The Cellist - Part II

Study for The Cellist
oil painting work in progress - Take II

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to work with a cellist as my model. It was an amazing experience which you can read about here, but while the study from that session was very spontaneous and fresh, it was also very rough. Since the cellist was willing to sit for me again, I jumped at the chance to improve upon what I had already done. I've been learning in leaps and bounds during these sessions, pushing myself waaaaaay out of my comfort zone and really surprising myself with what I've been able to pull off. I'm also falling into some classic beginner portrait painting traps. I think stating "I don't paint humans" is a defense mechanism so I don't have to feel bad if the piece doesn't come out. For example, the proportions of the cellist's hand and arm are off compared to her face, but I can just shrug my shoulders and say, "Well, what did you expect? I don't paint humans." While this keeps me from beating myself up about any mistakes, I have to be careful: I'm starting to really like painting humans...

Can I Paint You?

Warm up sketches

Although I enjoy painting and drawing people occasionally, I don't think of myself as a portrait or figure painter. I tend to do it as an exercise, but the more I've been attending live model sessions, the more I've been noticing people in general; the way the light shines across someone's face, or a particularly interesting-looking person in a crowd. A few times I've seen someone who I desperately wanted to paint, but had no idea how to go up to a perfect stranger and ask, "Can I paint you?”. Er, awkward! 


Even though we live in a smaller city in a rural area, we do have a surprisingly good symphony orchestra. At a concert last year I noticed how one of the cello players and her instrument had a perfect combination of lighting, colors and form. Every concert we attended after that, I'd sit there and try to figure out how in the world I could get a chance to paint her. "Just go up and ask her after the concert." my husband would say. Uh yeah, right.

Finally this past November, after a particularly wonderful concert, I figured what have I got to lose? So at the end of the performance while the musicians were packing up their instruments, I pushed my way through the exiting crowd to the base of the stage. I managed to get the cellist's attention and introduced myself, complimented her on that evening's performance, and explained that I was an artist and I wanted to paint her playing the cello. I handed her my business card and told her to check out my website, think about it, and if she was interested, to email me. She didn’t back away from me or call security, so that was a relief, but I was surprised when she sent me an email two days later. She was interested!

Our schedules finally coincided last Saturday and we met at our local art center. This was the first time I’d ever arranged a model for myself, and her first time posing. In a lot of ways this felt like a first date back in high school, with all the awkwardness and worry. I was nervous about what she would think of my art. What if I accidentally offended her with poor painting skills or a less-than-complimentary likeness? I also wanted to make sure she had a positive experience. I knew that holding a pose is hard work and since she was new and volunteering to do this for me, I didn’t want to ask too much so I just told her to practice and I’d work while she played.

We both warmed up with some exercises; me sketching and her tuning up and playing scales, and then we both launched into our respective art forms. I’ve had music on while I’ve painted before, but having someone play live while you are working adds a whole different dimension to the experience. I picked up on the energy of the music and the musician’s movements. I found that I wasn’t thinking - just reacting with my paint. My brushstrokes were much looser than usual. It really was an incredible feeling. It was challenging to paint someone who was constantly in motion, but in hindsight, I think it would have felt very stale if she had held a pose, pretending to play.

Study of Cellist - WIP
16x20 inches, oil on canvas

Fresh snow was beginning to pile up outside, so we ended the session a half hour early. My mental energy was starting to lag anyway, after such an intense bout of painting. I asked her to get in touch with me sometime if she was ever interested in modeling again. Much to my surprise, she texted me later that evening and said she would like to! I am definitely looking forward to the next session.

Technical notes: A week after I first approached the cello player at the concert, I saw this article online about asking strangers to model for you. It would’ve been helpful to me to read beforehand, but it also felt good to know I’d navigated the process on my own. I’m sure that not everyone I ask is going to have a positive reaction to me wanting to paint them, but this was certainly a good first experience. 

If you are painting someone's likeness, don't forget to consider if you should use a model release contract. Here are a couple of articles on the topic: here and here

During the painting session I used a Thomas Sully palette that I was introduced to during a figure painting class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Ted Xaras in 2014.

Options for Painting Lights and Darks

In my oil painting class for beginners, we've started to delve into color after working in black and white for a while. This week I did a painting demo for them showing two different ways to lighten and darken an object, in this case an apple, so they could compare the two methods side-by-side.

Apple 1

The first method I showed them was using white to lighten and black to darken the paint. I used titanium white, but I did mix my own black rather then using a tube black. I think the difference between the dark areas of the two paintings would have been more striking if I'd used black from a tube (full disclosure here: I forgot to bring a tube of black). It's been a long time since I used white as my predominant lightener and it felt awkward. I had to really concentrate and fight my now-automatic color choices!

Apple 2

In the second painting I used yellow and orange to lighten the apple and only added white when absolutely necessary. For the dark areas, I used purple and blue. I had planned to use a more white-looking tabletop color, but I accidentally put a streak of that rusty peach color down and we all loved it, so I kept going with it.

While comparing the two paintings side-by-side, the students commented on how much more vibrant Apple 2 was, and they noticed that in Apple 1 the white mixed with alizarin crimson created a pink tone, rather than a sense of light striking the apple. As they were leaving class pondering all these color choices, one student half-jokingly said, "Can't we just go back to black and white? It's so much easier!"

Varnishing

Before applying varnish

I have been a rather haphazard varnisher; some paintings I remember to varnish and others get forgotten. I used to use Crystal Clear spray varnish, but with mixed results. For one thing, we live in a perpetually windy and dusty area, so using spray varnish outside could be a nightmare. I also found it challenging to get an even coat. After reading about Mitchell Albala's experience with Gamvar varnish, I decided to try some myself. In my mind, there are two main advantages to this varnish: you apply it with a brush, which makes it much easier to control that spray varnish, and you can apply it as soon as the thickest part of your painting is dry to the touch. For oil painters, this is a huge time savings.

After applying varnish

So I decided to document my first experiment with Gamvar*. In his aforementioned blog post on the subject, Mitchell Albala stressed how important it was to use as little varnish as possible and apply it with a soft brush in a scrubbing motion (have a special brush for this purpose - don't use one of your good painting brushes!). I closely followed his instructions and found the varnish quite easy to apply. I didn't have any problem with streaks, either. 

One thing I did note is that in the past when I've applies varnishes, the varnish tended to bring out the darks and liven up the painting in general. However, I didn't see much of a difference in the appearance of my painting after applying this varnish.

Detail - can you see any difference in appearance?

But regardless of whether the varnish heightens darks and brightens colors (sounds like a laundry detergent...) in your paintings or not, varnishing also plays an important role in protecting your artwork. Over time dirt can build up on the surface of a painting and cleaning it can harm the painting. If you have a layer of varnish, the dirt attaches to the varnish and the old varnish can be removed and a new clean layer of varnish applied with no harm to the painting underneath. Here's a discussion about varnishing from Scott Gellatly when he was a guest blogger on Lori Putnam's blog. And if you're a painter and you don't know about Lori Putnam's blog, you best go check it out right now! 

Meanwhile, I think I'll become a more regular varnisher, since using the Gamvar was very easy.

*This is not a commercial for Gamvar and I did not receive any compensation from Gamblin.

Pear #26 - 29: Lots More Experimenting

"A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all."
                                                                                            ~ Rita May Brown

Pear #26

As I type, there's a severe thunderstorm giving a final lashing to our area before it moves on. I fully expected the power to go out tonight, leaving me to paint Pear #30 by candlelight. Thankfully that didn't happen and my last painting for the month is finished and waiting for daylight so I can photograph it and post my final 30 Pears in 30 Days on Tuesday. It's no beauty, but it's DONE.

I apologize for the less-than-perfect photos of Pear 26 - 29. It's been gloomy out for a few days now, so I've been completely dependent on indoor lighting for photos. Even with color-corrected bulbs to augment the regular room lighting, my camera has not been happy.

Pear #27

This one, however, is not the camera's fault. I don't even know what to say. What happened???

Pear #28

Experimenting with temperature shifts across the folds of the cloth. This is one of those pieces that I absolutely love parts of and can't stand other parts.

Pear #29

I had a lot of fun with this one. I added naphthol red to my palette, which mixed with cadmium yellow light to make the delicious orange in the foreground. If you look carefully, I've got the full spectrum (good ol' Roy G Biv) represented here.

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Pear #21 - 25: More Exercises and a Whole Different Palette

Pear #25
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

I have to admit to feeling a little pressure right now. The end of October is fast approaching and I lost a few days for painting this month when Life happened, so I'm running slightly behind. Although I profess to believe in the importance of sharing both good and bad efforts to show that artists don't create perfect paintings every time, I am sweating the quality of some of these pieces. That's why Pear 21 through 24 are not displayed at the top of this post...

However, I suspect that Pear 21 through 24 directly led to Pear 25, and not just numerically. I tried another exercise from Sarah Sedwick; this one on brushstroke economy. I painted my pear model 4 times, for 10 minutes each time. However, I was only allowed 25 brushstrokes in the first painting, then 20, 15, and finally just 10 brushstrokes in the last painting. (A brushstroke is from the time you touch the canvas with the brush to the time you take the brush off, so you can swirl the paint around a lot, as long as you don't lift the brush off the canvas.) Finishing the background was not a requirement. The point is to really think and observe, and consider each brushstroke very carefully. What do you really need to create the impression of your subject?

Pear # 21 - 24
Limited brushstroke exercise

Oh dear, I didn't do very well with this one. I often used up my brushstrokes long before the timer went off, which meant I was rushing and not concentrating on my subject. I came out of the exercise not only with some very ugly pears, but also knowing I hadn't gotten the point of it. I was feeling very frustrated with myself. I knew I needed to keep going and paint another painting, but my brain was refusing to cooperate. I looked down at my palette and felt an overwhelming sense of frustration and boredom, and I was very reluctant to pick up my paintbrushes.

As I was hesitating, I had a mini-temper tantrum inside my head. I berated myself for ever committing to this Pear Project, telling myself I was going to fail and embarrass myself, and that I was never going to be able to paint another decent painting ever again. Luckily another, louder part of me stepped in and decided that if I was going to fail, then I should just have some f*****g fun. I was sick of the palette I'd been using all month, sick of trying to get the values and shapes right: I just wanted to paint. So I cleared off my palette and grabbed the colors that appealed to me at that moment: yellow ochre, Indian red, Venetian red, burnt umber and raw umber (I couldn't find my siennas, otherwise I would've included them, too.). I made a very sketchy drawing of the pears on the canvas and then just started adding paint all around them. It was all very spontaneous, and when I was done it surprised the heck out of me that I discovered I actually liked the piece.

This was exactly why I took on this project in the first place - to see what would happen when I pushed myself, when I got bored, to find out if there was some way to tap into the more expressive side of my creativity. I just hope that I don't have to go through such angst every time I want to paint like that!

Pear #19 & 20 - Color Scheme Shifts

Pear #19 - Experimenting with reflections

I seem to be unconsciously shifting towards more earth tones and darker colors. Perhaps it's all the brown leaves drifting down past my window, or perhaps it's that Halloween is in the air...

Pear #20 - using up what was on my palette

Pear #15 - 18

"I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing,
if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it -
keep going, keep going come what may.
                                                                                                ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Pear #15
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

I have long admired other artist's rendering of cloth, especially if the fabric has a pattern on it. Oh, those tantalizing polka dots, plaids, or stripes! My hope during this month was to experiment enough with painting fabric that I would achieve a decent ability to reproduce it. When I completed this painting, I did a little happy dance in front of my easel.

My palette
Mmmm, love all those luscious greens

I should note that I added cadmium yellow light alongside my usual azo yellow in my primary color line-up this time.

I also did a couple of demos for my beginning oil painting students: 

Pears #16 and 17 - each done in 10 minutes.

One was Carol Marine's classic 10 Minute Apple exercise - only obviously I did it with pears.

Pear #18 - study in blue and orange

The other demo was to paint using only complimentary colors - this time blue and orange. This was also a good example of "do what I say, not what I do" as I overworked this one!

I can't believe it's October 26th already! This 30 Pears project has been great, but I'm going to have to start cramming my posts with paintings if I'm going to show you all 30 pieces by the end of the month!

The Rejects

 "To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been."
                                                                                                   ~ Chester Barnard

The duds. Let's call them Pear #12, 13 and 14

The problem with painting is that it doesn't always go well. Many paintings, for whatever reason, miss the mark and end up in an artist's reject pile. Even the great Masters painted over unwanted pieces, which modern science is now allowing us to see. (If those artists knew we were exposing their abandoned works, I wonder how they'd feel...) This should give us artists some comfort, but I will admit it is small comfort to me. As many times as I tell my students "Every painting is just practice for the next.", my failed paintings eat away at me. I was not even going to show you the "bad" paintings from my 30 Pears in 30 Days project, but if I didn't then I'd just be perpetuating the belief that a "real" artist has talent that magically makes every painting perfect, which I firmly believe is a myth that needs to be dispelled. So many people give up on making art because their work is not perfect.

My mother subscribed to this belief, which is why she did not support me as a developing artist. I stopped showing her my work after a while. Many years later she happened to see some of my work through a family friend and was shocked at how far I'd come. Yet this still didn't dispel her belief in the myth. A few years later she decided she wanted to learn how to draw, so she enrolled in an evening class for beginning drawers. She quit after two classes because, in her words, the instructor hadn't taught her how to draw.

There is no magic formula to making art - just hard work and study. Art, just like any other skill, takes practice. Lots of it. Years and years of it. And even when you've reached a certain level of mastery, there will still be bad paintings, bad days when you wonder why you're even bothering, months when you wonder if you'll ever be "good enough". Too much self-doubt can lead to giving up, but in moderation, that doubt is a good thing. Perhaps without that doubt, we wouldn't push ourselves to keep getting better. If we thought our work was already perfect, we might not be motivated to keep improving. As the Robert Hughes quote goes: "The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."

Pear #10 - More Color Experimenting

"Colouring does not depend on where the colours are put, but on where
the lights and darks are put..."
                                                                                        ~ William Blake

Pears in yellow and purple
6 x 6 inches - oil on canvas board

As I said at the beginning of this month-long project, my intention for painting 30 pear paintings was to allow me to explore some key artistic concepts without always having to come up with new subject matter. For this painting, I wanted to work on breaking my dependency on the color white. When we lighten colors simply by adding white, we dull the color and often the painting comes out looking chalky and not as vibrant as we might like. For this painting, I used only yellow and purple; purple replaced black and yellow replaced white on my palette. I found it interesting that my color mixes ended up being much more green than I had expected; my purple mix must have leaned more towards blue.

My palette with my usual colors at the top, and
the yellow and purple palette in a 8 step value scale below.

Artist Sarah Sedwick has a YouTube demo that she filmed for her online mentorship students, showing her working with a purple/yellow complimentary chromatic scale. In her demo, she's working with a still life set-up that is entirely white. I have yet to find a white pear, so I tried the exercise with a white & green tea towel on a white tabletop with my yellow-green pears. My yellow/purple combination certainly didn't make the most attractive shades of color, but I enjoyed the exercise and, as a bonus, gained more practice rendering cloth.

Painting converted to grayscale.

Pear #9 - Changing Up The Color

"He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign
of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity,
if not a decadence of morals."
                                                                                           ~ Oscar Wilde

Pear #9
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

I love the intense reds and oranges I've been using lately, but with a wall full of these color schemes, I felt it was time to change up the colors.

I also set a timer so I wouldn't overwork this piece. I ended up finishing before the timer went off, which was very surprising. It made me wonder if my timer was broken, but when I took a peek it turned out I had ten minutes left! I'm really quite please with this one.

But nothing's ever that easy. A few hours later I accidentally bumped into my easel and this poor painting fell off, smearing some sections including the left side of the pear and the right side of the plate! Luckily I hadn't cleaned my palette yet, so I had leftover paint to patch this piece's injuries. How nerve-wracking to fix a painting you originally liked, holding your breath and hoping you can restore it instead of ruining it beyond repair. Somehow I managed. You can see the blotchy shine along the upper edge of the canvas where I tried my best to fix some other smears. Once I varnish this piece those areas will disappear, but I'll always remember what happened. 

Pear #5

Pear #5
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

This is my favorite pear painting so far. Everything just kind of came together. I love the bold colors, the way the pear is rendered, the composition. But of course this makes the next painting more difficult. The pressure's on to see if I can top this one, or at least equal it. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Pear 4

Pear 4
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas panel

I decided to go a little more bold and a little more complex this round. I will admit to being petrified as I painted the pattern on the blue china pot. It seems silly to have been so nervous about it since I planned to keep the pattern fairly abstract, but I had to keep reminding myself to breath.

Pear 2 & 3

Pear #2
6x6 inches, oil on canvas paper

Time is flying - only 27 more pear paintings to go in the 30 Pears in 30 Days project! 

I'm not sure why I decided to include a plate in this one, since ellipses are tricky to get right. Nothing like an added bit of pressure, second painting in. Luckily it didn't turn out half bad.

Pear #3
6x6 inches, oil on canvas paper 

I used a limited palette of blue-violet and yellow-orange for Pear #3. Mixing the two together in equal parts gives a nice neutral which I used for the pear stem and the surface the pear sits on, adding a touch more yellow-orange for the warm well-lit part and adding a little more blue-violet for the shadow part. The pear itself is a mix of the two colors, but with enough extra blue-violet to appear greenish, and then enough yellow-orange to appear yellowish in the highlighted areas. The specific colors really don't matter that much, though. As long as the values of the colors are correct, the pear will appear 3 dimensional and pear-like no matter what colors I choose. I could've painted this whole scene in lavender and it would still read "pear". Hmm, that gives me an idea..

Pear #1 - The Diva

Pear #1 - The Diva 
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas paper

It’s October 1st, and that means the beginning of the 30 Pears in 30 Days project! And here it is, the first of 30 pear paintings. A value study in black & white. The whole time I was painting this, I was thinking about the pear being a diva in the spotlight. I wonder what she was singing. 

I love the stem on this pear. So long and expressive - almost like a cat’s tail. While I was doing warm-up sketches this past week in preparation for starting the daily pear paintings project, I realized I can’t get too attached to any one pear because they don’t hold up forever, especially under my studio lights. I have to remind myself there will be other divas.

Welcome to My New Blog and a Project Announcement

New blogs can feel momentous, overwhelming, and trying to write the perfect first post can easily lead to procrastination and writer's block, so in order to side-step that trap, I'm going to jump right into my new blog home. Please excuse any unpacked boxes. The furniture may not be exactly where it's going to end up, but it's a start.

Announcing the 30 Pears in 30 Days project.

My pear model, getting ready

You may be familiar with Leslie Saeta's Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days Challenge, where artists from all over the world create and post their work each day for a month. Nothing improves your artistic skill like doing something every day. A group challenge of this nature gives the participants the advantage of having other people for support, for sharing and inspiration, and for accountability. However, because, as my husband often reminds me, I like doing things the hard way, I'm doing this on my own. I will be creating a small painting of a pear every day from October 1 - October 30 and posting the results on this blog. Unfortunately National Pear Month is in December (Yes, I looked it up...), but, as my husband also reminds me, I am impatient, so I'm doing this now.

The purpose of this project is not just as a gimmick to get you to come to my new blog regularly, or to make me feel really productive, but also to see if limiting the subject matter will help me to hone my painting skills and allow for greater creativity. I often think of the process of painting like juggling plates on sticks. There are so many different choices you have to make in a single painting: composition, value, color, subject matter, to name just a few, and each of their subcategories. To have a successful painting you ideally keep all of those plates spinning at the same time. I'm guessing that if you took away one or two plates by arbitrarily setting some parameters, you could concentrate better on the other plates and end up with a more successful painting, as well as really getting comfortable with some key artistic concepts. So that's the plan, and at the end of October we'll see if my theory held up, so stay tuned...