Once I feel that a portrait is finished, I send an image to my clients for approval and suggestions. Here is my preliminary finish, on the left, and the final painting, including their suggested changes - which were all just right. Can you spot any of them?

 

 Framed and ready to deliver:

Do you have a portrait project you'd like to discuss? I'd love to hear from you!

(Another) Nude With Silver Rings

 "Nude With Silver Rings no. 2"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

Available here

Number one can be seen here. Kind of a similar painting - if not a similar model!  

I'm happy with this one - and I'm not making any apologies about the mouth. This guy has a mustache. It's large. It's anachronistic. So I indicated it loosely, and I leave you with this quote from my favorite painter of all time: 

Teaching The Figure

 "Nude with a Pear"

11 x 14 inches, oil on canvas

workshop demo price: $200

Available here

My Limited Palette Figure Painting workshop happened last weekend, here in Eugene. This was kind of a trial run for me - I've taught portrait several times, but never the nude figure - and I can humbly report that it went very well!  

On Friday evening I did a demo, which was open to the public. A few students of mine from other classes and private lessons joined the workshop attendees to watch.

The next morning, we started off with 4-value paintings. Two light flesh tones, and two dark ones to model the whole form. See? It can be done! And it's a great way to start a painting by working from the general (large shapes of value) to the specific (small anatomical details).

My demo of the 4-value exercise. 9x12" oil on Arches oil paper

Here is the progression of my demo from the second day. I can hear you thinking, 'All these demos, when did the students have time to paint?' They didn't watch the whole time - I just used this piece to demonstrate certain phases of the process. 

Believe me, much painting was done by my students.... 

Incredible painting!

 

I have two more workshops just like this one still to come in 2016 - one in September in Malibu, CA, and one in December in Eugene. Join me!