Painting at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey

I spent the day painting at Fisherman’s Wharf. I’ve painted here before, including the wharf. The boats aren’t something that really appeals to me. So, this time I painted a different direction, south. I started the painting, having most of the painting done except the decoration, the final strokes. I went to lunch with Kathryn Stats, Kate Starling and Marcia Bailey. Then came back to finish those final strokes.

 

Monterey    oil on canvas panel  8″x10″

I finished up and started walking back to the car. I intended to go somewhere to paint my 5×7’s. Instead I saw Deb Groesser and Eric Rhoades painting two homeless people. That looked too exciting to pass up. I joined the growing group. I intended to paint both the man and the woman, but by the time I started painting her, they were getting tired of their modeling job. She kept turning away and getting up, etc. Anything, but sit still. So, I gave up on her and have a painting of the man. It was a quick study, but I think I got the essence. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

Posted on June 4, 2018
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Organic and Synthetic Colors

Maximize Your Plein Air Painting Time 

I wasn’t sure what to title this blog post, but I guess “little oil sketches” fits. These are some quick plein air paintings to make the best use of small increments of time.

I have returned from a painting trip to Idaho, Alaska and Oregon. The Idaho trip was a workshop, so more about that in another post. This one is about the trip to Alaska. I was teaching on a cruise through the inside passage. It wasn’t with the cruise ship itself. It was a group of artists organized by the Painted Ladies. Larry Seiler and I were both teaching on the cruise. Anyway, we painted for our entertainment instead of going to the art auction, dancing, movies, etc.

When you paint on a cruise in the inside passage and the ship is turning and moving, there isn’t a lot of time to paint. So, as I took photos I painted small vignettes. My main focus was to try and get the essential information that I could use in a painting using photos. This was all painted in the Inside Passage. The information I have here is much more valuable that one completed painting.More About Gamblin’s Radiant Colors

In my last post, I showed some examples of Gamblin’s Radiant Colors that I have used in my paintings. I got an email asking why I used them and could the colors be mixed. So, I thought I would answer that here for you. The colors are more convenience than anything. Most of the colors are made from synthetic pure pigments, which when white is added to the colors, gives you brighter, richer colors than organic pigments. This is a general rule – when white is added, synthetics are brighter than organics. The mixtures of the Radiant colors that I use.

  • Radiant Blue is Ultramarine Blue and TitaniumWhite
  • My two favs are Radiant Turquoise which is Pthalocyanine Blue and Radiant Violet which is Dioxazene Purple, which I use a lot. But I find this is mixed to just the right value for me. But I do mix darker values with the Dioxazene Purple when mixing darker mixtures.
  • Radiant Red is Perylene Red which is again a synthetic and stays vibrant when mixed with white.
  • Radiant Yellow is Indian Yellow another synthetic which mixes well with Titanium White.So now you know, the colors can be mixed. For several months, I’ve been gravitating to more synthetic colors which gives me brighter colors. I can always gray the colors, but I can only make them as bright as they are out of the tube. The organics tend to gray more when mixed with white.

         

I labeled the paint colors above. The Cadmium Red Light and the Cadmium Yellow Medium are both organic pigments. The Perylene Red and the Indian Yellow are both synthetic pigments.

It may be hard to see online the differences, but you can see more paint with the synthetic pigments. That is because to lighten the color as much as the Cadmiums I had to add more Titanium White to the mixture.

Both Perylene Red and Indian Yellow have a very strong tinting power. A lot of white can be added to them and they still keep their color without losing vibrancy or turning gray.

The Radiant Colors are mixed to a number 7 on the value scale. Although, I find the Radiant Red appears to be slightly darker than the others, but maybe that’s just me. When I’m painting skies,

I use the Radiants right out of the tube, except the lower part of the sky which is lighter. In those places I add more white to the mixture.I hope this better clarifies how and why I use the Radiant Colors.

For more information about Gamblin’s Radiant Colors, click here.

Happy Painting! Becky

 

Posted on June 4, 2018
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A Month of Workshops is Over

A full class of 16 in Mississippi at Dot Courson’s

From home in Arizona, I first traveled to Fredericksburg, Texas for a plein air workshop which was organized by The Good Art Company which is the gallery that represents me in Fredericksburg. A week before I left for the workshops we decided to have a “studio sale” at the school while I was in town for the workshop. Some paintings sold online before the actual “opening”. It worked out well enough that I think we may try it again next year.

After a few days of visiting my son and his family, I headed out to Dahlonega, GA for another workshop. This was my first trip to Georgia and I think I hit the perfect weekend for fall color. It was wonderful. Below are two of the paintings from the trip. The featured painting was a demo and the two below were painted after the workshop while exploring more of the area.

Second Floor Storage    11″ x 14″    oil

The next workshop was the one in Pontotoc, Mississippi. I had such a great time visiting my friend Dot Courson. We met a few years ago at a plein air event in Gadsden, AL and have kept up our friendship with phone calls. It was so good to spend some time at their house.

Dot and her husband did a fabulous job of organizing the workshop. At each workshop, I gave a copy of my book Create Beautiful Paintings Using Foundational Concepts to each of the students. My workshops follow much of the book and makes it easier for each student to follow the information that I give them and to add to the book. Each of the three days I painted a new demo with something entirely different to teach the students.

Now, I’m back in Austin, Texas visiting my son and his family for a few days before heading home to Arizona. It has been exhausting, fulfilling, and exciting. I met lots of facebook friends, some old friends and lots of new students. Thank you to all of your for an enjoyable and successful trip.

Posted on June 4, 2018
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Garapata plein air oil paintings

SOLD Garapata Strength   5″ x 7″ oil on canvas panel

I tried to take some photos of work in progress, but like usual I missed a few steps. For this painting I used a cotton canvas for the support, not my favorite. I used some of Gamblin’s solvent free get to help move the paint when I first layed in the paint. It helped to spread over the rougher canvas weave. The second painting was a small barn with a patch of wild mustard.

Wild Mustard  5″x7″ oil on canvas panel

On to a new location tomorrow. I will be staying and painting with a friend in Redwood City, CA for a couple of days. Talk to you all later. Becky

Posted on June 4, 2018
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101 Inspirational Art Quotes

Brighten You Day with Inspirational Art Quotes

  1. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle2
  2. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher1
  3. “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri 
  4. “Like emotions, colours are a reflection of life.” – Janice Glennaway
  5. “Painting is by nature a luminous language.” – Robert Delaunay
  6. “If you could say it in words, there’d be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper
  7. “Design is like gravity – the force that holds it all together.” – E A Whitney
  8. “When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting.” – Fernando Botero
  9. “How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.” – Leonado da Vinci 1452 – 1519
  10. “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary” – Pablo Picasso
  11. “As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.” – Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  12. “Life is like a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can”.– unknown
  13. “A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.” – Paul Gardner
  14. “Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.”  – Aristotle
  15. “Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” – G. K. Chesterton
  16. ‘”Without art the view of the world would be incomplete.” – Conrad Fiedler
  17. “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – unknown
  18. “No amount of skilful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.” – Edward Hopper
  19. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher
  20. “Art is a language that can transcend words. It can convey some of the non-verbal consciousness of the artist to the viewer.” – Ron Gang
  21. “My art is what I do and how I live. I paint the things around me, the things I know and feel comfortable with.” – Dion Archibald
  22. “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.” –  Salvador Dali
  23. “The artist never entirely knows — We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark” –Agnes de Mille
  24. “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” – John W. Gardner 
  25. Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso
  26. “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” – Émile Zola
  27. “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” – Vincent van Gogh
  28. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
  29. “Do whatever you do intensely.” – Robert Henri.
  30. “To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have.” – David Bayles, Ted Orland –Art and Fear, 1993
  31. “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri 
  32. “I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Auguste Rodin 
  33. “True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.” – Albert Einstein
  34. “A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.” – Oscar Wilde
  35. “The earth has music for those who listen.”  – William Shakespeare
  36. “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” – Charles Horton Cooley
  37. “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” – Walt Whitman
  38. “What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” – John Updike
  39. “The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.” – Novalis
  40. “I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.” – Henri Matisse
  41. “The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” – Jerzy Kosinski
  42. “To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there’s no such thing as perfect.” – Alexander Calder
  43. “Artists don’t make objects. Artists make mythologies.” – Anish Kapoor
  44. “My love of fine art increased – the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see.” – Paul Getty
  45. “I think about my work every minute of the day.” – Jeff Koons
  46. “Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.” – Arthur Erickson
  47. “When I make art, I think about its ability to connect with others, to bring them into the process.” – Jim Hodges
  48. “Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  49. “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” – Paul Cezanne
  50. “Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.” – Paul Klee
  51. Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso
  52. “Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.” – Mason Cooley
  53. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas
  54. “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” – Pablo Picasso
  55. “People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love.” – Claude Monet
  56. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” – Leo Tolstoy
  57. “Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.” – Harvey Fierstein
  58. “The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.” – Paul Cezanne
  59. “Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.” – Edward Hopper
  60. “Life is short, the art long.” – Hippocrates
  61. “Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can’t articulate.” – Mos Def
  62. “One’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes.” – Andrew Wyeth
  63. “Discipline in art is a fundamental struggle to understand oneself, as much as to understand what one is drawing.” – Henry Moore
  64. “Fine art is knowledge made visible.” – Gustave Courbet
  65. “Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.” – Elbert Hubbard
  66. “Art is a harmony parallel with nature.” – Paul Cezanne
  67. “Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.: – Margot Fonteyn
  68. “All I tell artists is, ‘Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you’re chasing your tail that way. It’s not going to happen, and if you’re successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.” – Gloria Estefan
  69. “Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.” – Franz Marc
  70. “Art is the objectification of feeling.” – Herman Melville
  71. “Art is an investigation.” – Twyla Tharp
  72. “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” Oscar Wilde 
  73. “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.”Stella Adler 
  74. “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” Vincent Van Gogh 
  75. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Henry David Thoreau 
  76. “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Pablo Picasso 
  77. “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” – Vincent Van Gogh
  78. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Scott Adams 
  79. “The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.”  – Pierre-Auguste Renoir
  80. “Art is the process of relationship. Through art we create and share ourselves.” –  Destiny Allison
  81. “The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re present in the current moment; when you’re resonating with the excitement of this thing that you’re experiencing; when you are fully alive.” – Ken Robinson
  82. “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts — such is the duty of the artist.” – Schumann
  83. “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” – Edgar Degas
  84. “Anyone who says you can’t see a thought simply doesn’t know art.” – Wynetka Ann Reynolds
  85. “What art offers is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit.” – John Updike
  86. “One of the best things about paintings is their silence — which prompts reflection and random reverie.” – Mark Stevens
  87. “Art is not a thing; it is a way.” – Elbert Hubbard
  88. “The true painter strives to paint what can only be seen through his world.” – André Malraux
  89. “Art is the struggle to understand.” – Terri Guillemets
  90. “For the mystic what is how. For the craftsman how is what. For the artist what and how are one.” – William McElcheran
  91. “While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality… true art lies in a reality that is felt.” – Odilon Redon
  92. “Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.” – Terri Guillemets
  93. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle
  94. “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” – Michelangelo
  95. “Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” – John Ruskin
  96. ” Art is a jealous mistress.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson“
  97. “There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art; and no surer way of uniting with it than by Art.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
  98. “That art is best which suggests most” – Austin O’Malley
  99. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” – Pablo Picasso
  100. “No masterpiece was created by a lazy artist.” – Salvador Dali
  101. “Have no fear of perfection.” – Salvador Dali
Posted on June 3, 2018
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What Does Your “War Chest” of Studio Art Supplies Look Like?

I thought I would give you a peak into my “dirty little secrets”. I buy too many art supplies. I guess I think I’m going to live and paint for many, many years. (I know I will) At any rate, I won’t have to buy much when the day comes that I don’t have the money to buy as many supplies. But then, if I didn’t buy so much I would have more money. Hmmm…. now that’s a novel thought

The things that I always have extra of are paint and brushes. You know, you never want to caught with a brush that is splayed or that last tube of ultramarine. Actually, that happened to me recently. With all the paint I have, I ran out of ultramarine. Can you believe it?

Now, if we get down to it, I have too many tripods, pochade boxes and panels. But then, someone might need to borrow one. I’ve actually had students I lent some to in classes.

Whoa! I gotta stop  stashing things into my “war chest”. What does yours look like? Becky PS, Maybe I’ll go through my brushes and throw some out and pull out some new ones. After all, the plein air convention is coming up I can always get some more.

Posted on June 3, 2018
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How to Paint Looser and Juicier

I receive emails from artists telling me they want to learn to paint looser and with more paint. We all start painting tight, detailed paintings, painting what we see. I thought would make a list of things to help you move in that direction.

  • First squint, paint only what you see when you squint, blocking out detail
  • Use a large brush. I regularly use a #12 or #10 on a 6×6″ painting. The larger the painting, the larger the brush.
  • Don’t end up with a small brush. Use the big one right up to the end. Use a side or the tip of the brush in different ways for different strokes.
  • Mix lots of paint. I will often paint thin in the color and value that I want, then mix more paint and pile the paint on.
  • Use strokes to define shape and movement, paint the contours of things.
  • To lay paint on the canvas, load the brush. Then hold the brush so that it is parallel with the canvas like a palette knife rather than perpendicular to the canvas. This will create a bolder stroke.
  • Don’t use thick paint all over the canvas. Keep it thin in the darker areas and build up with thicker paint.
  • Use more paint in the foreground, keeping it thinner in the background.
  • When you lay a nice thick, juicy stroke down, leave it alone.
  • Use larger brushstrokes in the foreground, smaller in the background.
  • Keep detail only in the focal point, that will bring your attention right to it.
  • Learn to leave the painting alone before you get too many details.
  • Lose some edges, make them soft. Take the brush and swish through an edge.
  • Keep working on it. The more you paint, the more confident you will become with your strokes.

And most important of all, have fun with the paint. Use it!

Posted on June 3, 2018
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variety of value studies

Practice Value Studies

Making Value Studies

In a recent workshop, one of the students asked me what would be most beneficial for her to go home with and practice. I told her that she should do value studies. So, I thought I would post here what I have done in the past and still continue to do. 

I have a sketch book that has several pages of values studies using 4 values, including black and white. I use small bottle of craft paint costing about $1 each from the local craft store. It is easy to pick two grays evenly spaced between the white and black. Also buy a bottle of black. You can forego the white and use the white of the paper as your white or you may want the bottle of white to rework the composition as I do.

I’ve posted several of the sketches that I’ve done in my book. These were all done using my photos and sitting down at the dining room table. When I’m painting on location, I will sometimes paint a value study (I should really do it every time. That’s a much better habit to get into.) You can work out your design in values before you get into color. In the case of doing it on location, I will make a small pencil or marker sketch or mix a little bit of oils up.

improve your paintings with value studies

variety of value studies

You can see by these sketches that some ideas have been abandoned, others changed and some more successful than others. The more successful ones where painted into larger color versions.

The value studies are the backbones of your paintings. The value study will be the “pattern” or “blueprints” of your painting.

Use some of your photos or go through art magazines and make value studies of paintings that you believe have a good composition. Most likely you will see strong values patterns that hold together.

Start painting, have fun and learn!

Posted on June 3, 2018
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Color Temperature is Relative

The concept of color temperature can be confusing. The first thing to know about it is that color temperatures are relative. Looking at a color wheel, it’s easy to see the warm colors, red, yellow and orange. While the cool side consists of violet, blue and green.

In paint it isn’t quite so clear cut, so we must compare. The hottest color on the color wheel is orange-red, the coolest is blue-green. If I start a painting with my warmest color, say an orange-red, then every other color that I put on the canvas is cooler. If I start with a blue-green (the coolest color), then every other color is warmer in relationship to that blue-green.

Just remember that every color has some warm and some cool pigments.  The more red or orange that is in a color, the warmer it is. Less red or orange, the cooler it is.  In the blue family, ultramarine has some red in it compared to cerulean blue which has no red in it. Thus, ultramarine is warmer than cerulean. Lay out all the blue paints that you have. I have a mauve blue. I would place that closer to the warm side. It has more red in it than ultramarine. Somewhere in the middle I would place cobalt blue. It is cooler than ultramarine, but warmer than blue-greens.

On the blue-green side I would place cerulean, prussian, turquoise cobalt, manganese. All of these have some yellow in them. Once I get more yellows in the blue-green paints, the color becomes warmer and is inching toward the warmer side of the color wheel. The featured painting is a warm painting over all with a cool color in the mountains, a violet color. In a different painting, that same violet could be called a warm color. It is all relative.

Posted on June 3, 2018
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The Differences Between Cast and Form Shadows

There are, quite simply, only two kinds of shadows..

A cast shadow is what we generally think of as shadow. It is when an object blocks the light and casts a shadow, such as a tree in the light and the shadow on the ground. The cast shadow is a darker shadow, because the light has been blocked. It is darkest where the shadow starts next to the object. The farther the shadow is from the object the softer and lighter the shadow becomes.

Form shadows and cast shadows. Form shadows are found on the opposite side of any lighted surface. Form shadows are lighter in value as a whole and softer than cast shadows. But they do vary.

Depending on the object size, shape, surface quality and distance from the source of the light, the point where light meets shadow will determine whether it is a soft or hard edge. A hard edge will occur on a cube while a soft edge occurs on a ball.

Thus, a shadow isn’t the same throughout. Remember to squint when you are painting shadows to see these differences more clearly.

Posted on June 3, 2018
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