Painting Big

March 24, 2014

Painting Bigger

Since taking the workshop with Daine Tesler I've painted 4 big paintings (3 16 x 20's and one 18 x 24).  Going through the steps outlined in my last few blogs about what I learned in the class works better for me than turning a small painting done several weeks ago into a large painting.  I'm still working on that one.  Here's the small one.  I'm not ready to show the big version yet. 

Adding Pages

Now that I discovered how to add pages, there are two new tabs on the top of the page.  There's room for one or two more tabs and  I'm working on a page that would put the exercise boards that I use in teaching all in one place, rather than embedded through the blog where they are hard to find.  Good idea? 

Workshop with Diane Tesler

March 17, 2014 - Happy St. Patrick's Day

This past weekend I attended an outstanding workshop with Diane Tesler.  I will include a link to her website.  She has upcoming workshops, one at the Torpedo Factory in gouache and the other in oils.  This second one is in Indiana  for 5 days. There are accommodations near her studio and she even provides lunch and dinner.  I loved this workshop. 

Our workshop was in the glorious color-filled studio of Betsy Glassie of LibertyTown Arts Workshop.  It was wonderful to be in the midst of her art. 

We painted almost non-stop and had a very informative critique.   She provided so much information for each person that was valuable for everyone.  One of the reasons I like workshops is that you learn from the other artists and share in their experiences. 

NOTES:  ( a lot of this is from memory so you know what that means)

Start each painting with a drawing using a large format.  Diane recommended 14 x 17 in sketchbook.   Rather than doing small  thumbnails, use the entire surface.  Then once you have a drawing, make the decision about how you want to crop the drawing.  Her point was, don't limit yourself by deciding the size and the edges first. 

Spend enough time on the drawing to fix proportion problems.  Make sure things are lined up using plumb lines and comparisons. 

Have you ever seen one of these?  It was a big help.  You can buy them online.  Diane had some extras for us. 

To help with angles I discovered a useful tool that belonged to my Dad.  Diane was explaining how you could make this tool and it made me realize how I could use this tool which I already had, but didn't know how to use. 

Adapt the canvas size to the way you have cropped your drawing.   


Once you are satisfied with you drawing, then draw with a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna (or some equivalents to make a black color) with Gamsol.  Tone your canvas first with this mixture.  Use a paper towel to pull out the lights. 

This is the painting I did on the second day. (Big for me - 16 x 20)  It is not finished, but you can see the wash that I used.  I concentrated on Maddie and will finish the background later.  I think I am ready to do a painting of Hannah now. 

Link to Diane's workshops: http://www.dianetesler.com/



Will add more info tomorrow, I'm too tired to include everything now.

Tomorrow or soon, info on painting skin tones and a few other things

Getting ready for a workshop with Diane Tesler

March 13, 2014

  This weekend LibertyTown Arts Workshop is hosting a workshop with Diane Tesler from the Art League in Alexandria, VA.  Usually I spend a day or day getting my materials organized and ready to go and that's all.  This time I am going to spend time doing some studies so that I have good choices of subjects ready to paint.  Since I'm doing the Fredericksburg series I'm getting photos together and working out compositions. 

Yesterday, I did some drawings and studies.  I was happy with my last study until I saw the post on DPW.  It looked so flat and I saw some drawing errors, all of which I tried to correct this morning.  If I had used my checklist I would have caught the errors before posting.  I need to post my checklist, but usually when something goes wrong it is either a drawing error or a value problem.  The "flat" look tends to be lack of temperature changes.  Now that I think about it, the painting looked better in the early stages.  Adding too much detail hurt my painting.  So maybe I will do another one. 

STUDIES:

Still looking for good photos from my array of thousands of disorganized ones and hoping to get more through email.  (entries for this month's give-away)

This photo I used was sent to me as an entry into my Fredericksburg series.  Thank you to you for sending it. 

I'll put the notes from my class here on my blog next week.  Between today and Saturday I'll be working on more ideas for the class.