Gestures: Loosen Up!

Get out the Charcoal!

Materials: Soft Vine Charcoal and Newsprint or Drawing Pad (18 x 24)

My favorite, a fast loose gesture, 20 seconds!

 I recently took a Gesture class, in which we created gestures based on models frequently changing poses (10 seconds, 20 seconds, 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc.). Our instructor preferred our drawings “once we (the students) were tired" because thinking too much gets an artist in trouble. I ended up agreeing because I actually prefer my short 20-30 second gestures to the 2 minute or longer pose gestures!

The purpose of my gesture class was not to create a beautiful work of art, but to get the motion, the movement of the body. Of the hundreds of Gestures I produced in the class (exhaustion), these are a few sample favorites! We had a different model for each of our classes. Two models were trim lean muscular women, one was a lean (yoga posing) man, one was a heavyset woman. All were wonderful and fun to gesture sketch. I highly recommend a Gesture class as a refresher or just to get yourself to Loosen Up, and it was so much fun. With the models and poses changing, you will never get bored and you will be surprised at what lovely figures and motions you can make in 20 seconds.

Some Sample Gestures:

Fast, 20 seconds, note the indication of movement!

Fast, 20 seconds, lithe movement

3 minutes, solid but less exciting.

2-3 minutes, love the triangle in this pose (too long limbs)
but really just working to get shapes/movement.

Yoga poses, wow! 2 minutes, great pose!

Yoga Poses, very fast loose, I view these as successful!
What a great model!

En Plein Air: The Apple Orchard

A 2- Day Plein Air Workshop Experience

I wanted to paint a lovely Michigan scene, the tall green trees against a blue sky. HA HA HA said the weather to my plans (and therein lies the first lesson of plein air painting – the weather will never cooperate).

White Barn, Grey Day

Attempted Plein Air Painting

The first day the skies were grey and angry threatening and the orchard was full of mud (lesson two wear good boots). But I was determined to paint en plein air, so I set up against the wind. I found a white barn against the grey sky. This work is unfinished and will probably remain that way. I am unhappy with the results. I liked the light path against the grass, but my painting is too lugubrious, my husband said it looks like “English Countryside”. Hmmm, I know that there were more colors in the white barn than I have depicted.

Day two, started as a stormy overcast day (although later in afternoon a bit of sun popped through the clouds). In the afternoon we were set free in the Apple Orchard to paint. I struggled to find a view; I wanted a horizon with trees and sky –but the orchard was hilly and we were standing lower than the horizon line. I walked around for 20 minutes eventually settling on painting a branch of apples. I was a little disappointed in this as I knew this would be like a still life (which I have experience painting).

I found a nice J-shaped branch that was filled with apples and leaves. I liked the way there were two apples that gleamed in the light while the other apples seemed to recede. I composed the work based on the J-motion from the top right corner down to the left corner. This painting is also incomplete, but I think it is much more successful as I feel it has more depth with the darks and lights (and yes, more color). The image and my setup are pictured below:

I highly recommend you plan your initial Plein Air painting session in a workshop or with an instructor/art group. It was very helpful to have a supply list, handouts, demos and guidance. Also, it was nice to have camaraderie with other artists. 

My only caveat is that the next time I try Plein Air it will be a mild and sunny day! I'm going to get that sky and horizon!

All That Glitters

Finally, A Portrait

If I could have painted a full length portrait I would have (think Sargent and those long gowns). Oh to see this full outfit, a lovely formal Pakistani dress of coral and grey with many rhinestones. Sadly I didn’t have a big enough canvas. My art group decided that all ladies should own and wear dresses as flattering and colorful as this.

From Pakistan, this model was lean and beautiful, my favorite feature was her hair – short and cropped perfectly about her face. The light in this portrait was from the right front (blue) so there were not many face shadows (typically the light is from the upper left creating a shadow and interest on the face). I  had to show a bit of the top of the dress. Wow, so many rhinestones! The top of the dress was glittered with patterned rhinestones and the chandelier earrings fell perfectly against the dress’s collar. The cropped hair and chandelier earrings looked so “Wow!” together. I had to hold back from painting the full sparkle, choosing to focus on the chandelier earring and lighter side of the top of the dress.

I will have to ask around for art opinions on painting rhinestones and sparkles. I know there is a John Singer Sargent where one diamond earring in a portrait is a white bright blob and it reads “diamond.” Anyone know the name of that painting?

 12x16, oil on canvas

Poetic Background

 Flowers Add that Special Something

Sunflower Rhapsody

Wow, I love flowers! I walked into art group last Friday and there were two huge beautiful sunflower bouquets set up behind the model chair. Kudos to my friend “M” who did the set up, it was amazing!  She had the flowers set up above and behind the models chair--which was covered in a moss green cloth. The set alone would have led to a lovely still life painting!

I enjoyed painting loosely and wildly adding dashes of floral colors, not defining or spending too much time on the flowers or background. The yellows and oranges really stood out, just yummy! 

I loved the yellow orange patter from the flowers on the left to the orange shawl and then over to the flowers on the right, in a “V” pattern (red line).  I also like the upside down “V” (green line) created by the left hand to the chin to the right hand. (See lines below). I think it flows quite nicely.

The model has on a red-orange head scarf, orange shawl and a green blouse and skirt (complementary colors again). I loved the relaxed pose of the hands and have been challenging myself to paint hands lately. Because most of this painting is loose and fresh I did not want to overwork the hands. The hands because they were so small and delicate are the last things I painted. I used my reference photos to capture the hand pose and shading.

Sunflower Rhapsody 12X 16, oil on canvas

A Struggle And A Smile

Pommes D’Orenge

My husband said it best, “you smile when you paint, even if you are struggling with the painting.” Even if I have a bad week with my painting, it is still a good week because I get to paint!

I would love to do a Portrait (just neck and head) which would mean larger features on the canvas, but then I get to art group and there is this sweet couch pose; I have to paint more than a face! Once again I lay out the composition on the canvas. I love the arms around the bowl of oranges and the complementing colors of orange and blue. But the face, oh I do not get a likeness. After 3 hours of painting, I carry my canvas home, unsatisfied.

Once home I decided to wipe out the face in my painting and redo it, just the face (I used a Viva paper towel and a teeny bit of Turpenoid). Then I pulled up my reference photos and zoomed in on the face to recreate it. This model had small eyes, full cheeks and a nice mouth. I decided to paint the mouth slightly more orange than reality. Then because the orange colors on the blanket and in the bowl were so bright and lovely, I decided to lighten the blue robe a bit. I used a Cerulean Blue mixed with Naples Yellow to create the light. Also, from the photograph, the shadowed cheek is more orange and less blue than I had originally painted. Lastly, I added some light orange (orange mixed with light yellow) to the hair for highlights. Now the painting has a greater likeness and is more successful.

Pommes D’Orenge 12x16 oil on canvas