Guess who

We had our last art class this morning. Last of this series, anyway. There will be more classes in the fall. What you see below is what I did in class today. The subject of the class, should you not have guessed by now, was "Self Portrait".



It has always been so hard for me to judge my work. I suppose it is for any artist.
I suppose, also, that's why we look to others for approval. We ask others to judge our work. I know I am not a Rembrandt, a Picasso, a Vikki North or a Fred Zigler. Each of them are accomplished artists who have found their 'voice' and established their style. I am still seeking my voice. Although I find I like working this loose style I've found in this one and in the still life I just did two weeks ago. Broad strokes, light and dark, little detail or precision.

I like this piece. It even looks like me - which I find amazing. I was SO intimidated by the thought of even attempting a self portrait. I won't be so hesitant in the future.

Ala Prima Still Life - from class

This morning I took a vacation day from work and took a class with Marilyn Dale, the woman from whom I have learned so much. This was the first of three classes. This one was 'Working Ala Prima' - which means, essentially, the whole painting is done in one session. Detail isn't as important as seeing and reproducing the relative values of light and dark. The painting I did is below:



When one works 'Ala Prima', or at least if one works as we were taught today, the painting starts by toning the canvas. We used a Burnt Umber acrylic, thinned way down with water, so it would dry quickly. Once the canvas dried, we took a thin brush and a neutral oil color, thinned with Turpenoid and made an outline drawing of the piece. When working Ala Prima, it is very important to draw well. I need to do more of these to kind of figure a few things out, but I DO know that if I were working as I normally do (layered painting) this painting would look much different than it does. Better? I don't know. But absolutely different.

After the last class - on my own now

What you will see below is the look of my current painting after the end of the last class in the session. From here on I'm on my own.



The forground needs a bit more work, but I'm close now. The trees on the left are closer to what they will look like in the final version. The one-time foliage at the foot of those trees has become a foreground rocky outcrop and the trees have been pushed to the background with a white glaze. But - not done yet. The trees on the right are in the middle of a re-do. And the water needs work.

Stay tuned. Updates to follow. I just don't know how regular they're going to be.

Oh, man, that's ugly

Jumping right to the picture ...



Now there's a reason it looks so ugly right now. It's beginning to pick up some color that it needs and is going to need going forward. For example, in the foreground, the red hue will be covered over by an application of a golden brown mixed with shots of green and a muddier brownish color. Then, using a technique called 'scraffito', long grass will be 'scraped' into the forground using the edge of a pallet knife. The underlying red will show through in the grass.

Decisions need to be made about the trees on both sides of the painting. The trees on the right, for example, need to be 'thinned' out and the trunks extended down to the underbrush at the base of the hill, which will serve to pull them closer to the viewer. The trees on the left need to have their trunks thinned and a decision needs to be made as to whether they are to be near or far. If near, they just need work. If far, then the foliage at the base of the trees needs to get painted out, and the trees need to be glazed over with the blue/white 'mist'.

So, right now, everything needs work. I almost hate to post this because it really looks terrible, but it IS part of the evolution of the piece and it is part and participle of the end result. And the idea here is, after all, to document the process. So here it is. Ugly. The duckling before .....

grabbing some color

Okay. I did some glazing for the first time. The background mountain has been covered in a blue/white glaze, simulating a cold mist. That's probably not the final look - but it's close. The small hills centrally located in the painting have what will probably be the final color - although they MAY get a very thin haze applied to them, as well. I have marked out some areas where green shrubs are going to grow - the trees left and right need to be worked on and that large foreground area needs work. There is a camp which votes for the foreground fence, in order to establish depth. There is another camp which thinks that enough detail in the foreground grasses will establish that depth. I am undecided. I DO know that if I add the fence I will change it from a wire fence to an all wood fence. With an opening into the picture - part of the fence will be down. If I decide to add it.



Of course, If I do add the fence, then I wouldn't need to be so precise in the foreground grass detail - something I'm not familiar with. On the other hand, I'm not familiar with wood fences, either. Choices ....

Even more progress, on my own

I am making progress - unguided by anyone but my instincts. And the memory of what my teacher has said from time to time. Which in itself is progress, because I feel more confident in my ability to approach my painting without fear of messing it up (beyond repair). I can mess things up, don't get me worng, but I can correct stuff if I need to and that gives me confidence. So, this evening, after posting up the last of Bath, England on the other blog, I went downstairs to add some color of a more appropriate nature to the foreground and experiment, a bit, with the bushes on the right hand side above the stream.



None of this is final in appearance. The grass will be browner and look more like straw. The bushes will be greener and darker in the shadows. But I understand what I have to do and I know what colors I will use in my mixes. What is there now is closer to what will be than what was there before. Huh?

Progress at last - I made it to class

I made it to class this week and actually made some progress on my new painting. It's going to be a bit hard to see in this photo, because the lighting is so bad, but there is actually color in the sky (it's actually all cloud, with a bright spot or two) and the ugly foreground color will get better, I promise. The underpainting is done - now it's just a matter of adding all of the appropriate color and some detail in areas that require it.



I've marked out the place where the little house is going to be and begun work on the waterfall and the downstream stuff. It's coming together nicely. I learned, this evening, that paint from the tube probably isn't going to be the color you want to use in your painting. You probably want to mix your colors yourself. That's probably the hardest thing to do - consistently. Mixing colors is an art in itself and it's something I really need to learn. You need to be able to repeat your color mixes from session to session - and that ain't easy. But I'm learning.