Green Shadows and Zorn Palette Portraits

"Green Shadows"

10 x 10 inches, oil on panel

$400

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It's been awhile since I've painted my glass float collection, but I'm back in love! You can see a couple more new float paintings on Instagram.

Also - I'm really excited for my newest video workshop! It's being released tomorrow, August 5th, and I'm super proud of it. Are you interested in exploring the Zorn palette? (Or, as I like to call it, "training wheels for flesh tones?") Join me!

Watch the trailer here!

August Hydrangeas

"August Hydrangeas"

16 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

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The colors in these "white" hydrangeas are so subtle and varied - I saw a lot of greens reflecting from the ground and the leaves. And where there's green, there's usually purple! Lucky me, my favorite color combo. 

I've got a few more workshops in 2019 - the next one is portrait painting in Eugene, Oregon. It's going to be a small, intimate group (8 max) at one of my favorite local studios, Whiteaker Printmakers. We'll be using the Zorn palette. What is it and how does it work? Come find out! Three spots still open. Click here to view and share.

Thanks!  

Green Salsa - A One-Dollar Auction!

 "Green Salsa"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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I taught some GREAT workshops in May,  capped off with Memorial Day weekend at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, on the Oregon Coast, with a wonderful group of artists. 

Here was their value demo, in black and white, which later became this painting!

Oil Painting Boot Camp is turning out to be a really fun workshop - we use only three colors and white (artist's choice!), and do some of my favorite quick exercises - Twisted 20's, Stroke Economy - and of course, work from fun, colorful still lifes!

Beautiful studio, isn't it?

My next Oil Painting Boot Camp will be July 26-28th, at The Oklahoma Academy of Classical Art in Edmond, OK. Join me!

Grape Time - And A Private Workshop!

 "Grape Time"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

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I taught a private two-day workshop at my home studio this weekend, walking through my process from start to finish. Here's a look:

Thumbnail sketch on the right, 5-value study in the center, and the finished piece on the left.

My student's work, and a shot of her, painting away. It was a really nice weekend, thank you for painting with me, Valerie! 

Inner Circle

"Inner Circle"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Available through Tvedten Fine Art

A fun, colorful painting from my Still Life Open Studio earlier this week. Just reveling in thick, juicy paint, and the interplay of colors - like that turquoise reflection on the apple in the bowl. Yum!

Want to get inside my process for creating a painting like this - from still life setup to signature? Come join me for a workshop! (Locations from Seattle to Oklahoma to Nashville - check 'em out!) 

Lemon Geometry

 

 "Lemon Geometry"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

$250

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I spend a lot of time on still life setup - and as you see below, that enables me to really rely on perception as I'm painting. I like to call it "slavishly copying the world," with tongue firmly in cheek.

 

If you're interested in learning more about my techniques for still life setup - or just want to paint one of them - I've got two workshops coming up! One is March 24-25th, in Eugene, and the other is April 6-8, on Bainbridge Island, WA. There are a couple of spaces open in both - join me! :)

Teaching Figure Painting with Zorn

 

 "Kendra"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

Workshop Demonstration

Price on Request

I taught "Beginning Figure Painting" on my home turf this past weekend, at Whiteaker Printmakers in Eugene. It was an enthusiastic, talented group, and I thoroughly enjoyed painting with them!  

Can you spot me in this picture?

 

We started out with gesture drawings, mixed flesh tones using the Zorn palette, and they painted these lovely pieces - all in two days!

 Here's my color chart, and two little demos - same pose, different lighting, four values.

If you're interested in trying this limited palette technique, I've got two portrait workshops coming up - one this weekend, November 11-12 at Sequioa Gallery + Studios in the Portland, OR area (spaces are still available), and the other in Eugene, at Oregon Art Supply, January 6-7. 

Live models, and lots of painting! Click the links for details.

Emerald Orb - and Workshop Announcements!

"Emerald Orb"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

Available via Brackenwood Gallery, click to inquire

My strange little offering from Still Life Open Studio last week. It's always such an adventure - I never know what I will come home with, even though I bring all the objects and set up the still life! 

This painting may be strange, but I love it. It just lingers in my eye.

I want to give you all a last-minute heads up about two still life workshops I'll be teaching soon - one in Park City, Utah later this month, and the other in Oklahoma City in October.  Spaces are still available in both, and I'd love to have you join me!

"Tangerines on Turquoise"....and Tons of Teaching!

 

 "Tangerines on Turquoise"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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July was a whirlwind month, busy and full. This painting was a demo I did for students in Portland, over a two-day period. Here's my palette - heavy on the red-oranges. I really wanted to emphasize the red glow that reflects back and forth when oranges cuddle up together, and those saturated contrasting colors on the oranges and the plate.

 

...And this, believe it or not, is some of the student work from that class! What a talented bunch - not beginners. They did great. 

Teaching the Figure in OKC

 "Adrian in April"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

$400

Email me to purchase

I just returned from a fantastic workshop at The Conservatory for Classical Art in Oklahoma City. We were doing alla prima figure painting - three days of live models, plenty of paint mixing, and value studies. It all resulted in some gorgeous work by my students!

I'm always so impressed with the drawing skills and dedication shown by the students at the CCA, across a wide range of ages and backgrounds.  

What a great group! I'm already looking forward to my next visit, "Painting the Dynamic Still Life," in October. 

 

And if you're interested in painting the figure with me in Oregon, I have a workshop coming up in June. Email me for details on that!

Figure Painting Workshop Announcement!

 "In the Gray"

16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas

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I'm taking a break from my slew of Playa residency blog posts to let you all know about a master class workshop I'll be teaching next month at the Conservatory for Classical Art in Edmond, Oklahoma.

It's called "The Alla Prima Figure." Three days of painting from live models, demos, and lots of talk about mixing gorgeous flesh tones. There are several spaces still available, so if you - or someone you know - are in the Oklahoma City area, please consider joining us! 

More information, and online registration here.

 This will be my fourth visit to the CCA. I love the energy there, and am really looking forward to it! 

Here I am demonstrating for a class last year:

 ...And another limited palette figure painting - done in one sitting, about three hours. Alla prima! 

Pointed Persimmon and Public Painting Demo

 "Pointed Persimmon"

8 x 10 inches, oil on linen

$250

Click to buy

Lots of elements came together to make this painting! First, the persimmon: gifted to me by a friend who knows his trees (also, a little something about my persimmon obsession). It's a Hachiya persimmon, as opposed to the Fuyus I usually paint. Second, the fun patterned paper - a new addition to my still life stable which I already can't wait to paint again. And third - the luxurious Belgian linen canvas I painted it on, a sample sent to me by the generous owners of Masterpiece Canvas. It's from their Vincent Pro Muir series - a beautiful surface, and drum tight! 

The painting went through quite a few stages, and you'll notice it gathered more cranberries as time went on. They multiplied before my eyes!

If you'd like to watch a painting come together before your eyes, you can! This Friday, December 2nd, I'll be giving a figure painting demonstration at Whiteaker Printmakers, to introduce my workshop - also this weekend, and also with spaces still available. 

Come watch me paint this lovely model, Hannah. Young artists welcome - everyone in the room will be at least partially clothed. ;)   

Info and registration for the demo and the workshop here.

I Hear the "Click"

 

 "Red Reflection"

9 x 12 inches, oil on Arches oil paper

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If I paint until I'm 100, I'll never get tired of the little tricks light plays on the world. 

This painting exists because of that beautiful red streak bouncing onto the underside of the pomegranate from the silver dish. When I saw that, I heard the "click," that inner voice that says, "This still life is ready to be painted!"

Below is a quick color chart of my palette for this piece: Cadmium Red light and Alizarin Crimson, combined with Hansa yellow, Ultramarine blue, and a green mixed from the two. Then two rows of tints beneath. This chart was a demo for one of my private students, to show the possibilities of having  both a warm and a cool version of one of the primaries in a limited palette. 

 I'll be in the Portland, OR area this weekend, teaching "Color Mixing for Painters" at Sequoia Gallery + Studios - you can still sign up for that! More info, and online registration here. Can't attend a workshop? Check out my online art mentorship program.....

 

....And, as always - thanks for reading!

From Drawing to Painting

 "Squash Game"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

$500

Click to buy

Another painting, mining my maybe-excessive Hillsboro pumpkin patch lode.

I brought them all home from Still Life Open Studios and threw them on the studio table, where they were very conveniently waiting when it was time for my next daily sketch. As I was drawing, I began to see that there was a painting there, somewhere.

There are lots of reasons that artists draw - and there are plenty of artists for whom drawing is the main medium of creation. As a painter, there are several things that make drawing an integral part of my studio practice.

 For one thing, it keeps me in touch with my love of line. I'm always trying to paint more tonally, with fewer outlines, so junking out on lines and hatchmarks feels really good when I sketch. 

I've got a brand new workshop coming up October 29-30, here in Eugene called "From Sketchbook to Canvas: Drawing to Improve Your Painting." Despite that maybe-excessive title, it's going to be a simple class: we're going to draw, then we're going to paint. And we're all going to learn something about ourselves as artists, and our own unique artistic process. More info and online registration here!

Orbit: A new allaprima still life, plus workshop announcements!

 "Orbit"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
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Here's the progression for this one. On the left is a 3-value oil sketch, in which I resolved to keep my lightest lights in the foreground and on the left diagonal half of the composition. In the center is my underpainting, in a mixed up warm orange - you can use any colors you like for this stage as long as you don't add any white. 

 

For a lot more about my process, consider joining me for a workshop! I've got several coming up this fall, but my baby is the 3-day Dynamic Still Life class in Oklahoma City this October:

info and registration here!

If you're looking to try oil painting for the first time - or get a new perspective on a familiar medium - I offer a one-day Intro to Oils every month at Oregon Art Supply. September's is coming up, on Saturday the 10th. 

Info and Registration here!

More workshops, including two in the Portland, Oregon area, can be found in the right hand sidebar, or here. :)

The Artist's Vacation

 "Oranges on a Grey Plate"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Sold, workshop demo painting

 I just returned from a wonderful whirlwind week in the Midwest. I think it's safe to say I covered all my bases while I was there, too! I taught a workshop, had a gallery opening, visited my father in Cleveland, my sister in Chicago, hit two amazing art museums, and did plenty of other cool touristy stuff - since, after almost a decade in the Pacific Northwest, I am pretty much of a tourist in the land where I grew up.

It all started at BayArts, in Bay Village, Ohio - a pretty amazing place. Here's a panorama of my solo show, "The Color of Light." 

 

Next up was a workshop. BayArts has a fantastic classroom. You know the feeling a space gets when art is made there for years and years? Lots of that going on here!

It was a great group of students - enthusiastic and talented. Check out their paintings from day two!

Then I decompressed from all that artmaking with some hardcore art viewing. Modigliani at the Art Institute of Chicago:

I have lots of workshops coming up, including another round of the same workshop I just taught at BayArts, at home in Eugene. Spaces are still available for this Saturday and Sunday. Info and registration here. Join us!

Limited Palette Portrait Painting

 "Beth"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

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 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!